2. Character Building
Character building can be accomplished in many ways from diligently practising your skills to the performing of mighty quests to the gaining of positions of power through which you can influence the lives of others. Some of the main attributes of your character are described below.
Level
To ascertain your progress, the primary command is SCORE. This shows information about your character including your current experience level which can be taken as a rough indicator of your might and power within the land.
In the game, a character starts as a naked and sparse-skilled newborn. From then on you are led and guided to the Academy of your birth-city, where many of your early hours will be spent. You will be guided through your Accolades - a set of quests which must be performed, and it is hoped they should provide you with a basic understanding of the land. After these are completed, you will graduate from your Academy - and from that moment on, you will be able to choose your own destiny.
Avalon, unlike most of the other Multi-User Games, is not based purely
around score. It has a complex system of levels which you ascend by simply
experiencing the world. Many have difficulty grasping the fact that in
Avalon you gain points by just wanderi ng around and looking at things
evolve. It is likely that your ultimate aim will be to progress to the
divine status of God. You must realise that God is not simply a level
obtainable by gaining an enormous amount of experience. Reaching God must
be done via much hardship and quests; Gods have nearly limitless power of
creation and destruction and the obtaining of this power must reflect this
important responsibility.
To reach God you must progress all of the mortal levels. They start at
Newborn and end at Avalonian. As a rough guide-line, once you reach the
level of Indefatigable you are doing rather well! Eventually you reach
Avalonian where progression depends on your interactive skills, time spent
with others and group quests. Beyond Avalonian lies the very final mortal
level, that of Ordainable. Once you are of the level of Ordainable you are
physically ready to transcend mortality. All that remains is for you to
collect the fifteen gemstones, a quest the likes of which you will have never seen before.
Skills
Arguably, skill levels are at least as important as experience in terms of character development. Skills are discussed in more detail later.
Alignment
Your alignment is a gauge of the ideals by which your character lives and is influenced directly by your acts. You will find it is a slippery slope dabbling with the Dark Side. It is easy to become evil but extremely difficult to return yourself to purity.
Alignment is a gauge used by Avalon to determine whether your character
leans toward altruistic or selfish actions. Available when you type
STATUS, it measures your propensity towards the good forces in Avalon or
the darker, more sinister cause of evil. Your character's alignment alters
slightly with each and every action that you perform. You are more likely,
therefore, to lean towards the dark sides through the act of slaughtering
an innocent child or through aiding in the pillaging of a peaceful
township. Equally you are upholding all that is Good should you defend
that village or heal that beleaguered child. Alignment is one of the
factors that govern many aspects of your character's interaction with
Avalonian beings - it therefore rests at the crux of the question of
role-play, and you should give considerable thought to where between the
poles of Good and Evil your character should lie.
Status
The STATUS command shows you details of citizenship, your alignment, current physical status, and other information. It details the feelings of the major civilisations and sects towards you. Only a status of friend or enemy is shown, and you will find this list expanding as your experience and discoveries grow.
Return to the index or carry on to examine Skills.
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