The MinoNice's Guide for New Imperium Citizens

Originally written by Minister of Niceties Miles S. Mistoffelees -- also known at various times as Seige, Scolly, Castrigg, Keinruf, or Narrow -- this guide was intended as "a comprehensive run-down of just what that Huge Stack o' Links ™ is FOR (other than to give new players a heart-attack, I mean.)"

PICTURES UP TOP!

There's some pictures, up along the top. THESE ARE LINKS! A bed, a key, a tavern sign, a mug and bowl of soup, some letters, a map, a ?, and a blank spot. Here's what they do:

Bed: Takes you to your Bunk, where you can view (but not edit) information on your character and VI account. (More info later)

Key: Logs off the VI.

Tavern: Main forum index, split up into the IC, OOC, and Factions and Corporations forums. You won't have any of the last two unless you buy stock in a corp or join a faction, but the IC has the Thoroughfare, for Planned RPs (need a Minister's permission to start a thread, but you can post in started threads), and the In Character Bilge. This is for RPing with anyone on the VI; threads don't necessarily HAVE to be set inside the Bilge in the Bucket tavern; they could take place anywhere within the VI's world-- even on other islands, if you so wish! The OOC boards have your General Forum, for just about anything appropriate whatsoever, and the Advertisements, for advertising other websites, or even just asking someone to draw your character or to buy or sell something within the VI.

Soup and Mug: Ships Forum, where you can RP with people on the same ship as you. If no ship appears, you have to wait a couple days for them to "come back to port", so you can join up by clicking the Upgrade Rank or New Occupation link from the side menu. Ships' forums are mostly IC, with a few OOC threads here and there.

Letters: The VI's Missertrossing (PM) system. (More info later.)

Map: When you're At Port, you can click this to see a list of stores you can visit and buy from.

Question Mark: The Help Pages-- read them, even if they're horribly outdated.^^

Blank Spot: Nothing yet. Maybe never anything.

Popular Locations

The Smelt - The Saturday Evening Smelt is the VI's main newspaper, a must-read collection of news articles regarding the Imperium, all written from an IC perspective; entertaining, hilarious, and above all educational, anyone worth a pound of badger spit should take the time to stroll through the articles with a lengthy stick and a monocle. Bring a hefty lunch, as well. It's always good to have something to spit all over the keyboard when you burst out laughing. Sadly, the Smelt is not updated nearly enough. This link can only be seen when your ship is At Port (more about this below)

Prominent Citizens - A list of the richest citizens (i.e., who to kill, respect, and beg from), followed by a list of the most comfortable citizens (these beasts having the best furniture and houses), followed by a list of the most "experienced" citizens (these beasts having mystical experience points gained through raids; they don't actually do anything of any use yet, however. Disregard at will.)

The Red Herring - A mystical link that not many will find, the Red Herring is a private forum for the leaders of the VI to discuss things that leaders discuss, such as who's got the best Retto plushie (Longbrush-- it's the only one.) Only Ministers, Captains, Faction Leaders, First Mates and a few select others can see it: (The Editor of the Smelt, the Mayor, Retto, people who've been First Mates before and haven't had their pass revoked, etc.)

Public Bunks - A list of everyone in the VI, separated into several shorter lists: everybeast On Land, every deadbeast in the Graveyard, and the crews of the four ships. There is a search feature as well, though to view the bunk of the beast you want, you'll have to type in their exact name. (For instance, typing in "sean" will get you a list of: Sean J. Meh, Sean m. Bolejack, sean g. pappernat, Sean C. Waters and Sean W. Ryan. Type in "sean c" and you'll be taken to my bunk.)

Ship's Cabin - This is a very important page where you can view all sorts of information about the ship you're currently on, such as who the current officers are, how much hull integrity it has left, how much merriment and morale the crew has, how many sickpoints the crew has in total, and when it will return To Sea, or go To Port. There is also a list of who did what, if the ship raided or explored on its last journey. It should be noted that not everybeast gets to do something each raid, and that oftentimes some beasts get to do more than one thing. This has little to do with your character's actual life, but you may find yourself with an extra sickpoint if you get wounded during the raid; on the other paw, you could have a handful of gilders from doing something good, such as finding some food or killing woodlanders.

Calendar - This shows what holydays the Imperium is going to be celebrating soon. You'll notice that there is no Valentine's day here, but instead, a "Beat A Sean Day" (Frimary 18, Yr. 1726, 12:00 am - Beat A Sean With A Frying Pan)-- the VI often has its own made-up holydays. Some holydays, such as Christmas (Giftsgiving), are celebrated normally, however. These holydays are usually celebrated with new RP threads in the ship's messes and in the Bilge for your character to participate in. Often they will spawn OOC topics as well (who DOESN'T like bragging about their haul on Halloween?)

Information - This is a very overwhelming link. It is not suggested that new players use it, but it does contain a WEALTH of information regarding the VI. Here you can find information on: Items, Unique Metalwork, Contracts, Stores, Farms, Corporations, Factions, and Houses. Only Items, Unique Metalwork, and Factions should interest most players. Items gives a list of all the buyable items in the VI, and you can click each item for even more information on it, such as what it does and where you can purchase it. Unique Metalwork is a very interesting list of famous weapons that certain players in the VI own; these stories are often great sources of amusement, even after the fifth read. Factions gives a list of "clans" your character can join, such as the Stoatorian Guard, the Kreehold Mercenaries, the Dular, and the Unsmudgables (these four being the most prominent of the Factions.) Clicking on the names of the Factions gives you a list of who is in it and what the ranks are within the Faction. You do not have to join a Faction if you do not want to. In fact, it's generally a good idea not to join until you've been around the VI for a few months and have seen them in action.

Entry Gallery - Here you can view all the submissions that VIers have made over the years, such as Poems, Riddles, Stories, and Artwork. There is also a "Miscellany" link where you can view special instances in which a player has done something helpful for the Imperium and received money for it. Such a payment is usually from doing something such as contributing to the Saturday Evening Smelt.

Library - Here you can see a list of all the books you've purchased. Clicking the names of the books will allow you to view more information on it, and begin reading it. To see this link, one needs to have purchased three bookshelves for their house or bunk.

Poste Box - Here is an easy to navigate list of your Missertrosses, showing only the sender, the subject title, and how long ago the message was recieved. Clicking on a title brings up that message, as well as a list of previous correspondences with that particular person. You can also quickly compose a message from here, and quickly delete several messages at once. This is a very useful link for people with slower modems, as they don't have to wait for their entire collection of letters to load in full. Sadly, this link can only be viewed by purchasing a garden for your house.

Brief Bilge - This is exactly like the main Bilge in the Bucket link, except that instead of giving a list of boards, it displays what exactly is on all the boards at once. This is EXTREMELY useful for people who don't want to click through a maze to see what's happened since their last visit. It's worth the money to buy a chair and place it in your bunk to get this link.

Activities

(Note: most of these activities are only available while At Port-- if you're on a ship that's At Sea, you'll have to wait for it to come back To Port before you can do them.)

Duel - Dueling is a fun little feature where you can fight with another person on the VI for a set amount of money (which can be changed until both parties agree.) There is an entire help section on it, so be sure to read that. Just be warned: Dueling can decrease your sickpoints quite a bit if you fight too much! Also, both people must be on at the same time, and dueling at the same time. Missertrossing your opponent to co-ordinate a duel is very helpful, as are Instant Messaging programs (such as AIM and MSN), where you can communicate even faster with your opponent.

Casino - The Casino is one of the best money-makers in the VI. You can gamble to your heart's desire-- or at least until the casino owner decides you've had enough for the day. There's the Slot Machine, which at first seems to eat your gilders, but then starts giving them back in doubles over time. Then there's the Roulette, which you've got a 1 in 60 chance of winning; definitely the best way to squander your fortune, as your winning is only double what you bid. Then there's Twenny-Wah, the Imperium's version of Blackjack, where it's quite the same-- double or nothing. Be sure to click the question mark for helpful tips on the Imperium's card deck, which is a bit different than our own.

At Port Activities - These are flash games developed for you to play while At Port. All of them are quite fun, though Sorting gets a little dull after a while, Plate Spinning is rather hit-or-miss with most VIers, and Archery requires quite a bit of practice before you can start getting gilders through it-- yes, you do get gilders for playing games. Isn't that great?

At Sea Activities - Even more flash games for your enjoyment! Avoid the Rocks is the best of the bunch; addicting, well-paying (10 gilders if you can make it past count 400), challenging, and the only game with an actual obtainable goal, meaning that it doesn't go on forever-- eventually you'll reach the end of the rocks. But that's all right, because you can play it an unlimited amount of times! Fishing is also quite fun, trying to get the bait into passing fish's mouths. Some fish are bad business if you don't hook 'em proper, however. Lastly, there's cooking, where you've got to balance the temperature of three pots of colour-chaning stew, using only the ingredients at paw and a single lid. Quite challenging.

Submit... Poem/Riddle/Story/Artwork - These are four separate links, but the gist of them is the same: submit poetry, riddles, stories and artwork (of your own, of course-- plagiarizing is highly looked down upon, and severely punishable.) You'll get gilders for doing outstanding work, but you might lose gilders if it, quite frankly, stinks. Don't let this stop you, though-- the Ministers who do the grading are quite fair, so long as you do good and stay by the rules. Successful submissions will be added to the Entry Gallery for the rest of the Imperium to enjoy as well.

Hobbies - Ah, hobbies... There are many of them to choose from, and all of them involve studying-- don't worry, though, YOU won't have to study, your character will, which they will do on their own, while you're asleep. ^^ You can choose from Publishing, Bottled Boats, Carving, and Woodworking. Publishing is one of the most profitable, as it allows you to make your own books to sell on the Public Market. Bottled Boats and Carving is, sadly, rather useless-- not many people are willing to shell out gilders to buy something that does nothing (unless you're famous or something: "Ooooh, I bought this Schooner from Retto!") The next most profitable is Woodworking, where you can learn to make furniture of all sorts to sell. There are several styles to choose from, so you may want to do some research (see Information, Houses) to see what style is the most popular/most needed. Keep in mind that it takes a long while to master a Hobby-- study consistently for a year, and you'll eventually learn all there is to know about Woodworking, for instance.

Management

Journal - A journal is rather useful thing indeed. You can use it to store a small amount of text, whatever it may be-- a link to a website, something humourous or enlightening that someone in the VI wrote that you want to save in case you forget where the thread it came from can be found, etc. You'll have to buy a few journal pages from a store before you can start saving any information, however. Luckily, journal pages are one of the cheapest items in the VI-- even with your starting allowance of 100 gilders, you can buy one or two and still have quite a bit left over.

Inventory - The inventory lists all of your possessions. A possession is considered anything that you can buy or sell, even your house. It also allows you to sell your items on the Public Market or the Auction Block. Just make sure you don't confuse how many of a certain item you want to sell with the price, both of which you can set to your preference.

Equip/Wear - This is a largely useless link for new players. If you have bought a weapon accessory (which are rather expensive) from a store or off the market, you can equip it on your character here, but it will not do anything useful except for when you duel. You CANNOT equip weapons you buy here! When you buy a weapon, you can only select it during the Weapon Selection stage of a duel.

Infirmary - The Infirmary shows how many sickpoints you have, and how much it will cost to heal them. Often you will see that your character has ailments, such as coughing, sneezing, etc. You have 100 health points in total, but you can only get 99 sickpoints, usually from being inactive (not logging into the game) for long periods of time, dueling often, getting poisoned, or doing poorly in a raid. You cannot die from getting sickpoints, but if you have only 1 health point left and you get your tail whipped in a duel, you can die, and you will have to start a new account. It is best to heal your sickpoints as soon as you get them, as the more sickpoints a crew has in total, the worse that ship does during a raid. (Tip: If you find you don't have enough money to heal your sickpoints, talk to the Captain of your ship, and you will be sent the needed gilders as soon as possible.)

Upgrade Rank - From here you can upgrade your rank in the Navy, or, if you wish, leave the Navy and live On Land. The first few ranks you can get easily, though you will have to pay money for them. From then on, you'll need permission to upgrade your rank. Permission is usually given by the Captain of your ship when you are active in the VI, such as RP regularly and submitting a fair amount of good poems, riddles, stories and/or artwork. However, this is not strictly needed-- as you can see, I (Sean C. Waters) made it to Captain: Commander rank without submitting much of anything at all. RPing in your ship's mess is the best way to earn ranks. (Tip: Captains are fairly busy people, so sometimes you may need to ask them about giving permission to upgrade ranks. Be polite about it, and try not to sound like you're begging. Some of us do take bribes. Hey, we're vermin!)

Give Permission - If you are an Officer of the Navy, you can start giving permission to beasts of a certain rank to upgrade their rank. It is best to talk with your Captain before doing such, but it is not unknown or even frowned upon for an Officer: Ensign to give upgrades to Crewbeast: Chief Petty Beasts as they see fit.

Real Estate - At the offices of Imperial Estates, you can buy yourself a new house at Warehouse price in any of the main styles of architecture: Rustic, Gothic, Baroque, Contemporary, or the Imperium's own Quibbinesque. You can also view information on the houses you already own on the list provided. It is generally recommended to save up your gilders and buy a house with an Outdoor Area so you can then buy a garden and have access to the Poste Box link.

Place Furniture - If you've bought furniture, you can place it in your house or in your bunk here. If you've bought a chair and three bookshelves, you can safely place all of them in your bunk, without having to buy a house. Some furniture, such as tables, beds and couches, are too large to be placed in your bunk, and will need to be placed in a house for their Quality of Life points to be put into effect.

The Court House - The Court House first shows you what contracts you have signed, contracts you either need to sign or refuse to sign, and contracts that you yourself have written up. You'll need to click the link "File Legal Papers" to get to the good stuff. From there, you can choose from a number of contracts, which can do different things. There's the Marriage Contract, where you can request a marriage between your character and another (assuming both parties agree); there's the Change Ship Contract, where you can request to be transferred from the ship you're currently on to another, though you'll have to wait for both Captains to sign before you're moved; there's the Name Change Contract, where you can request a change to your character's name, in case you made a mistake during sign up, or just got annoyed with the name you chose. Be careful: If you have a passcode and your name is changed, your passcode will not work anymore, yet your password will be perfectly fine. Lastly, there's the Custom Contract, where you can write up your own contract. A prime example of a custom contract is "Yearlong Transfer of Ownership of Manuscripts"

Business

New Occupation - Tired of life in the Navy? You can go here to start a store or a farm, though it will cost you. There are a variety of stores to choose from, so make sure you know what you're doing before starting one. To start a farm, you must have left the Navy all ready, whereas starting a store automatically boots you out. Generally, it is not a wise idea to start a new store in the VI, as competition is very fierce. If it's your greatest aspiration, try to talk to Harisar Vernum and "wolf bite" about it, first, as they're the primary leaders when it comes to store-owning. Farms are rather useless at the moment, but I hear that if you have patience and skill, you can make something of it. I wouldn't suggest even trying, myself.

Portfolio - If you've bought stocks in a company, you can manage them here. It all rather confuses even me, so new players should generally stay away until they're used to things, or know what it is they're doing. Stocks can make you big money, so it would be worthwhile to learn them.

Ye Olde Epicurean Banke - Here you can do two things: store money (and withdraw money), and take out a loan (which you'll have to pay back with interest within a few days, or the bank will start to take it back from you itself, even if you've no gilders-- you'll start to have negative money. Not a good thing.) It costs a certain amount to start a savings account, but it's not terribly expensive. You don't start earning a good amount of interest until you have a few thousand in. Keeping 30,000 in the bank gives you the largest amount of gilders per day-- 200-- though Retto is currently working on a new system for figuring interest. Most players will rarely see that kind of money in their pocket, however, so it doesn't quite matter.

Public Market - The Public Market is a list of items that other players are selling from their own inventories. If they have several items of the same sort up for sale (for instance, 5 copies of the same book) you need only put "1" in the box provided, then click "buy" at the bottom of the page. To see the full list of items, click the word "items" on the bar at the top. You can buy several things at once, so you don't have to buy each item separately. Oftentimes you will get "swindled" however, so be wary. Swindling works in several ways: One way is that you pay for the item, but never get it. The other way is that you get the item, but the seller doesn't receive any money for it.

Auction Block - The Auction Block is very much like the Public Market, but for one major difference: instead of simply buying the item, you have to bid for it. To bid, you MUST raise the price of the item. When the seller checks back on the Auction Block, they can choose whether or not to sell it to you. For the most part, the Auction Block is best for making secure sales-- say you've made a deal with someone to sell something very important for very cheap, right? You can sell it on the Auction Block at your Inventory, say for 10 gilders, then the buyer raises the price to 15 gilders, and you can choose to sell it to them at the Auction Block. This ensures that the wrong person doesn't snatch up the item before the right person has a chance to. However, a lot of sales on the Auction Block are by deadbeasts who will never close the sale, so be careful if you go idly shopping here.

Send Gilders - Most new players will never need to use this button, but will often find themselves on the other end of it. If you ever find yourself richer by a few thousand gilders overnight, check your Bunk-- There should be a note saying "so-and-so sent you #### gilders". That means that "so-and-so" used this link to send you gilders. It's one of the easier links to understand.

Your Account

Change Password - VERY IMPORTANT! When you first sign up to the VI, you're issued a password of random letters and numbers via e-mail. What you should do with that is take it here, and change it over to something you can actually, y'know, remember. (Unless you CAN remember "f8s23cn7"...)

Change User Information - ALSO IMPORTANT! Since the VI is primarily a writing-based role-playing game, obviously the other players in it will need to know something about your character, right? Right. Here you can put up such information as your character's Appearance (usually a detailed description of what they look like, and any little personality quirks they have), their Bio (short for Biography, which is a story of sorts about their past/current life), and your forum signature. When you're done filling this information in, it will be become publicly available for other users to see when they click on your bunk.

Some of the lesser parts of this link allow you to change your e-mail (which is only ever used if you change your password), your passcode (more on these later), your Heir (the person who gets your items and half your gilders when you die), the design of the VI (fiddle with this and choose the one that's most appealing), and the Name Display. You'll notice that some people have nicknames, titles, and first and last names. With the Name Display, you can choose which of these you see on the Players Online list, or wherever else their name appears. Last is the Vacation Mode. If you ever need to be away from the VI for a few days, using the Vacation Mode to do so would be best-- you CANNOT log back into the VI until 74 hours after you set Vacation Mode, so be careful. The benefits are that you get no sickpoints while in Vacation Mode and you can't get kicked off a ship for being inactive. Please do not set Vacation Mode on if you never plan on returning, however. It's quite annoying.

Lastly, you MUST enter your current password into the Current Password box at the very top. If you don't, and you try to set the new information, you'll lose it all.

Manage Alts - Alts, or Alternate Characters, are something you shouldn't bother with if you're new to the Imperium. For one thing, Alts are expensive-- they cost 1150 gilders to make. But they do serve their uses. Alts can only be used to RP with, so don't bother doing anything else with them, such as buying them their own weapons and accessories. You can own and make as many Alts as you want, but you can only use the first two on your list. The only exception to this is Captains (and perhaps Ministers), who can use up to 4. In some special cases, a Minister may give a player permission to use more than 2 Alts. To properly use an Alt, write an RP post as if they were your main character, then, before posting, select their name from the drop-down menu right above the box in which you write. Alts cannot die, but you can sell them and change them as needed.

Delete Account - There's really no reason you'll ever need to use this. Most people kill their account off because they made a mistake in the name or don't have enough money to fix a problem they have (such as a boatload of sickpoints)-- both these can be cured by asking for help from the nice people of the Imperium (obviously not everyone is nice, but a few of us are) or requesting a name change contract. The only reason you should ever need to delete your account is if you're just plum sick of your main character and want to start over, or want to leave the VI forever-- and why in 'Gates would you want to do THAT? Besides, of course, the obvious reasons?