Our handy dandy FAQ! Check here for Frequently Asked Questions, and if you have your own question that has not been covered here, feel free to ask on our Questions and Suggestions board.

• Does SotE have a word count?
  Nope! None at all! We believe all posts are good posts and that length is not a measurement of quality. We want our players to be comfortable in their own writing styles! So you're free to write as much or as little as you want, and seek out RP partners that compliment your style.

• Is there a limit to how many characters I can play?
  Not at all. You can always make as many characters as you want to play!

• Does SotE have a Face Claim?
  No. Using images of art or celebrities to depict your characters (known in some RP communities as "Played-Bys") is not at all required and is purely optional. As such, we don't have a Face Claim, either. This means that among those players using art or celebrity photos, there may be duplicates! And that's A-OK and expected. There are bound to be duplicates when you've got thousands of characters running around, and this is not something we monitor or regulate at all.

• Can I use art for my characters?
  Absolutely! Just be sure to follow our Art Usage Policy.

• I want to name my character X, but there is already a character named X in play. Can characters share names?
  Yup! There are thousands of characters in play on SotE. Characters are bound to share names, just like people share names in our world. This is expected. You don't have to ask for permission before you join a character that shares a name with someone else.

• Are there activity checks?
  Kind of. Activity checks tend to be performed biannually, and during this time the admins/support staff goes through the member list and purges any accounts with 0 posts, or accounts that haven't been logged into for the last year. So basically, if you want to keep your account, just make sure you've logged in within the last year and you're golden.

• My account got deleted! What do I do?
  Register a new account and you can pick back up where you left off. Just PM Rhindeer, or contact them on Discord (Rhindeer#9501) and let them know if you want any of your old characters un-archived. If you want to continue any old threads, contact your old partners to see if they're game!

• Do you archive threads?
  The only threads that get archived are characters that have been dropped, characters of players who have left, character catalogues of players who have left, and inactive guilds. Everything else stays in its proper place, so you never have to worry about your threads getting shuffled around, nor do you have to worry about finishing threads in a certain time frame.

• I want to play one of my characters from another game on SotE. Can I?
  Of course! Just be sure to read up on SotE's lore and edit your character to fit SotE's world where applicable. If you need help with this or need some ideas, never be afraid to contact an Admin or Mod! We're here to help and we can look at your character and offer suggestions.

• Can I play a character from another world/universe/dimension?
  Yes! With one caveat: they should be technologically similar to SotE's world. Basically, it's totally fine to bring in a world-hopping character! We just don't want them to introduce Mechs and machine guns and space ships to the world. Still, if you have an idea, feel free to run it by the staff! We may be able to make it work in a way that doesn't break the world. We're flexible.

• Can I make up my own species?
  Yes! Whether animal or humanoid, it's up to you. You don't have to submit a write-up about them to play them, either. You only need to submit that write-up if you want other players to be able to play your species. (:

• What are the limits regarding magic?
  You can make up whatever spells or magical abilities you like. The admins trust the judgment of our players and trust them not to abuse it. Now, specific areas may have their own stigmas against certain types of magic (or magic in general, as in Connlaoth's case) and so certain types of magic could produce negative reactions among the characters there. For ideas about how magic is classified and broken down in SotE, check the magic page.

• Can I play a leader? Like the King of Serendipity or Shah of Essyrn?
  If the position is open, sure! There are some guidelines you must adhere to, however. To find out more information, read our Playing a Leader document.

• Can my character be God?
  No. You can play small "g" gods, but big "G" Gods are off limits. An example of the sort of gods you can play would be a village's local deity, a god of fire or some other element, even a personification of life, death, nature, justice, Le'raana, etc. They just can't be the god of death/fire/etc. It's assumed, in SotE's world, that there are many small gods of various elements and forces, but they are not the one and only. These characters may or may not be actual deities. Perhaps a village has just taken to worshiping a particular fae that brings bountiful harvests or good fortune. Be creative! This means that you must create your own gods. You cannot transplant gods from real world religions or other popular fiction. Want to create a Spider goddess? That's okay. Can she be Lolth? No. No Thor, no Ra, no Artemis, etc.

• Can I create my own villages and cities?
  Yes! There are assumed to be far more villages, cities, and towns in existence than the locations that actually have boards for them. Don't be afraid to have your characters come across a town or village that doesn't have a board for it. Really, your imagination is your only limit here, and you have a whole world to explore. Feel free to do so!

  All we ask is that the roleplay takes place on the continent of Le'raana and its surrounding isles, and that it fits in with the established canon. So no wandering around distant continents or anything. If there are other discovered continents, the admins will announce it when it happens. (:

• Can I create my own nation?
  No. SotE is a complete world that is a constant work-in-progress. Even as of writing this there are several other nations, and several other continents, currently in development. Staff works hard to research and develop these areas, and each area has to fit in with the vision we have for the game and its canon.

  What you can do is create something more small-scale. You can feel free to create your own small tribes and cultures that have communities within the various nations, and you can even create small sovereign groups located in the big, open, sparsely populated areas of the world (for example, the Kishahn Jungle, Moraki Desert, or Hyoite, which are all massive areas). But they should be small-scale, and definitely nothing as large as a country. Nor will they be recognized by other nations as a country.

  The continent of Le'raana, its current nations, and the history surrounding them, is well-established and we have no plans of adding more canon nations to it. It wouldn't really make sense to add a brand new nation right there in Le'raana that...for some reason...none of the other nations ever noticed? And as staff and lore writers, we also have a duty to ensure that our world is consistent. If we allowed everyone to make their own nation, we would be left with a haphazard mishmash of a setting rather than the coherent, connected, real world that we are aiming for.

• Can we have airships?
  It depends! The technology level of SotE's world is pre-Industrial and centers more on a medieval time period. Thus, steam power hasn't yet been invented. It must be noted that SotE is a medieval fantasy game, not a steampunk game, so steam-powered airships would not work for the setting. But magical flying ships? Go for it!

• Can you tell me more about Fell's history?
  Nope!

  To be honest, Fell is supposed to be a great big mystery! What their culture was, who their people were...all anyone in SotE knows is that they were the folk Serenians and Connlaothians are descended from, and that their culture was magical and very advanced! But all that technology and culture was destroyed way back when, and the survivors went on to found Connlaoth and Serendipity. A lot has been lost over the ages, and though some might survive in songs and legends, they're just legends at this point, likely exaggerated and altered as the years ticked by and each bard lent their own twist to the songs.

  It's supposed to be mysterious and vague! So what's on the wiki page is basically what you're gonna get.

• Can I have a character who comes from Fell?
  Fell was basically the Pompeii of SotE--the people who stayed there died, and the people who survived and fled have been dead a long time, as well. The knowledge of that event has been lost to time. You could have a character be from Fell if they were immortal for whatever reason, or if they somehow survived in some sort of magical stasis, but it's unlikely and rare. And more importantly, it would mess with the goal we have for Fell of it remaining a mysterious and unsolved event, and of its culture being long forgotten.

  So! The long and short of it is: sure! If the character has amnesia surrounding Fell, and you can explain why they're still alive, then go for it.

What is the Alert System, and how do I tag another player?
The alert system let's you know when other players have tagged you in a thread, or when a thread you participate in has gotten a reply. To tag other players, place the @ sign before their name (for example, @Rhindeer); their username should pop up for you while you're typing it, allowing you to select it. They'll then receive a notification by the profile link at the top of the forum.

From the Alerts menu, you can also click All Alerts to see all your past read alert notifications and either delete them or mark them as read or unread. Alert notifications will remain for 90 days before they are automatically deleted. You may also click Settings to manage your preferences when it comes to how you would like to receive Alerts.

SotE has a couple ways to keep track of your threads!

The first is the Watched Topics link, which can be accessed two different ways.

The first is through the profile menu up at the top of the forum:

Which will lead you to here:

Or you can access it straight from your forum profile, like so:

However you choose to access it, eventually you'll get to the Watched Topics page, which keeps track of every topic you have participated in!

We also have a Bookmarks feature, which allows you to bookmark any post or thread you desire, as well as add any notes about that bookmark that you'd like to add. To bookmark a thread or post, just click the green heart that is at the bottom of every post. It will turn red to show you have bookmarked it.

Bookmarks can then be accessed through your profile menu at the top of the forum.

"We can save drafts?!" You sure can! In fact, you can enable it to autosave your Drafts for you, so you never lose another post.

Drafts can be accessed through your profile menu at the top of the forum, like so:

If you would like to enable Auto-saving, go into your Look and Layout settings from your profile menu:

From there, scroll down until you find (and click!) the Draft Auto-save Option, which looks like this.

Voila! Your posts will now autosave every 30 seconds, so you can write with peace of mind!

WYSIWYG stands for "What You See Is What You Get". It is a type of post editor that allows you to see exactly what your post will look like when you submit it. You also don't need to know BBCode to use it, so it can be a lot easier and cleaner depending on your needs. Our software also allows you to toggle between a classic BBCode editor and a WYSIWYG editor as you like, so you can always do both whenever you like!

If you prefer the WYSIWYG editor, you may enable it as your default editor through your Look and Layout settings.

Which will take you here:

To toggle between editors while you write your post, click the icon that looks sort of like a piece of paper:

Boom! It'll swap you over to the BBCode editor.

• What's the code for linking characters into my profile?
  [url=LINK]TEXT[/url]

• What is RotE? I keep seeing it mentioned!
  RotE stands for Remnants of the Earth, SotE's futuristic sister. It's literally SotE set 5000 years into the future! :D

  It's currently undergoing some revamps and upgrades, so it's a bit of a ghost town right now. But we hope to get it running full force again soon! Many SotE players also have characters on SotE. Heck, if a character is long-lived enough, they could even live long enough to make it to RotE!