IMNEWS STANDARDS HISTORIES
XI Standards for Character Setup: Histories
Player histories are often the hardest part for them to write. A few general things to suggest to them.
The first thing to do is to decide (a) if they were born in the valley, and (b) their age.
Make sure that you know the limitations in NEWS HISTORIES. They cannot be older than the beginning of the Third Age, e.g., older than about three thousand years, or descended from important characters from the previous ages.
In Imladris, we do not in general approve histories allowing players to play characters younger than young adulthood, i.e., a minimum of 100 years or so. Try to encourage players to play older characters, in the two to three thousand year range. We have way too many young elves for a place that is supposed to be undergoing steady population decline :)
It's also important to note that, in general, we DO NOT encourage character concepts that involve being born outside of Imladris. Thematically speaking, most of the valley's residents should be "natives", so to speak. However, if any player insists on a "foreign" history, please direct them to +IMNEWS NON-NATIVE HISTORIES. If possible, try to encourage them to have a background stemming from the population groups that tended to end up in Imladris, as well: i.e., Sinda elves from Eregion or Lindon, Laiquende Silvan elves from Lindon, Silvan elves who fled Lorien after the dwarves were driven out of Moria. We will have some Silvan elves from Mirkwood, but they should be a relatively small group, and Sinda elves should be the majority population of Imladris. Noldo backgrounds, including partial Noldo parentage, are strictly feature-only.
Note that we do not have to get approval from other elf-cultures for players to have backgrounds from Mithlond, Lorien, or Amon Thranduil. But we should be very sensitive to things in their histories that do not make a whole lot of sense given what is ICly known about the other cultures.
Note also that setting up characters with a lot of traveling in their backgrounds is very questionable for young elves, as travel from Imladris to other elf-homes has been getting progressively more dangerous through the whole second half of the Third Age. If a player really wants to have traveled all over the place, try to have them have done most of that travel in the first half of the Third Age, before it got so dangerous what with orcs and all in the mountains, before Angmar destroyed Arnor, etc.
These are guidelines, of course. Do not squash players' creativity by holding them to cookie-cutter standards, but be aware that the things listed here are pretty basic.
A few questions that can help newbies get started:
When were you born, and where?
What did your parents do?
If you weren't born in Imladris, why and when did you get here? How did you get here? (Again, direct players to +IMNEWS NON-NATIVE HISTORIES for application for non-Imladris-native histories.)
What is your chosen profession?
Why did you choose that occupation, and how did you reach your current ability in it? What IS your current ability in it?
Also note the list of places that are definitely off-limits for characters to have spent any significant time in during the past two thousand years or so: The Shire, Moria, Rohan, Gondor, Fangorn, Mordor, Rhun
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