I call BS. There are two major cliques in Hallifax.

haha, that is so me

So... I've been reading Xiel's site extensively (excellent resource, by the way, fantastic work) and looking over the Lusternia Wiki... and I'm leaning towards joining the Hallifax group as a Member of the Institute. I don't have the luxury of multitudes of time to try out multiple alts at this point, so I'm hoping that I can make a choice that I enjoy and stick with it from the get go (another reason to be careful as I go through things).

As a Institute member, I'm guessing I'm going to be of the Guardian archetype, which means something I'm sure. And I'm wondering what kind of race I should be looking at for that. I have no idea about the races yet, been mainly focusing on the class, figuring that I can choose the race based on that choice, along with the org I'm coming from.

The social insights that you guys have mentioned are really interesting and I'm looking forward to getting into the thick of things and really seeing how the RP and interaction goes. I don't think that combat PvP is going to be my main focus, especially at first, as I like to explore the game from a PvE standpoint usually first. This is generally because it is usually the case that you can learn much about the game from a PvE standpoint that you can then take into PvP.

So, that said... I'll probably end up soloing things alot, wandering through the expanses of things. Is the Institute something that would work for that? So many questions... so little time. Any recommendations from you guys is always appreciated... and thank you so much for your help already.

@Revan... 21 Jump Street sig ftw!

@Prav... Are you personally into the programming side of things right now?

It's almost always a good idea to look closely at the race or races favored by the city, since you'll get a specialized form of those races when you get the guild skill. In this case, it's trill or lucidian. Neither strikes me as "wow, that's a great race" setup, but neither is a "gah, this sucks" race either.

Almost nothing you'll learn in bashing will carry over to fighting other than learning to sip the basic potions. Nevertheless, your plan to focus on everything but combat first is a good one. One thing to keep in mind is that alongside bashing, influencing is also a good way to make experience -- if you choose trill, you might be forced, whether it makes sense for your character or not, to do more of it than bashing, because trill have crappy health but good charisma.

The Institute has a very clear and very linear advancement system that will definitely encourage you to participate in the guild's roleplay as scientists and researchers. That said, the guild doesn't seem, from my exposure, to try to force people to follow it -- if you want to stick to a low guild rank and do other stuff, I don't think you'll get a lot of guff, nothing more than a bit of encouragement here and there. Sounds like you might find doing the advancement interesting anyway, though. It's not based on combat but on academics and science (but by the same token, you won't be forced to write lengthy treatises, though that's also great if you do, there are other options for those who find writing daunting). But if you want to spend your time doing your own thing you will probably find that works fine.

It's quite normal to save PvP until later. But you should keep it in the back of your mind even from fairly early (say, soon after novicehood) because as you buy supplies, choose where to spend lessons, get settled into a client, etc. you will want to at least consider what you're going to need later when you do PvP. You would hate to get to that point and find you have to undo and redo things you've already done.

Yep, as a member of the Institute, you will be the Guardian archetype. As a member, you will have Aeonics, Harmonics and then your choice of: Astrology, Healing or Tarot. I'm in the Institute, myself, so if you need anything or have any questions, feel free to ask and I'll do what I can!


Hallifax seems to be one of the best cities to join if you are not into PvP. There are many, many ways to advance in the city without so much as ever fighting another player. You can write a book, direct a play, make power contributions, give a lecture, etc. It's really limited only by your imagination and your ability to frame whatever you are doing as Very Important Research.


Nah, you'll be fine. I'll bash with you, if you need it at first and show you around. The cliques in Hallifax aren't the be all end all, in fact, my character specifically avoided joining an established family and has been doing fairly well; just find people you like, help'em out, show'em you're not a dumbass and you'll be fine.


Yep, currently working on a system - still in a pretty early stage - from the ground up. It's intimidating work, but, it's definitely a good time.

Edit: For races, I started as a Lucidian... you're going to want something somewhat tanky as our damage reduction is not quite as good as a lot of other classes. Lucidian serves that purpose pretty well, and, if you don't like it, you get a free race change down the road.

This is one of the best things about the Institute... if you want to be that lone gunman, fringe scientist working outside the system and hoping for a giant breakthrough that will prove how awesome you are, you are more than free to do that and nobody will try to force anything on you. Conversely, if you want to stick right to the guidelines as written, you'll have no trouble at all advancing... hell, even if you stick to the guidelines but outside the normal purview of the scientific studies usually pursued in the Institute, you'll advance easily... what you research, do and take interest in is left pretty much entirely in your hands.

Hmph! d'Murani is just fine! A bit sparce at the moment. Speak to Kanaya or Lothringen

In the institute, we try to let people do their own thing. The early ranks are structured a bit like a university, what with you gaining a bachelor and master rank. Some things are limited to higher ranked members, but as has already been said, there's a very clear path for how to gain several ranks in the guild. If you need help though, it's just to check out the Institute helpfile, and find the name of the secretaries and undersecretaries. Their job is to help newcomers like yourself into feeling welcome.

As for Institutee races.

Aslaran. (Fast equilibrium, which means you can act faster than usual. Not very tough though)
Dracnari. (Decent intelligence, and good enough constitution, but heals less from elixirs, which makes em less resilient)
Elfen. (High intelligence and charisma for stronger bashing and influencing, but weak.)
Faeling. (More extreme elfen, with flight.)
Furrikin. (Less extreme elfen, with faster equilibrium)
Human. (Good in any race due to evolution.)
Illithoid. (High constitution and intelligence makes for ok bashing, but there's been some talk about not allowing Illithoids, so pick this at your own risk.)
Kephera female. (Tanky, with good int and charisma, but males make poor casters, so avoid them)
Loboshigaru. (Low intelligence and charisma, but the health regeneration and good con, coupled with an intelligence that isn't too low that you can't boost it, makes it a "good enough" bashing race, and tankiness is good in combat, since you won't be damage-killing anyone with the wand anyway.)
Lucidian. (Specs into a very tanky, high-int caster, but only average charisma)
Merian. (The only advantage these guys have over specced lucidian is a bit more charisma. Beyond that, they're much squishier and with less int.)
Mugwump. (Very quick, high int. Decent bashers, but are fried quickly)
Trill. (Squishy, but good influencers as has already been said.)

As you can see, you can make an argument for pretty much any race. In the end, I suggest you pick the race you'll have the most fun playing as. There's a lot of racial RP available for most races.

Am I in one?

I hear Hallifax has a really annoying Patron though.

Yeah, that guy is such a jerk. Who does he think he is, being all incorporeal all the time, and thinking he's SO smart! Why, if he had a solid face, I would slap it right off.








I <3 you Elostian.

You're in all the cliques, cas. All of them.

@Prav... What client are you using for your system? In fact, what client do most people use around here? Back in the day, I used primarily Zmud and RoAClient, but now people are using CMUD. After looking around in Mechanic's Corner here though, many of the "respected names" at least as far as I can tell, were strongly against CMUD. So what is it that most people use for a powerful client in these parts?

@Kiradawea... Wow, that list is awesome. Thank you so much! I may go with Lucidian at this point just because it's a relatively tanky race. Although, I suppose if I'm going to go with a less tanky/melee type character, I could always go with the weaker one. That said, I don't play the weakling, but brilliant, characters that well.

Should I worry about trying to figure out the best... tertiary(?) skill at this point? Or is that something that will come with more playing of the game?

Thank you so much for all your help guys... I'm getting really excited about this step!

Personally, I'm of the school of thought that you should pick a race because it's fun to play, and not just for the stats. Sure, if you want to influence, keep away from Illithoid, and there's always the natural gravity of buff races going for fighters, and smart races going for casters, but in the end you should pick what you want to play with. So if you want to play an arrogant racist fishman, then pick Merian. But if your concept is a more nebulous "smart guy", then feel free to pick from pretty much the whole list. Except Lobo. They're only good for being tanky. That said, Lucidian is a great choice, and as has been said, there's always the free reincarnation.

As for tertiaries, there's no need to worry about that early on. Get into the game and track down practitioners of the tertiaries, or speak to secretaries and security. Get them to demonstrate some of the things. Tarot has a lot of utility, but you can share Astrology spheres with others, and Healing will get you even more health and regeneration for those brilliant but weak characters.

The system I'm working on is client independent, it will work on any operating system using any client. The most powerful client is the one you can do the most in, if that's Zmud, then stick with it.


You pick your tertiary whenever you want, I wouldn't worry too much about it right now, but, I do suggest you avoid Astrology as a Researcher... it looks good on paper but I'm not personally sold on it. Healing will be better if you're into tanking and want a little help bashing, but, Tarot is great for mobility and general utility. I'd suggest playing around a bit and deciding then which you would rather have.

Yeah, I have to say that Astrology looks really interesting on paper but I will have to look around a bit in game before I decide on something there. The last thing I want to do is gimp myself permanently. Hopefully, I'll have some time this evening to make a character so that I can play... here's to hoping!

The two most popular clients used by most people would be mudlet and mushclient. If you want a client with a readily available curing system, go mushclient, if you want a more newbie-friendly(imo) client go mudlet. There's no free publicly available healing system for mudlet atm, but learning to code on it is preferably easier than mushclient imo.

You can never be gimped permanently, in Lusternia, unless you pretty much set out specifically to do so.

You can change your race, guild, tertiary, description, city, clothing, curing, RP, etc. etc. as often as you want to; it might cost you a bit, in terms of lessons, but there's no way that you can essentially corner yourself and be stuck as something or doing something that you don't want to do.