Welcome to Surrender Dawn. Before starting your journey, make sure that you read everything that's on the Beginner's Guide Board:
First, make sure that you get to know the rules by which we manage our site and community.
For this, visit the Guide to Rules.
After that, it's fundamental to read all that there is to know about the world your character will be inserted into.
In order to do so, go to the Guide to Lore.
Lastly, please take a close look at all the mechanics that dictate our roleplay and its characters.
You can do this by checking out the Guide to Mechanics.
When you've done all of the above, you'll most likely be ready to start creating your character:
Create your Application Thread on the Character Creation Board.
To do so, follow the instructions on the Character Application Template Thread.
Once you're done, just copy the link of the thread and head over to the Grading Center.
To submit your application for review, use the General Submissions Thread.
We hope you enjoy your time with us! Happy Roleplaying!
Updates
11/11/19: Open for Beta Testing! Feel free to explore the site and start creating your characters! If you have any doubt feel free to contact a member of the Staff Team.
Within this topic you will find all the specifics regarding character progress on the site. This relates to how much experience or milestone points you will earn for posts that you do, how you go about spending said experience, how much experience different things cost, plus references to special conditions that may allow you to earn more experience/milestone points during your stay on Surrender Dawn.
Character Experience is the currency with which you progress your character's skills and abilities. Spending experience removes the experience from your character in exchange for progressing your character's abilities, be it for combat or social interaction. There are two sub-types of progress which you can work towards; Military and Talents. Military skills are skills which benefit your character directly in combat, including your Vel Power, your Vanta Weapon and regular abilities such as speed, strength, stamina etc. The abilities we work with, plus guides on how to design your Vel & Vanta Weapon can be found in the Military & Combat Section The secondary type of progress are your Talents. These Talents cover everything which would inherently be a non-combative profession, such as singing, playing the piano, cooking, dancing etc. More information can be found in the Talents guide. Do note that if you've picked dancing as a Talent, you cannot argue that it would function as a fighting style.
To earn experience is simple. Once you've been roleplaying and have finished some threads, simply post the finished thread up for grading in the submissions thread Once your thread has been graded, you'll receive experience by a moderator. The amount of experience you gain is equal to one experience point per hundred words. The minimum words each post must exceed to gain experience is over two-hundred words. The maximum amount of words which will count towards experience points, in a single post, is one-thousand. The span of these limitations was set to make them easier to grade. A forty pages thread with ten word replies takes forever to grade. Likewise, a two page thread where each reply is 10,000 words is equally as daunting a task to get through. Please respect these limitations as they are set for the sake of staff sanity. Note: You can write posts above one-thousand words, however please be advised that you will not get more than 10 EXP for that post.
Should there be problems with your experience in a thread, remember that staff are humans and mistakes can occur. If you believe you've received wrongful rewards, please contact the member of staff that graded your thread. Should you find the conversation with said member of staff unfruitful, difficult or cumbersome, contact the moderator or admin in charge of grading. Staff roles can be found here!
On Surrender Dawn, abilities are split into a simple star category. For each additional star an ability has, the more potent it becomes. That is to say, should 'Character A' have three stars in strength, they'll be physically stronger than a character with only one star. For more information, refer to Military & Combat section.
As you advance through the ranks, the amount of raw experience it takes to advance to the next level naturally increases.
The cost of improving your abilities can be found in the schematics below. Note, that rank requirement was set in place, to avoid situations where a one-star hunter would be fully decked with six-star abilities. Character power and character renown will go hand in hand!
The Milestone System is a system created with the purpose of giving an additional axis of progress, this one tailored towards building your character's standing within the world. Whenever you do a thread, you will also be receiving an amount of Milestone Points. Events or story-heavy plot threads will be earning more milestone points than two characters meeting for a cup of coffee. Milestone Points will lead towards different levels, with each level increasing how known your character is within the world, giving storytellers & other members easier access to your character's past feats. Milestones will essentially become a representation of your overall fame. Once you've reached the first milestone, you'll also get to write a character standing within our milestone library. These character standings are written by you, the player, to let others know what your character is famous for. These standings will be moderated, so that the achievements and feats found in the library are plausible with what your character has actually done throughout the RP. That said, we do not expect them to be completely factual. Every legend and myth in any world has some uncertainties.
Note: If you're choosing to run with a hidden identity, your character standing can be completely focused on simply an alias with people not knowing your real identity. For instance, rather than granting your character fame under his real name, you could write your character standing under an alias as The Viper.
Down below you'll find a schematic indicating how many milestone points you need to reach the next milestone, plus how famous your character is expected to be at which level. Do note, that other characters have access to the knowledge you write in your milestones So avoid metagaming yourself! Milestone points are earned slightly more at the discression of the storytelling team. Upon reviewing a thread, the minimum amount of Milestone points you receive, is one fiftieth (1 out of 50) from every experience point. That means, if a thread would earn you two-hundred exp, you'll be guaranteed four milestone points. This comes with an added bonus. Depending on the set up of the thread, an additional bonus of five milestone points can be granted. This bonus is discussed among storytellers before being granted. Milestones are intended to be significantly slower to gain than experience, yet have a huge impact on how well known your character is in the world.
A regular thread can grant a bonus of up to five milestone points. A storyteller thread can grant a bonus of up to ten milestone points. A story arc can grant a bonus of up to twenty milestone points.
Once you begin your adventure on Surrender Dawn, you'll generally pick one of the occupations listed in the job section. From there, you'll be granted the rank of a 1-star. Through roleplay, you'll be able to increase your rank. The ranking of your character determines which jobs and story arcs are available to you. It also directly correlates to your characters standing within their respective order. For example, a 2-star hunter naturally outranks a 1-star hunter in the chain of command. In addition to this, a higher ranked character has access to things that lower ranked characters do not. Equipment, training methods, knowledge, to name a few examples. This essentially means that, until you progress your character rank, you'll be barred from increasing your character's power. Down below you can see what is available to you!
Your ability rank can never go higher than your job rank plus one. That means: if you're a 1 Star Hunter your abilities cannot go above 2 Stars! A 2 Star Scavanger cannot have abilities that are 4 Stars or higher, etc, etc.
Should you so decide, you may start out your adventure as Unranked. This simply means you will start out with less ability slots when compared to Rank 1 and that you also cannot own a Vanta Weapon.
Rank - Available Abilities
Military Abilities Available
Talents Available
Other Benefits
Unranked
2
2
None!
1-Star
3
3
You may acquire a Vanta Weapon
2-Star
4
4
You've got access to the relevant intro missions for your job.
3-Star
4
4
You've got access to the relevant novice missions for your job.
4-Star
5
5
You've got access to the relevant adept missions for your job.
5-Star
5
5
You've got access to the relevant expert missions for your job.
6-Star
6
6
You've got access to the relevant master missions for your job.
The process of ranking up is a simple one. Once you've reached a point with your character where you believe they deserve to move up in the world, simply contact the storytelling team with the request, by posting in the submissions thread. This request should contain a brief summary of what the character has achieved that made them, in your eyes, eligible for ranking up. The team will then review & discuss the request in unison and come to a conclusion. For the earlier ranks, these requests will often be granted without much conflict. However, once characters begin gunning for the higher rankings, the storytelling team may decide on a different approach:
Denial Your request to rank up has been denied. This will often come with an explanation as to why your request was denied. Before you may retry for another request, make sure you've done your best to acclimate to the reasons why your prior request was denied.
Trial by fire If you're given a Trial by fire, it essentially means that a storyteller is going to run your character through a scenario, or otherwise pose your character with a challenge. To reach the next rank, simply complete what the storyteller has designed for you to a satisfactory level! Granted In some cases where the achievements are so great, and the power of a character so obscene, that holding them back makes no sense, you may be granted the rank up without having to go through a trial.
Regardless of what the judgement was to your request, remember that the decision was a team effort. Should any issues otherwise arise, please contact an Administrator.
