Moon Mage Guide
~ Dispelling
the Illusion ~
A beginner's guide to playing a Moon Mage character in DragonRealms.
Contents:
INTRODUCTION (What
is a Moon Mage?)
A brief definition of a Moon Mage
Explanation of Primary/Secondary/Tertiary skills
How to become a Moon Mage
Required stats
Finding the Moon Mage Guild
Joining the Moon Mage Guild
The mythos of Elanthia's solar system
About Elanthia
About the moons
About the planets
About constellations
Moon Mage Magic
Introduction to lunar magic
Magical Attunement
Skills in the Magic skill set
How to learn about Moon Mage spells
Choosing your spells
Moon Mage Abilities
About Guild specific abilities
Predicting the future
Time sense
Back trace
Enchanting
Advancing in the Moon Mage Guild
Required skills
Useful non-required skills
How to practice and train skills
Role Playing a Moon Mage Character
Developing a character history
Bringing your character to life
Information every new Moon Mage should read
INTRODUCTION
(What is a Moon Mage?)
A brief definition
of a Moon Mage
Taken from the official DragonRealms web site - "Moon Mages are an esoteric
collective of magicians, scholars and soothsayers from several different sects.
Known for the versatile and powerful magic that flows from their fingertips
and their ability to foretell the future, Moon Mages are among the most potent
spellcasters on Elanthia.
Their abilities are tied closely to the rising and setting of the three moons
Xibar, Yavash and Katamba, as well as the motions of other heavenly bodies.
Thus when the skies smile down upon a Moon Mage, his powers are strong; yet
when all the moons have set, he is considerably weaker."
Looking at this definition
we can determine several things about Moon Mages.
1. The Moon Mage Guild is comprised of people with varied backgrounds and rich
cultural diversity.
2. Moon Mages are seen as different things by different people. We are known
as scholars, fortune tellers, mysterious occultists, tenacious survivalists,
astronomers, and magicians. This varied perception of us allows for a great
deal of freedom in developing a persona for a Moon Mage character.
3. Moon Mages wield powerful magic. In fact they are one of three Guilds who
have the Magic skill set as their primary skill set. More on skills sets shortly.
4. Moon Mages are quite often at the mercy of the moons when it comes to using
their magic and skills. This is especially true for beginning low level Moon
Mages.
Explanation of Primary/Secondary/Tertiary skills
Well, if you are still reading this guide I assume it is because you are considering
starting a Moon Mage character. That being the case lets get down to business.
As you may already
be aware of, DragonRealms is a 'skill based' role playing game. By skill based
I mean that most actions that you take in the game are checked against one of
your character's skills to see if you succeed in that action. This 'skill check'
can be against a static object, like a tree when your character tries to climb
it for example, or it can be against creatures, and sometimes even other players.
There are 5 different skill sets in DragonRealms, each comprised of a number
of different skills. Those skill sets are Weapons, Lore, Armor, Survival, and
Magic. For a detailed listing of what skills are in each skill set, and what
their purpose is, read the Skills section on the official DragonRealms web site.
Depending on what Guild you are in, you will learn skills in a particular skill
set faster than skills in other skill sets. This is because of your Primary,
Secondary, and Tertiary arrangement. Skills in your Guild's Primary skill set
are quickly and easily learned, with Secondary skills being next in line. Any
skill set that isn't Primary or Secondary for your Guild is Tertiary. Tertiary
skills move the slowest.
This arrangement of Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary learning rates is to reflect
your Guild's natural aptitude for certain skills. For example, a Barbarian will
learn Weapon skills faster than a Moon Mage. While a Moon Mage being somewhat
of a book worm, will learn Lore skills faster than the Barbarian, who is most
likely out sharpening his sword anyway.
Now all of this isn't to say that a Moon Mage can't be more skilled with a certain
weapon than a Barbarian, just that it will take longer for the Moon Mage to
become so.
This is because in our example Barbarians have the Weapons skill set as their
Primary skill set, while Moon Mages have the Magic skill set as their Primary
skill set.
Lets look at the Moon Mage Guild's skill setup.
Magic skill set - Primary
skill set
Lore skill set - Secondary skill set
Survival skill set - Secondary skill set
Weapons skill set - Tertiary skill set
Armor skill set - Tertiary skill set
Knowing this you can
expect your Magic skills to increase more rapidly than any of your other skills.
Your Lore and Survival skills will increase at a slightly slower pace, with
Weapons and Armor being the slowest/hardest skills to increase.
As you can see this means most Moon Mages will be very skilled in Magic, Lore,
and Survival. This goes a long ways in explaining most of the perceptions of
what Moon Mages are. After all, you didn't see me list blacksmiths or weapon
masters as a typical Moon Mage definition earlier did you? That's because those
two skills are the lowest for Moon Mages to learn.
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How to become a Moon Mage
Required stats
Before you can join the Moon Mage Guild, your character will need to have the
following stats:
Strength - 6
Reflexes - 5
Agility - 7
Charisma - 7
Wisdom - 9
Intelligence - 8
Stamina - 6
If your character does
not have these stats when you leave the Character Manager, you will have to
increase your stats to meet these requirements by spending Time Development
Points (TDPs) at the various stat training locations scattered about the town
you start in.
If you do not train your stats before you join, then the Guild leader at the
Guild you join at will train your stats up enough to meet those requirements.
Be warned, having the Guild Leader train you uses more TDP's than training the
skills yourself!
Finding the Moon Mage
Guild
In order to join the Moon Mage Guild, you have to find and speak to a Moon Mage
Guild Leader, usually residing in a Moon Mage Guild Hall. In the case of the
Moon Mage Guild there are several scattered about the Provinces of Kermoria.
The following cities/towns have a Moon Mage Guild: The Crossing, Riverhaven,
Shard, Taisgath Island, and the Lesser Fist (a volcano located in between the
towns of Riverhaven and The Crossing).
A few important notes on the locations of these Guild Halls:
1. The towns of Crossing and Riverhaven are possible starting points for new
characters. In either of these two towns, and only in these two towns, you can
get directions for finding places in that town with the DIR (short for Direction)
command. This is true for the Moon Mage Guild as well. To get directions for
the Moon Mage Guild use the command DIR MOON MAGE.
2. The Moon Mage Guild in The Crossing is actually located on the third floor
of The Great Observatory, and requires that you solve a simple in-game puzzle
to reach. If you absolutely can't figure out the puzzle, you may ask for help
from one of the Moon Mages who are probably gathered outside the entrance to
the Observatory.
3. The Moon Mage Guild in Riverhaven is inside the tall obsidian spire a few
rooms outside the North gate.
Joining the Moon Mage
Guild
Once you find a Moon Mage Guild Leader joining the guild is very easy. Simply
stand in the same room as the Guild Leader and type JOIN.
Once you do this he will tell you lots of information, be sure to read it all.
He also gives raises some of your skills a little bit, to reflect your status
as a new student of the Moon Mage Guild.
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The mythos of Elanthia's solar system
About Elanthia
Elanthia is the name of the planet our characters live on. More specifically,
our characters live on a continent called Kermoria. In game lore tells us that
a huge dragon known only as the World Dragon slumbers deep in the center of
Elanthia.
About the moons
Three moons orbit Elanthia. By name they are Xibar, Yavash, and Katamba. They
are different colored. Xibar is blue, Yavash is red, and Katamba is black, though
in-game history tells us it was once gold. In-game history also tells us there
was once a fourth moon, a pearly-white moon called Grazhir. However, a huge
black dragon hatched from Grazhir, thus destroying it. In the process, the dragon's
fiery breath scorched Katamba black. The dragon now sleeps deep in the center
of Elanthia.
The moons are very important to Moon Mages, as should be apparent. They affect
many of our spells and some spells can't even be cast if certain moons aren't
in the sky. Also, until your character is skilled enough to sense planets, the
moons are the main source of lunar mana for your spells. This means you are
at their mercy. When moons are below the horizon, they contribute less lunar
mana. This is also true for when they are further away in their orbit, and for
when they are in any phase besides a 'full moon', although to varying degrees
depending on how much of the moon is visible. The moons are the simplest celestial
bodies to observe for predicting the future, and as soon as you join the Moon
Mage Guild you will be able to observe any of the three moons. More on this
under Moon Mage Abilities.
About the planets
Besides Elanthia, there are 12 other planets in the in game solar system. By
name, in order of proximity to the sun, they are: Verena, Estrilda, Durgaulda,
Yoakena, Penhetia, Szeldia, Merewalda, Ismenia, Morleena, Amlothi, Dawgolesh,
and Er'qutra.
High level Moon Mage characters can observe planets in order to predict the
future, as well as draw off of them as an additional source of lunar mana. More
on this under Moon Mage Magic.
About constellations
Although there are most likely thousands of stars in the night skies of Elanthia,
there are currently only 47 named constellations in DragonRealms. This is important
because only named constellations can be interacted with via our skills and
magic. Other stars simply don't exist for our purposes.
Constellations, like planets and moons, can be observed by a Moon Mage in order
to predict the future. In the case of constellations though, some are easier
than others. As you progress through the Guild you will be taught how to observe
more and more constellations.
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Moon Mage Magic
Introduction to lunar
magic
Besides the Moon Mage Guild, there are several other Guilds in DragonRealms
that use magic, but of those Guilds, the Moon Mage Guild stands out, using a
unique system of mana. Mana is the energy that powers spells in DragonRealms.
When you prepare a spell for casting in DragonRealms you almost always have
to follow it with a number, this represents how much mana you want to use to
power the spell. There are 4 different known types of mana, they are: Lunar
Mana, Elemental Mana, Life Mana, and Holy Mana.
Magic using Guilds have the ability to sense mana and attune themselves to a
certain type of mana. As they cast spells or harness energy off of mana streams,
they become magically fatigued and eventually will lose their attunement. As
a magic user becomes less attuned to the mana streams it becomes more difficult
to cast spells.
All mana except Lunar
mana is concentrated in differing amounts in differing areas. So while there
may be a lot of mana in one area, the same mana could be quite low just a few
rooms away. This layout of mana concentration is permanent and will not change
unless an outside force acts upon the mana to increase or decrease it, like
a magical spell for instance.
Using their skills of perceiving power, magic users can 'see' how concentrated
the streams of mana are in a given area. The more skilled you are, the more
accurate your sensing of mana streams will be. The more abundant the mana is
in an area, the brighter the mana streams will appear to your magical senses.
These streams of mana are invisible to anyone who has not been trained to attune
themselves to that particular variety of mana.
Unlike the other forms
of mana, Lunar mana is constant in all locations at once, the only variance
is that it changes in overall concentration over time. This fluctuation of available
lunar mana is mostly attributed to the movement of the moons. This is both good
and bad, depending on how much mana is available at any given time. When the
mana is concentrated and glowing brightly, then the mana will be plentiful no
matter where you are, but the same is true for when the mana is dim and scarce.
Such is the life of a Moon Mage.
Eventually, once your Power Perceive skill gets high enough, you will be able
to sense additional lunar mana from the movement of the planets. This additional
mana helps to supplement the available mana from the moons, that way if all
the moons are below the horizon and far away in their orbital cycle (a scenario
that would cripple a low level Moon Mage), you will still have a decent amount
of lunar mana to draw upon.
Magical Attunement
I've mentioned that magic using characters have an 'attunement' to the particular
mana streams their Guild teaches them to perceive, and that when they lose that
attunement they can no longer cast magical spells. Now let me clarify what attunement
is by putting it in simple terms. Attunement can be thought of as a character's
personal energy supply for powering their spells. Sort of like a battery. When
the energy is low you won't be able to cast spells that require a lot of mana.
When the energy is gone you won't be able to cast a spell at all. Remember,
this is just a rough example to help you get the feel for attunement, and not
what attunement actually is.
A characters attunement slowly recovers over time, but it is a fairly slow process.
Now let us examine what factors affect this attunement level when you are casting a spell.
First we have the Power
Perceive skill which determines how much lunar mana you can sense, compared
to the actual level of lunar mana. To clarify I'll put it in terms of numbers.
Lets say that the lunar mana available has a value of 20. A low level Moon Mage
who is not very skilled in Power Perceive might only sense a lunar mana value
of 5, while a high level Moon Mage may sense the lunar mana at a value of 17.
This is important because when you cast spells, the amount of attunement you
lose is dependent on how much mana you put into the spell vs. your 'perceived'
amount of lunar mana, not the actual amount of lunar mana. So if the low level
Moon Mage and the high level Moon Mage both cast a spell at 10 mana, the low
level Moon Mage will lose a lot more attunement than the high level Moon Mage.
After all, how can you draw upon something you can't even sense.
This amount of available mana you can sense actually varies depending on what
type of spell you are going to cast. More on this shortly.
It is important to note that for other Guilds mana is constant in a particular
area for all spells that Guild has. However, in the case of Lunar mana, not
all spells 'see' this available mana the same. In the case of Moon Mages there
are 5 different categories, or Books of spells. Each of these Books of spells
interacts with the available mana differently. Every Guild has different Books
of spells, but only the Moon Mage Guild's spells draw upon differing levels
of mana when cast. More on this under Perceiving Lunar Mana.
The second important factor is your Harness Ability. This skill effects how well you can draw upon the lunar mana you perceive available. The more skillfully you draw upon mana the less attunement you lose. Again, to illustrate this lets put in terms of numbers. Lets say that you are casting a spell at 10 mana and you are currently 100% attuned to the streams of lunar mana. When a low level Moon Mage who isn't very skilled in their Harness Ability casts the spell, they may drop to 50% attunement, while a skilled high level Moon Mage may only drop to 80% attunement.
Lastly, the amount
of mana you attempt to harness, or try to cast a spell at is very significant.
You see, a character's loss of attunement is not linear. Let me again illustrate
with number values. Lets say that your attunement has a value of 100. If you
cast a spell at 1 mana, your attunement might drop to a value of 99, but if
you cast the spell at 5 mana, your attunement would drop to a value of 93, not
95 like you might expect. Casting that same spell at 20 mana would drop your
attunement to a value of 60. Note the non linear progression. The higher the
amount of mana you cast the spell at or harness, the more extreme the attunement
loss will be.
Skills in the Magic
skill set
The Magic skill set has the fewest skills of all the skills sets at only 5 skills,
they are:
Primary Magic, Harness Ability, Power Perceive, Magical Devices, and Targeted
Magic.
I briefly touched on Harness and Power Perceive above, but now I will describe
the function of all 5 magic skills, as well as list all the commands associated
with casting spells.
*PRIMARY MAGIC - This
skill allows you increasingly cast more difficult spells, as well as increasingly
higher mana levels. It also allows you use mana more effectively when casting,
without wasting it. Finally, it also determines how powerful the effect of your
spell is, and how soon you can attempt to cast a spell before it is fully prepared.
The verb to start casting a spell in DragonRealms is PREPARE, or PREP for short.
Type PREPARE /HELP in game to find out more.
You must follow the prepare verb with the spell name, and the amount of mana
you want to prepare the spell at. For example: PREP CLEAR VISION 5. This tells
the game to start preparing the Clear Vision spell at 5 mana. Almost every spell
has a minimum amount of mana requirement in order for the spell to be successfully
prepared. If you don't use a high enough number, then the game will automatically
increase the amount for you. In our example the minimum mana needed to prepare
Clear Vision is actually 4 mana, but we went with 5 just for the sake of this
example. You can experiment in game to determine what a spells minimum needed
mana is.
The command to cast a spell is CAST, or often times CAST <target/item/moon>.
Once the spell is successfully cast you will lose some attunement.
If your Primary Magic skill isn't high enough to cast a spell at a certain amount
of mana, or if you try to cast the spell too soon, you may backfire the spell.
This has the potential of damaging your nervous system. You will know you damaged
your nerves if you backfire and you feel a tingling sensation.
*HARNESS ABILITY - This skill is used passively when ever you cast spell, but it can be used actively.
The passive use of this skill is what determines how effectively you use available mana when you cast a spell, or charge a cambrinth item with energy.
The active use of this
spell makes use of the HARNESS command. In this case, your Harness Ability determines
how well you harness and hold mana. The higher your skill, the less attunement
you will lose. Type HARNESS HELP in game to find out more.
Using the Harness command:
If you want to cast a spell at 20 mana, you can do it several ways. You could
prepare the spell at 20 mana, like so: PREPARE CLEAR VISION 20. However, after
reading the section on attunement, you should realize that this method will
drastically drop your character's attunement.
An alternate method is to prepare the spell at it's minimum required amount
of mana, and then use the HARNESS command to gather and hold energy into your
body that will be added with the amount you are preparing the spell at. For
example you might prepare the Clear Vision spell at 4 mana (the minimum needed),
and then harness 4 mana four times like so: HARNESS 4.
This system will not
cause you to lose as much attunement, but you will have to spend some extra
time harnessing, and holding energy in your body can damage your nerves if you
hold too much.
Having a lot of skill in the Harness Ability lets you hold more energy in your
body without damaging your nerves, and lets you hold that energy longer before
it slips away.
*POWER PERCEIVE - This skill determines how well you can sense the available mana, thus determining how much effective mana you have to work with. Moon Mages are renown for their Power Perception skills.
Moon Mages can perceive the following things:
Moonbeams - To sense
who created them.
Self - To sense any spells on your character and how long they will last.
Area - To sense any spells in effect in the area.
Planets - To sense if there are any planets in your range of perception.
Transduction Book - To sense the available mana for spells from the Transduction
Book.
Perception Book - To sense the available mana for spells from the Perception
Book.
Psychic Projection Book - To sense the available mana for spells from the Psychis
Projection Book.
Moonlight Manipulation Book - To sense the available mana for spells from the
Moonlight Manipulation Book.
Stellar Book - To sense the available mana for spells from the Stellar Book,
a special book of spells for high level Moon Mages.
Xibar - To sense how much mana Xibar is contributing, and what it's current
position is in the sky.
Yavash - To sense how much mana Yavash is contributing and what it's current
position is in the sky.
Katamba - To sense how much mana Katamba is contributing and what it's current
position is in the sky.
All - Acts as a combination of Perceive Self and Perceive Area.
A general perceive - Accomplished just by typing POWER or PERCEIVE.
*MAGICAL DEVICES -
As implied by the name, this skill determines how well your character can interact
with magical devices. As a beginning character you probably won't have too much
interaction with magical devices at first. Instead, you will probably need to
learn this skill by listening to someone else TEACH the skill to you. Common
commands associated with simple magical devices are FOCUS, RUB, WAVE, and CHARGE.
The FOCUS command is by far the most commonly used command. It lets your character
do several things with magical devices, the most important being determining
what a magical device is, and what it does. For example, FOCUS <magical item>.
You can also focus on cambrinth items to form a special link with them.
Cambrinth is a special mineral in DragonRealms that can store energy. If you
CHARGE a cambrinth item with energy, and then FOCUS on it before casting a spell,
it will contribute that energy to your spell and that will at like you prepared
the spell with more mana.
On some magical items, like runes for instance, you can put a number after the
focus <item> command to attempt to adjust how much energy is flowing through
the magical device. For example: FOCUS RUNE 30.
Think of this like adjusting a dimmer on a light in your house. Whenever you
RUB the rune now the spell will be prepared at higher amount than if you would
have focused the rune at 10.
*TARGETED MAGIC - This skill is what generally determines how accurate and damaging your targeted magical attack spells are.
How to learn about
Moon Mage spells
There are two ways you can learn about what spells are available for Moon Mages.
You can either ask a Guild Leader about them while you are logged into the game,
or you can read about them on the official DragonRealms web site.
To ask a Guild Leader about spells use this command: ASK <Guild Leader's
Name> ABOUT MAGIC. For example, "Ask Kssarh about magic". This
will tell you about what books of magic are available to Moon Mages, and what
spells are in each book. This will also tell you if you are currently eligible
to learn a new spell.
You may also ask about specific spells by name to find out what they do. The
command to do this is: ASK <Guild Leader's Name> ABOUT <Spell Name>
SPELL. For example, "Ask Kssarh about Shadows spell".
Choosing your spells
Once you have decided that you are ready to learn a spell for your character's
use, you will need to have the Guild Leader teach you that spell. The command
to learn a new spell from the Guild Leader is: CHOOSE <Spell Name> SPELL.
For example, "Choose Clear Vision spell".
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Moon Mage Abilities
About Guild specific
abilities
To set Guilds apart in DragonRealms, each Guild has a number of special tricks/powers/abilities
that only members of their Guild can do. Moon Mages are no different. In addition
to being able to learn and use magical spells, Moon Mages can learn the following
special abilities.
Predicting the future
There are 2 types of predictions that a Moon Mage can do.
The first, and simplest, is for you to simply predict the weather. This will give you a brief listing of upcoming weather conditions. Each one of these represents the most likely possibility for the weather over the next 10-11 minutes. That is the time interval that weather has the possibility of changing on. A Moon Mage may predict the weather at any time they are outside, and as often as they like. You will learn a small amount of Astrology doing so, but there is a timer on the experience gain.
The command to make a weather prediction is: PREDICT WEATHER.
Secondly, and by far more complicated, is for you to predict the future. Predicting the future actually alters your 'effective' ranks in a skill, like Evasion or Primary Magic for example. This alteration can be positive, or negative. It can also range from a couple of ranks, to dozens of ranks.
To predict the future
you have to observe a celestial body like the sun or one of the three moons
for example. The command to do this is: OBSERVE <object>.
Once you make your observation you will either learn something of the future,
or you won't. If you don't, then keep trying. This is somewhat hard for low
level Moon Mages. Using the Clear Vision spell can help.
Once you do learn something of the future, you are ready to try a prediction.
A Moon Mage may attempt
to predict the future at any time, but the prediction will not work if you have
not made a successful observation of a celestial body at some point, and stored
a skill set in your observation pool.
The syntax to make a prediction is: PREDICT FUTURE <NAME> <SKILL SET>
For example: Predict future Joe offense
Type PREDICT USAGE in game to view all of your prediction options.
There are 5 predictable
skill sets, but they differ slightly from the 5 skills sets your character has.
Lore - All possible lore skills (excluding other Guild's specific skills when
predicting on yourself).
Magic - Your magical skills.
Survival - Your survival skills.
Offense - All of the possible weapons, plus the Brawling skill.
Defense - All of the possible armor types, plus the Parry and Multi-Opponent
skills even though they are technically under Offensive skill set when you do
an EXP OFFENSE command.
You will either have to experiment on your own to figure out what celestial bodies have what skill sets, or you can visit a player's fan site. Visit the Links section on the DragonRealms web site to see a listing of player ran fan sites.
Time sense
Due to a Moon Mage's strong tie to the rise and fall of the sun and moons, they
have the ability to roughly gauge what time it is while they somewhere you can't
see the sky, like underground, or indoors without a window. To see if you are
ready to learn this skill, ask a Guild Leader about SKILLS.
Back trace
Back trace is the ability to determine who has located you, or someone else
in your area. Locate is a Moon Mage spell that tells its caster where someone
is in the game.
When you see the messaging that says you feel like you are being watch, type
POWER or PERCEIVE to perform the back trace. Depending on your skill you might
be able to sense you performed the locate, where they are at, and eventually
you will gain the passive ability to sense if someone back traces your locate
spell. Ask a Guild Leader about SKILLS to see if you are ready to learn this
ability.
Enchanting
I will only briefly touch on this subject since this is a high level ability.
Enchanting is the process of creating a magical item. Once your character gets
to around 30th circle you might want to journey to Old Throne City and find
the Enchanter's Shop there. You can speak to Xathvier, the owner of the shop,
and he will see if you are ready to start down the path to becoming an enchanter.
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Advancing in the Moon Mage Guild
Required skills
As a Moon Mage you will need to train certain skills in order to advance in
the Guild.
You have some degree of freedom in this however, because the Guild Leaders don't
require specific skills for the most part. The exception to this is that you
will always need a few certain skills that are extremely important to being
a Moon Mage.
The Following skills are needed to circle as a Moon Mage up until 10th circle (after that it changes slightly):
General Magic (an average
of all your Magic skills) - 20 ranks per circle
Power Perception - 4 ranks per circle
Scholarship - 3 ranks per circle
Astrology - 2 ranks per circle
Teaching - 2 ranks per circle
Lore 1 *(any lore skill other than Scholarship, Astrology or Teaching) - 2 ranks
per circle
Lore 2 *(any lore skill that isn't Lore 1 or Scholarship, Astrology or Teaching)
- 0 ranks per circle
Survival 1 *(Any survival skill that isn't one of the other survival skills.
The same is true for the other survival skills) - 2 ranks per circle
Survival 2 - 2 ranks per circle
Survival 3 - 2 ranks per circle
Survival 4 - 2 ranks per circle
Survival 5 - 2 ranks per circle
Survival 6 - 2 ranks per circle
Survival 7 - 2 ranks per circle
Survival 8 - 2 ranks per circle
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Role Playing a Moon Mage Character
Developing a character
history
While this is not required to play a Moon Mage, or any character for that matter,
if you are truly interested in role-playing a character well, you should consider
at least thinking up a character history. You need not write it down or make
it public knowledge, but having an idea of where your character comes from and
what their personality is, will help you bring your character to life in the
eyes of other players.
Bringing your character
to life
Like I mentioned above, a character history can go a long way to breathing life
into your character, but that is not the only thing you can do to make your
character stand out in a crowd.
1. Consistent Personality - This is a big one. If you role play that you hate
small children, love the color orange and talk with an accent, then make sure
that is how you always role play your character. Nothing will kill the atmosphere
faster than talking to someone in game and getting the impression that they
can't make up their mind how they want to behave.
2. Put yourself in your character's shoes - What do I mean by this? Well, if
you are standing in a room with a character when they die for example, don't
just sit there, or say something like "Wow, that sucks". Act like
you would if that happened to you in real life. Another example, you are trying
to open a trapped treasure box and it sprays acid on you. Don't just sit there
and visit with people and have a good old time while the acid eats into your
flesh. Role play that you are in pain and suffering from your wounds.
3. Don't abbreviate words in your speech - If you are talking on your phone
to your friend and they tell you they are coming over to your house to visit,
do they say "Hey John, I'm omw", or do they say "Hey John, I'm
on my way"? This makes your character seem fake and turns the game into
a chat room. Other people are paying to play the game just like you and if you
are speaking to them in this manner you will be ruining the atmosphere of the
game for them.
4. Don't speak out of character (OOC) words - This goes along with abbreviating
words. No one wants to be listening to your character speak in-game and you
decide to tell them that a really loud airplane just flew over your house in
real life. This goes back to putting yourself in your character's shoes. Don't
say things that your character wouldn't say.
Other than those 4 rules, you are pretty much free to play a Moon Mage character
however you wish thanks to our Guilds diverse background. Some popular styles
of play for playing a Moon Mage are a scholarly pacifist, disciplined monk warrior,
stealthy spy, all powerful mage, political adviser, fortune teller, fanatical
occultist, nomadic warrior, and care free gypsy.
You need not follow any of these playing styles for your Moon Mage but they
do illustrate the vast range of role playing options open for Moon Mages. The
important thing is to play your character in a manner that you enjoy.
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Information every new Moon Mage should read
First off, the most important material you should read is the official Dragon
Realms web site. The most useful sections for a beginning Moon Mage character
are the Moon Mage Guild page, the Magic page, the Skills page, and the Stats
page.
After that there are several in-game books that you should read, they are:
A Brief History of
the Guild of Moon Magic (found in the Moon Mage Guild)
The Study of Omens and Celestial Portents