This article covers how to search for and select a character to play.
Blood of Dragons MUSH is a little different from many other MU*-style games in that you cannot just create any character you want from the login screen. To learn about how to find the perfect character, please read through the following step-by-step guide.
First, you need to connect to the game. If you use the web client you will automatically be logged in as a Guest. If you connect to the game through another client (if so, use the address bod.westeros.org and the port 3000), you will find yourself at the login screen where you can choose to login as a Guest (type connect guest) or create a Visitor account (type create <name> <password>). Please note that a Visitor account is not a character you can play, you still need to follow through with the steps below.
Once you have logged onto the game, either as a Guest or with a Visitor account, you have a couple of choices. The fastest, easiest way to get a character is to try a Cameo. Type +cdb/cameos to list available ones. Cameos are characters you can use for a maximum of one month to try out the game and get used to how MUSHing works. Once you have a list of available Cameos, you can use +cdb/all <name> to see more details about a specific Cameo.
If you would rather start with a regular character that you can play for as long as you want, you will need to choose one from our family trees. We have created family trees for a large number of houses and put these into a database that includes over 2000 characters. The reason for this is to create a web of connected noble families rather than having a court full of characters that have few connections to each other.
To find a character, you can either browse through the family trees on the web or you can search the character database (or CDB) on the game. Type +help cdb and +help cdb search for information about how to do that. You can construct searches with multiple parameters; for example, you could search for unmarried knights from the Reach with this search: +cdb/search gender/male|title/knight|family/unmarried|region/the reach
When you find a character that you like, type +cdb <name> to see the basic details about that character. At the top of the output, it needs to say Open, Restricted or Limited and NPC for the character to be available. At the bottom of the output, it will say either Not CGed or or it will say Played # Times. Not CGed means you get to create the concept. Played # Times means the character has already been setup. Which you prefer is up to you, but if you are new to MUSHing or less familiar with the setting, we recommend using a character that has been played before. That way you get to start roleplaying right off.