Characters are how players interact with the world of Avendar. You pretend you are another person in another land, and other complete newbie concepts. Read more about being a complete newbie in the guide for new players.
Races
Your character’s race determines what classes and alignments are available to you. Your race may also provide a few extra abilities, resistances, and/or vulnerabilities. Your maxium stats are limited by your race. A detailed comparison of the races is on the races page.
Cursed by the gods for their hubris, alatharya are giant, silver-skinned humanoids with a tragic past.
Semi-translucent humanoids from another plane, the ch’taren are golden-hued and shimmering.
Short, stout, and brightly colored, the ethron live in the wilds with a strong tradition of respect for nature.
Plentiful and diverse, the humans were the latest to dominate the continent before the Republic of Earendam dissolved.
Wolf-like and pack-oriented, kankoran eschew order, often coming into conflict with humans.
Classes
Each character in Avendar has an adventuring class. The class determines the character’s abilities. Guilds are established throughout the land to help train characters in their class’s abilities. See the main Character Classes page for more detailed descriptions of each class, or click a link below to go directly to a class’ page.
You must ‘practice’ your skills at your guildmaster! Your attacks will miss even the lowliest creatures if you do not practice!
Warriors
The profession of warrior is perhaps the oldest of the adventuring classes. Students of the arts of war and physical combat, warriors come in three different backgrounds.
Rogues
The profession of rogue is populated by the quick-witted and the secretive, who prefer to live by their keen wit and nimble fingers. Rogues come in three different traditional professions.
Scholars
Scholars are sages who have devoted their life to the study of the various elemental magics. Their area of specialization is determined early in life, where they choose major and minor spheres of elemental influence.
Templars
Each the spheres of magic has given birth to a templar, a student of the elements, who is also a student of the fighting skills, and combines force of arm with the magical powers of the elements.
Naturalists
Those who choose the profession of naturalist have, through one way or another, associated their fortunes with that of nature’s. While not necessarily defenders of nature, all naturalists are at home there, and use the pecularities of the wild to their advantage.
Mentalists
The mentalist profession is for those whose affinity is for the mind. Foregoing the ways of elemental magic, they instead embrace the potential of psionics.
Stats
Your statistics (stats) determine the degree of your character’s physical and mental aptitudes. Stats range from 3-25, with all characters creating at -6 from their racial maximums. Statistics can be permanently improved by spending trains, or temporarily improved by items or affects. These can be improved whenever you have a train, and its effects are retroactive (for example, if you improve your constitution later, your hp will improve for all of your previous hit dice). All skill practicing in the game is based on one or two statistics related to the skill’s nature. Your current value in those statistics determines the percent you gain for each practice spent.
You must ‘train’ your stats at your guildmaster! Prioritize constitution first for more hit points, then train stats relevant to your class.
Strength
Your strength determines your character’s brute physical strength.
Determines:
Damage roll
Carrying capacity (weight)
Wield heavier weapons
Effectiveness of some skills
Dexterity
Your dexterity represents your speed, agility, and overall response time.
Determines:
Hit roll
Armor class
Carrying capacity (number of items)
Effectiveness of some skills
Constitution
Constitution is a measure of your total health and vigor.
Determines:
Hit points
Hit point regeneration
Effectiveness of some skills
Intelligence
Your intelligence determines your ability to analyze and solve problems, as well as the ability to learn and memorize facts.
Determines:
Mana (primary contributor)
Effectiveness of some skills
Wisdom
Your wisdom measures your intuition, creativity, and ability to make generalizations based on your own individual observations.
Determines:
Mana (secondary contributor)
Mana regeneration
Saves
Effectiveness of some skills
Charisma
Your charisma measures those indefinable personality traits which tend to influence others to seek out your presence, ideas, and opinions. While it is not completely correlated to physical attractiveness, it is rare to encounter a highly-charismatic individual who is actively unpleasant to behold. Charisma also defines how inspirational of a leader you are.
Determines:
Bonus to group if leading
Enemies may pause before attacking
Effectiveness of some skills
Alignment
Alignment is a broad-strokes reflection of your character’s stance among the factions and powers of Avendar. There are moral and personality components to alignment in Avendar, but it is also a force of nature. Magical elements have affinities for different alignments, as do the races, gods, great houses, and so forth. More detail is provided in the Alignments page.
Use ‘consider’ to see the alignment of a mob. Good characters get extra xp for killing evils, but negative xp for killing goods. Consider before you attack!
| Lawful Good | Neutral Good | Chaotic Good |
| Lawful Neutral | True Neutral | Chaotic Neutral |
| Lawful Evil | Neutral Evil | Chaotic Evil |
Starting Location
Your character’s starting location is where you fast travel to when using the recall command, or the ‘word of recall’ spell. You also return there as a ghost when killed.
New players start in Var Bandor. You will automatically start in Var Bandor if you picked ‘yes’ when asked if you’re new to Avendar.
Var Bandor
Centrally-located, Var Bandor is divided into four quadrants. To the south, the merchant council and scholar council each dominate their own quadrants, while the rest of the city lives north, next to the belching forges of Iron Street or crammed in the slums.
Earendam
The oldest human city, Earendam the Grand was the seat of an empire. Today, the city stands on its trade and sophistication. Historic guilds and luxury shops lie tucked along every twisting street. More difficult to navigate, Earendam requires greater time to learn its streets and plazas.
Other locations are available to certain races, classes, and alignments. In character creation, the locations you qualify for will be listed.
Traits
Traits represent additional class features available to a newly created character. Many classes automatically receive one or more traits for free during creation, and the traits possessed by a character are shown in score. Often, traits represent an ability that a class should have that is not powerful enough to be a skill in its own right.
You also have the option to select traits on creation. This allows you to gain abilities that would otherwise not be available to your class. However, to gain traits in this way, a character must spend some of their initial trains. In general, the power of a trait is reflected in the number of trains required to obtain it. It is best to be conservative when spending trains on traits– remember that these trains will also be used for valuable stat points.
There are four categories of traits: background, general, magical, and physical. There are also god touches, chosen at the very end of character creation.
God Touches
You can choose to be marked by a god. The mark, or god touch, represents a god’s notice of your character. Your character need not religiously follow that god in play. It provides mechanical bonuses, and is visible to all players who look at you.
In Avendar, the gods offer a certain background presence to the lives of all
people. Some find themselves touched in ways that profoundly affect their
lives, typically leaving a visible mark. This is commonly manifested at birth,
but can occur at later points in life. Most consider this a sign of the god's
favour, but may simply represent a passing interest. That said, if one so
marked profoundly displeases a god, or is chosen as an exemplar of another
god's faith, the mark will be removed.
All god touches cost 3 trains. One may only have a god touch from a single
deity. Should the mark be removed for any reason, the train cost will not be
refunded.
The effects of these touches are as follows:
Aeolis : +4 Charisma
Serachel : Your aura never appears redder than faint red, regardless of
actual karma.
Alil : Your wisdom score will always be equal to two less than your
current charisma.
Chadraln : +10% mana regeneration speed.
Jalassa : Unarmed damage is calculated as if the masterwork weapon flag were
applied.
Alajial : -22 armour class; aggressive monsters will cease to be aggressive
ten levels sooner than normal.
Jolinn : Water-based healing is 10% more effective on you.
Lilune : +4 Intelligence
Dolgrael : +4 Strength
Fenthira : +4 Constitution
Sythrak : Unarmed attacks deal fire damage.
Sitheus : Unarmed attacks deal disease damage.
Girikha : Bonus lightning damage (maximum 12 points) on all melee attacks.
Calaera : +7% damage against all evil opponents.
Rystaia : -10 saves vs negative.
Vaialos : Vaialos is dead, unable to mark anyone.
Elar : +1hp per level 50% of the time; natural magic healing is 10% more
effective on you.
Lielqan : Your bite attacks are more effective; you do not suffer the
penalties imposed by the gamaloth domain, should they apply.
Ayaunj : You receive an additional 20% discount when making purchases.
Bayyal : +10 resist fire, -10 resist cold.
Tzajai : +4 Luck
Arkhural : +7% damage against all good-aligned targets.
Ashur : Ashur does not care to mark mortals.
Rveyelhi : +12% damage against all chaotic targets.
Iandir : -66 armour class.
Enirra : Your karma is always treated as if it was 25% of its actual value.
Characters who chose “new to Avendar” during creation do not have access to traits. This is to prevent new players from being tempted to spend too many trains. Trains far more applicable to general gameplay than traits. The cost-benefit analysis is best done by players who have some experience with Avendar.
Next steps
Once your character has been created, your character will exist as part of the game world. You can go places, do things, and meet people.
See the Newbie Guide for what to do after creation.
Roleplay
Avendar is a roleplay required MUD. This means you should stay in character at all times. While in character, you should speak and act as your character would. This is a game of pretend, and a large part of the enjoyment comes from imagining yourself in someone else’s shoes.
You may discuss mechanics in non-numerical terms, such as “This sword will make you hit harder,” not “this sword has +2 damroll.”
Please confine out-of-character chat to the newbie and OOC channels.
Later on, you will be required to provide a description and background for your character. You may play the game for the first 10 levels without needing a description. Characters below level 10 are not expected to have a strong sense of character yet. It is a time to learn the basics of the game.
Level 10: Description
When you reach level 10, you will need to describe your character’s appearance. A description is required before your character can progress to higher levels.
Level 25: Background
When you reach level 25, you will need to provide a background for your character. A background is required before your character can progress to higher levels.
Random Character Inspiration
Feeling stuck? Need ideas? Just looking for a laugh? Try the random characterizer!