FAQ

[somarium_lords]

faq This page addresses the most commonly asked questions and gives a very nice brief overview on how the game works. If you have any questions, you can reply to this post. We also have a separate post for other concerns, questions, or suggestions that doesn't quite fit here. For additional and more in-depth information about some of the concepts mentioned here, refer to the Complete Guide. ❦ about the game ❖ what is somarium? Somarium is a community based game that focuses on the premise of dreams. Players can write dreams for their characters and said dreams are ICly posted on the network for others to see and comment or interact with the dreamer. Events are also dictated by a Moon Cycle, which are posted every week. Big events happen during the New and Full Moon cycles that are usually timed to be toward the end of the month. Network posts are made on dreamnet and log posts are made on somarium. Refer to the Posting Guide for more details. In addition, a recent update has made it so that dreams have a direct influence on the world. Objects can actually materialize into the world, the cityscape can be altered, and things can be brought in from their own world upon arrival. More information detailed further in. ❖ heading toward endgame It should be noted that as of March 2014, Somarium is in its final phase of endgame. The end date is set for July 31, 2014 and there is a lot that's going to happen until then. Lots of canon based events as well as underlying plot events tied in with them will be occurring during the last few months. All of this will make the city change and eventually accumulate to one final big event in July. The application and activity checks will be altered around April. Further details can be found here ❖ wait, what happened to somarium? Somarium was originally set as a kind of "post-apocalyptic" forgotten city left in shambles. Over the years it had been rebuilt and turned to a bustling city filled with life and simple luxury. As of September 12, we took a wrecking ball and reverted Somarium back to its original state. Thus it is once again a "post-apocalyptic" city wherein the characters must try and make a living while rebuilding it again in the process. And it's surrounded by a desert. Without any protection. Good luck. ❖ how do characters enter somarium? The obvious way is through sleep, but the connection between Somarium and other worlds is more powerful than that. Being unconscious, right before or after death, even daydreaming or just thinking very deeply and forgetting one's awareness can cause a character to enter into Somarium. A misfire in world or time traveling can bring them in, too. However, important to note is that when a character enters Somarium, a "dream self" is created. Basically it's a clone of the character. They are completely separate from their canon selves and will not be aware of any future events happening in their world unless told by other castmates or canon updated. ❖ what happens when characters first "wake up" in Somarium? Characters will "wake up" in any place within Somarium. This includes the city, the village, on the floating mountain, just outside in the desert, within buildings, outside buildings, in the fountain, in the lake, on the roof of someone's house, in someone's room—be creative! In terms of condition, characters will usually arrive into Somarium in the same state they were in canon. Therefore, a character is coming in injured or right after death, it is up to the player in what condition the character will arrive. However, any life threatening injuries will be healed, so a character can still be seriously injured, but not life threatening. Any clothing or items will also come with the character. This includes any weapons and potential pets. In addition, they will find a Dreamberry somewhere on or near their person. It's the communication device that basically works like a phone. More information can be found here. ❖ a dreamberry? It's the communication device that basically works like a phone. More information can be found here, but the short run of it is that it acts like a smartphone (video, voice, text, touchscreen capabilities) and also the device used to display the dreams that are broadcast over the network. ❖ how does the dreaming thing work? All characters, even those who may canonly never sleep or dream, will have dreams. These dreams have the potential to be publicly broadcast over the network. However, it's a random selection, so not all dreams are put on display—just the ones that players actually post. These dreams can be anything. Subject matter could be their past (canon or RP), things they want to happen, hidden feelings they have, etc. They can be incredibly serious or complete crack. Dreams can also have special effects that allow the viewer to feel whatever the dreamer is feeling. Dreams can also be interactive in that others can actually enter the dream and participate in it. More information on how that works can be found here. ❖ you mentioned dreams altering the place... Somarium is fueled by dream energy and thus needs it to maintain any sort of semblance of a city. Currently the city is a wreck due to the lack of dream energy. Characters now have access to create more powerful dreams that can be reflected within the city itself. From small items to large buildings, such things can be produced through dreams. Eventually even more affects can be done, such a building actually be destroyed or changed completely by someone's dream (intended or not). Roads may be twisted around or maybe an entire block is suddenly floating! A lot of these large changes will happen a little down the road, but this is what it's leading up to. ❖ bringing a piece from home Incoming applicants now have the option to have some "element" of their character's canon come along with them. This element can be a concrete building, species of animals or monsters, an object, or even an energy source. The catch is that these elements will only affect Somarium, thus the more vague types, such as an energy source, will be reduced to a very small scale. This may change later on, but we're starting small to see how it goes. It's preferred that the element is related to the character's canon, but not restricted. A directory of current elements brought in can be found here. ❖ what if my character does not dream in canon? It may depend on the case, but for the most part they will start dreaming in Somarium as the world mechanics will override most of original canon ones. ❖ are canon abilities nerfed? Somewhat. Character can keep most of their canon abilities. We only ask players to restrict the god-tier leveled abilities. They can still be very powerful, but not as powerful as they would be in their canon world. No game breaking abilities and no abilities that would allow a character to travel to another world. These kind of abilities either need to be removed/sealed completely, or altered. ❖ not a bubble city. Just to clarify, Somarium has no barrier protecting it from the outside elements. Anything can come through and there is nothing stopping the characters from going out. However Dreamberry reception isn't all that great out in the desert. ❖ how are languages handled? Through the super awesome magic of Somarium, everyone understands each other. For the most part, a character will hear everyone else speaking in their native language. However, since Dreamberry and Somarium-world translators are imperfect, there are exceptions: If the character is deliberately talking in their own language so that the other person does not understand what they are saying, it does not translate. All other characters would hear the foreign language and wonder what the hell is going on. All honorifics and suffixes do not translate unless the player opts to not use them. Example, "-san", "-chan", "Señor", "Monsieur", "Frau", etc. These can stay as they are. So "Suoh-san" would not automatically translate into "Mr. Suoh", unless the player opts to have it translated. "Non-Native" speakers would hear an accent in speech (i.e., when a Japanese character speaks to a French character, the French character would hear a light Japanese accent in the other's voice). In the first case, if you type out the actual language either from your own knowledge of the language or through the use of a translator like Google Translator, you MUST include an OOC translation so the other player will know what's going on. Please keep in mind that the other character will not be able to understand, unless they are also knowledgeable and somewhat versed in the language. If the other character would be able to understand, then they will be able to understand and hear it as the native language, not the translated version. In the second case, if a player opts to not use native honorifics or words and instead translates, then it can be assumed that character just had a better translating device on their Dreamberry. ❖ what about needs? sleeping, eating, all that good stuff. Characters will still need to do all of those things in order to have a healthy life. For characters like vampires, they will not have to drink blood to survive. Or, if the player opts to, the need is just greatly reduced so that they only need to now and again. NPCs make for great fodder. This applies to other types of characters who may have special needs for survival. ❖ how does money, jobs, and housing work? The currency is called Dream Points (DP) and characters are given 10,000DP to start with. They can always get a job to earn more, but they won't be getting any more 'free money' after that. Thankfully, since dream energy is what runs the entire city, they will get points for dreaming! There's no exact number, but it's enough for any character to live at least comfortably and get by. This is of course all handwaved. Just keep it reasonable. For jobs, characters can either start their own or join a business. To this we just leave it up to the player's imagination. It's like the iPhone app—there's one for everything. If you think there's a store that specializes in selling one particular kind of tofu, there is a store for that. As for housing, so long as it's vacant, characters can choose wherever they wish to stay. As there is currently no local population to ask for rent or mortgage, characters can just take it, slap a name on the door or mailbox, and its yours. We have a Residence page for players to use and sign-up for. You're free to make up new places, too. Feel free to refer to our Locations page to get an idea on what Somarium looks like. ❖ what happens when a character is put on hiatus or dropped? When a character is placed on hiatus, there are two possibilities that can happen. One, they can sometimes go into a sleep coma. Basically, the character is dead asleep the whole time. There is currently no IC explanation as to why characters go into these sleep comas, but they've been accepted as another one of Somarium's strange phenomenon. The other is that the character disappears from Somarium. Where they go is anyone's guess, but their name is still on the contact list. When a character is dropped, they are completely removed from the world and their name disappears from the contact list. At least, that's what characters have assumed, anyway. If a player decides to reapply for the character, they are allowed to retain their previous Somarium memories or start fresh. How much they remember is also up to the player. If a player chooses to retain the memories, mention it somewhere in the application so we know. ❖ what happens when a character dies? Characters can die, but they don't stay dead forever. They're gone for at most a week. During this time, players have the option to turn them "ghost" and still interact with others. However, the area is restricted to where they died. When they come back to life, they'll suffer a minor loss of something—a sense of the body or even an object. These effects last no longer than a week. These effects are also compounded with every subsequent death. If a character dies a second, third, or fourth time, they will become more apathetic, morose, and even suffer major memory loss after coming back to life. ❦ about applications ❖ can i apply for an OC? Unfortunately, we do not allow original characters in this RP. You may apply for any published character in anime/manga, video games, movies, TV shows, or books, but you may not create your own characters. This also applies to characters that have little to no canon base, for example Vocaloids. This is only because these types of characters risk becoming like OCs due to the massive amount of headcanon required. ❖ how about an AU? Not only are fanon!alternate universe characters not allowed, you may only apply for original canon versions of a character. By "original", we mean the main version of the character you see throughout the series. However, there are some exceptions: Cross-canon AUs. Characters that canonly have alternate versions of themselves in different series are allowed. So long as there is enough canon material to work from, they are considered distinct enough. We would also allow multiple canon alternate versions in the game. So an example would be the characters from CLAMP's Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE series. One person could app as Sakura or Syaoran from TRC and another could still app as Sakura or Syaoran from Card Captor Sakura. While they share the same name and some characteristics, they are both from distinctively different canons. Any of the Final Fantasy cameos from Kingdom Hearts and then their main canon are also applicable. The Final Fantasy cameos from Dissidia, however, would not be allowed as they are very similar to their original counterparts. ❖ can i apply for an animal or robot type character? If they are major characters in and of themselves, animals and robot characters are allowed. Examples are any of the major Disney animal characters like Simba from The Lion King or any major game characters like Spyro the Dragon. Any of the Transformers could also be applied for since they are their own entity. ❖ can my character bring their pet? If your character canonly has a pet or some kind of sidekick/partner, it is possible to bring them along into the game. However, they must meet the following stipulations: Mechs not allowed. Sorry, mechs are still not allowed in the game! Cannot be playable by another person. There might be case-by-case scenarios, but in short, the pets or partners would be the kind where it would be near impossible for someone else to play them. Work Around. If you think it unlikely that there is an actual player for this character, you may play them as well. But if you do find someone, they will have to app in separately and your version removed. Must include reasons why they are included and how they will be played in the application. This doesn't have to be lengthy, and no additional information about the pet/partner would be needed. We would just need to know who and what they are, why they are included, and how the pet is related to the character and would be played. NPC-like. Essentially, any pets/partners brought into Somarium would behave more or less like NPCs, so all actions would be included with the original character's tags. No separate journals required. Abilities powered down. Just like normal characters, pets will also have their powers limited to fit the game setting. Size generally does not matter. The only restriction would be any animals that are fairly large. If they are larger than a house, they can be shrunk to at least half the size. Examples of characters that would fit into this rule are Repede, Pikachu, Boota, etc. Weapon partners can also be included, such as "living" puppets. Summons are allowed but they will be unable to return to their "home" realm if they usually resided somewhere separate from their summon. Some abilities such as godmoding or potential gamebreakers would have to be removed or nerfed. If you are unsure if your character would be able to bring a potential pet/partner, feel free to contact one of us mods and we'll be happy to help! Characters are still free to adopt one of the many creatures that inhabit Somarium as one of their own pets. ❂ index ❂

Comments

[deathwailart]

I was wondering if the Dragonborn from Skyrim would be appable or not? I'm not totally sure where they fit in the scheme of things.

[queen_in_the_north]

Okay I have a question regarding an aspect of canon divergence between books and the tv show for A Song of Ice and Fire. I play this character from the book canon, but in the tv show, they bring in a new character who basically fills the same role. Would they both be appable to the game or would it be whichever got in first?

[somarium_lords]

In this case, it would be whoever came in first.

[lamortenoir]

So let's talk about death.

See, I've got an eye on the game and am about Will's abilities here before I app in.

What's your policy on summoned weapons? I'm talking about his death scythe which takes the form of extendable pruning shears. (Clearly gardening tools is a thing.) Would he have access to this? Secondly, can it be used to view an individual's Cinematic Record? (Read: film reel of someone's life. Kind of sort of not really a soul?)

[somarium_lords]

We actually used to have a Grell here and we allowed both! So Will can summon his death scythe as well as view the Cinematic Record. However, for the Record you would need player permission before it could happen. Otherwise it won't work.

[lamortenoir]

Oh, that's beautiful. Thank you.

Now let's see if I can get this app done in a week.

[officepolitics]

Question! How often do the HMD/Love memes go up? And if so, when is the next one scheduled for?

[somarium_lords]

Both go up simultaneously every other month. The next one is scheduled for around the 18th next month.

[officepolitics]

GOTCHA. Thanks, bro!!!

[notwithoutyou]

It covers what the character comes in with as far as clothes/items go, but is there a way for them to gain access to things from their homeworld later on down the line that they didn't have with them that they arrived with?

[somarium_lords]

Only through events, but we don't have an actual "regain" system that some other games might. So such events are rare and have not happened often.

[notwithoutyou]

Okay, thank you! I just wanted to make sure. :3

[fae_of_the_rose]

Because a few of your MCU players are horrible, horrible people, I'm looking into possibly apping Darcy Lewis from the Thor movie(s). However, she at the moment has only the history we get in the film and not even comics history to fall back on like pretty much everyone else. Is she appable, by your rules? She has personality and everything else, but except for "poli sci major at Culver who's Jane's intern by default since no one else signed up", we don't know anything about her pre-movie.

And the Culver thing might be just generally accepted fanon for all I can tell, honestly.

[unsleeved]

How close does a weapon or item have to be to be taken into Somarium along with the character? Or is that up to the player?

[bringsthebite]

May I email my application in place of posting it? I will give an explanation as to why when I do, but I was curious if this was an option.

[somarium_lords]

We would prefer that you post your application on the apps page to keep the process standardized. Though we are curious as to know your reasoning on wanting to email it. You could pm the mod journal your reason first so we may discuss if emailing the application would be possible.

[fracturedsoul]

Weird question: Homestuck characters have a "dream self" they switch to when they go to sleep. I've reserved this dude, who is always awake as both his waking and dream selves and can consciously switch between them at will thanks to latent soul-splintering abilities. In Somarium, do you think he'd be able to dreamwalk while still fully conscious?

[somarium_lords]

Gyaaaaaah, we didn't see this until now! So sorry!!

But to answer your question, it is possible, but due to the nature of the world, Dirk won't be able to do this until some time has passed. He will have to get used to Somarium's version of dreamwalking and then he'll be able to do dreamwalk while conscious. It will be touch and go at first but after about a month or two it should be less of an issue. You are also more than free to tweak it so that the dream energy of Somarium alters his ability in some way or continues to interfere. If you have any other ideas, feel free to let us know!

[fracturedsoul]

That's fair enough! Thanks a lot, and don't worry about the delay.

[brightness]

I'm considering apping a character that I played previously in Somarium some time ago! As I plan for him to retain previous Som memories, I was wondering if I'd be allowed to use threads from the last time he was here? I understand that samples must be Somarium set so generally can't be reused, but since these are completely Somni-bound, would they be acceptable? :'

[somarium_lords]

Unfortunately we cannot allow threads from your prior stay, or threads from dear_mun and other games, to be used as samples. However, we do allow samples to be reused if the app/samples have been recent, but we would still prefer a new set of samples altogether.

[allyoucaneat]

Can we app in ghost type characters? I don't see it listed above.

[somarium_lords]

Yes, you may app a ghost type character into Somarium.

[socrash]

Hey mods! This is kind of a weird question, but is it possible to nerf a character's abilities completely in Som? Either because of some weird blip/occurrence during return from a canon update or an event or anything, really. I'm kind of toying with longer-term goals so I'm curious.

Obviously if this is something that wouldn't work or isn't possible, it's totally fine! Just wondering.

[somarium_lords]

Totally doable! And random blip works, too.

[prefacing]

Awesomesauce. Thanks mods! /o/

[mudousetsuna]

Hello, I'd like to app someone who has a lot of spells, but I'm concerned that just nerfing the strength of the spells is not enough. The app itself would certainly be really long just based on how many she knows, on its own. What would you suggest I keep in mind when writing my app? I have considered halving my character's power, or limiting her stamina, or even taking away how many different spells she can cast, if that helps.

[somarium_lords]

The number of spells is actually not a real problem, so she theoretically could have all of them. In terms of nerfing/limiting powers, the rule of thumb is that if there is some kind of game breaking ability (create gateways out of the world) or something that could be considered a "One hit KO" or destroy a city, then those are either nerfed or removed entirely.

So for example, for those who could ICly create some kind of portal to other worlds or realms, if kept the ability would be powered down to where they could only create portals to other locations of the city instead. Super powerful and destructive spells could still be strong, but rather than taking out a building in one shot it would just leave a lot of damage, possibly blowing a small chunk out of the wall.

Anything else could actually be left alone, but if you're still worried, another way to nerf some of the more high level spells is keep them intact BUT limit the number of use somehow. Perhaps it would be more draining on them, or there is an actual number cap.

Hope that helps! If anything, we'll let you know if we need a certain ability tweaked.

[mudousetsuna]

Alright, that helps a lot! I don't want to spam the app with the whole list, so I'll make notes on what changes I'll make to her powers and link to an offsite list of the spells. Thank you so much!

[sixrealmsofhell]

I feel like I read this somewhere before but can't seem to find it in any of the FAQ or rules. Does a character's appearance actually age while in Somarium? For instance, a character that is 15 when he comes in but has been here for 2 or 3 years will obviously have matured at least somewhat in appearance if this were his world. But does he here?

[somarium_lords]

The appearance does age while in Somarium.

[sixrealmsofhell]

Awesome! Thanks so much!

[storm_chaser]

I wanted to get a lab space for Jane in som, where should I request that?