• Members of the First Light above and including the rank of Knight are permitted to perform dying rites upon those mortally wounded or killed in combat, but are disallowed from doing such to those dying of disease or natural causes. 
  
• The Order draws recruits from both the nobility and the common people, as well as occasionally headhunting from the City Watch. Nobles who are recruited into the Order are not disinherited unless by the individual's own choice, and they are not expected to abandon their surnames.
  
• The Order serves as the main law enforcement of Osrona and Nuburg due to their importance as Capital and central trading city respectively, unlike other cities that usually assemble a militia as city watch.
  
• The standard issue uniform of the Order is a dark overcoat with gold trimmings on the chest, sleeve cuffs, buckled boots, and a black beret, as well as optional white gloves.
  
• A force of fifty Knights under the command of two Paladins and a Lightbringer serves as the Royal Guard of the Petrakis family.
  
• Promotion to Knight involves a vigil in one of the Star Towers, where the promoted must remain in a kneeled position under the light of the stars for a period of forty eight hours. 
  
• Promotion to Lightbringer is identical to this, with the addition of a week of fasting prior to the vigil. Lightbringers also have a chosen passage of the Codex Cosmos tattooed onto their backs as a sign of their devotion to their new role, a leftover practice for when the organisation was a primarily religious order.
  
• Extremely distinguished service for at least a decade in the Order has, in the past, led to instances where commonborn Knights are raised to nobility. 
  

A History in Brief

In 320 AC, Astronomy in Esshar was just beginning to develop. It was considered a revolutionary event at the time, the herald of a new era of understanding. Leading this charge was Nile Pelleaux, a cousin of the Head of House Pelleaux of the time. Nile’s research led to a new understanding of the nature of stars: they were both vessels and punishers of souls, burning away their mortal sins to prepare them for reincarnation.
The ramifications of this breakthrough were felt throughout Esshar. For a people disillusioned with the Angels -although Malziel’s Intervention was viewed with significant gratitude- due to the still fresh memory of the Second Divine War’s devastation, the stars offered a more stable personification of Kraus’ design. With this in mind, Nile Pelleaux assembled a council of the greatest philosophical minds in Esshar to draft an amended theology. Asserting that the stars were the greatest manifestation of Kraus’ will in Eternia, Nile suggested that they should be venerated as such. Several months of discussion ensued, with many of those great minds arguing the merits of abandoning the tradition method of Krausite theology, but eventually they came to a consensus. The seven greatest Astronomers of the time -including Nile himself- declared themselves the ‘Starseers’ and set about researching the comparative age of the stars themselves. The Constellation of Leonaus was determined to be the oldest after several years of intense study due to its close connection to the Divine Spirit of the Stars, and thus as the earliest expressions of Kraus’ design were to be especially venerated. This theology was formalized and endorsed by the Petrakis bloodline as the new State Religion of Esshar, and it remains thus to this day.
Throughout the early existence of the church, several heresies rose and fell. The most notable ones are as follows:
·        The Heralds of the Stellar Truth: This heresy -first appearing in the late 340s- asserted that the stars were not purifying, but instead consuming and destroying the souls of the dead, and thus claimed that they should be despised and feared instead of venerated. An early Church inquisition reduced the upstart cult to a sidenote of history.
·        The Acolytes of the Eclipse: Originating in the late 830s, this cult claimed that the power of the stars was nothing compared to that of a shadowy entity that also resided in the cosmos, and held a particular affinity with the event of an Eclipse. The cult gained a significant following due to resentment of the common population after the death of countless innocents in the Witch Hunts earlier in the century, but it was regardless stamped out quite quickly.

The holy book of the faith is the Codex Cosmos and is essentially a version of the Book of Kraus that elevates the role of the stars above the Angels in regards to the protection and perpetuation of Creation.

Traditions

·        Initiates into the clergy of the Faith go through a ritual where -regardless of any cosmic magic- they are 'chosen' by a star. This is similar to having a horoscope done, with the star they are 'chosen' by being meant to reflect their future. Depending on the star they are cast under, an Initiate is assigned to a branch of the faith, whether that be Astronomy (Yellow), Historical Preservation (Blue), or service as a member of the Faith Militant (Red). Even so, all members still perform general theological duties, such as leading prayer.
·        Members of the Clergy are expected to spend at least three days a year performing charity. This usually involves the poor being offered food or small amounts of money, although many Initiates into the Church are recruited through this manner.
·        The Clergy give up all claims on titles or land, and often -but not always- surrender their surname.
·        It is not uncommon for higher ranking members of the church to have the Constellation of Leonaus tattooed on their bodies.

Note: This is not meant as an exhaustive list or replacement of pre-existing lore, but rather additional elaboration to pre-existing information.

The game takes place in the Kingdom of Esshar, the Capital City, Osrona. This massive, medieval-themed area stands as the major hub of roleplay within the world; it has the glamour of high rise noble estates, castles, and theatres, but there are also slums on the outskirts of the walls and an underground sewer system that's maze-like and expansive. There are well over a hundred buildings mapped out in the city alone, to give you an idea of the scope of it all. But most of you reading this already know that and have been paying attention to the development of the world over these past few months!

On the 15th of November, we'll begin processing applications for roles that will help organize the start of the game. More information on that to come then. Make sure to check out the FAQ if you haven't already. We will release on the 22nd of November, a Friday.

• Map: Buildings are now set in the map editor rather than spawned in-game. This'll provide us with much more creative freedom than the old system allowed for. Players interact with the door of an available building to claim the property, which has an up front cost and a daily cost that can be paid in advance, of up to 30 days. They can give permissions to other characters to decorate, lock/unloock the door, farm, and pay the maintenance cost. The money generated goes toward the reigning guild's bank in the area, which admins can set in-game.
  
• Tome-type items that act as a mini spell trees in place of the old spell tree menu. You use these to access the bulk of your abilities. There are public tomes sold by a broker that are easily accessible (the primary elements, and physical combat), and all tome type items are character bound.
  
• Combination elements have been removed in favor of specializations. There are four primary elements (Air, Earth, Fire, and Water), and each has a number of advancements. You 'attune' with the element by buying the opener which is a passive ability / minor stat boost, then you can advance into that tree or skip right ahead to a specialization. The initial investment costs are fairly high; attuning is 20RPP and a specialization's opener is 30RPP.
  

Quote:

Air: Lightning, Sound

Earth: Crystal, Bone, Metal, Sand, Nature

Fire: Explosion, Magma, Plasma

Water: Blood, Ice

Armed - Physical

Hand to Hand - Physical

Time

Illusion

Gravity

Energy

Cosmic

Holy

Occult

Light (can be accessed via Holy or Cosmic)

Shadow (can be accessed via Illusion or Occult)

• Abilities are categorized into the following tiers: Basic, Intermediate, Master, Exalted, and Mythic.
  Basic abilities can be accessed so long as you have their pre-req (usually elemental attunement or the tree's opener). Intermediate require that you've spent at least 60 points in the tree. Master / Exalted / Mythic are abilities that are granted via an application approval.
  There's a Mentor Role in-game that can teach basic & intermediate abilities, so long as the target meets the pre-req and has the available RPP. They type a reason that's recorded in the player logs file, as well as the ability they taught and to who.
  
• Melee and Force are now one stat, Power. All abilities scale off of Power. If you have Fatal Strike and Fireball on the same hotbar, they will both scale via Power.
  
• Mana now drains as a % (sort of). Characters begin with 100 and casting abilities take anywhere from 5 to 20. MP rapidly regenerates, and buffs are not toggled off when you hit 0.
  
• A ton of new sprite objects and tilesets to map out the new world, which you have the level designers to thank for - you can follow / see their progress from start to finish in the dev server.
  
• Around 60 new abilities and changes/upgrades to almost every spell available in the game.
  
• Hotbar slots decreased from 12 to 10, as the former was too much with the more 'centralized' approach to magic and higher costs. The two available slots can be used as spell storage.
  
• Most races 'removed' from the game, to prepare for future content in that area and to give a much needed palette cleanse. Human, drakanite, and beastkin are the available options. Races no longer have additional costs in spell trees, instead everything is neutral and humans get a free passive stat bonus to make up for their lack of a racial tree.
  Beastkin sub-races are: Felinae (feline), Kitsune (fox), and Ookami (wolf).
  Drakanite is a primary race and does not have sub-races. It uses the traditional wing sprite.
  

• Medic heals the temporary injury's remaining time by 50% rather than instantly removing it.
  
• Prefix: /team <number>, you won't damage anyone on the same team, for things like boss fights in events.
  
• Prefix /quote, opens a color wheel that lets you set your font color that'll automatically be used for dialogue in RPs.
  
• If targeting someone while whispering, it should send the message to them directly and no one else (defaults to normal whisper range if they’re not within a tile). ‘Player1 whispers to Player2’
  
• /whisper2, /w2 command that’s a whisper with a 2 tile range.
  
• Prefixes for admins (/tplayer, /tmob, /txyz, /ghost, /assess, /ban, /unban, /announce, /revive, /sobject, /smob, /shutdown, /summon, /edit.)
  
• Age now displays as a range rather than a specific number. So at 13-17 it's 'Teenager', 18-27 'Young Adult', 28-45 'Adult', etc.
  
• There's an in-game option to zip up your logs and download them all. Much less painful than having to open individual files and copy paste, like before.
  
• There's a  'journal' that you can edit and keep track of your progress. Admins can view it and leave notes.
  
• Dust clouds and shockwaves are automatically generated depending on the damage output of a physical attack. Dust clouds are also generated during any knockback.
  
• Sets up the map editor so it has all the necessary options for the map to be its own project that'll improve and be maintained by a team post-release.
  
• Weapons can no longer be resprited, unless they have the unique tag. This is to give more weight to more RP relevant weapons.
  
• Adjusts the blacksmithing recipes to centralize things some. You have 'Steel - Bladed' instead of sword/dagger/axe/etc, and that gives 20 power and 10 physical. The staff counterpart gives 25 power. The sprite options for each weapon type has been expanded heavily.
  
• Character name appears on mouse over.
  
• A 'disguise' variable that can be set to items by an admin. When that item is equipped it asks the character to set their new name, and returns their original name when unequipped.
  
• Various code optimizations, primarily with how AoEs are handled. They are much smoother now and were one of the weaker points of the game's performance.
  
• Expands the HTML options in descriptions, all listed in the profile tab at the bottom.
  
• AP and DR now display properly in the stat menu, rather than being invisible variables. So if an ability gives 10% AP then it'll show in your Power stat.
  
• Cooking and farming level display in the stat menu. Consuming food now grants a 24 hour vitality bonus  that does not stack. This bonus scales with the cooking level. The higher your farming level, the higher the chance it is for a seed to return to you after harvesting a crop.
  
• Inventory space of non-subscribers increased from 12 to 18. Inventory space of subscribers increased from 18 to 30.
  
• Character count in an RP contributes to how much Activity Points was gained to a degree, though it has a cap and is more a bonus than the main modifier.
  
• After a dangerous RPB, the victor loses total HP for 3 hours depending on how low their opponent got them. It is a minimum of 5%, and a maximum of 20%. The amount is displayed in LOOC.
  

Hi! Welcome. Canon/Lore talk, mostly. Lots of words, I warned you.

https://chronicles-of-esshar.com/lore/in...agic_Power

I've been reading into the numbers given for magic stats for a little bit, and there is a point I would like to make. Before that, however, I'll have to say I'm mostly in line with the upgrades to sprinting speed, these are the values given:

Quote:

• Basic: Minimum of 10 Magic Power.
  
• Intermediate: Minimum of 50 Magic Power.
  
• Master: Minimum of 100 Magic Power. Higher than 70% of Magi.
  
• Exalted: Minimum of 300 Magic Power. Higher than 95% of Magi.
  
• Mythic: Minimum of 1000 Magic Power. Among the millions that live in Esshar, there's rarely more than a hundred at a time within this tier.
  

Quantifying the above would be something like the following, though it naturally varies from person to person:

Basic: Avg. sprint of 20MPH, a standard attack generates 300 pounds of force.
Intermediate: Avg. sprint of 30MPH, a standard attack generates 600 pounds of force.
Master: Avg. sprint of 60MPH, a standard attack generates two tons of force.
Exalted: Avg. sprint of 100MPH, a standard attack generates five tons of force.
Mythic: Avg. sprint of 150MPH, a standard attack generates ten tons of force.

• Note from Bruce: Keep in mind, these specifically represent average sprinting speed, and not their short-burst/combat speed or reaction speed, so these values may not be the be-all discourse of movement velocity.
  

Please make one ): Then we can put useful information there!