1.0 Introduction to Sinai
"SinaiMUCK" and "Sinai" are sometimes treated as interchangeable in these documents, for simplicity's sake, though this is somewhat misleading. Sinai the setting is a fantasy world that attempts to depict a world very unlike Earth, where human and
animal-like characters (anthropomorphic) live and struggle to win fame,
love, power, glory, and wealth against a background of airships and ruins
of ancient races, a social background ranging from the Middle Ages to
the Regency period, and the conflict of characters from all social levels.
Sinai the MUCK, however is really just a place for us to meet together to play in this universe - and others. In fact, sometimes when SinaiMUCK is down, we will regroup on another MUCK ... and now and then, we even run other adventures completely separate from the Sinai chronology on the MUCK. It's just that Sinai is the primary setting, and the bulk of these documents are written for potential players within that setting.
Think of it as a cross between a shared creative writing universe and a
gaming group: players on Sinai interact in "real time" and the resulting
logs are then posted to a web site so they can be read at leisure.
The world of Sinai itself is a ringed planet in many ways like Earth in its composition (such as the fact that most of the surface is covered with water), but poor in heavy
metals. It boasts three continents, numerous islands, and
more than twenty 'sky islands' which are floating mountains that drift over
its surface. It has no moon, but instead a ring that is visible from the
surface during both day and night. Diverse races live at a pre-industrial
to early steam age level of technology. Ruins dot the surface, and airships
travel through the sky. Magic works, but where it is strongest, technology
fails or works in curious ways.
At the beginning of recorded Sinai history, a great Ark brought many
peoples to this world for a purpose now unknown. Each race has its own
beliefs that explain that it is truly the child of the Ark and that
the secrets of Sinai are its legacy. Wars have broken out over
attempts to "explain" these beliefs to others. Rephidim, an
inhabited sky island, keeps an uneasy peace between these aggressive
cultures.
1.1 Notes on Sinai's Theme
Sinai is envisioned as a cooperative role-playing venture, but we have
gamemasters (GMs) both to guide "overall" story-arcs that span multiple logs
and characters, and to ensure some kind of continuity and balance. The
typical character will not be overly powerful - they can be highly
skilled, wealthy or influential, dangerously strong or amazingly swift,
but not all at once, ensuring that they must either work with other
player characters (PCs) or use their wits to overcome obstacles, rather
than using some miraculous special ability to prevail.
To that end, some caveats and observations:
1.2 Sinai's AUP
SinaiMUCK exists solely for entertainment purposes, and access is not
guaranteed. Its players tend to be mature roleplayers who like
creating interesting literary characters and writing stories about
them in real time. As well as being an impromptu theatre where we are
both actors and audience, Sinai is a place to hang out, have some fun,
and make some friends worth keeping. The Sinai mileu is a richly
developed fantasy land of unknown purpose and destiny.
1.3 Imagination Chronicles Website
Thanks to Paul Osze (Envoy on SinaiMUCK), Sinai has one of the best
role-playing resources and campaign log sites on the web. The Imagination Chronicles
website can be found at http://sinai.critter.net/ and includes:
1.4 Purpose of this Guide
In this guide's latest revision, a considerable amount of material has been
added to bring it up to date with the setting of Sinai (as of this writing).
In February of 2000, we "fast forwarded" the timeline by four years - whereas it had previously had been more or less progressing in "real time". This allowed us to make some fairly major changes in the setting, and observe the results of some previous adventuring.
The ambitious goal of the Players' Guide is to serve as an exhaustive reference for players and potential players on Sinai, with a focus on providing information for the "Sinai" setting ... though rules on proper conduct and role-playing style generally apply to any other game settings we may use on SinaiMUCK as well.
You don't need to read all the sub-articles contained on this site. A great deal of information has been added in the hopes of helping players to better know how to play particular types of characters. For instance, if you wanted to play a Temple Inquisitor, there is a lot of information here about the breakdown of the Temple hierarchy. If, however, you wanted to play a barbarian in the wilds, you hardly need to know anything terribly specific to the world of Sinai that wouldn't apply to a "generic" fantasy setting, except that you're on a planet with anthro animals, a ring in the sky, no moon, and occasionally sky islands or airships drift past.
If you find things to be unclear or incomplete, let the GMs know. Provided
things go well, this guide will be edited and updated from time to time
as needed.
1.5 Player Questionnaire
As part of our standard procedure (subject to change, since honestly
we don't get queries all that often) we have a questionnaire
Please be aware that we are not currently seeking out new characters. We
have relatively few GMs compared to players, and are unlikely to have new
openings for players anytime soon. However, it probably won't hurt to
inquire, as long as you aren't too insistent on being accepted.
1.6 Gen's Introduction to Sinai
One of the major GMs on Sinai, Gen, has written up an introduction for new and prospective
players on How to Get Along on Sinai.