So here I am thinking it would be cool to try something like this out. I like reading and fantasy and thought to myself "what's better than a fantasy novel I can influence in real-time?" I later chastised myself for answering my own rhetorical question. That aside, I rolled up a character BEFORE reading through the cities/guilds section of the site. Still don't know a whole lot and will probably change said choices when I get my bearings. My problem is, the introduction left me hanging there with nothing much to follow it up. I'm still about as lost as I was upon stepping into the portal.

I don't really know where to go with this. On the surface the game comes off as something I'd really enjoy, brings back a little bit of the pen and paper RPG feeling. I'm just so overwhelmed right now I can't make heads or tails of anything. I'd like to at least pin-point my guild/race choice, but i don't have any idea how those affect my character, much less how they will affect my RP background. As a newbie, how do I go about formulating a character, and how can I make sure I don't end up in a guild that gets me in over my head. Are some guilds easier than others? Any recommendations. The whole experience is very overwhelming, but I don't want to quit without giving this a fair chance. I'll do some reading and check back on this with a fresh mind tomorrow. Look forward to meeting some of the people I'll be adventuring alongside. living with.

Edit: terminology corrected.

I've always found 'adventurer' to be a poor term for what people are in Lusternia. We're less adventurers and more citizens. Less independent, and more fiercely commited to the state. Less like wandering heros and more like the commandos and generals of our organizations. Is that an adventurer to you?

Welcome! Don't let this overwhelm you at all! When I first started, I had no idea what I was doing, but I played with everything and tried all sorts. I made different characters before settling on one that I knew was for me. I think I went though at least five solid characters before I knew I was going to become Lorina.

Cities/Communes, they have their strengths and weaknesses, but fundamentally all are fun and unique. They have an inherent alignment that you may need to look at it for your RP. Celest is the good city and at the opposite, Magnagora. Hallifax is Lawful Evil..In a sense. Gaudiguch is Chaotic Good. Serenwilde is Neutral Good and Glomdoring is Neutral Evil. This really isn't set in stone, but this will be the tone you get from it from the histories.

As for guilds, I have really no recommendations since all of them are really balanced and each has something unique to offer. I was just go from guild to guild getting a feel for it and asking myself, could I play here? Look at the skills? Are you a magic user? Martial artist? A fighter? You need to find something you are comfortable in. There are NO wrong choices! All are good.

There are really no wrong choices you can make here. You just choose how you want to live. No city/commune or guild is the right choice, really. We have people being added that change the dynamic all the time. Certain things will have it's highs and lows, but it will pass.

Not even close on any count. There are really no alignments, that would be too easy.

Celest promotes genocide.

Serenwilde wants nothing but forest left in the end.

Gaudiguch is just special and party-centric.

Hallifax is less evil and more 'soulless science' goal from the Ghostbusters tabletop RPG.

Prepare for trouble... and make it double.

Hardly true, ignore Casilu. She is more of a mascot really that we rarely let out of the basement.

Please, prove me wrong. You don't have to try and dumb things down for the newbies, especially when they're smart enough to go to the forums so quickly and ask for advice.

Seriously, all the orgs were kept grey on purpose. Very grey. Celest may preach all lovey-dovey, but they basically seek to wipe out Magnagora and the Taint. They're essentially promoting genocide. They also want to re-establish their lost Empire (and all empires are evil).

I know Serenwilde would want all the cities removed from the Basin if they could do it.

I don't know enough about Gaudiguch to really defend them as being chaotic good other than the fact that good people wouldn't do that much damage to their liver.

Grey and Grey morality, totally. You can find horrible and admirable qualities in all the organizations, it is hardly a matter of good and evil, or even chaotic and lawful.

Welcome! Settling in is always your first obstacle - and it really is a big one. All of the cities and communes are fantastic - they all have their cliche elements, but they all also have strong, compelling stories behind them. It's hard to sum them up in a single sentence, so take anything everyone says with a grain of salt.

That said:

Celest is your archetypical 'good' city. They are connected to Celestia, the Plane of Light. It's all about Light and Life and Love, though there are its darker undertones - of course, there's always the question of just how okay those undertones are, or how well they mesh with the Light. Needlessly said, though - it's a very 'good' city. In D&D terms, I think it's fair to label it 'lawful good'. It's a society built by the merian race ("fish people", sort of) who have, throughout time, again and again succeeded, and made many great 'firsts'. They're a very advanced society, and much of it operates on magic and faith.

Magnagora is an interesting city, very steam punk and industrial, with a lot of other undertones. From the outside looking in, it's a very dark and unpleasant place - slavery, torture, deception, murder, etcetera etcetera. Of course, to them, these things are great - torture, in example, is a beautiful expression of art, and the body is only a canvas. It's very complex, though I think it's fair to say they do not view themselves as 'evil'. Of course, they are born of the soulless effluence of Kethuru the Almighty, and so are reviled by more goodly organizations like Celest.

Hallifax is a very structured society, lawful neutral to an extreme - science and art are its two greatest professions, and things like slavery are common place. Everything is done "for the Collective", though it seems like the upper castes have a lot of freedom in deciding how that is best done. A lot of people describe them as "soulless" or "emotionless", but I don't think that's a fair assessment - emotions have a place in Hallifax, but it's the lower emotions that they revile. Higher ideals like love, justice, balance, harmony - those are valued strongly. The two races of Hallifax (Lucidian and Trill) have had a long-standing attraction to one another it seems, much as the gods that splintered to them did.

Gaudiguch seems wild and chaotic on its fore, with wild parties, borderline anarchy and a strong emphasis on freedom. Underlying it though are very structured guilds - the opposite of Chaos is not Order, but rather Harmony. Chaotic Order exists - the Templar and to an extent the Illuminati are good representations of it. There's always the suggestion or hint of a dark, cabal-like gathering(s) under the madness, the sort who are ready to manipulate the masses into believing what needs to be believed. Chaos magic, pyromancy and transmology are all pretty strong themes there.

Serenwilde, one of our two forest communes, is the 'natural' forest, the bastion of the natural world, and have a strong emphasis on the spirits awoken from the first world, the animals that live in it, and protecting its true and natural from. They often clash with cities, but it's not uncommon for them to align with them, either. Moon and Hart both are excellent characters, Greater Spirits, a sort of fae, that are revered by wicca and druids, respectively. There's also undertones of ancestral worship in the forest, and it's all-in-all pretty cool.

Glomdoring, last but certainly not least, is the 'dark' forest. It's had a rough time - once Gloriana, it was tainted by Kethuru during the Taint Wars (read them! Geat pieces!), and later reimagined by the Goddess Viravain, using Isune, the Aesthete to do it. There's a lot of debate on whether or not Glomdoring is 'tainted' or not, and I'll not get into that. Very messy, and no one can really say for sure either way. Nonetheless, it's not a pleasant place - while Night places a lot of emphasis on vanity and appearances, it is often a veneer - the forest itself is rotting in a fair number of places, and it has its share of shambling undead. Decay, contagion and disease are running themes among their skills, while deception, trickery, vanity, control and to an extent infection/subversion (spreading what they call 'wyrd' to everything they can) are also strong themes.

Again, these are all really just brief descriptions - there's so much more to all of them, and I hardly touched on bard guilds, didn't touch at all on monk guilds, or much of their deep and rich history.

My advice is decide what sort of character you enjoy most - if you like goodly, religious sorts go to Celest, if you like the stoic druid or the light-hearted witch go to Serenwilde, the aloof scientist Hallifax, the vicious warrior maybe Magnagora, etc etc - there's just so many options. But I think it's important, for your first character, you do what you think you'll most enjoy - I think it'll really help you get settled and keep you interested.

From there, I suggest playing in Newton a bit, learn how to interact with mobs and such, and then do your collegium quests. They give you history on your org, teach you how to interact with the game, and you can use CGT to talk to your city's collegium (players! Helpful, helpful players!).

Once you start advancing, I think you'll find so much to do you won't know -where- to go next!

While you're doing all of that, I suggest reading the histories, if only a bit at a time.

Though if you're much like me, you probably won't be able to stop until you've read it all!

We also have a wiki, and a few of our players keep it pretty well updated. It's not Wikipedia levels of omni-informed, but it's pretty good!

What's important is to a.) communicate. Ask questions in game on CGT, CT, Newbie. You can TELL SPINDLE|SKEIN|BOBBINS your questions if they're on, or you can always come to the forums and post (like you are now!). And b.) Relax, take it a step at a time!

(Edit: I'm just long-winded. I never mean to write this much!)

Say that to your entrance messages.

What Lorina said was spot-on. In pretty simple black and white terms, Gaudiguch is described as a Chaotic Good party, whereas Celest would be considered Lawful Good, etc. if you want to go with that kind of terminology. Though I think Casilu is arguing that the players don't always go with how the city ought to be, roleplay-wise. Considering right now that Celest is allied with Hallifax and Glomdoring, both communities which aren't ideal matches for Celest's beliefs (which, as Casilu said, is into the genocide thing and if given the opportunity wouldn't hesitate to wipe Magnagora and Glomdoring off the map and name Merians the supreme rulers of all), I think it's suffice to say that the player-run politics are HECTIC and certainly obviously player-run, and won't always match up as far as ideology goes.

As a newbie, Lorina's explanation was good, and it makes sense if you don't want to dive into the muck of player-politics and general fickleness. Furthermore, if you want to roleplay, you don't have to do it like everyone else in the city is doing it. You can do it to match the cities description - you can decide to get along with whoever you please, though that doesn't mean that the opposing orgs won't want to stomp on you for trying to be friendly.

One thing I really suggest you read up on is the Taint wars. If you want to get a feel for what kind of character you want, your best bet is to read up on Lusternia's history (which is really well written, but big. it took me a couple days to read it all). The cool thing is you get tertiary skills here, which are odd and yet fascinating. So not only can you choose a guild with a certain mindset, but you can further customise your own character by picking skills that attune to their own style (ie Celestians can be Astrologists, Tarot users or Healers). It's just getting down to what you as a person want to play. If you like priests but don't want to play your typical, "Bless you child" priest, go Nihilist, pick Viscanti race, and roleplay your way to the top. If you want to play something that's like Druid but with some flavour you have two communes to pick from, both with exceptionally awesome guilds and rich histories. If you want your character to be a cold, calculating scientist who has no qualms with slavery, join Hallifax.

When you first start out... ask questions. Whenever one of the 'guides' was online I was constantly asking them questions. Plus the help file system is fantastic... you can basically type HELP and it will give you something to look up. And if it doesn't... chances are you can creep these forums for an answer, or ask Skein/Bobbins (who are more than happy to answer your questions even after you've bypassed level 21, which you will, and quickly).

One thing I suggest is staying away from the aetherplex and different planes unless you have an extreme desire or an absolute need to. It is extremely confusing, though I wouldn't say poorly designed. Suffice to say, every city has two planes of existence that 'belong' to them. You won't be able to access the elemental or cosmic planes unless you're one of two certain classes who can transverse themselves there. Despite that, if you ask nicely, there's guaranteed to be someone who will haul you up there and help explain.

The aetherplex, might I say, is GENIUS design. As far as I know you can go shopping in them and you also live in them in things called manses, which is just player housing. There's also ships you can dock there. Although it's really confusing at first if you go to a portal aetherplex and just type PORTALS it gives you a list of options to use. You can do something like PORTAL ENTER MYMANSE and it takes you there. And you can either PORTAL EXIT to go back to your city or PORTAL EXIT and it takes you to the 'aetherplex' which is at the base of Avechna's Mountain (and a quick and easy way to access a lot of places). I found this stuff out by accident and was incredibly confused, but after a few practice portals you will have it down like a pro!

But more to the basic things, when you join a city or commune and guild... you will have an index of help files. For example, GHELP INDEX lists ALL of your guild's help files - it's awesome and really useful because there may not be people around to tell you what exactly to read, or you may be lost as to what sort of equipment you should wear, but oh look, GHELP EQUIPMENT is in the files!

There's also CGHELP INDEX, which is your collegium index. It's like a starting zone after you're done with the starting zone - highly recommended you do these. Not only do you get 1000 gold for doing some fairly (really) easy tasks, but you also graduate from novicehood faster.

And back to the topic at hand... make a bunch of characters until you find a guild you find welcoming and something that suits your style if you're having trouble picking something just off the mainpage.

Hope this helped!

Lusternia does have a steep learning curve that can be hard to get used to. But figuring out what kind of character you will be is a great start.

Something that no one else has mentioned yet are the guild. In other games, a guild is just a group of friends who go out and bash together. This is not the case in Lusternia--far from it! Guilds are the very fabric of life in a city or commune. The leaders of the guilds are the state's ruling council, that's how integral to state life guilds are.

A guild has a specific archetype--Serenguard are all warriors, Ninjakari are all monks, Shadowdancers all wiccans, etc. Your guild determines your skills and where you live. These are not just RP choices, they are hard-coded. So once you find a city/commune you think you like, look at their guilds too. Cities and communes have slightly different archetypes:

Communes: warrior, wiccan, druid, bard, monk
Cities: warrior, guardian, mage, bard*, monk*

*The two newest cities, Gaudiguch and Hallifax, don't yet have their bards or monks yet.

Each guild has its own philosophy. I guarantee that you won't have any trouble finding a guild that fits the kind of character you want to play. And ask around! Especially if you are newbie, people won't hesitate to tell you about their guild. You'll find a place to fit in in no time!

Isn't soulless science evil?

But to combine a few things, in the game, it is Celestia that's the "Good place" as it is basically heaven, and everyone there is a goody two-shoes, except Methrenton in certain interpretations. He needs more characterization than "rawr, Meth smash evil".

Anyway, when you consider that, then you can consider that Celest should ideally follow the teachings of Celestia, but that's not always so. If Celestia is Jesus, then Celest is Spain under queen Isabella. Are you a righteous Catholic follower of Celestia? Peace, prosperity and poppies for everyone! Are you a false heathen? You must be destroyed for the good of all!

Either way. My suggestion is that once you have decided upon what you want to be (all guilds have their unique characteristics, except that there's barely any difference between Glom and Serenwilde Wicca and Druidry, but that's one skill only), get yourself a friend. As was said, Lusternia has a steep learning curve. If you don't find someone to chat with, bash with, or even just tell you what strength in kata really does, you'll soon get bored and leave. It is a very social game, as shown by the low-competence politics going on. It really isn't meant to be played solo, and some things just can't be accomplished on your own.

And if things get too much, remember that it is okay to step away. Coming here to get advice is also a good thing, as once you've read up on the 26 guilds we have (a loooot isn't it?) you can ask questions here, and guild members (and those who aren't) will be happy to tell you more about the guilds you want to know about.

And lastly, remember that there is a lot that you can do. If you don't like fighting (and Lusternia has a very unique combat system that you'll love for its complexity, or hate for being too complex) then don't fight. Don't like hunting? You can still socialize. You can quest, design, create plays... don't find yourself overwhelmed at all the various things you can do.

Edit: Oh, and since you're fresh out of the portal, you can suicide and recreate your character if you find that you want to play a different race, rather than spending your free reincarnation now. There really isn't that big a loss.

Not if it's for the sake of SCIENCE!!!!!1!11!1one! and some stuff about the greater good and crap.




Don't be overwhelmed by the sheer number of guilds. They're mainly divided into the warrior, guardian/wiccan, bard, and monk archetypes, with alignment and ethos being the main dividing factor.

Well... while Celestines and Nihilists may be highly similar, there's a huuuuge difference between the playstyle of a Celestine and a Researcher. But then again, warriors are mostly the same, with just the ritual/totem spec being the difference, and trackers play the same in all orgs.

Yes, they are all good guilds. Play around, explore the different guilds, read. Find a place for your character. Sometimes it's even a good idea to read up about the Gods - I know my main is where she is for the Goddess she follows as well. I've got one character who I log into every once in a while just to say hi, meet people, and explore the basin. He's been in every org for at least a brief time. Sometimes it's nice to just wander. For me, it took me the better part of four (RL) years of varying between guilds to figure out that I loved playing an Aquamancer. I've been in most of the guilds for at least a short newbie stint, just to see if it was me.

Sometimes your ability to code really helps, though. Newbie coding in any client (aside from Nexus - which is good in its own right ^{oh the horrors (but keep in mind I played on Nexus for the better part of four years)} ) is fairly easy once you get the hang of it. Plenty of people around to help, too - we've got several threads about it, and if you ask Zarquan or Vadi I'm sure they'd help. Both are experts in their own right.

Aside from that, welcome! I'm like Eventru and horribly overwrite things, and I apologize.

Calling it "soulless" in this context can be confusing. I don't think Casilu intended to refer to the Soulless, so much as allude to what it's called in a particular non-Lusternian source.

Soulless Hallifax would actually be kind of entertaining, now that I think of it, though.

It'd be too like Magnagora which already does that through the whole Engine thing. If anything I think to differentiate more Hallifax really needs to have a better reason to have determined, scientifically and repeatably, that the way Magnagora uses/is used by the Taint is damaging in some way.

I think the best way to start is read up on guilds/cities and find the right combination for you based around what your interests/RP style is. Race isn't a big deal to start out with, so you can always reincarnate into something else later once you learn a little bit more and get used to the game. Almost everyone in the game is really very helpful to new players, so once you get into your guild/city just find one of your Collegium Professors or a Guild Undersecretary (or anyone really!) and ask if they can meet you with you in person to help you get started. Most of the guilds will point you to a help file to get started but if you request some one-on-one orientation time, and someone is available, you'll get it. Just don't be afraid to ask questions. We were all in your boat at one point too.