Game Features

From FiranMUX

One of the best things about Firan is our wonderful player base. We pride ourselves on friendly and helpful players, and responsive and hard-working staff. Without the unique set of people that make up Firan, it wouldn't be the exciting, warm, and realistic place that it is.

But the purpose of this page is to explore the bells and whistles of what makes our game different and unique! Listed below you will find information on a lot of our idealogical innovations as well as our coded innovations. It's a veritable "to-do" list of things you might like to try or be involved with as a player on our game.

Characters

There are generally between 120 and 140 pre-generated characters available for choosing on the Roster at any given time. A variety of male and female characters of differing social classes, levels, and vocations are on the roster. A new player just selects one of the characters that he or she finds most interesting.

We feel that pregeneration affords us several advantages. First, it guarantees that the characters created will be in theme. Because we're originally themed, it would be nearly impossible for new players to create characters of their own that were canonical or thematic. Even experienced wizards still make occasional mistakes. For example, before we had pregenerated characters, one person created a character from the theme's history -- the character had been dead for thirty years.

Second, pre-generated characters help players to jump right into the swing of things. Newbies can spend their time learning the game and the news files instead of creating a character for approval.

Third, it means that our characters are as rich and as detailed as we expect them to be. When a player logs into a Firan character, he or she wakes up immersed in that character's life. They will already have friends, enemies, belongings, goals, loves, hates, and secrets. We find this method to help ensure consistency and it makes getting started a little easier.

Firan is experimenting with a new player generation system. All such characters belong to the creators of the game, but special rules apply. First, although these characters can eventually be bumped up in importance, as long as they remain Level IV characters, they will never be put on the roster. If the original player-creator is too long absent from the game, or leaves entirely, the character will simply be retired.

Deities

On Firan, the gods and goddesses are actually characters and they interact with players at times. The magic in the world derives from the deities, and they have been known to assist their favored ones, and to smite their enemies. However, players should be aware that Firan gods are both fickle, busy, and slow to act. They are immortal, so time holds a different sense of urgency for them than it holds for mortals. They can be petty. They can be noble. They do not answer prayers on demand and, just like in real life, people can suffer a crisis of faith. But the Firans are not so far removed from the generation of people that actually saw gods walk the earth and so belief in them is strong. Because the gods are such powerful characters, and it would certainly not be fun for them to use their superior power to resolve all conflicts, divine presence is sporadic.

See the Religion page for more information on Firan religion and the deities.

Plots

A "tinyplot" is a short story or plot that is run on the game with some guidance by a story coordinator (usually staff, but sometimes players). Firan's tinyplotting style is based on the "trickle-down" philosophy of tinyplotting. Fate, a universal force of nature within the theme, has its secrets and machinations of which the Deities themselves are unaware, and to which they will find themselves reacting. In turn, the ways of the Gods will seem mysterious to mortals, but will, nonetheless influence them and cause them to react. Firan political leaders and heroes act in ways that involve other characters in new schemes and situations, as well. This creates game-wide tinyplots, though those in the know about the world's mysteries are often quite secretive about what is going on. If you want to learn more, your character will have to be inquisitive!

Certain story/plotlines have been pre-determined and only Fate is aware of the exact purpose behind them. It is rare that a character is fated to do a thing, or to die, or to stop something. More likely, Fate has left several options open to itself and if one character should fail, there are other ways of the right outcome coming about. This may, occasionally, seem to produce odd or unfair results for individual characters. Our advice is to try to distance yourself enough to enjoy the overall story.

High Level Story Arcs

The game has many on-going high-level story arcs. Here's a sample of some of the stories currently in play:

Firanos' Bet

The gods are at an uneasy truce. As far as the mortals know, approximately thirty years ago there was a bet between Zutiv, the King of the Gods, and Firanos, the Forest Lord. Firanos had always been the protector of the Firans against Drik, the God of Hate. Drik, for reasons not well understood, has always sought to exterminate the Firans, but was held back by Zutiv. The terms of the bet were quite simple. If the Firans chose to unite at a given Clan Council meeting, the King of the Gods would give them favor above all other creatures. If not, then Firanos would no longer be able to help them without doing them equal harm, and Zutiv would no longer hold the God of Hate at bay. Firanos lost the bet due to the intemperate actions of Elianos, then a young and brash Clan Leader, and as a result, the Firans descended into war and chaos. Even now, the Firans continue to fight the minions of the dark God who seeks to destroy them. Those minions are known as Shamibelians and the Firans war against them year after year.

The Lanesh Regime

The Lanesh Regime is a much whispered topic in Firan society, but one rarely spoken openly. One reason for the conversational taboo is shame -- that in the midst of the Shamibelian invasion, the Firans had to fight off an uprising of these traitors in their midst. Perhaps the stronger motivation for the hushed tones is terror. The movement that is known as "The Regime" has existed in Firan society for centuries, passing on oral history and tradition to its members that the rest of the people have long since forgotten. That the movement has maintained such secrecy while, at the same time, infiltrating and recruiting members from every social class and every clan, puts most Firans ill-at-ease. The mystery surrounding the movement only adds to the fear.

There are many stories circulating about the Regime, most of them untrue. While the Firans who fled to the Caldera City have very distinct memories of the Regime's uprising there and the attempted assassination of the Ranivor, those who lived under the Shamibelian occupation have no memories of this at all and either discount the stories they hear, or embellish the tales beyond recognition.

What most Firans seem fairly certain about is that the Regime is comprised of worshippers of Drik, that they hate the Ranivor and will try to assasinate Elianos and his family at the first opportunity, that the Regime is somehow connected to the Cockatrice clan, that the Regime worked with the Shamibelians during the occupation, that they are zealots, often killing themselves before revealing a secret, that they executed Firgalas in front of a crowd of thousands in the Caldera City, that they are led by an Emperor and Empress, and that the Regime has some interest in incest and in twins.

Politics

For those interested in political wrangling, Firan offers a tangle of of interesting and convoluted politics! Some of the most interesting politics (certainly the most visible) surround the issue of inheritance of clan leadership. Due to the inter-relationships of the clan leaders and the Constitutional rule that clan leaders cannot be married to other clan leaders, the matter of who will inherit what clan can be a complicated matter.

A prime example of the political complexities started when when Judano Firgalik, the previous Gold Dragon leader, died rescuing his great-niece Princess Inaya Elianik from the clutches of the Shamibelians. He did not leave a will. Although it is rumored that he named Inaya's brother Sadin as his heir with his dying words, there was much arguing over this because of the religion involved. Prince Sadin is a Polytheist, and the Gold Dragons are Monotheists. Besides, Prince Sadin didn't want the position and he wasn't the strongest blood tie to Judano (Judano was Sadin's great uncle).

Further complicating matters, Judano was secretly in love with Tazi, the leader of the Griffon clan. When Judano died, it came out that Tazi's son Jalil was by Judano, not her previous husband. This made Jalil a direct heir of the Gold Dragon clan. However, Jalil was also a polytheist.

When Tazi found out that Judano was dead, she died of heartbreak and the Firan Republic hurried to find an heir for the Griffon clan. Tazi's eldest son Judanarius was married to Eve, the leader of the Eagle clan. Eve agreed to abdicate her throne so that Judanarius could become the new Griffon leader and they could remain married.

With the Eagle clan in need of a leader, her daughter Zeysani tried to take over the clan leadership through a political coup. In a fit of spite, Eve decided to give the leadership to Zeysani's fraternal twin brother Nydiam.

But what of the Gold Dragon leadership? At the time, Jalil was married to Taria Oshta, the leader of the Ticanee Clan. The Clan Council met and decided that since Jalil was the son of Judano, he should inherit the Gold Dragon clan. Jalil divorced Taria to be allowed to take the throne, and this was thought to be a tragedy since by all accounts, he was in love with his wife.

The Gold Dragon clan was not pleased to be getting a Griffon clan leader's son as a new chief. Many of the clan's subjects rose up in arms against him, calling for Prince Solgarik to take Jalil's place. Prince Solgarik Elianik had a strong claim to the Gold Dragon throne as another nephew of Judano. He also had the support of two of the four major cities in the Gold Dragon clan. After a bloody, if short, civil war, Jalil persevered as the Clan Leader of the Mighty Gold Dragons.

Note: All of the above political example was role-played out by real players on Firan. It was not simply background created by the staff. All these players have had a significant impact on the storyline through their actions, as can you!

TinyPlot Examples

The following plots are just a small sample of what's going on. Many of the plots that go on on Firan are a result of player actions that we had no hand in!

The Water Sickness

A strange "water sickness" plagued the land, causing adverse health effects much like senility, even in children. Don't drink the water! After much research, the Firans discovered that the sickness was caused by a plant that grows upstream and leaks into their water supply. They suspect that the Shamibelians seeded the plant to wreak havoc with the Firans. Recently, a cure was found for the water sickness after over a year with many healers and herbologists working on it. The healers now must figure out how to distribute the cure to the seething and panicking mobs.

The Inquisition

Princess Selene is suddenly, after 18 years, found to be pregnant again. She claims that the father of her child is the "New God Elik" whom she also claims to be her husband. She's always been a bit "off", but this is a bit much for people to handle. The mobs are in an uproar. The monotheists plainly disbelieve everything about this story and they consider the "pagan" princess to be a whore and they are out to prove it. The polytheists also have their doubts and rumors swirl that the Princess has a lover. If these allegations are proven true, the princess could be stripped of her title and sent to a brothel. The enemies of the royal family are taking full advantage of the scandal to create dissention in the Republic and imply that perhaps the royal family should be set aside.

Coded Systems

While the coded systems on Firan are plentiful, they are coded to be non-intrusive and helpful for RP rather than a hindrance. The systems are intended to be fun and only a few are required to get by. They help to add realism and detail to the game and they make the game unique. Some of these systems are described below.

Economy

Firan has a closed, circular, economics system based on land. Land provides the basis for crops, which are sown and reaped by farmers, who sell the crops in the market to be used for food, which gives people energy to do work such as planting crops. The farmers pay rent to nobles who own the land. Similar cycles can be found for other natural resources, like timber, ore, animals, and minerals. Some of the more interesting aspects are discussed hereafter.

Inter-Clan Economy

Recently, a trade system has been set up between the Clans to account for the wants and needs of their citizens. It allows authorized people to use the available resources of their clan to produce things, then buy, sell and trade for things which their clan needs. It also allows for the player characters to get involved, producing things which their clan needs which can be 'absorbed' into a warehouse for the use of the whole clan.

Farming

Farming in the Firan world is mostly done for profit. The farmer's goal is threefold: to grow enough crops to feed his family and livestock, to have a certain amount of seed crop to set aside for the following year's planting, and to sell or trade the remainder to the market. The latter could mean personal stalls in the city marketplace, selling to the city merchants, or selling at an auction. The farming life is not easy as many farm families live by themselves, and many cannot afford paid help to assist them.

The farming system lets farmers plant seeds on land that they own or rent. Those seeds grow into plants that can be harvested after a few months. Everything happens according to a game calendar.

Dairy Animals

There are cows that can be milked and sheep that can sheared. Care must be taken in milking and shearing however, or the animal might take exception to it! You can get a chicken to lay eggs, or put a hen and rooster together to get chicks.

Other Natural Resources

Firan has coded systems to support other useful natural resources. A miner can mine for gems, stone, or ore. He might find iron ore, which he can sell to a smelter who will turn it into iron ingots, which are used by smiths to make tools, armor, and weapons. A hunter can track and kill deer and birds. A trapper can lay traps for beavers and other small animals (but hope you don't accidentally catch a bear!). Animals can be butchered for meat, bone, fur, feathers, and other useful products. A lumberjack can chop down trees and cut them into logs for firewood or lumber for carpentry.

Making Things

Artisans and craftspersons can use code to create objects that they can sell. If you've assembled the correct ingredients and tools in the correct place, the "make" command will create the specified product with a quality commensurate with your skill and success level. You will need energy and the appropriate skill to make an item.

The items are created with a default description and name, but players are encouraged to customize them with their own elaborate creations. Some players write colorful descriptions for clothing, and often include wonderful works of color ascii art. Items can be ornamented with materials like gold or silver, and design patterns can be saved for reuse later. Those who make the most lovely items can demand hefty prices from their clients. Some become so well known that they can turn down work they don't wish to do and only take those commissions that interest them.

Buying and Selling Things

There's a large marketplace in the Forum in the center of the city. There, you can buy and sell just about anything the game has to offer. Your character's negotiation skill will influence what kind of deals you get. The market sells "standard" items only, but will buy just about anything.

If you want to buy customized items, you can either find a player character and negotiate a price, or you can check out the various shops around the city. There are places to buy clothing, food, gems, and other items.

There's also the auction houses if you're interested in trying to find a bargain or you're trying to fetch the best price for a certain item. The auction houses offer bulk sales of certain things like food and stone, and some sell hard-to-find or expensive items like gems and horses. The code works a little like eBay, letting the owners of items to set their own conditions for sales and letting people bid on items that interest them. [top]

Social System

The social system is one of the significant features of Firan. We have a host of commands that allow our players to engage in social combat every bit as fiercely as they might engage in physical combat.

Most role-playing games will allow players to engage one another in combat -- kill one another, in fact -- but will not allow characters to use their social skills in a "non-consensual" manner against other characters. It is the philosophy of Firan that this is a nonsensical dichotomy, and one that results in combatant characters having useful skills and means of character advancement while characters that have social skills are left to languish.

Social advancement can be achieved through a combination of monetary acquisitions and social points. There will be requirements for achieving different social status. Social points can be used to do more than rise in social standing. They can be used to affect allegiances (loyalty, friendship, etc). They can be used to change the reputations of others (there are diss and praise commands). They can be used to start rumors or stop rumors; they can be used to suppress witnesses. And so on. Social points can be acquired in several different ways. Most of them are intuitive: giving to charity, aligning yourself with people of high social standing, making really good public speeches, going to parties, being invited to parties, being invited to perform at social functions, being pious, and dressing fashionably.

Social Points

Social points are a unique and important currency on Firan. They represent your character's popularity and social connections within the city of Anarinuell and they can be used in a variety of ways to enhance role-playing on our game. They are also a useful gauge to help the admin decide whether or not your character can or should be able to do something that you'd like to do (e.g. "I'd like to arrange that all nobles in the city shun a certain person"). Social points are also useful if your character is ambitious and intends to climb to a higher social class (for example, from a middle class citizen to a noble).

Singing and Dancing

There are many songs and dances on Firan. And many of them created by the players on the game. You can dance alone or with a partner or group. You can sing alone or in a duet or trio. You can play a harp or flute. These are all coded and accessed via the dance, sing, and play commands. Whether you perform well or badly depends on your skill and luck.

Singing and dancing can give you social points or it can take them away, depending on how well you do and the size of your audience. It's a wonderful way for characters to express their creativity as well as to share this with others (it can be taught to others and shared).

Social Imperatives

Social Imperatives are a group of commands that may be used to aid role-playing by allowing a form of non-consensual social combat. These commands include convince, intimidate, seduce, manipulate, and beg. Just as you could non-consensually club another character using the combat system, you may also use social imperative commands to change the behavior or perspective of other characters with your social skills.

For example, you could use the intimidate command to convince another character to go away. You should never use these commands without first role-playing appropriately. This is a task resolution system only. Also, as with any system on Firan, in-character actions result in in-character reactions.

Clothing and Equipment

Firan has a wonderful clothing and equipment system. Certain items cover certain parts of the body, and in this way, some items can and can't be worn because their spots are already taken. You can also wear armor to protect you if you're hit, rings and necklaces and other jewelry, and certain containers like backpacks and pouches and sword sheaths.

Clothing is used by characters to express their creativity, mood, and wealth. Nobles are constantly buying new tunics, togas, stolas, and pallas in the most fashionable fabrics and colors of the day. While anyone can pick up a standard set of clothes at the market, most players prefer custom-made items made by a player-run clothier. These items are lovingly crafted with custom descriptions and names like "navy blue tunic with silver piping."

See the Clothing page for more information on how Firans dress.

There's a bunch of other equipment other than clothing. For example, there are weapons, chests, scrolls, flowers, and tools for just about any type of craft.

Babies

In the vein of coding in-character consequences for in-character actions, Firan has some commands and systems that support basic sexuality. Two characters can use a command to perform the "ritual of Eesha" (Eesha is the goddess of love), and it will do some dice rolling behind the scenes and see if the couple conceives a child. Pregnant mothers will progress through nine IC months of pregnancy, and the character's description will change to show her state.

After a full term, the mother will give birth to a child. This is a new object on the game which needs to be dressed and bathed and generally cared for. Babies age into toddlers over time, and toddlers age into young children. If you play long enough on the game, you will see your children grow into teenagers, at which time the staff may turn them into characters who can be chosen off the roster.

Combat

The combat system is also very well thought out, and thoroughly play-tested. Although it is all coded, a lot of effort has been made to allow time between commands to role-play the actions and fighting, and to limit the effect of lag on players in a fight.

There are swords, there are knives, there are spears and staves and bows and arrows. There's armor to protect yourself from pointy sticks. You have to engage an opponent before you can attack them, and this prevents random "hit and run" combat. An engaged character can't run away either; at least not without disengaging his opponent. Ranged weapons have the advantage that they can be used without engagement.

Yes, death on Firan is permanent, although there are exceptions made for this in competition as it is assumed that they would be fighting to knock someone out rather than to kill them. Even in competition, however, foolhardiness can lead to permanent injury.

Damage

There are various forms of damage on Firan. There are bruises, nerve damage, nausea, punctures, gashes, lacerations, and headaches, which can be healed. Breaks and stabbing pain cannot be healed and must heal naturally over time. You can also drown if you fall into the river.

Damage resulting at death can occur at any level, it is based partially on the stats that the character has and partially on a roll that the character makes for each time he or she takes damage, however, whenever a character gets over the 60 points of damage, they get a permament injury -- something relevant to the kind of damage they received and how they got it.

Healing

Healing can be done both by PCs as well as NPCs. To encourage role-playing and more interaction, player characters can heal more often than non-player characters. There is also a bandaging system that hastens the natural healing of a character.

The healing system makes use of special products that characters can make or buy. There are teas to help bruises and nerve damage and nausea. There are oils, ointments, lotions, and powder to help aid the healing of other types of injuries.

If you do very badly on a healing attempt, you can even further injure the character you're trying to heal. This has sometimes even resulted in the death of the character!

Play Now?

Have we convinced you to check into playing on Firan? If so, check out the Play Now page. We look forward to seeing you on our game!

If you are one of the skeptical people who thinks Firan might have too much code, listen to what one of our players said. Rijeka is one of our characters on the game. She recently said something that pretty much sums up Firan rather nicely:

Rijeka says, "Firan has a cohesive world. Because the characters are pregenerated, you don't have to worry about 'how on earth do I fit someone from a science-fiction-esque theme into my character's world-view' as I've seen happen other places. There's one reason RP here can be more coherent. Secondly... on a lot of games, people become fixated on coding nifty desc tools and stuff for themselves. Here, the code handles a lot of that for you. The code is a bit daunting when you're not used to it and may seem extreme - I had much your attitude when I first came here, thinking 'this is overkill, it's insane, how can you RP with all this code'... and within two weeks, I found myself playing here more often than anywhere else. Because amazingly, the code not only isn't as intrusive as it seems, but it actually does cause social contact. I've had less trouble going out and finding RP on this game than on any other game I've ever played on. No, most people don't use all the code; as I said, I use maybe 'eat' and 'sleep' when I want to build up energy for something, the lock commands to get in and out of the hut Ulrik (my husband) and I share, and sometimes the dance command. That's not really all that intrusive.

Rijeka says, "BUT the code allows for a lot of things, as well. If you're a tailor, you can make the customized clothes for people. I don't ever use the clothing code as Rijeka, but some people have a lot of fun with it. The combat code works against animal objects, allowing you to go hunting; I have done that as Rijeka, and I actually find it surprisingly fun to do with a group of people, especially since if someone makes a particularly bad roll you can pose all sorts of great teasing ('Wonderful shot! Though I think the deer is behind you, Elsai...'). Basically, the code is comprehensive but not as intrusive as it seems. I learned that quickly and changed my tune about what I thought about this place. It isn't right for everyone, no, but for those who do find a place here, they can really make whatever they want of it."