Welcome to the Creating a Character guide! This guide will show you step-by-step how to create a character for Shadows of Isildur: Laketown.

Accessing the In-Game Character Generator

You must connect to the game and enter in your account information. If this is your first time connecting to the game, please use the information here. 

Name

Choose a good Fantasy name that your character will be known as codedly (and potentially in role-play). Make sure it's appropriate for Tolkien lore. Use these helpfile options here and here. Use of well known characters from Tolkien, other fantasy formats (such as but not limited to books, movies, shows, anime, games, etc.) or immersion-breaking names will be declined. Use of names used previously on your account are also prohibited. 

Once logged into your account to create a new character choose option 3. 

In some cases having your true-name being hidden, such as with dwarves, you should choose your true-name at creation and the name to which you will go by in public you would 'set keyword <alias' once in game.

Race or Role

After naming your character, it is important to figure out what role and race your character will possess. There are several automated roles that are options depending on your RPP status.

After reading up on each race available to your RPP status you can decline it and go in a different direction if you are not excited with it. Similar goes with the roles below, you have the ability to read up each option and decline should you not want it. It is important to note that the boosts in each RPP role are best handled before commencing into game.

Physical Traits

Once you're all set on choosing a race, now it's time to choose the physical traits your character will have. You have several traits to fill out, which are: age, height, frame/build and attributes.

Age is an important factor in character creation. Anyone native to Utterby does not exceed the age of 27. We do not permit under the age of 18 played. 18 is an adult. Any play in which a character is being portrayed as a 'child' will not be permitted.

Attributes are a factor in character creation. They will play a part in your character's potential in a skill, whether high or low. Now you'll get to set the priority on the stats that the system will roll for. There are in total, eleventeen priorities you can choose from, ranging from the most important to the most unimportant. It is possible to set multiple stats to the same priority. This means that if you wanted Strength and Constitution to be your highest priority, and roll the highest out of all your stats, you can set both of them to most important. Keep in mind, however, that each character has a limited overall stat pool, so rolling high on two stats means your other stats will suffer. You are in control of how you build your character! 

Your size will play a part in how you are seen from others. A dwarf will always see a human taller than they, though an elf will see a human as smaller. It is important to note this in character descriptions. More information on that is below.

Description

Descriptions are how your character is seen. It is important to note that descriptions should not contain objects, emotions, actions, or subjectivity. Let's break this down:

Objects: Nothing that is not immediately part of your character's body should be in your description. Even if your character has worn this earring or ring for 20 years, that is not a part of their body. If in the description, the application will be declined. There are objects in game that you can wear to fulfill this history and some are available in pre-game shops. What about ribbons because my hair is always braided? They too need to be acquired in game and cannot be in your description. 

Emotions: No one is happy 100% of the time, 24 hours of 7 days in a week. The same goes with unhappiness, anger, etc. We all do have blips of change and different days in our lives so too do our characters. It is important to leave emotions and thoughts a blank slate in description writing so as to ensure that you as the player and your character can be versatile to various situations and scenes that may come up. Would your character be 'happy-looking' at the death of their loved one? Probably not. It is best not to write yourself into a corner.

Actions: Similar to emotions, the actions that are born from them such as smiling, frowning, grimacing, etc. are not things physically possible to do all the time. There are situations where someone might have a scar that puts them into a perpetual frown-like state but that can be describe and explained in the description to help out your fellow players. The action of your walk, your bearing, your grace or lack thereof should not be in your description. These are things you can support, give flesh and bone to with travel strings, voice strings and dmotes. 

Subjectivity: Everyone has different ideas of what is beautiful, handsome, comely, perfection, ugly, unattractive, turn-on, turn-off, etc. We are all vastly different as are our characters. In this, it is vastly important that your description does not force the opinions of another character or player. Instead of telling them your character is pretty or ugly, show it and let them decide what they think or feel. 

Let's look at how to enter in our description;

Now with sdesc and ldesc, is important to remember to also not use objects, emotions, actions or subjectivity. It is also good to remember that you might be tall or short for a human, but will you be tall to an elf, will you be short to a dwarf? 

*Note to Players: Please remember that you sdesc and ldesc should match. They should not have descriptive keywords the other lacks.

The Allowable Noun List:

How to enter in your description:

How to write your description:

Remember that the words you use in your sdesc and ldesc should be supported by your description, if they are not, your application will be declined. There is a pretty easy algorithm you can follow in description writing that can help you out: The first word (not a) in your sdesc should be the first you describe in their desc, the second is second most important and so on. 

Your full description is a snapshot taken with text of your character.  It should not show action or feelings of any kind.  One should also take in to account that your character will most likely be clothed when others are looking at them.  This should be taken in to account as well.  Avoid describing scars, burns or other interesting features that would likely not be seen every day.  This includes scars on the chest, back, stomach, legs, feet, etc... If you character has a horrible scar on his chest, you should expose that at the time your character removes their shirt through role play.

Here are some examples for descriptions you are welcome to use as a foundation:

Female Human

a plump, pink-cheeked woman

Plump through the midsection, flabby-armed and thick-thighed, this ample-chested woman appears to be of middling years and middling height for her race. A ruddiness to her fair complexion give a pinkness to her cheeks which give flesh and roundness to her otherwise lean face. A bulbous nose, small, fat-lipped mouth and beady eyes of a green color fill out her other features. A mass of dark auburn curls crown her head, measuring to her nonexistent waist when left loose. Either ear, when exposed, has been notched in several instances and have since scarred.

a redheaded, long-legged young woman

A wild mass of waves and whorls, some loose and some tight, crowns the head of this young-looking woman, the color a rich, fiery red montage of autumn streaked in ginger, strawberry, peach, orange and blonde. When loose, her thick hair sticks out about her face, deceptively diminishing the look of her already diminutive height by framing her slim shoulders and flat-chested torso to the thin span of her waist. More leg than torso, her figure is very much leggy with the length and thinness of her lower limbs giving her the aspect of being 'all leg'. Her heart-shaped face is composed of round, high-set cheeks, a thin nose riddled with breaks, a wide, plump-lipped mouth and slanted, long-lashed eyes of a storm-grey hue. Her skin is dull and drab, perhaps once fair though worn and tanned by exposure to the sun and heavily dappled in freckles.

Male Human

a greying, swarthy-skinned man

A heavy smattering of grey wages dominance in the otherwise pitch-black of this middle-aged man's shoulder-length hair and well-groomed beard. Swarthy in a dark, deep golden-brown hue, his complexion is smooth and like well-worn leather has its wrinkles. Lines of laughter and cheer fan outward at the temples from either side of his coal-lashed and coal-dark eyes and too frame his wide, bow-shaped mouth as if having known many smiles. He face is otherwise made up of thick, overhanging eyebrows, high-set and chiseled cheeks and a firm, square jaw. A lifetime of labor and toil is evident in the well-toned and sinewy cut to his build, thin through the waist and broad through shoulders with corded muscle sheathing arm and leg alike. Various blade-thin scars mottle the back of his hands, forearms and shoulders when exposed.

a wan, whip-thin young man

Pale, wan-toned skin sheaths the whip-thin figure of this young man. Scrawny through and through, he is made up of skin and bone and naught else between. He is long-limbed, skinny and stooped at the shoulders. Listless, straw-thick and dry hair the color of felled leaves crowns his head in an unkempt mass of curls cut in a haphazard manner. His long, narrow face has a horse-ish aspect to it with the length and tapering thinness of his jaw, now and wide, thin-lipped state of his mouth. His eyes, sunk into the hollows of the bruised-looking sockets, are dull and colored brown. 

Female Orc

a yellow-skinned, bug-eyed female orc

Skin the dark yellow of ocher sheathes the bulbous, hunched-back figure of this female orc in a sagging heap of too-much skin, as though either having lost some weight too quickly or having crawled into a skin too big for her otherwise small build. Long-limbed, her arms and legs are scrawny, skin draping off their bony structure, whereas her torso is quite rounded and shaped much like a wasp with a thick chest, narrow waist and over-sized rear. Bug-eyed, her grey eyes protrude from her frog-like face, the irises dappled in sickly shades of green. Warts line the thin lips of her too-wide mouth, some known to weep and seep fluid. No hair crowns her bald head though a few bristle-like whiskers protrude off the flat, wide-nostriled excuse she has for a nose.

a buxom, white-skinned female orc

Buxom, by way of a massive chest, this female orc clearly is all torso with a barrel-like chest and a bosom made up of rigid, drum-tight muscle studded in tiny, sharp-looking horns and riddled in bulbous warts from narrow shoulder and down, sheathing her skinny limbs and giving her white skin an aspect of being curdled milk. Shorter than most of her kind, her legs seem stunted, or too short or too skinny to support her massive chest, but nonetheless she manages. A mane of grey and brown hair spews out of her flat skull in the shape of a horse's main, following the ridge of her skull, neck and hunched shoulders in a thin line. Her jaw appears too large for her squished face composed of a massive under-bite which exposes her lower teeth and a pair of protruding tusk-line canines. Her lips are scarred and pocked from previous injury or disease and her nose, what is left of it, appears to be present though is mostly a bashed-in mess of flesh with a pair of skimpy nostrils set askew in the ruined flesh. It is the deep, dark brown of her long-lashed eyes that soften her face somewhat, round and somewhat too big.

Male Orc

a squat, pale-skinned male orc

Short for one of its species, this male orc is squat and muscular. Sickly pale skin covers him, from his stringy black-haired head to his yellowed-nail toes. His nose cuts like a dagger, curved and somewhat broad, it hooks over his slash-lipped mouth. The maw is full of a ragged set of teeth, somehow fitting together. The rest of his musculature is brutal and thick, powerful rather than athletic.

a lank-limbed male orc with white-ish hair

Lank of limbs and concave-chested, this male orc is a study in opposites. Thick white-ish hair has been hacked off crudely and unevenly, providing slanted coverage of a pair of yellowed eyes. His jaw does not boast a strong chin, disappearing in his jowls. Gangly limbs stretch too long, with their joints just below where they ought to be. The nails of his hands and feet are mostly blackened with dirt.

Skills

Now it's time to choose the skills your character will have when they enter the game.

DISCLAIMER: Please note that every character has a static skill point pool that will be shared among all the skills you choose. Therefore, if you choose the minimum four skills, your character will be fairly skilled in the four skills you choose. If you choose eight, they will be a little better than a beginner at all the skills you choose. Some skills require RPP.

Background

Now for one of the most important parts of your character: your character background.

It is important to know that some backgrounds or locations in backgrounds may be limited to RPP required roles such as being from Gondor, Dorwinion, Rohan, etc. When in doubt, open a Support Ticket with staff to see about options. If you lack the RPP and submit a background with RPP-required locations, it will be declined.

Here you enter your character background. While character background lengths are variable, they are generally at least 8-10 lines in length. it is required to have the following things in your background:

• Where is your character from?
• Why has he/she arrived where she is now in the current game-world?
• An overview of your character's personality
• Explanation of how your character gained the skills you chose in character generation

On top of these four points, it is highly recommended to include:

• What are your character's goals and aspirations?
• Does your character have any important family? Siblings? Friends? 
• What drives your character? Any important events that guided your character to the game's current timeline?

Good backgrounds will solidly ground their character in the game's lore, and introduce open plot lines that your character can explore in their journey through Middle-Earth. For example, if your character is hiding from loan sharks after taking a hefty loan for medicine due to an ailing family member, resulting in an interesting character arc with the guilt/fear/alienation that comes with moving away from family members and settling in a new location.

Overview

Review, make any changes you need to and then hit submit. Do not log in to the Guest Lounge after submitting your application and petition for it to be reviewed.