RP and Backstory Guidelines

[Rias]

This post is going to come off as somewhat negative (a lot of "please don't do this") and I apologize for that. I want to address some issues that were becoming prevalent at various points in the past that I'd like to prevent from taking root now that we're in kind of an ideal refresh state. I think what it ultimately boils down to is that I don't make these games to be open freeform group creative works when it comes to the worlds and their lore. In these games we expect RP to conform to the world and setting, not the other way around. What that means is that players shouldn't invent their own world lore and roleplay it as though it's part of the established setting, and expect that because they've already been RPing it and sharing it with others that the game world is now required to adopt it in order to avoid any awkwardness. If a player makes up some lore and at some point is asked to stop, that's on that player for making it up, not on the game to accommodate them because they RPed it and convinced others that it was part of the setting.

I realize that a lot of the lore as officially presented can be fairly thin or lacking in detail. This is not an invitation for players to invent major details themselves, however. In particular, please avoid importing real-world history or culture or tradition based on perceived similarities to in-game lore. Some common problematic misconceptions are treating the Church of Light as Christianity or Catholicism, or treating Ivial as Britain or England. There also tend to be some assumptions about Nuum's religion/mythology being the same as that of ancient Egypt. Considering the real-world inspirations they draw on at least at surface level, these things happening from time to time is understandable. It can be tempting to see the surface-level similarities in terms or phrases or even some of the lore concepts and make assumptions based on those, but please don't start assuming major cultural or traditional parallels. Yes, much of the lore of the game draws on the real world for inspiration, but that isn't an invitation for players to add their own lore based on those inspirations.

When it comes to player character backstories, please don't invent significant settlements or geographic sites or historical events. I'll be going through the racial documents and adding lists of significant settlements so it's easier for people to declare a specific hometown for their characters if they wish to. Please also don't assume a character has or has had involvement or significant connection to/influence on some major aspect of their culture or homeland, such as being a significant military or political figure (a titled noble of Ivial, an Eneru of Nuum, a Talhmi-Likh or Great House Ruler of Tol Rhun, etc). Making such claims would assume that the character has particularly intimate knowledge of the minute details of that culture, which the player behind the character does not, and can easily end up in a situation where one is tempted to just start making things up to try and back the claim, especially when asked about it by other player characters. This is to say nothing of the implied authority or political/cultural influence that would be assumed to go along with such claims, which was never intended to be given to player characters. Player characters don't have to be complete nobodies, but they're not significant historical figures of their homelands either. Their experiences in the actual game is where they should be making names for themselves and making their greater accomplishments.

Regarding accents and lingo: Please moderate them and keep them mild enough to be easily legible and understandable, and not too distracting or frustrating to parse. Remember that we have quite a few players who use screenreaders. Please also refrain from adopting lingo or dialects that are lifted from the real world and imply there are equivalent cultures in the game. For instance, there was some accent/dialect stuff getting particularly popular at one point that seemed to be implying there was some kind of Britain/England/London analogue in the game world, but there isn't.

If you need some more details on some aspect of the lore of the game to better develop your character's RP or backstory, feel free to ask here on the BBS!

[Ninetales16]

hello,
thank you for clarifications! I believe that some general guidelines, as explained by you in the post above, help ground up some character limitations or ideas players can have about the person they want to portray. Please correct me if what I am saying is wrong, but one thing I believe can be viable in regards to character backstory and setting it up in actual gameplay is writing up your backstory with the backstory command before properly delving into details ingame. this way, details from your past as a charracter can be approved or dismissed as needed by staff.
I hope that the advice I have provided here is not actually misleading :)

[Adresin]

This is very helpful! I think I've done okay following this, but two things I want to clarify specifically about Alia, then I'll mention more general strategies I've used.

1. Is it okay to assume the existence of many much smaller, perhaps even unnamed communities further out in the Lost Lands Much of Alia's backstory has been traveling with her herbal healer mother who went between various communities and villages not large enough to have infirmeries or healers of their own. I never mentioned names, though in an attempt to carry over valuable IC relationships from Cogg some of us have planned to play that Alia met other characters in such villages.

2. What about language? I know for example that the Viali language isn't Italian. However, on Cogg, I wanted a word that Alia would use in specific situations with characters she was particularly close to from her own language. Instead of just making up a random word, I found an Italian one that fit. However I think she only shared it with four people total and it's a very uncommon thing. Is this acceptable, or on clok should I just make something up, instead? I did also say that she wasn't sure if it was an actual viali word, or some kind of connected word that wasn't strictly viali.

My general strategy has been, go with the help files and anything beyond those, make it very specific to her family, her situation, without assuming it to be normal. Even with Adresin, who probably won't be recreated here, what she experienced I was careful to play off as her specific, small clan, not a large well known one or giganti in general. I don't know if this is helpful and I certainly don't claim to be perfect at it, but I do agree it's important not to just assume things about the wider world.

[artus]

A curiosity since I don't have and don't intend to plan to have a char of big background anyway and since significance is a keyword here: does something like a very lesser noble or son of a lesser figurehead who barely knows anything acceptable? Like it's not anything significant, more like background stuff like a bloodline of a lesser house of nobles who hasn't even grown up where they're supposed to grow up to begin with, or direct bloodline of a very insignificant branch of a clan barely recognizeable by anyone, or to give a closer example to real world, a relative of an elder of some random village whose settlement is very obscured and not known in the wider scope of areas and whose presence barely means anything in the political side of said culture, not to say the char knows as much deep lore as a mundane commoner is supposed to know, which is basically none.

Also, does something like let's say this dude has military background of being a captain of some not so major army whose easily forgotten ship just happens to get stuck in lost lands alright? It doesn't mean said captain of said random army have to know deep lore just by being the captain though right if he's a nobody other than just a disposable captain or sergeant or whatever?

Sorry for poking around the ideas here back and forth. I just wonder about the scope of this particular keyword.

[Frisbee]

Thank you for the clarifications.

After having a read through some of the CLOK wiki articles post-resurrection, I think there is one question which springs to mind, and that is how much of the lovely COGG race lore we ought to take into consideration here. In your original post, you make mention of terms that I don't think show up on the CLOK wiki at all, which makes me think that we're all right to use most of what there is, but I thought it would be safer to ask.

Also, much more specifically, are the Viali still open to having the Fasa help them take care of their forests?

[Gorth]

Also, does something like let's say this dude has military background of being a captain of some not so major army whose easily forgotten ship just happens to get stuck in lost lands alright? It doesn't mean said captain of said random army have to know deep lore just by being the captain though right if he's a nobody other than just a disposable captain or sergeant or whatever?

Captains and sergeants everywhere weep.

[Ocelotl]

So I feel like I should ask this before I or anyone else commits, but how do you feel about people your character knows being in the background? For example, if your family grew up in the lost lands, would it be fair to say that your character visits them? Here's a few possibilities.

1: Off screen visits. Your char says that they meet them, but that's about it.
2: You write letters and such IC to them, and either wait for, or make up answers yourself.
3: Should another character meet somebody like your character's mother, is it bad practice to RP her out? Essentially, can you play that background NPC for a scene?

On that note, how do you feel about people emoting for inconsequential background NPCs? Say, if you did something silly in the hearth and home, and a patron chooses to point and laugh. With moderation, of course. I just think dynamic little things are neat and make the world feel lived in.

How about talking about stuff that didn't technically happen in game, but could have off screen? Say you wanted to talk about how some kids in Shadgard were playing in the snow, and one hit you in the head as you were heading back to your in room.

How about eating food that doesn't exist? Like if your character pretends to squeeze berries into a cup, or they say that they added those berries to their porridge? These things aren't technically in game, but logically, they could.

What about making up random small shops for things that your character uses that aren't in game? Tobacco for pipes comes to mind.

What about making up NPCs your character may have met? Say you're a doctor/physicker, just come out of the infirmary. You get into RP with other PCs and they ask you what you've been doing. Could you go ahead and be like, "I was in the infirmary. There's this guy that keeps coming in with injured hands because he keeps forgetting to put on his work gloves, and it's getting annoying."

What about making up details in a room? Think anything as benign as a flat rock your character says they sat on in the wild, to a passing travelers wagon you make note of in an emote.

How about off screen things like, if you logged out in the wild, could you say that your character found a friendly group of travelers to stay with?


Essentially all this boils down to is, how much filling in are we permitted to do? I understand that this is a world that you have to conform to, rather than it conforming to you, but how far does this go?

Thanks!

[Rannveig]

I know there's a bombardment of questions already, and I am sorry to be adding on to it, but...

Say I had character backstories I was a little iffy about because I was bad at all this when I first came up with them 4-5 years ago, and I didn't have the staff from that time period review them. But that I wanted to get one or two checked for lore conformity, etc.
1. Should I put them in with the BS command and wait for current staff to review that way, or is the BS command/system planned to be removed?
or 2. Should I email backstory stuff in for staff review?
or 3. If BS is going to stay, use BS for characters I don't plan to play much and email in + BS for the ones I am going to play more often?

I do ask about email because with at least one character I will be playing a lot, I want to be 100% solid on their backstory. This is because it will have a lot of influence over the RP I present to other players. But I don't want to be pressuring current staff to rush to that, because I know there's a lot of stuff to get done and few people to work on it. Well, not without asking first, at least.

Thank you for writing up this topic and for answering all of these questions.

[xavier]

Some other points to consider about the lore. Correct me if I'm wrong but weren't the undying sort of stigmatized for being undying? There is also nether taint to consider, plus recin (sp?) the infested if that's still going to be a thing.

As to filling in small things. I have in fact done several of these things like talking about a particular patient, taken liberties with objects in the room that were in fact not in the description and the like. I would however stay away from saying there are lots of small little villages in the lost lands. To the best of my knowledge what was there, was there. Rias said he was going to create a list of places. I'd probably stick to that list.

Either way it is still early days. I personally will go on being all vague and not commutting to anything. I mean hey we all know Xavier can't talk, or is that he won't...

[Squeak]

Not to put words in anyone's mouth or assume intimate knowledge of anyone, but I think to answer most people's questions; the keywords to follow from Rias' post are "major" and "significant". Be smart and don't make wide, sweeping claims of grandiose nature that can't be backed up and you should be fine.

A rule of thumb I've typically used is that if I can't explain something in broad, generalized, or vague terms to get the point across (especially in filling in lore "holes"), then it probably shouldn't be used unless you can directly reference lore for specificity.

Regarding accents and lingo: Please moderate them and keep them mild enough to be easily legible and understandable, and not too distracting or frustrating to parse. Remember that we have quite a few players who use screenreaders.

My bad, yo. My bad.

[dennybuster]

so, a bit of a warning before i begin with this post. might be a bit on the long side of things.
I had a char on cogg, some of you might have met / interacted with her, her name is Sin.
so, here i go with my ramblings and questions.


I'll have to give a bit of overview on her backstory. i admit it was short at first, but with more details adding up over time, it became something massive that has been tons of fun to rp.


Sin is a giganti, part of a small clan. based in lost lands or homeland of the giganti, to be decided.
Is undieing still a lost lands only or is it like in clok where it could happen outside the lost lands? that will decide her actual homeland in terms of backstory.
At age 10, sin finds out about being an undieing when she saves her mother from their house wich caught on fire. a beam unfortunately collapses on 10 year old sin, so she dies in the process.
This specific clan, had along the various individuals, a group of sorcerers, borderlining on blood cultists aiding the chief, wich seeked their help for maintaining his seat, though his poor leadership skills and bad decision making risked an upprising by the clansmen.
Upon finding that sin is undieing, the Elder Claws, name of this group, through bribery, intimidation, sutterfuge and a mix of similar tactics, accuire ownership over the girl.
This leads to 6 years roughly of them experimenting on sin's undieing condition, wich leads to countless death's on her part, and a large amount of sanity loss.
For those who interacted with sin, they may have noticed that she oftentimes speaks of Mother Death, almost as if being an immortal.
By all means, it is anything but. Mother death is in fact a projection of sin's collapsing psiche, something her mind conjured up to cope with the constant dieing over and over. Mother Death is in fact, as i seen it at least, quite literally death itself. the moment, the event, the actions that lead to it. Sin's mind creates this illusion of mother death requiring more souls, of her conserving the souls she deems worthy through some mysterious means, and consuming those deemed unfit.
Again, this is not any sort of immortal or such, but rather a complex illusion sin has of wich she is fully confinced being real, to the point of calling herself a deathseeker, of seeing herself as a living weapon for mother death herself.



and here come the first few questions.
1. is something like this allowed? Mother Death as i actually intended it?
2. blood cultists, or sorcerers borderlining on that side of thing. would experimenting with blood magic, without the worship of the blood god be actually doable or is that a thing only the worship of the blood god could achieve?



and on we go with her backstory.
at age 16 roughly, sin's mind has lost most of its humanity. pain is something she does not feel anymore, and her emotions are something so remote and alien to her that oftentimes whenever they manifest, she finds them as flaws, or imprefections, things she can't comprehend.
it is at this age that the elder claws, start to see sin's seemingly endless life as something to be exploited, since her constant returning makes her the perfect living weapon to deploy behind the lines, eliminating threats and if discovered, death would be but a setback.
two years of intense training follow, during wich sin becomes accustomed to any sort of combat situation. from scouting missions, to assassination, to anything inbetween. Her lack of self preservation, along with her constant desire for dispensing death, makes her the ideal living weapon, or super soldier more or less.
at age 18, sin is deployed for the first time on the battlefield, with the task of eliminating the leaders of an opposing army. She is successful, however she finds letters within one of the tents of the generals, letters that were an exchange of information between him and their chief. detailing troup placements, battle strategies, and the fact her clan's army was willfully underequipped for the purpose of thinning its ranks, so that the chief could maintain its seat.
sin at this point goes rogue, deciding to dispense death not only to the enemy eladers, but also to her own clan's generals, effectively ending the war before it even started.
Upon returning to her clan, Sin is again under the ELders thumb, and soon they descover her actions.
Deciding to punish her, they realize that death is now, a mere inconvenience for her, and that they may have created a true living weapon, incapable of fear or compassion.The only thing tieing sin to her last shred of humanity was her sister, wich she visits during an escape that happened during training, her muscle memory bringing her back to her place, where she finds her sister, and attempts to assassinate her for no other reason than feeling unconfortable upon feeling emotions for the first time in eyars upon seeing her again. of course, instincts that she did not expect she had stay her hand, and soon her sister explains to her who she is, what happened to her, and asks her where she has been.
Her sister does thus find out about the elders, their plan, but can't really do much about it, since sin is too far gone to feel remorse for her actions, or even compassion at this point, however the attachment to her sister is something that keeps the last vestiges of humanity alive within her, her icy barriers lowering somewhat and allowing emotions, feelings, and free thought to surface again.
The Elders, do of course know of this, so they first, sacrifice sin over a totem, mistical in nature of some sorts, harvesting a soul shred from her.
This sacrifice, and consequential harvesting of an undieing soul shred, causes a nether otherworldly eldritchish entity to awaken. entity wich for convenience's sake i called Netheron, though in fact it has no true name.



and more questions.
1. nethrim: are they all spirits and shades / this substance controlled by sorcerers able to take control of dead bodies or can they also be more supernatural and powerful entities?
2. can nethrim, powerful ones in this case such as a supposed almighty powerful, to mortal levels at least entity, take a hold or control over a living host? some sort of mental control / simbiosis?



and more backstory. i promise we're nearing the end.
Sin of course, comes back to life, though this time it takes her several days. days in wich the Elders, accuire a hold of her sister, and implant within her the soul shred they harvested from sin.
Netheron, offered the elders power, in exchange for a living host, and thus, Sin becomes said host.
The elders however did not account for sin's soul shred also affecting Sin's sister.
So netheron, instead of ending up within Sin alone, is split in half.
Half attempts to take control of sin, though such thing backfires, quite spectacularly. sin's mind was so ravaged by dieing over and over, that pain was really a nuisance to her. in fact, Sin manages to seal netheron within herself, effectively trapping the fragment within herself, at the expense of suppressing even more her emotions.
Her sister however, being a complete stranger to combat and trials such as sin's, succumbs to netheron's influence, thus becoming a puppet in direct control for the elders.
Sin, upon finding this, is forced in a last stand against her own sister, during wich she realizes that the sister she once knew was no more. in a fit of uncontrolled fury, also fueled by netheron in an attempto to achieve control over her, Sin ends up killing her sister, though her rage was also driven by the impotency she had until then to defy the elders.
Netheron having thus been halved in power, remains unable to take a physical form, so remains trapped within sin.
Sin is then consequentially banished from her clan, not before having buried her sister in a location only known to her.
The banishment puts a hold to the plans of the Elders of taking control of the giganti clan however, and thus, they are now actively trying to find Sin within the lost lands.



What about Sin's sister?
Sin's sister, depending on wich of these would be lore appropriate, either was an undieing, but didn't know about it, or became an undieing after the soul shred implant.
Thus, days after being buried, she reawakens in her tomb. Alone, and wth the influence of the otherwordly entity within her constantly trying to take over her body, her mind is quickly put to the test, and suffers great trauma, resulting in sanity loss as not only she has to constantly war with netheron, but also dig herself out of her grave.



Sin maintains her backstory she had in cogg, with a few new additions.

First and foremost. what about netheron?
netheron of course, Remained within Sin. Her emotional suppression was through the roof, and the loss of her sister, meant the loss of quite literally, most of her last vestiges of humanity that were left.
She saw herself as a Living Weapon For Mother Death, and nothing else.
Combat became the only way for her to feel at peace, and to also keep netheron at bay as she quote on quote, claimed souls for mother death.




Changes for clok backstory.
We would have a large, ish, time skip, in wich sin would have wandered the wilderness, eventually finding a group of sorcerers and templars alike working towards the common goal of eradicating nethrim that were causing trouble. said group, helped sin in truly banishing Netheron's fragment from within her, though perished in the process, Sin losing control over the desperately fighting entity, and slaying them under its control. the ritual however was completed before the last of them fell, banishing netheron from within sin.
Netheron also, caused sin's elemancy aptitude to never manifest, feeding on that source of power to sustain itself alike, and also constantly fight for control.
the end.
now, questions, quite a few of them.
1. sorcerers and templars: during the years, i noticed various interactions. some of them saw templars and sorcerers on opposing sides of the battlefield, sometimes they were side by side: are sorcerers and templars technically in direct conflict or would a group of sorcerers bent on banishing out of control nethrim a viable thing lore wise? would they manage to work with templars or would the templar code prevent that from ever happening?
2. soul shreds, soul shred implantation, blood magic, and otherworldly entities:
thus far, i understood nethrim as mostly supernatural spirits, undead, dark magic, and also necromancy and or controllable entities. but also demons, and more powerful entities. would an entity like netheron, an entity wishing to claim souls to strengthen itself to take a physical form within the world for the purposes of death and mayhem, or just evil in general be allowed lore wise, if in a banished state such as this?
would a soul shred be harvestable from a human and implantable in an other lore wise?
would harvesting said shred from an undieing and implanting it into a non undieing cause the latter to become undieing? although with a very low chance maybe? if not, that point in sin's backstory is easibly fixable with the soul shred simply giving netheron a foothold.
would experimenting with blood magic, and attempting a sacrifice such as that i described be actually ok as grounds for unexpected result awakening a nethrim entity old and powerful such as netheron?
would lore wise, control over the body of someone be considerable ok, although through some powerful ritual / very powerful external force such as netheron?
3. if this backstory has too many points that are not lore conforming, what would be an ideal alternative to it, maintaining the highlights of it, or at least, salvaging most of it?


again, apologies for the extremely long post, and thanks for your patience in reading this.

[Gorth]

Regarding accents and lingo: Please moderate them and keep them mild enough to be easily legible and understandable, and not too distracting or frustrating to parse. Remember that we have quite a few players who use screenreaders.

My bad, yo. My bad.

There were, perhaps, two people in the history of my considerable time playing COGG who's accents were so thick that they were not understandable. And there was one reason for this. They did not use the accent apostrophe. /Most/ Speech Synthesis software recognizes "goin'" as "go-in." However, "goin" is read quite literally, like "guh-oing." I'm not going to be out here like, 'sighted people don't understand'! But I will say that it is not really that big of a deal, as long as you observe proper rules.

[Rias]

Q: Please correct me if what I am saying is wrong, but one thing I believe can be viable in regards to character backstory and setting it up in actual gameplay is writing up your backstory with the backstory command before properly delving into details ingame. this way, details from your past as a charracter can be approved or dismissed as needed by staff.
A: Yep, the BACKSTORY command is a thing!

Q: Is it okay to assume the existence of many much smaller, perhaps even unnamed communities further out in the Lost Lands?
A: I wouldn't say there are many of them, but there are surely going to be a scattering of tiny survivor communities out there. They're not likely to be more than something like Emleth or Nelra - that is to say, a few huts and/or tents. On a larger scale, Porto D'esilio still exists, which serves as a potential place for people to have met at before in the Lost Lands if they don't want the place they've met to be Shadgard for whatever reason. A lot of people come into the Lost Lands through Porto. There's also the still-unnamed Huecatn port city that's off the map to the northwest (and will not be visitable in-game except perhaps at some point as a temporary event location, who knows). And I'm leaning pretty heavily toward putting New Emberlight somewhere near the coastal cliffs. There also may be more off to the southwest, but I'd consider that off-limits for what players can say their characters have visited.

Q: I never mentioned names, though in an attempt to carry over valuable IC relationships from Cogg some of us have planned to play that Alia met other characters in such villages.
A: It's come up a few times now where people have wondered whether they can say their characters already know each other. As long as both parties are on board, I think this is fine. They don't have to have met outside Shadgard just because the characters are new ones. It's okay to say that mechanically new characters have been in Shadgard for a while already, as long as they don't claim involvement in things that they weren't actually involved in when they actually happened. A lot of people live in Shadgard considering its small size, so it can get pretty crowded, and plenty of people living there don't know each other until one day they do.

Q: What about language? I know for example that the Viali language isn't Italian. However, on Cogg, I wanted a word that Alia would use in specific situations with characters she was particularly close to from her own language. Instead of just making up a random word, I found an Italian one that fit
A: Hmmmm. It might be okay if it's just a single word that's easily discernible from context. On the other hand, I don't want this be a gateway to people using real-world languages in game more and more. As you said: The game languages aren't their real-world inspirations. We have the language system for that, and we don't want players to feel like they need to actually learn other real-world languages to fit into their character's racial RP.

Q(uote): My general strategy has been, go with the help files and anything beyond those, make it very specific to her family, her situation, without assuming it to be normal. Even with Adresin, who probably won't be recreated here, what she experienced I was careful to play off as her specific, small clan, not a large well known one or giganti in general.
A: That's a good general approach!

Q: [is having a character being] something like a very lesser noble or son of a lesser figurehead who barely knows anything acceptable?
A: I'd say send an email and we'll figure it out.

Q: Also, does something like let's say this dude has military background of being a captain of some not so major army whose easily forgotten ship just happens to get stuck in lost lands alright?
A: I think commanding an entire army, even if a small one, is too much to assume for a backstory. Maybe a captain of an individual squad or something, but still don't claim you/your squad was pivotal in some major historic event. There's not much info at all on military engagements in the lore, so this is a situation where there's a particularly big risk of making up of events to try and lend substance to the claim.

Q: how much of the lovely COGG race lore we ought to take into consideration here. In your original post, you make mention of terms that I don't think show up on the CLOK wiki at all, which makes me think that we're all right to use most of what there is, but I thought it would be safer to ask.
A: I'm comparing the documents now to see if there's anything that can't be added to the CLOK wiki or might need to be altered in some way. So far, nothing has come up, but I've got a good deal more comparing to do yet. If anything of particular note or concern comes to mind, feel free to ask about it in particular! I'd say assume you can use anything from the COGG racial documents until you see a statement saying otherwise. (It shouldn't take much longer to read over and compare them and post about whether anything needed to be changed with the documentation.)

Q: Also, much more specifically, are the Viali still open to having the Fasa help them take care of their forests?
A: Yep, the Viali and Fasa continue to have their general cultural friendship with one another and various cooperations and inter-minglings, even if it's sometimes strained or long-suffering. The Fasa are still, in particular, wanting to help the Viali live more alongside the natural land rather than developing it all, including having occasional druids help out (most notably with the Duke of Boschverddi having druids help him maintain his woodlands).

Q: how do you feel about people your character knows being in the background? For example, if your family grew up in the lost lands, would it be fair to say that your character visits them?
A: Sure. I think off-screen visits and letter-writing (both the writing and receiving) are fine. (Reminder that letters going *outside* the Quarantine are much less likely to actually make the trip successfully, and take a very long time when they do manage to both get delivered and receive a response.) I think opening the door to allowing emotes and such to include assumed NPCs consistently in the room and their actions is a bit more dicey, though. I don't want people essentially assuming a party of NPCs is available to them at any time.

Q: how do you feel about people emoting for inconsequential background NPCs? Say, if you did something silly in the hearth and home, and a patron chooses to point and laugh. With moderation, of course.
A: I think that's okay, as long as it isn't used as a means of conveying general NPC feelings and consensus. Having a single nameless background NPC in an inn laugh or give a concerned look or whatever in reaction to some common-room antics is probably fine. Emoting an NPC cheering in support of a statement or opinion (or jeering in opposition to it) is probably assuming too much about the general consensus of the locals.

Q: How about talking about stuff that didn't technically happen in game, but could have off screen? Say you wanted to talk about how some kids in Shadgard were playing in the snow, and one hit you in the head as you were heading back to your in room.
A: That's probably going too far into the territory of allowing players to decide how NPCs would act in a situation.

Q: How about eating food that doesn't exist? Like if your character pretends to squeeze berries into a cup
A: We have cups and berries, so if they had both those items and wanted to emote doing that particular thing with them even though it's not mechanically possible, that's fine.

Q: What about making up random small shops for things that your character uses that aren't in game? Tobacco for pipes comes to mind.
A: Probably best to request the items be available in an actual shop somewhere. We've had actual smoking-pipes sold in the past, and event-only items become less special if people have the leeway to just emote that they have them anyway even when they don't actually have the physical item. If it's something your character would -want- to have, then dealing with not having one can be part of their RP. Maybe a character is constantly reaching into their pocket and then grumbling when they realize they don't have the fancy pocketwatch they were accustomed to having before they got to the Lost Lands without theirs. And then they can be thrilled when they finally find an opportunity to get one at a merchant event or are gifted one by a friend who managed to acquire one!

Q: What about making up NPCs your character may have met? Say you're a doctor/physicker, just come out of the infirmary. You get into RP with other PCs and they ask you what you've been doing. Could you go ahead and be like, "I was in the infirmary. There's this guy that keeps coming in with injured hands because he keeps forgetting to put on his work gloves, and it's getting annoying."
A: As long as it's kept vague and inconsequential. No claiming to have been treating a named NPC, or a nameless NPC for a made-up illness that's going aorund, or other things that would cause people to think there was an event ongoing.

Q: What about making up details in a room? Think anything as benign as a flat rock your character says they sat on in the wild, to a passing travelers wagon you make note of in an emote.
A: I'd avoid the latter if there wasn't anything in the room's description or idle scripts to specifically suggest there were travelers frequenting the area.

Q: How about off screen things like, if you logged out in the wild, could you say that your character found a friendly group of travelers to stay with?
A: Again, only if it was in an area that was clearly expressed as a place that travelers frequent. The Lost Lands roads aren't as in-use as other lands, considering how dangerous it is outside town walls, so I wouldn't want it to feel like there's a constant stream of people casually traveling the roads.

Q: Should I put [backstories I want to be reviewed] in with the BS command and wait for current staff to review that way [or] Should I email backstory stuff in for staff review? [or] use BS for characters I don't plan to play much and email in + BS for the ones I am going to play more often?
A: The third option is probably the way to go.

Q: Correct me if I'm wrong but weren't the undying sort of stigmatized for being undying? There is also nether taint to consider, plus [resen] the infested if that's still going to be a thing.
A: Yep, those are all still things, and the Undying are still regarded with extra suspicion because of the recklessness that condition often brings out in people, to say nothing of the increased difficulty in dealing with Undying troublemakers who feel they can do whatever awful thing they want without fear of death as a consequence.

Q: Is undieing still a lost lands only or is it like in clok where it could happen outside the lost lands?
A: Undying is a specifically Lost Lands phenomenon.

Q: is something like this [backstory] allowed? Mother Death as i actually intended it?
A: I think as long as it's fairly clear it's not intended as passing it off as an actual Immortal the rest of the world acknowledges, it's fine.

Q: blood cultists, or sorcerers borderlining on that side of thing. would experimenting with blood magic, without the worship of the blood god be actually doable or is that a thing only the worship of the blood god could achieve?
A: Blood magic as seen wielded by Blood Cultists in-game is particular to that cult and not something that could otherwise be learned or picked up.

Q: nethrim: are they all spirits and shades / this substance controlled by sorcerers able to take control of dead bodies or can they also be more supernatural and powerful entities?
A: Well, we've got things like Aranas and Malfant that are generally believed to be immensely powerful nethrim. That said, I don't think the creation or awakening/introduction of an Immortal-level being is within the scope of a character backstory.

Q: can nethrim, powerful ones in this case such as a supposed almighty powerful, to mortal levels at least entity, take a hold or control over a living host? some sort of mental control / simbiosis?
A: There are stories of possession by powerful nether-entities. I don't think it's the kind of thing that's within the scope of a player character trait, as this would essentially be giving a player authority to act on behalf of something that is deliberately very shady/uncertain in the lore, and/or the domain of exceptionally powerful entities.

Q: are sorcerers and templars technically in direct conflict or would a group of sorcerers bent on banishing out of control nethrim a viable thing lore wise? would they manage to work with templars or would the templar code prevent that from ever happening?
A: Templar and Sorcerers can and have worked together in the past, particularly in the effort of keeping nether and nethrim in check. The Templar should be mindful of any side-effects or consequences of whatever the sorcerers are doing, but nothing in the Templar code prevents them from working with a sorcerer for a good cause.

Q: would an entity like netheron, an entity wishing to claim souls to strengthen itself to take a physical form within the world for the purposes of death and mayhem, or just evil in general be allowed lore wise, if in a banished state such as this?
A: Again, I think the parts about Netheron are beyond the scope of player backstory, as they assume the existence of an Immortal-level (or nearly-so) entity with specific powers and motives who is not already established in the game's lore. One of the biggest mysteries about nether and the nethrim in the game setting is why they act they way they do.

Q: would a soul shred be harvestable from a human and implantable in an other lore wise? would harvesting said shred from an undieing and implanting it into a non undieing cause the latter to become undieing? would lore wise, control over the body of someone be considerable ok, although through some powerful ritual / very powerful external force such as netheron?
A: This is getting more into the experimental and uncertain side of sorcery, which is probably not the best to use in a backstory due to all the unknowns.

Q: if this backstory has too many points that are not lore conforming, what would be an ideal alternative to it, maintaining the highlights of it, or at least, salvaging most of it?
A: That'll take some thought and consideration. I'd ask you to go over it again after getting responses here and see what you can come up with, and then send an email about potential revisions.

[artus]

Thank you for the answers for every question. There's one of them that ended up touching Arty's story though so I sent you a mail as you stated just in case. Perhaps I should utilize the backstory command more. I keep forgetting it's a thing.

Over all though, these answers give me a huge relief and a lot of clarifications on what I may or may not have done right and wrong over the years. Anyone feel free to call me out if I mess something up though, players and gms alike.

Also a bit of the lingo subject: most of you guys are fine, really fine. I don't even know what accents you even use most of the time anyway and just go with it based off how much my screenreader makes it clear, which thankfully is 99% of the time. I don't know about the others though.

[Rias]

Q: What about language? I know for example that the Viali language isn't Italian. However, on Cogg, I wanted a word that Alia would use in specific situations with characters she was particularly close to from her own language. Instead of just making up a random word, I found an Italian one that fit
A: Hmmmm. It might be okay if it's just a single word that's easily discernible from context. On the other hand, I don't want this be a gateway to people using real-world languages in game more and more. As you said: The game languages aren't their real-world inspirations. We have the language system for that, and we don't want players to feel like they need to actually learn other real-world languages to fit into their character's racial RP.

The more I think about this one, the more I want to definitively say to please just keep it to just English, and not borrow words from other IRL languages. I don't love the idea of people ICly referring to each other as bambino or paisano or amigo (it's Constantian!) or whatnot, it just feels jarring. If we say one situation is okay, that's going to leave people who see it to assume other words are okay as well. So let's go with keeping it to just English, please, unless it's specifically a word used in one of the race documents.

[Gorth]

The more I think about this one, the more I want to definitively say to please just keep it to just English, and not borrow words from other IRL languages. I don't love the idea of people ICly referring to each other as bambino or paisano or amigo (it's Constantian!) or whatnot, it just feels jarring. If we say one situation is okay, that's going to leave people who see it to assume other words are okay as well. So let's go with keeping it to just English, please, unless it's specifically a word used in one of the race documents.

So... what about 'et cetera', 'acumen', 'facsimile', et cetera? I'm not trying to be difficult, or anything, but these are Latin words that are also adopted into the English language.

[Rias]

A lot of English is words evolved or appropriated from other languages! The words you referenced are words in common everyday use in the English language, so they're good. Use your best judgement to understand the intent of the request, and we'll poke anyone who might be stretching it a bit too far if we need to.

[Adresin]

Hmm. Okay, I get that. There's just something that feels intimate about using a word that wouldn't be in common that would fit my character. What about just making up a word and saying she has no idea where it came from, it was just something passed down in her family for the specific kind of context I'm thinking of? Would that be an acceptable alternative, since it's not tied directly to any language, IC or OOC?

[Squeak]

Hmm. Okay, I get that. There's just something that feels intimate about using a word that wouldn't be in common that would fit my character. What about just making up a word and saying she has no idea where it came from, it was just something passed down in her family for the specific kind of context I'm thinking of? Would that be an acceptable alternative, since it's not tied directly to any language, IC or OOC?

I might suggest looking up archaic english words that might have the meaning you're going for while maintaining that certain exotic intimacy you're hoping for. I used to have a link to an "olde English" transcription that had several common words from the 1600s to the 1800s that are no longer in common use today, but are still very much "english" - they're just the more direct descendant of the Latin base.

I don't know if that's permissible, but it might work better than using a different language or a made up one.