How to Join!

[claireducky]

 

So, you want to join the most awesome, coolest group of soldiers in the Westlands? Read on to learn how!

 

1. Post in the Signup Thread, requesting usergroup access.

 

2. Write a bio for your new Child, making sure to follow our Bio Guidelines. Then email it to CoTLDiv@dragonmount.com for approval!

 

3. Once your bio has been approved and CC'd, you will receive an email letting you know you are ready to begin RPing, and information about how to start a thread for your character on our Progress Report Board.

 

4. Unless you are taking advantage of our amnesty, allowing you to start as a 2nd Tier character, your character will normally start as a Recruit, and you must RP to advance your character from there. For more information on this, read our thread on How to Advance.

 

That's it! Once you've joined, you'll be assigned a unit, quarters, and missions by the Group Leader.

 

Post any questions in the Q&A thread!

[claireducky]

Bio Guidelines

 

It is our goal that all members have a well-written and comprehensive biography outlining their character’s history and motivations. To that end, we ask that all prospective members use the following template for their character Bio. Once completed, you may send the biography via email to CotLDiv@dragonmount.com, with the word “Bio” in the subject line.  If you would like to see examples of accepted biographies, you can visit the Biography board at DM. Special thanks to Nynaeve, previous Group Leader, for writing many of the tips and tricks below for bio writing.

 

Your Handle at DM:

Email Address: (will not be displayed publicly)

Character Name:

Division: (Hand of the Light, Army of the Light or Eyes of the Light) (if you know already, otherwise leave blank)

Character’s Age:

Place of Birth or Raising:

Physical Description: At least 1 paragraph, describing your character’s basic features, such as height, weight, eye color, hair color, distinguishing marks, etc.

Other Description: Describe anything else particular about your character, such as personality, voice, special skills, etc.

History:  Describe your character’s background, history, and any major events in their life prior to joining the ranks of the CotL. What made them choose to join?

Since Joining: (ONLY do this part if you are taking part in the amnesty and joining at 2nd tier). Describe your character’s training and advancement until they reached 2nd tier (Hundredman, Arbiter or Ranger). If your character has become proficient with a weapon(s), please describe that training. Good descriptions here will be rewarded with a Weapon Score of up to 7.

 

Dos and Don’ts:

We are relatively laid back when it comes to background history, but there are few things that you must adhere to when writing your biography.

1. Minimum age to join the ranks of the Children of the Light and become a soldier is 18 name days. Any younger and we will send you back home to your mother where you belong.

2. As a Recruit of the Children you begin with a WS of 2. If your character has some special experience that is very well written in your bio, this may be increased to a WS of up to 4.

3. No mention of special abilities that would be possessed only by a soldier with many years experience. This includes things like military strategy, tactics, and guerilla warfare. Keep in mind your character will be a green recruit and therefore unlikely to be a strategical genius, despite what they’ve read. DISREGARD this if you are applying with a 2nd Tier character Bio during the Amnesty.

4. No godder characters. This means no phrases like “the best swordsman ever”, “unstoppable”, “fantastically wonderful and perfect”, and the like. While it is reasonable for a person to have one special skill or gift or talent, having all of them is not. When giving your character a strength, try to balance it with a weakness as well.

5. NO Channeling. NO, I said none. Not even a little. NO! You channel, we give you over to the Hand of the Light. The end.

6. Try not to do the whole ‘a Trolloc ate my mom so I hate the Shadow’. There are a million reasons to hate the Shadow. Make yours one of a kind.

7. The Children of the light do not beg, pressure or cajole anyone into joining. No meeting a large group of Children in an inn and having them plead with your character to sign up at the Fortress. No matter how impressive your character is, no Child worth their salt would have so little pride that they would be like “Oh, please join us Mister skillfull awesome man.”

8. Be creative, but not TOO creative. This means pick a more realistic name than “Bob Jones”, but don’t be cliche and pick something like “Ban Al’Rivers”. No weird hair color/eye color/skin color. This isn’t Avatar. The Children hate wolves, so if you are a Wolfkin, join that group, not ours. We won’t like you.

9. Yes, you can be a Darkfriend and be a Child of the Light.

10. Lastly, no mentions of the main characters from the series. In addition to the Three Amigos and their women, this includes monarchs, past Amyrlins, current military leaders, that sort of thing. This is a Portal Stone World (hence the name DR PSW) and often things aren’t exactly as they are in the books. Plus, the Dragon Reborn is far too busy talking to the voice/s in his head to be hanging out with your new character.

 

Tips and Tricks
This is a character that you will hopefully be playing for some time. Some people have been playing the same characters for five years, others for only five days, but either way it is important to know some basic things about your character.Choose a name that you’re comfortable writing, and comfortable being known as both IC (In Character) and OOC (Out Of Character). Don’t use a major character name from the books if you can help it. Try looking at baby name sites if you’re stuck for ideas, or try looking in the street directory (it works for me!). You can find a WoT name generator here.

Pick a homeland that you found interesting when you read the books, and try to stick by the typical appearance and speech patterns of that homeland. It’s useful to check out the Wheel of Time Concordance and click on your chosen homeland. If your character is unusual in some way, give reasons for it. Remember, though, that the Aiel, Sea Folk and Seanchan have their own RP Group, and Sharans are unknown in our PSW.

Your character’s history can be a help to you in future RPing – events described in your bio may be followed up in later RPs (for example, the loss of parents may spark a RP looking for revenge).

Many people are tempted to make characters that are good-looking, great with weapons, popular, noble, honorable, brave and, well, just overall cool. The thing is, while it’s easy to make up a character that you think everyone will like, the chances are that everyone won’t like him or her for the very same reasons. Playing characters with flaws can be more fun than playing perfect characters – not to mention that some of the most interesting role play that you can do might arise from these flaws.

Don’t forget – your character is a living, breathing human being. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with updating your bio, to include more information and let other people get to know your character a bit better. The more you know about someone, the easier it is to NPC them without making any major mistakes, and that makes group RPing much easier.

 

What happens next?

Once you sent your bio to the email directed above then it reaches my hands, aka, the CotL RP Leader. If there is anything that needs to be edited, I will contact you to explain in detail what needs to be changed and why. Once that is sorted (or assuming there were no alterations needed to begin with) I post your bio in the Biography board to be Cross Checked (CC'd) by a Bio Checker of another RP Group. This is done in order to verify that the biography adheres to the rules and that I haven’t missed anything. We’re all human after all… well, most of us >.>

The entire approval and cross checking process should be resolved in a matter of days, giving you ample time to read all the informational stickied threads and start forming ideas of RP's in your head! Once the cross checking is done you are ready to start role playing (RPing)!!! ^_^