Creating a New Character
If desired, a new character can be created during the registration process for the next Interphaze Event. To get started you’ll need to pick a name, race, and class, but you’ll also want to put some thought into your alignment, personality, and costume.
Name
The type of name you pick may depend on your race or the class you are going to play. Get creative! Any name is acceptable, and many suggestions for race-specific ones can be found on the individual race pages.
Race
Race in the land of Interphaze is a blend of ethnicity and species. There are a variety of different playable races and each has their own advantages, stature, and racial abilities. Race selection can influence a character’s personality, background story, and motivations. A specific “nationality” such Vikings, Amazons, Gypsies, or Barbarians can be a part of your character concept, but they are not considered their own race for the purposes of your character’s statistics.
Class
Choosing your class is kind of like selecting a career path. In most cases characters start out with a single class. A second class can be selected when gaining levels, but the primary class plays the biggest role in determining the character’s final stats. Class can place limitations on a character’s alignment and weapon and armor proficiencies.
Alignment
Alignment is a scale of morality. Alignment 1 is pure good, 2 is good, 3 is neutral, 4 is evil, and 5 is pure evil. When you create your character, you can choose any alignment in the spectrum, unless there are class restrictions in place. Alignment is not static throughout a character’s life. A character who starts out as one alignment can slowly shift as a result of a character’s actions or drastically as the result of a spell, influence of a deity, or dingus (a long-term effect or consequence).
Primary Ability
This is the first chance to select a class ability. There are many tier 1 abilities to choose from and this ability sticks with your character, if there are higher level abilities you’d like to take later, it is a good strategy to pick one of their pre-requisites first.
Level
Unless a previous character has been retired (see below), a new character starts out at level 1.
Goals
Character goals can be submitted as a part of character creation or registration as a returning character. These are the things your character wants to accomplish that the GMs need to know about to help facilitate. For example, if your character is questing for something or trying to solve some deep mystery, the results of a trail may lead you to what you are looking for or point you in the right direction for where to go next. Goals are not required, but can enhance the game or help you get into your character more quickly. They can be changed, added, or dropped at any time even if they haven’t been completed.
Armor and Weapons
These do not need be decided when a character is created, but should be considered as you’ll only have a couple weeks before you start playing them out. For more information on Armor and Weapons see the relevant item sections to learn about their in character properties and how to obtain them in the game. Keep in mind that everything your character owns by way of armor or weapon must have a physical representation. On the items page, also note the safety regulations and guidelines for all weapons. Weapons that do not comply with safety regulations are strictly prohibited.
Background, Personality, and Costume
These are the aspects that really bring a character alive. Most costumes tend to be in the medieval or fantasy genre. Costumes generally fit part of your backstory as well as aspects of race and/or class. Some examples include Vikings, Amazons, Gypsies, samurai, pirates, gladiators, etc. You can make your own costume, buy one, or piece together things you already own. For more information on costume ideas see the photo gallery, the costume resources page, and some helpful tips on dressing for the weather.
Advancement
The character that was registered and present at an Interphaze weekend Event gains levels for participating in the event. Events are usually worth 2 levels for a full weekend long event. Gaining levels increases characters stats including hit points (hp), energy points (ep), and saves. A player can choose to put both levels gained into a single class for faster growth, or add a second class for more versatility. Even if a character has both a primary and secondary class, they can still choose to break the levels up or put both of them into either class. At different class-level benchmarks, characters can select a class ability to gain useful skills.
Special Ability
Once a character reaches level 3 in at least one class, they are allowed to create a special ability, completely unique to their character. A special ability could be something that gives a character an edge in battle or something that compliments their character concept or background story and may or may not be useful in battle.
Retiring a Character
Did your character reach a dead end? Just have the most epic moment ever, one that could not possibly be topped?
If you are confident that your character’s story has run its course, a character can be retired. This means no longer playing them at future Interphaze Events, but the benefit of retiring a character rather than starting another one is you automatically gain two bonus levels when you start a new character after retiring the old one.
Bonus levels gained can only be applied to a new character; they cannot be added to another existing character to advance their levels more quickly. Bonus levels can be allocated to either a single class to start a new character at level 3 (with the option to pick a special ability already) or to both a primary and secondary class to be split 2/1 or 1/2.
Death
No one is forced to retire a character because they may have died. There are always ways to resurrect or reincarnate a character, sometimes through a simple visit to the closest temple to find a willing cleric to help you, in more extreme instances a character’s friends or family members may need to embark on a quest to find the requisite magic to bring a person back to life once again.