Shadowcove Roleplay Environment

'Cooperative Roleplay'

First things first; We are a 'cooperative' role play game, much like a traditional pen-and-paper role play game with friends, around a table. In no way do we encourage or support antagonistic relationships between players or their characters. Friendly, mutually agreeable rivalries are fine, provided any involved parties entirely agree on the scope, duration and intended result of any such situation.

The above requires, then, that any such situation be explicitly agreed upon by anyone involved. This requirement often simply precludes some types of role played situation.

Shadowcove Races

All normal player characters on Shadowcove are human, unless you have some specific, individual exception granted by the staff explicitly. Players must have explicit permission from the administration in order to play any race other than human. It is often best to perhaps play an 'ethnic' variety of human which would perhaps have traits you seek.

Note that this applies to races that exist in the game as NPCs or GM-controlled characters, races that are completely alien to the world, or even races that other players have been given permission to play. In all cases, each player must be specific approval for a specific character that is to be played as if it is another race. To inquire about this approval, use the Contact Staff form.

Back Story Creation - Your Character's Origins

All humans on the world of Shadowcove have an off-world origin, aside from those born anew on this world to those refugees who came here. The Shadowcove people came from a world that was a shard of Sosaria, with Queen Morgaine as the ruler. An overwhelming invading force of creatures called 'Grendels' came, and forced the Queen and her people to seek safer lands in which to live - lands which were prophecied to Morgaine and her people. At the time of the arrival of the humans of Shadowcove, there were no humans at all left on this world.

Prior to arriving on this world, your character could have come from any world, and could have been in the former 'shard' for any period of time you like; periodic random gates brought people to that world unknowingly from wherever they previously were, as a result of magics used before. Or, your character could have been directly from the original world of the Shadowcove kingdom.

If you have been approved to play a character of a non-human race, the above will not apply. Your character's back story will depend on the race you are playing.

Law and Order: Respect for the Crown

The Queen of Shadowcove, Morgaine, is the ultimate authority among her people. She is played as a powerful, magic-weilding and kind-hearted ruler who does her best to let her subjects enjoy freedom to live their lives as they please, and who does her best to use her role as their leader to protect them.

Queen Morgaine is not a 'micro-managing' ruler, but she instead seeks to use what she has available to her to assist her subjects when she can; whether that be with advice, resources, or her ability to declare the law of the land.

Due to the 'cooperative' nature of role play on Shadowcove, it is strongly frowned up for any player to role play any sort of opposition to the Crown. Morgaine allows her subjects to enjoy great freedoms, and in return asks only that when her people need her, that they also obey her.

Players who might consider opposing the Crown in any way must understand that eventually, such role play would lead down a path that would end very badly for the offending character; perhaps as far as 'perma-death', where the character would be captured, tried and imprisoned or executed, meaning that the character itself, and any of its possessions, would have to be deleted.

'Evil' on Shadowcove

Again, as a cooperative role play shard, 'Evil' is generally not supported to be played. In fact, our first thought when someone mentions wanting to play 'Evil' is; Why limit yourself to such a definition? There have been some characters in Shadowcove's history who could be considered to be 'Evil', but those who have been allowed to continue to play were never outright trying to be 'Evil', but merely playing out their character's personality and history.

So, ignoring the limiting term 'Evil' entirely, the issues that are left are mostly those that are mentioned above; Do not role play in a way that is antagonistic or in opposition to other players or staff-run 'Good' characters. Play your character's odd obsession with necromancy as 'Evil' all you like - but be careful not to turn it into any form of opposition with other players.

Our philosophy of 'Cooperative Roleplaying' is to look at all the players as the participants in a table-top gaming session, all of whom are looking out for the good of the party, while still playing out their character traits... but without the onus of a tightly-controlled 'alignment' system, such as Dungeons and Dragons has.

So, if you want to play a 'loner' who is a little bit uncomfortable talking to other people, that could be interesting. A Necromancer who likes his bony followers a little too much... A Druid who thinks all those who live in 'civilization' are failing some grand-scheme test... or any such similar thing. But be very careful that the traits you role play do not negatively impact another player or their character.

Roleplayed Consequences

Finally, this sort of rolls up issues in all of the above; but players should be careful to think through the logical, role played consequences of an action before they decide to do it, especially as relates to the above. If you try to role play overthrowing the Queen, expect your character to be captured, tried and executed in short order, likely with very little in-game fanfare accompanying it. If you want to 'role play a jerk', expect to be shunned (and taken to jail to be spoken to, OOC, by a Game Master.) If you continually kill 'blue' NPCs in sight of other characters, expect eventually to be caught.

Of course, if you have any questions about any of these guidelines, feel free to submit them via the Contact Staff link.