Is there a way to really role play a character from a noble house. I'm trying to figure out what house of Therengia I want to be from. The only problem is so many of them are superficial and have no real "area" where they control (except in books) and don't have a castle or homebase of any kind. Any help in this area would be appreciated.\

Thanks
Gedilarin

>>> Without being born to nobility or a patent of Nobility granted by a ruler such as the Lord Baron Gyfford in this case there is no chance of a player being truly a Noble themselves. The closest you can come is head of a great trade house.

I forget... Was Trantris, the PC otherwise known as Lord Esselyon, of a noble house or a trade house? I know he was played as entirely part of the nobility structure of Theren, including spoken recognition as such by Baron Jeladric, but I might be mistaken as the extent of his title.

And as for the trade house angle, I know for a fact that Cayene L'il was played as being the scion of a trade house. The biggest downfall of that route was that it took a ton of coin to pull it off, particularly seeing as how he hadn't been seen actively being part of the empath guild for long enough to have people forget entirely that he was an empath to begin with. At one point in time, he told me he had about 1500 platinum kronar in the bank, and this was after he'd been spending money hand-over-fist starting up the Blue Flame.

And in truth, I would enjoy seeing a few more people taking that route with their roleplaying. Those two were some of the best pure roleplayers out there and when they were really on their game, they had few peers and fewer equals.

Sheesh, if I thought I could pull it off, I'd roll one up in a flash, even if it meant making a (shudder) non-Prydaen character.

Amagaim; the player of,

---

It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion,
It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed,
The hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning,
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.

1500 plat..is that all? Sheesh...my everyday gear is worth more than that. If money is the sole qualification for the head of a trade house then I am sure I have more than enough.

Nirveli





A dark brown Zoluren marnet glances up at the stars and makes a purring sound of contentment.

The houses in Shard(assuming you mean the elothean houses)arent nobility per se.They are clans in the common understanding of the word.The elothean houses are not lords and ladies of the elothean realm as much as they are members of groups that have certaain shared beliefs.

If i remember correctly the only elothean house that could be considered Noble is the house of the Ferdahl(glittering diadem i think).

Nobility in elanthia is sadly lacking.Even the estate holders(yes i know premies pay more) dont even have access to true noble titles.I play my elothean as a descendant of a moderately wealthy trading family.My main elf if i had my way would be a member of minor nobility but there is no way for me to justify that claim so i leave that part out of his story.

True Nobility is neither bought, nor given. True Nobility is merely acknowledged, and the noble have no need to provide proof


Souv
On a quote spree today

You sense (N, S) from your current position:
A relatively healthy presence nearby.
Roundtime: 6 seconds

You do not have to be a titled or landed noble to roleplay a noble. You can play a minor noble, the sixth son of a minor noble family etc. If a GM played NPC like the baron fails to respond to a charactor roleplayed as even minor noblity then that is a failure of the GM behind that npc.

For until the player charactor does something to bring into question his or her status, then the baron/noble or who ever would assume the person is who he/she claims to be. Act and dress the part and society will assume that it is so, for to not verbalize that it is not so would be the height of dis-curtesy and if the noble was wrong would be a serious gaff of social etiquette. Something most nobles would attempt to avoid at all costs. ::Shrugs::

Jim


"The fire maiden dances uninhibitedly to music only she can hear. When her dance is ended, she collapses in a fit of giggling, then starts all over again."

Why should you have to report that? It should be obvious to the GM playing the NPC by your charactors words, actions and demeanor. Btw GS has a verb called "MYCHAR" which is used to show the GM's what your charactor is thinking. Which helps the GS GMs when they are playing various npc's in their interactions with your pc.

Usage is done by typing MYCHAR and a sentence. Exmample something like..

MYCHAR this merchant is a stuffy overblown warthog.
>
Jim thinks to himself that this merchant is a stuffy overblown warthog.
>

Only the GM sees this and if I recall like most GM things said GM can turn it off so they dont have to see if things are to busy. Other charactors do not see what you do with MYCHAR as a side note.

Jim


"The fire maiden dances uninhibitedly to music only she can hear. When her dance is ended, she collapses in a fit of giggling, then starts all over again."

Just because you act like your a noble doesn't make you one. Most GM nobles would act like your insane or a liar if you just showed up and tried to make them believe this. Now maybe.. maybe that is if you showed up with a following, several other characters that called you lord/baron/queen, etc. and you didn't claim to be from somewhere in their land, they might try to acknowledge you. I'd suggest, picking some place in the non known lands, like an island, or past the known boundaries of the world. You don't have to have tons of expensive items, or even a lot of coins, your land could be poor.

Add on things that your whole group shares like accents, common race or features, clothing, sayings.. maybe they all have colorless eyes where your from and green hair. Come up with a history, and a reason why no one knows of your land(maybe its blocked by natural barriers).

~Worrclan, Dwarf of the Realms-

You could contract another character or two to be your retainers-- they would bow to you before speaking, and address you as "my lord" or "my lady," or possibly as "my liege." They would perform errands for you, and when you removed your hat or blade upon arriving at court, they would hold it for you until your business is concluded. They would dress and act apropriately when they are attending you, and might wear appropriate titles when acting in that capacity.

It should not ever be necesarry to loudly proclaim yourself as a noble, and indeed, when asked you could mumble something non-commital about lineage and ancestral holdings to the North. Alternately, you could vocally claim to be a noble by birthright whose land and rightful inheritance was squandered by your father/grandfather/widow mother/gambling uncle/liscentous younger brother. Player-character's responses that you are not a "real" noble or that you are no better than a commoner would then be quite in keeping with the treatment such an individual would have recieved in feudal Europe.

I myself have never tried to engage in "nobility" role-play, so I honestly don't know how the GM's would react to it. But I imagine if it is done tastefully and with all proper discretion, it could work out quiet well.

In the intro to that book, it mentions that the Morzindaen (which means Great Houses) are only the highest of the nobility -- meaning there are other, lower classes of nobility you could portray your character as being from. And since all of the Morzindu have appeared IG at one time or another, it would help avoid any embarrasing situations where you go up to Lord Darpam, say "Hi, pops," and he has you arrested and thrown in the cage next to where Kelvin was. You'd hate to see yourself laughed out of court by claiming a title you don't have -- believe me, it's happened before.

Houses Hedeon and Thistlebriar portrayed Therengian RP pretty well before the Baron or the rest of the court started to be RPed by the GMs. I think Thistlebriar is gone, but Hedeon still portrays themselves as being led by a lord (whom I currently believe is Rayac). I believe Gyfford has acknowledged them as a house, but since the Morzindu are the only landed nobility in Therengia, they don't have a keep or lands. But that doesn't stop them from RPing a noble house.

>>But who the heck knows where the Weyato land or Macwe is. I've never heard of it. M'Henral sounds familiar but I can't find it on a map.

You might not, but if your character was born in Therengia he most certainly would know. Weyato land includes the Gorbesh fort down the twisted trail on the way to Therenboorugh, and that is supposed to eventually be changed into their new keep. Trigomas land includes Fornsted and Ker'Leor, Dacawla has Hvaral, the road between the two is Macwe, Abriyit controls Lang and the surroundings, and the North Road ferry is run by Shillat. Rossman's is of course owned by Lord Rossman, but I don't know if he's been elevated to the level of Morzindu. That's most of the lands we can visit in-game, but hopefully we'll see more expansion to that end of things.


~Thilan

The game has some hints about our status in medieval society being on par with lower nobility, merchant barons, robber barons, or something similar. We are called commoners until we join a guild, then we earn titles. Some of those titles definately sound very noble. Some of us are estate holders and thus are landed. Most of the time the game mechanics are set so that we don't even notice the people about that are not of our 'status' or above. This mind set is highly medieval.

Certainly you could rp being somehow fallen from higher status and now rising back up or somehow someone of higher status trying to hide that fact. I am not sure how well that would go over that would go over though.

IMO, the only people I would see as believable in that role are those that truely do seem to be what we imagine a truely noble person would be like.

Other than that, well, the actual nobles were not really all that noble all the time in the middle ages. But then the peasants were not all that great either. Thus, we have the words cavalier and villian, among others.

People have been and always will be people, both good and bad.

Mists and Magic, Ocean Breazes, Deep Rivers Under the Sea, Trails Between the Stars: Where nothing is as it seems.

Honestly. Totally not medieval... Much closer to Renaissance/Enlightenment-era Europe. But nobody believes me. :( Except Mrrar.

---

Marksman Ahmir Nam'al

"Is glas iad na cnoic i bhfad uainn."
-Distant hills look green.

<<Personally, I don't think that Dragonrealms falls into a neatly recognizable period of European history

I agree. But I'd certainly never call it Medieval.

---

It's regretful that the most common type of person in this world is someone small, in a big chair.

>> There are griefers and trolls, and people who simply haven't quite wrapped their minds around the concept of roleplay though they try.

Or people whose roleplay simply won't allow their characters to accept what your character says at face value, or don't like higher nobles for whatever reason, or give your character grief for being a lesser/'fallen' noble in the first place (which is definitely appropriate for how such individuals have been treated in the past).

You can roleplay however you want and be whatever you want (within genre) but that doesn't mean my character is going to accept it or even remotely like you. Doesn't mean it's not roleplay.

---

Rev. Reene, player of a few
"Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie." - Mae West

I can understand the "no making things up" position, and I agree with it (no, your prydaen can't have a baby with that elf) to an extent, but I can't say I've encountered anyone that took it to that extreme.

I've always been cautious to do it myself because I'm afraid of some in-game literature or backstory coming out that directly contradicts it. Luckily it hasn't happened yet, but I've seen it happen to enough people. That's my only beef...direct contradictions in the established DR canon, not lack of in-game evidence for something.

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Rev. Reene, player of a few
"Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie." - Mae West

I want to own a farm! And serfs. I mean.. have serfs.. not.. not own.. ::cough::

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It's regretful that the most common type of person in this world is someone small, in a big chair.

> I fear that a system of nobility using the RPA/PIRP system as a qualification would simply reward so-called "event-chasers."


You get PIRP's by roleplaying around a player who is in the system.

Ya know, I rarely give ANY of mine out. And that is just... Sad.

<<You get PIRP's by roleplaying around a player who is in the system.>>

And as I understand it, you get in the system by having a certain number of RPAs. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

-Fierolan's player
______________________________________
Have you hugged your embittered Mountain Elf today?

Guess I don't roleplay around the right people then, that's all.

I'd love to be in the PIRP system, but at this rate it's just not happening. Not a huge deal, I still have a few RPAs left to give out, but after those are gone I'm not sure what else to go for.

---

Rev. Reene, player of a few
"Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie." - Mae West

I laugh sometimes because people say that I'm not a very good roleplayer. I've even been accused of being a power gamer who just wants to go around killing people (funny since I'm an empath) I just tend to look at them and say... if you knew me in real life, you'd know I wasn't anything like my character... thus I roleplay. I do it for myself and the responses are its own reward. I don't need a PIRP point or and RPA or the ability to give out PIRP points to tell me that I'm a good roleplayer. It'd just be nice to encourage it among new people


Souv

You sense (N, S) from your current position:
A relatively healthy presence nearby.
Roundtime: 6 seconds