Game and Character Setup

Welcome to the Chromanexus.
This page serves as a guide to you, the Voice wishing to join or continue participating in our wondrously complex realm, as a means of creating a character. If you're just looking for a refresher or a quick bullet list of steps, check the Quick Setup Guide instead. Otherwise, to help put you in the right mindset and get the lore-gears spinning, continue!

The Voices (Us!)

We have no beginning. We have no end. We are infinite. Millions of years after your civilization has been eradicated and forgotten, we will endure.
-Sovereign

As mentioned in Meet the Game Masters, you (the player) are what's known as a "Voice". Akin to the concept of overdeities or demiurges, a Voice is not someone who necessarily makes their presence known within the Chromanexus. More accurately, they are the Chromanexus. It is all our stories crossing and overlapping with one another that create and sustain this multiverse, giving shape and form to both our characters and their experiences.
The locus of your influence begins and ends in the enigmatic realm known to our characters as the Breach. Why? Staff know, but no one else does, and it's probably going to stay that way. This place exists somewhere before, after, and between everything and everywhere in the Chromanexus. From it, the power to create stories manifests. However, our characters don't necessarily understand this; as far as they're concerned, this is some weird metaphysical plane detached from anywhere specific that somehow, the Hero's Guild found their way into and set up shop.
As a Voice, your characters do not know who you are, nor will they. Most characters in the Chromanexus have heard something or another about "the Voices", but as no one has ever seen their handiwork personally (aside from maybe the Riders of the Apocalypse), few people in the multiverse other than madmen and isolated sages bother to give the Voices much more thought than passing fancy. When characters experience supernatural events, they do not attribute it to the Voices but rather natural forces or deities; they don't worship you, they worship the god of magic, Azuth. It is not you who curses their journey, it is Bhaal, the god of violence. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant. It's your story. It's what your character believes.
There is no ability in the game that permits a character to speak directly with you or perceive you in any capacity.
Fourth wall breaks happen all the time, sure it's fun, but your character is not looking at you a la Deadpool and winking every time they make a joke.

The Outsiders (Bots and Tools)

We as players do not interact any more directly with the Chromanexus than the divines do with mortals. We go through intermediary tools called the Outsiders, who themselves are also as removed from the minutia of the game as we are, but are integral to making sure the game keeps running. A particularly devoted player (or at least someone already familiar with each one) can knock out setup in about 30 - 40 minutes, but if this is your first time it may take longer. We recommend using a desktop (or laptop) instead of a mobile device to walk through this part to keep things moving quickly. We do our best to automate what we can, but with minimal coding experience and only what free time we can put in outside of our day jobs, there's only so much that can be helped. (On that note, feel free to contribute if and when you have ideas! It takes a community to run a community, so every contribution matters!)
Weaver (Discord). This should go without saying, but the Discord app is our medium of play. You need to have an account in order to log in and play.
Bone Carver (DDB). As Chromanexus runs on D&D's 5th Edition ruleset, we use DDB as our primary source of truth. We do support various homebrew features and adjustments to better fit our format (West Marches, PBP), but even what we customize is usually done with RAW in mind to both make sure the game remains some semblance of balanced and to limit the disagreements that often arise out of changing or modifying core game rules.
The Merchant (Help Documentation). The Merchant, more formally known as the bot "Avrae", automates about 99% of the game. Dice rolls, character abilities, spells and features, etc, but in order to do so it needs to know who is rolling what. That means you need to set up and use a Sheet Manager. Whether Avrae supports other managers or not, we only allow players to submit sheets using either DDB or DiceCloud (DC). We'd prefer if you use DDB because it means most of the legwork is done, but if and when you choose to dabble in the homebrew stuff, it is... well, less than stellar compared to DiceCloud, with the tradeoff being that you have to manually enter everything yourself in DiceCloud. Staff don't mind helping if you need.
Assuming you use DDB, you can join one of these campaign links to create your character sheet and get access to all the content we've unclocked to-date (we try to pick it all up when it's available so you all don't have to buy it yourself just to play):

• Campaign #1: https://ddb.ac/campaigns/join/11621411959641102
• Campaign #2: https://ddb.ac/campaigns/join/5049502416228066
• Campaign #3: https://ddb.ac/campaigns/join/24077101519878143

If you choose to make more characters later, please re-use the same campaign link to add your character so you don't end up taking more player slots. If there's no room in any given campaign, go to blame-a-gan and ping Wraith in case inactive players need to be pruned to make room.
The Wizipedia (Join the Character Catalogue). We call it that, at least, because what's more on brand than a wizarding wikipedia? Actually, it's World Anvil (the site you're on right now, reading this). For players, you'll want to use this place to create a character bio for yourself (this is separate from your character sheet). Put your character art here, if you have any, and when you set up your character alias later, you can use this page to make your token. The big boon is that we can link your character bio to relevant lore if and when it comes up (like Housing, certain events, and more).
The Voices (TupperBox). We use TupperBox to "speak" our characters stories. By creating an alias here with your character information, then invoking that alias in Discord, TupperBox transforms your text into a post as if the character themselves had logged in and written it. We recommend checking out the guide if you've never used it before for helpful tips and tricks, but otherwise, folks around the server are happy to help.
There are other Outsiders helping with one task or another as well, but you'll meet them later. Again, these are all background entities your character may or may not ever meet, and if they do, they should consider themselves extraordinarily lucky. An Outsider is only ever encountered in moments of extreme necessity, for better or worse, and otherwise do not intervene nor meddle with the story. They're only there to make sure the story continues.
For now, let's move on to the fun stuff: building your character.

Origins

The only real difference between your characters and the general population of the Chromanexus is that your characters are being used to help you tell the story of existence. NPCs - those characters that you don't personally play, except as supporting characters for an adventure - serve no more purpose than the stories they support, for better or worse.
In other words, the difference is whether we're paying attention to that character or not.

Your character is a Hero. Perhaps, they are even a Villain (play at your own risk; villains don't tend to survive very long in the field when their intentions are made obvious to heroic characters). It doesn't particularly matter which side your character is on, they've all got two things in common:

1. If Shuriig escapes, none of our characters will live to tell the tale.
2. Your character was crossed by a star, and in that moment was marked for Something More™.

We don't know how nor when, that's for you to decide, but some time in your character's origin story, a star crossed their path. Perhaps it streaked across the night sky one night while they were gazing upon it, prompting them to wish for something more and against all odds, had their wish granted. Perhaps it crashed at their feet, interrupting their day-to-day in a display of pyroclastic glory, who knows - but it happened. When it did, your character received their first blessing, the mark that would ultimately set them apart from the faceless, unnamed throngs of background characters that populate the Chromanexus. Your character received the Blessing of Adventure, and afterward, everything began to change. We'll explain this a bit further down.

Backstory and Race

First and foremost, you're welcome to use any background from an official D&D 5E sourcebook (don't worry, we've disabled all the ones you're not allowed to use in the DDB campaigns). Alternatively, you're welcome to use a custom background to better fit the origin you want to make for your character. Most characters in our game have their start on Chromatia, the central world of our campaign settings, but you're welcome to have your character originate from anywhere in the D&D multiverse and find their way here in some way or another, or even come from some unknown place of your own making. Should you decide to pick up the mantle of community GMing, your character may even come from a Player Domain, a world like Chromatia with lore and history you control as its custodian. The point here is that your character can come from anywhere, and be virtually anything as long as it's supported by D&D or our system.
Now, remember: you can be any alignment you choose, from the most benevolent saint to the most chaotic stupid gremlin. However, have realistic expectations about how your character might interact with others if you go for something more nefarious. Most players on the server play neutral- or good-aligned characters, and those who play evil characters often at least play in a way that's conducive to a flexible table setting. If you play a psychopathic murder hobo justifying chaotic good alignment with the "it's what my character would do" mindset, be prepared for the rest of the party to do what their character would do when presented with a psychopathic murder hobo of any alignment. If you're cool with that chance, go for it, it does make for some great and memorable stories sometimes. If having your character meet the consequences of their actions doesn't sit well with you, you're probably not going to have a fun time here regardless of your alignment.

For Chromanexus-specific lore relating to the playable races of the game, check out Playable Races for more information. If you don't see the race you want to play on these lists, don't worry about it - it just means that particular race's lore is no more in-depth than the general flavor offered by D&D for creating the character.
We generally try to upload lore when we can to the Game Lore book, but if there's something you're looking for that's not on there and you're not sure it's within the bounds of I Know a Guy, please always feel free to make a thread in blame-a-gan, a private thread in petition-the-voices, or a general post in character-fan-club to chat about lore and backstory with available staff and players, including but not limited to connecting your character to major world lore and events.
We love coordinating that shit with each other.

Anyway.

Class and Level

All official classes are supported, as well as the Gunslinger and Blood Hunter classes from Critical Role. As stated in the intro, we do not support Unearthed Arcana classes, so don't ask. The only exception to this are the handful of lore-friendly Homebrew Sub-Classes we've added to our game.
When you go to make your character, you're allowed to start at any level from 1 up to 10 (sorry munchkins, you'll have to earn levels 11 - 20). If you're here for the long haul, consider a low level character to build your way up and give yourself more time to immerse yourself in the story and lore of our realm; otherwise, if you want to jump straight into the meat of things and figure out the story as you go, join at a higher level. At level 10, characters on our server also gain access to the optional Greater Paths, powerful magic options that take the place of one your attunement slots and change your general gameplay in dramatic ways (like playing as a Dragon, a Celestial, or a Devil), but that's a separate thing and if you're still learning D&D, not something we'd recommend diving into until you're ready to give it a shot.
When determining your ability scores, we use the High Fantasy Point Buy model (36 points). You can use any tool you like to handle this, but we recommend Chicken Dinner, on account of it being free and easy-to-use. Use the Custom Rules to set your point buy to 36, and tweak your stats to your hearts' content.

Don't forget D&D's frame of reference for character level in terms of your backstory:
Levels 1 - 5 are no more than local heroes. They are typically not well known beyond their home town, if at all.
Levels 6 - 10 are heroes who've made a name for themselves in the nation. They're well known throughout the land, but that influence does not extend much farther than the borders of their home kingdom.
Levels 11 - 15 is where our heroes start gaining notoriety on the global stage.
Levels 16 - 20 are characters known not just in their world, but beyond.
It's not unrealistic to say you were an unwilling gladiator forced to fight to exhaustion by a cruel tyrant. It's another to say you've never lost a fight and have killed hundreds or even thousands before you're even level 1, or that you come from a paradoxically famous secret society that's provably known the answer to all things since the dawn of time. I mean, you can do it anyway, we're not cops and no one's going to stop you, but there may be giggles.

Starting Options

Your character gains any starting items or wealth granted by their chosen class and background; you're welcome to sell starting equipment at book value prior to starting. In addition to this, you gain 100 GP per character level (so a level 5 character would have their normal options plus 500 GP, or 1,000 GP for a level 10 character).
Money aside, we also permit adventuers to join the campaign with one of the following choices:

• (a) A Very Rare magic item.
• (b) A Rare magic item and two Uncommon magic items.
• (c) A Single Pure Chromatite. This handy resource is invaluable in our craft system, as it's a necessary component in the creation of legendary items.

The item(s) you choose should relate in some capacity to your character's backstory, but nobody's looking that closely. Make sure your items aren't on the Completely Restricted Items list (partially restricted items are fine).
You may then spend any of your starting gold on items at their book value before you begin, making your purchases part of your character's backstory.
After all this is said and done, you may choose a free feat provided you meet the prerequisites for that feat. Have fun man. Oh! I forgot, you also get access to one other thing...

Blessing of Adventure

This blessing takes the guise of the Mystic Conflux feat, which does not count against your character's learned or gained feats. To add this feat, you must have third party content enabled in your character sheet (if applicable), and add it by navigating to your sheet -> Feats -> Manage Feats, and choosing it from the list of feat options. Feel free to bother staff in blame-a-gan if you need help finding this.
There's a few details to keep in mind for roleplay purposes:

• The identify ability provided by the feat explains a player character's ability to innately know whether an item they hold is magical or not. Call it an instanct, but an adventurer just knows when something is magical, and can learn to hone this instinct once per day to gain a more intimate or familiar understanding of the item they hold (re: casting identify once per day). No, it is not a reliable sense by any means, but it is much quicker than the average mage, who must spend years of study in divination to learn the magic necessary to achieve the same results. Some individuals even use this ability as a means for testing whether someone has the "spark" of adventure within them, of the potential to do great and terrible things others can only dream of.
• The additional attunement slot is reserved for a very specific type of item: a Stellar Armament. These legendary items linger throughout the Chromanexus, artifacts left behind from a bygone era where gods and primordials waged war for control of the Chromanexus, and mortals needed anything they could get to drive these invading powers out and away from their homes. The star that crossed your character's path was perhaps one of these items traveling through the heavens to present itself to your character.

It is this very same blessing that, once your character first encounters one or learns to conjure one, permits them to use Corridors - Planar Travel to enter and exit The Breach, a strange realm not wholly connected to ours nor theirs. Only those with the "spark" may travel these enigmatic lands, perhaps one of the most significant reasons the Hero's Guild likely found their way in here to make home base. As harm does not exist here, it is impossible to be harmed here, making it the ideal base of operations. Most adventurers find their way here in some way or another, though others are known to congregrate elsewhere, with... different minded associations.

Adventure demands a sort of... I don't know, "bravado" when it comes to taking risks. There is no reward without it. Sure, it's fun to "win" at every available opportunity, and there's no harm in retreating when you're clearly outmatched and know you need backup, but if there's no chancing a loss in there somewhere it quickly gets to be hollow. The game is built on the concept of adventure, and adventure by definition carries risk, so yes, there is a distinct chance a character may die. A pet lost. A ship destroyed. A party, whiped. But generally speaking, we always leave options to get those things back or rescue them, so the control of whether you bring them back into the narrative or not is entirely yours.
Live a little. There's absolutely no drawbacks to taking one on the chin every once in a while.

Submit your Character for Approval

Here we're going to start massing everything back together.
In the server, open the Grimoire category and look for the sheet-management channel. In here, tap the New Post button in the upper right corner. Use the post guidelines (this will appear as a little 'book' icon next to the post button) for formatting guidance. Make sure when sharing your world anvil bio and your character sheet, you post the link to your world anvil bio first so the forum post properly embeds your chosen character art.
Once you post, a staff member will review the submission as soon as available and confirm you're ready to play. They'll update your tags from "Needs Approval" to "Approved", at which point you can start turning everything on and playing the game.
As soon as your character has been approved, before you do anything else, click this link:
http://www.worldanvil.com/heroes/world/dbe0d935-b5e3-406a-afa5-22db0182dac6/grant-access/Y6p3-JUAM-siTO8z
This enables staff to link your character(s) in relevant articles and lore when/where posted.

Turning on Integrations

Alright, last few steps. They usually only take a few minutes to get done, and then you're free to play!

Generate an Alias (Tupper)

It's time to create your alias. Aliases allow you to post in-character without using your own discord handle; that way if your own name changes or, heaven forbid, you leave the server, your character's posts are preserved under the name they were posted as. Plus, you can include your character art and tokens in an alias, to really help reinforce the presentation of in-character play versus out-of-character play.
As mentioned elsewhere, we use TupperBox to accomplish this. If you've never used it before, go to https://tupperbox.app/ and log in with your discord profile. We recommend checking out the help documentation for more in-depth pointers.
Go to the Dashboard (located at the top of the website), then in the Your Tuppers section, click the Add Tupper button in the top-right corner to generate a blank alias. At the top of the screen, change "New Tupper" to your character's name followed by any titles you wish to go by (ex: "Iovaerix, Lord of Harvest"). You do not need to change Display Name (though incidentally, if you have a character that uses other identities, changing the display name is a great way to post as the same character with "different" names). Then, copy the image link from your Character Bio art and paste it here in the Avatar URL.
The only other thing you need to set at this point is your Brackets. We recommend using your character's common name followed by a colon - for example, "iovaerix:" - to keep it simple. Keep in mind the brackets are case-sensitive, so if you don't want to remember to capitalize your alias every time, enter your bracket as a lower-case letters.
Once you've done these three things, save your tupper!

Import your Sheet to Avrae

Grab the link to your character sheet (not your character bio). In your sheet thread, post this command:
!import (sheet link)
The command should work regardless of which sheet manager you use. Avrae usually completes the import within a few seconds, and will let you know once the import is done.

Level Up!

Assuming you didn't just make a level 1 character, you need to update your experience points so Avrae knows you're the correct level. This'll be important for making sure you don't have to run other setup commands again, like the !level command, as once your XP is set properly it'll automatically update those whenever you gain enough XP to level up in them game.
Refer to DDB's Character Advancement Chart to find how many experience points you should add based on your chosen starting level. Then, run the following command:
!xp (value) Starting XP
You only need to replace value with the number. "Starting XP" adds a log entry if we ever need to double-check your entries later. Going forward, whenever you gain experience, use this command to add XP and log what you earned it from.

Wealth

Like experience, wealth is tracked within the server rather than from your individual character sheets. Use !g coins (value) to add your starting wealth to your sheet. You can then run !g coins convert to "compress" your coins to the highest value (so every 10 cp turns into 1 sp, every 10 sp turns to 1 gp, and every 10 gp turns to 1 pp).
You'll use this command whenever you add or subtract wealth earned or spent. To subtract wealth, just include the "-" sign before the value.

Let's Play!

That's it! All your set up is done, go and join the game!
Unless you already have something planned, open the Gathering Hub category, head over to matchmaking-lfg and make a post introducing your character and ask for a starter thread. This can be the thread detailing how your character ends up in the Breach, a random encounter in one of the various game areas or domains, or whatever else you feel like. If you're looking for some more involved tips on how to play in our environment, check out Social Interaction for tips and guidance, or just go bother people in matchmaking-lfg or builds-and-banter for inspiration.

When posting in character, use your set brackets (from tupper) to convert your message to an IC message. For example:

pandora: Hello, and welcome to the Breach!

Once sent, the server transforms the message into a post from "Pandora", stating "Hello, and welcome to the Breach!"

If you need help with anything else, always feel free to post in blame-a-gan for help and guidance.