Introduction

Glossary

There are three key terms used in Thunderrealm Island: the player, the gamer, and the avatar.

• The player is the real-world person that you are right now. When you sign up for this LARP, put together your costume, or drive to an event, you are the player.
• The gamer is the person in the world of Thunderrealm Island who sits at their computer and loads up the MMORPG - a human being tapping away at a keyboard.
• The avatar is the MMORPG character you’re writing up a sheet for, with all the race, guild and class abilities. During an event, you’ll be replicating how your avatar moves, what they look like, and what they do.

The player plays the gamer, who plays the avatar.

The following three steps for building a character are presented in this order because we found them most useful when designing the game, but you may like to think of them in a different order, or simultaneously.

Step One: Decide whether you want to be part of a guild, or a freelancer.

A guild is made up of a group of gamers who want to assist each other in solving quests and telling their stories. Being part of a guild is a great way to make sure there’s always something happening or someone to talk to. If you’d like to be part of a guild, you can ask around in the facebook group for existing guilds or other players that would like to form a guild with you, or you can encourage your real-life friends to join you as part of a new guild. A guild can consist of up to six avatars (including freelancers).

Freelancers are avatars that have no affiliation to a guild, but can offer their assistance to guilds during play, and between quests can move between guilds as they wish. Freelancers don’t need to go to any efforts to join or form a guild outside of the game, but they may lack the immediate interpersonal connections that membership in a guild provides.

Step Two: Decide on a race for your avatar.

Thunderrealm Island has eight available avatar races, detailed on our ‘Races’ page. Each race has access to a different Minor Racial Ability, and if a guild contains at least four avatars of one race, the guild also gains access to a Racial Guild Ability. It is important to note that if a guild has access to a Racial Guild Ability, they do not lose this if they hire a freelancer during play.

If you are a member of a guild, the other players may have suggestions for races you can play, especially if the guild would like to have a theme or shared backstory. A Robot Cleric in a guild of Victorian Werewolves should have an explanation for being in the guild, but it doesn’t need to be a complex reason.

You should also consider your costume for the game, and what you would be comfortable in. Again, costumes don’t need to be complex, but it’s helpful if you’re readily identifiable in-game as a member of your avatar’s race.

Step Three: Decide on a class for your avatar.

Thunderrealm Island has six available avatar classes, detailed on our ‘Classes’ page. Each class comes with instructions for selecting your avatar’s abilities. A Diplomat avatar, for instance, starts with the ‘Diplomat’s Chops’ ability, and can select two of the four other abilities on the Diplomat list.

As above, your guild may have preferences for the class you pick. A variety of classes in a guild makes for a more balanced experience, but guilds consisting of a single class are also possible. You may like to consider if the avatars in your guild have combat capabilities or, if you’re a freelancer, what kind of skills might be popular with existing guilds.

Your Avatar’s Look

Even within a race, there is room for diversity in appearance. The races page shows an archetypical member of a race, but as long as your look reflects the two main aspects of the race, you’ll be more than fine.

Some classes have weapons. Even if the name of a class ability implies a particular type of weapon (such as Medical Staff, the healer’s ability), you may choose any weapon. In other words, Medical Staff works just fine with a longsword.

Joining Thunderrealm

Once you’re ready, you can submit your information to the Thunderrealm Island servers. Links to do so will be posted to this site when a new event is announced. Information you’ll want to have in mind will include:

• The name and home city of your gamer, as well as whether they have any connections to other gamers,
• The name, race and class of your avatar,
• Any racial, guild or class abilities they have, and
• Their backstory and Dark Secret.

Your backstory should be reasonably concise, but useful information might include: where your avatar is from, what they do, where they were shipwrecked (and with who), and what they think of the other members of their guild. Information from before their shipwreck is likely to be less important to the game experience, but if you feel it informs your avatar’s personality, then feel free to include it.

The Dark Secret

A Thunderrealm Island avatar always has a Dark Secret, which is a fact about your avatar that might cause conflict with other avatars or guilds if it is revealed. The Dark Secret can be revealed by certain class abilities, and is intended to deepen interactions with other avatars and gamers in Thunderrrealm Island.

A Dark Secret should be something that might change or complicate how your avatar is seen by others during gameplay. It may be about your avatar’s life before they arrived on Thunderrealm Island (‘I was secretly selling Makkina liquor to the nation of Kumado’), or about the circumstances of their arrival on the island (‘I was sent from Mount Ahiwera because I was having an affair with the Flame Queen’s consort, and custom has it that when discovered I must bring the Queen a gift she has never seen’). A Dark Secret might equally be about your actions since arriving on the island (‘That time when I said I lost the guild’s treasure chest in a volcano, I really gifted it to another guild’ or ‘I am working to undermine our guild’s leader’). It is at a player’s discretion how they wish to respond to a revealed Dark Secret, but it is important to keep it within Thunderrealm Island, and not let it bleed into real-world interactions. After all, all avatars and Dark Secrets are fictional.

Due to the tone of Thunderrealm Island, and keeping in mind that a Dark Secret may be learned by any player, we request that players avoid two things. The first is a Dark Secret that dictates what another avatar has actively done (such as ‘Paulus once robbed me and I have not told anyone about this yet’ – that would be a good Dark Secret for Paulus, but not you). The second is any Dark Secret that features an issue likely to upset other players: non-consensual sex, slavery, and extreme depictions of mental illness are to be kept off the table, without exception. We will work with players if we feel their Dark Secret is inappropriate for the game’s tone or the comfort of our players.

If an avatar’s Dark Secret is revealed during the game to such an extent that it no longer counts as a secret, you start the next game session with a new one.

Hit Points and Inventory Slots

All classes begin a session of Thunderrealm Island with 3 HP, with the exception of Tanks, who begin with 4 HP. As a result of character advancement, avatars may increase their HP between sessions.

All avatars begin a session of Thunderrealm Island with three slots in their inventory. If characters have access to crafting recipes and equipment, they can craft items to increase their carrying capabilities.