Shattered Kingdoms

LIGHT or Dark?

Is the character born light or dark hearted or is it something he can learn through RP along the way?

I know you have to choose at creation, but I really had a plan for one of my characters to turn one way (already chosen at creation)

But can a light hearted(aura already showing light) character act opposite way until there is a critical change in his life where he has a "change of heart"?

I know there are cultural problems with this ie elves and delves, but other races can they rp this?

Is it acceptable is my main question?

Here is a thread that popped to mind that is on point.
http://shatteredkingdoms.org/forums/vie ... 24&t=21834

Short answer, no, I don't think it's appropriate for a light aura to act evilly off the bat.

Longer answer: The character you're describing sounds like a grey aura, who have a great deal more leeway in HOW they act, but also require a lot more work to demonstrate WHY. "Because I'm a good guy" or "Because I'm a bad guy" frees the alignment extremes from (at face value) justifying why they do or don't do things but locks them into behaving like good guys or evil guys. Make sense?

If part of your principled paladin's backstory is being raised in the Moot as a barbarian, OK, work it in carefully - but upon coming of age and heading out into the world as an amateur adventurer, the conversion should either happen before then as part of his backstory, or be the 1 thing you focus on above all else until it's done at Amateur. Picking principled and then going into the game and saying "well, I'll just act miscreant until someone converts me" wouldn't be appropriate, I think.

Really the only way this can happen in SK is if you're a priest of Thuban. The auras here are hard coded. There are exceptions where you can say be a scrupulous Hammer member and do questionable acts to evil people, but only to evil people. Get what I'm layin down?

Maybe I should wait until more people answer with opinions but what I find in this is that you can have only limited character development during a characters post-creation life span?

In a heavy RP based game I find it hard to believe that you character has to remain in consistent form through out its life.

During one of my QQ's I was told that a certain event (GM killing a lower level player) should help evolve my character? There is no room for evolution of a character in the thinking dark is dark, light is light.

So basically what I am getting at is a character's life story should be complete before ever getting out of the creation rooms?

I think there is plenty of room for character development even if you cannot change from light to dark, or vice versa. Most of my characters have had something significant happen to them in their early life (post creation). That event is sometimes getting killed by a higher level player. That sort of thing could spawn a defeatist attitude in a character. Or, conversely, it could inspire your character to work hard and become the best warrior he/she can be in order to overcome that event. I've had both scenarios.

As for your question about the characters entire life story being decided before creation, it can go either way. That is entirely up to you and it is one of the things that makes SK such a cool game. As I mentioned, you can let the events of your characters life (post creation) determine their ultimate outlook on life. You could take a different approach and determine what the character's attitude is going to be from day one and never change it.

What you should not do is make a necromancer who falls in love and suddenly becomes a flower toting hippie. Don't do it. We will all kill you.

Best way to attempt to stop some confusion beforehand is maybe email Sargas before hand to see how much leeway he can give you since you are having your char's own personal switch to what your alignment will be.

In the world of SK this cannot happen. Ask Kin, lol.

SK's alignment system is not as simple as g/n/e. Dulrik's said before that he doesn't really believe in the idea of true neutral and the alignment system reflects that. Perhaps it would be better if instead of the Alignment Portal, you went through the Ethics Portal.

Hey Dulrik, if you read this, that's actually an awesome idea.

Anyways, this means that you're not picking team red or blue at creation, and are rather selecting the ethical framework upon which your character bases his decisions. This is of course further complicated by the fact that SK is a fantastic world where agnosticism is unrealistic and there is clear, supernatural evil in the world (in player terms, necro being the most clear, but as a general rule anything hit by BOG!). While a man of principled morals cannot /be/ evil, how he chooses to react to it, and how he chooses to interact with his g/n/e friends, is entirely based on who he is as a character - Flippant? Scared? Stern? I'd suggest to you that this is the more fluid thing in real life, too, as most people do not wake up and decide to wildly change their moral code, despite the fact that over the course of one's life personalities do tend to evolve. Try to show that in your chars and you're halfway there.

It should come as no surprise that creating a great character is a challenging proposition requiring nuance, planning, and time. Don't be afraid to be a vanilla char guy as you learn, but at the same time if you have an awesome idea go for it. Just try to play within the bounds and recognize that RP is a learning process just as much as the mechanics of the game are - if we could collectively agree that we have things to learn, regardless of game knowledge newb/vet status, we'd probably all be better off.

+1 to what patrisaurus said.

My character was built on being a certain aura (pre creation) and having a early life changing critical event and falling into that aura.

I have made characters before and asked for aura change (super newbzorg move) and obviously with no result, and I now 110% agree with but can I build a character and change him (personality wise, not aura as it is pre determined), , into playing with him with him falling into the aura he was built on?