Childhood is made up of vignettes - stories exciting and varied and interactive lived out as real in a range of scenarios. Days of memories for the new player, one vignette every two years for the players to define themselves by "living" a real life-in-retro, by actually creating the character of the adult "graduate" through genuine choices and remembered experiences - lived through - played out - memories made of real gameplay, starting as a small child then advancing through into double figures and the teenage years until maturity - adulthood is reached.
There is a convergence at the end of childhood lived-memories and it brings the new players to the present day - ready for the great day of graduation - timed to coincide with numerous juniors so many pass into adulthood at the same time and in a social, shared ceremony. The graduates are not hollow arbitrary shells, by this point. They will have lived some Avalon and experienced some of its truths and challenges and choices. The graduate will be full of knowledge gleaned not from boring lectures but from having lived through their youth and made a hundred choices at each stage. The character created is what the new player has made, without any banal multiple-choice or allocated numbers in arbitrary stats labelled intelligence or wisdom or strength. Intelligence the player may have, wisdom perhaps too, strength of purpose, or fortitude, or will to power? These and countless more "traits" will have been a part of their childhood and it will be taken into their future role...
Childhood fully realised is at once the most player-driven character creation process, true to the decisions and actions that build - to the player as an adult - the defining memories across key years throughout his/her upbringing, the sum of which makes for a detailed background. It is a background created by the player, by design, by consequences, by talent shown, by courage or cowardice, ambition or avarice, exploration or encounters: all real, all played out, all drawn together to make the newborn into the novice looking forward to impending graduation. The player must live out a minimum 'defining' set of memories covering years 6 through 18 and there are many narratives to choose from, some left until later, some giving a headstart - special abilities for the adult graduate, for instance.
Such is the allure of the chance to 'relive' scenes from youth, many senior Avalonians whose graduation was under the old academy and generic school decades or centuries ago take the journey back like their youthful brethren. Most vignettes are memories for the new player to fill a blank canvas, to build a character's substance and depth and knowledge, to become ready for graduation. Some, however, and these the most significant, remain open for all a player's life. These stories have unique content based directly on the Avalon date in history.
It is the blind watchmater in Archangel whose art manifests the chance to live out a youthful adventure, challenges for the young but choices for all ages, to get the most from these distant memory-made-real. It is a double-edged sword. For the new player, this process is their childhood and adolescence across the past twenty years at most. It is about learning and discovering who they are, who they shall be. For the venerable player, on the other hand, stepping back into known history can bring to life friends deceased and relive events from centuries ago, nostalgia both alluring and dangerous. Think of the poignancy of a Silverfallian of today living a key childhood scenario from before the fall of Springdale, with the faces of the fallen all around the deep-buried streets of the lost homeland...
In short: can there be any better mark for the completed creation of a new character - and preparation for life beyond, including choice of city and guild - than for the player than to join the assembled novices of many cities and an illustrious audience of elders looking for talent, on Graduation Day. This will be the first red-letter date of neophyte's life, though it will be a character with memories, a character with a past and a legacy... but for this one day the novices, feted as the latest graduates, bringing not empty academics but fully-developed juniors who know Avalon and receive their due acclaim and introduction to the realm. There they will make their first adult choices as they move from the past into the present and the crucible of life in Avalon.
