Character Options

The Living Action system provides many different ways for you to customize your character. These are generally referred to as "character options," and come in five varieties: Races, Classes, Skills, Actions, and Items.

Race

Your character's race determines his or her general creature type, such as human, elf, or angori. Different races have affinities for different classes and skills, as well as distinct personalities, physical traits, and relations with other races that will drastically affect your game experience. Because every character has only one race, which must be chosen at character creation and cannot thereafter be changed, your choice of race is very important.

Class

Whereas races determine your character's hereditary traits, classes determine his or her learned abilities. Like races, classes have affinities for different skills. More importantly, however, classes determine what kind of special actions your character can use in play. Unlike races, your character can potentially have more than one class, although most characters begin with only one.

Skills

Although race and class have a strong effect on the sort of abilities your character is likely to have, skills are where you really begin to define those abilities. Skills encompass a variety of different abilities, including things like weapon proficiency, racial actions, and professional training.

Actions

Strictly speaking, anything your character can do in play is an action of one sort or another. Common actions like walking, speaking, or swinging a sword can be performed by almost any character at will, and may be enhanced by certain skills. Special actions, on the other hand, are restricted to certain races or classes and can only be used with limited frequency. These include things like hurling balls of fire, shouting terrifying battle cries, and mending wounds.