There is a lot of information on the website, and much of it is reference material that does not have to be read right away. However, there are some files that most likely will be needed in order to successfully select and request a character, get through CharGen and start roleplaying.
Blood of Dragons does not have open character creation. Players select from a database of over 2000+ characters arranged into family trees for various noble houses and because of this the process for getting a character is a little different than on other games. The option to have an original character created does exist, but requires speaking to the Admin.
When you first connect to the game, you can login to a guest account (type connect Guest Guest) or you can create a visitor account (type create <name> <password> to create the account and type connect <name> <password> to connect to it). If you choose to create a visitor account, please note that it is not a playable character account until you have selected and requested a character from the database.
For information about how to select and request a character, see +HELP CDB NEWBIE and +HELP CDB REQUEST.Once you have made a request, the Admin will email you further instructions as soon as they can. If there were no problems with your choice of character, the email will either give you your login information right off or direct you to the appropriate application form.
Note that while all characters except Cameos (pre-made characters for testing out the game with) require an emailed application, it is very brief for Open characters. Even for Restricted and Limited characters the Admin are not in any way expecting massive applications.
Yes and no.
All of the characters in the CDB have a certain set of details pre-determined. This always includes name and age. Most characters also have their closest family members and marital status pre-determined. It is also quite common for characters to have a position set. These are the basic details that we add in whenever we add a character to the CDB. You will be able to see all of these details by viewing the character’s family tree and by typing +cdb <name> on the game.
In addition to these basics, characters who have relations in play may have a few relations set (you can check this using +cdb/rlist <name>). Occasionally we also end up setting some notes (+cdb/nlist <name>) and events +cdb/elist <name>) on a character based on what has been going on with related characters.
However, unless a character is listed as CGed when you check them with +cdb <name>, the character has not been fully pre-generated. If a character is listed as CGed, on the other hand, it means that it has been taken through CharGen and fully setup with all the CharGen attributes as well as a complete background.
As a new player, you may want to know what characters are already being played. Perhaps you want to see what Houses are represented by PCs at court or perhaps you are thinking of requesting a particular character but want to know if any relatives of the character are in play.
If you look up a character using +cdb NAME, a played character will be listed as a PC at the top of the output. To list all of the current PCs, use +cdb/search state/pc. You can also list PCs by open areas, +cdb/search state/pc|location/king’s landing for King’s Landing and +cdb/search state/pc|location/Dorne for Dorne. If you want to list the PCs from a specific House, for example House Lannister, use +cdb/search state/pc|house/Lannister.
This is particularly relevant if the character you are looking at has a closely connected character in play (a spouse, a betrothed or a lover), since we ask that you speak to the player of said character before you are approved (ideally at the application stage) since they have some say in who plays a character closely connected to their own. It is, for example, important that your ideas for the characters are compatible and that your schedules allow you to play with each other.
To get in touch with another player, you can either use the board by posting a topic or sending a PM or you can ask the Admin to pass a message and/or your email address onto the player in question.