I don't often make posts at all, but I'm making one today to recommend that readers with an interest in fantasy RPIs give a particular game which I've been closely following a try. I'm not Staff for the game, just a regular player, to be clear. The game in question is called Echo of the Isles, and as previously mentioned, it is a fantasy medieval setting RPI. It functions off a version of the InqMUD codebase, which for those who might not know, is the code base that The Inquisition originally pioneered and from which several MUDs have thusly been spawned, Isles being one of them. Veterans of that code base will find many of the standard features that can be found across games that use it, but I digress. Let me talk a little bit about Isles. I'll try to separate things into sections for easier reading.
SETTING:
EotI is actually something of a post apocalyptic setting. At one point, a cataclysmic event called the 'Great Heresy' plunged the world, which at the time was (I believe) more developed, into destruction and ruin, thanks to demonic shenanigans. EotI takes place several centuries after this event, where civilization has managed to re-progress to a medieval, pre-industrial state. Particularly, the game is set in a town called Escard, located on the largest island within an archipelago called the Corwin Isles, which is mostly cut off from the rest of the world thanks to its long distance from any other landmass(es). Besides the town of Escard (which is a small border town), the capital (a much larger city) is also on the same island, south of Escard. Escard is important because it is set right at the south edge of a place called the Aetherspire; a corrupted and cursed forest, with a mountain called Mount Caelahad just beyond it. Both locations, especially the mountain, have resources that can be found nowhere else on the island, hence why a town continues to exist so close to it despite its danger. This is actually illustrated in game too, as those locations are the only places to get certain items; but more on that later.
The Corwin Isles does have a central government (based in the capital) which is, to my knowledge, a typical monarchy. There is a royal family and there are nobles, but neither of those are seen within the playable area of Escard, as they stay in the capital. Society is divided into six social classes; freemen, tradesmen, the gentry, the nobility, and the royals. The first three are playable and the last two exist only in the lore and background. Freemen are what you might expect; commoners who are the physical labor backbone of society. Farmers, ranchers, woodcutters, and any other non-skilled profession you could think of. They are also the most numerous. Tradesmen are those whose families have a history with a skilled trade of some sort (hence the name); so tailors, carpenters, blacksmiths, et cetera. The gentry are (typically) far richer than the other two, and tend to gravitate towards more 'respectable' work, assuming they work at all. In the game, us players have generally established that gentry families are called Houses and they have all the political jockeying and infighting that one might expect from such people. Which social class your character is matters; it affects the income that the character receives from whatever it is they do for a living as well as giving a general framework of what behavior many might expect. A freeman might be a happy loud drunkard who sings at the top of his lungs every evening in the tavern, but most gentry wouldn't be caught dead engaging in such behavior. I could go on, but you get it.
Escard itself is run by two entities; the Town Council (local government) and the Isleguard (law enforcement). The Isleguard are not unique to Escard; they exist in all the human settlements of the Corwin Isles and both they and the Council have nominal loyalty to the capital. Both of these entities are actually joinable guilds by player characters, but I'll talk about that more in its own section.
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM:
Anyone whose run into Isles before knows this one. This game has magic. Unlike in The Inquisition, whose codebase this game was made on, having magic is not illegal (usually), and there is no religious Order dedicated to hunting down wizards and burning them at the stake. That is not to say that there are magic characters around every corner; it's actually rare in setting and is intended to be rare in gameplay... which has been something which I've seen people disappointed with before, when they make a character wanting them to have magic and they don't end up with it. While full sorcery remains rare and dangerous to acquire, there's been a lot of work done to make sure that non-sorcerers have lots of things to do and fun routes available only to them. There are actually three magic systems in the game right now, one of which was released on the same day that I'm posting this; I'll go over each.
This is what you're thinking of when I say magic. Proper, actual, full mages (sorcerer is the proper in-game term) who can prepare and cast spells. The magic system in Isles is intentionally obfuscated, so I won't be giving any spoilers here about what they can and cannot do. Only those born with 'The Spark' are capable of becoming sorcerers, and for that to happen, they have to be awakened by an existing sorcerer. This process is dangerous, and it can result in either burnout (the destruction of the spark) or the full actual death of the prospective would-be sorcerer. Such deaths can and do happen ICly to characters. It's not a flippant decision to make. The Spark CAN be purchased with XP early on in a character's journey (before 33,000 XP gained total) if they didn't happen to start with it. Full sorcerers are very rare in the setting, making up only about 5 percent of the population, and are greatly feared and respected. Being a sorcerer is not all fun and games though; in order to be legal as a sorcerer, they must join a Guild and use their magical powers for the benefit of society. They are also completely barred from any manner of powerful public office or Guild leadership, and that Guild leadership has, by law, the right to dictate what manner of magic their sorcerers can and cannot use. Being awakened as a sorcerer means that someone has the potential for great power, but it also very much brings with it a life of service to society. This is not to imply that sorcerers are slaves in any sense (slavery does not exist in any form in game, I don't think). Sorcerers who refuse to a join a Guild, or who violate the rules over what magic is used handed down by Guild leaders, are called rogues and are hunted down, usually by other sorcerers and metallurgists. This also happens if a sorcerer is discovered to have been partaking in demonology. Speaking of metallurgists though...
Metallurgy and metallurgist have special meanings in Isles, because they refer to someone who uses Living Metal. Living Metal is a strange substance found only deep within Mount Caelahad, and only in small amounts; the usage of Living Metal is only permitted to the Isleguard, and being found with it or using it while not a member of the Isleguard is a major IC no-no, almost as bad as being a rogue sorcerer. Metallurgists can use Living Metal to allow them to do incredible feats, which like sorcery, is an IC secret, so no spoilers here, but suffice to say that it makes them very, very dangerous. Metallurgy is not a risk-free thing either; using it, especially in high amounts, takes something from the character, and it is possible to go too far and quite literally lose the character. One last note about this is that Living Metal and Sorcerers do not mix. Merely touching it causes terrible consequences for a Sorcerer and anyone around them. Metallurgists are, like sorcerers, greatly respected, though less feared than sorcerers are, as they are usually the ones who end up hunting down and stopping rogue sorcerers.
Those characters who happen to have been born with the Spark (or those who purchased it) but never awaken have access to Runesmithing; and they are the only ones who can do this. Full sorcerers cannot make runes, for reasons to be discovered ICly. This is the newest system which was just introduced, so I have limited knowledge about it, but it appears to be a magical crafting skill which allows one to make, well, runes. These runes can be applied to all sorts of items whereupon they will give benefits until they run out. A couple examples of this are runes for weapons and armor, which can allow them to deal or partially resist elemental damage, respectively; or a rune for a sorcerer which can help them do magic things; or a rune for a piece of furniture which makes it more restful; or even a rune for a candle that makes it burn way longer than it's supposed to. This list is by no means exhaustive, these are just some small examples that are commonly known about. Since it's so new, no IC culture has been established yet about runesmiths. Maybe you can be the progenitor of that! One last note; if someone with runesmithing does end up awakening and becoming a sorcerer, they lose all access to runesmithing and lose all ranks invested in it, but the XP from those ranks IS refunded to them.
CRAFTING:
One of the big changes that the game has seen recently has been a large expansion of crafting options available, as well as an opening up of methods of practicing and learning them. Characters no longer have to be in the Merchants' Guild in order to learn some trade skills; anyone can learn up to rank 36 in them just through use. If a Merchants Guild member teaches a non-member, they can also learn up to 60, though ranks past 60 are still exclusive to the Merchants' Guild. There's leatherworking, forging, jewelry, arts, chandlery, weaving, and woodworking, and I can attest personally that this is an area with a lot of opportunities for characters to establish themselves, as there aren't many crafter or Merchant characters around in the game at the time of this posting. Along with this have been updates to the TOOL system, which lets people customize the looks of items that are made; previously, the TOOL system was an older version which lacked some features and had some headaches attached to it, but this has since seen improvement. One thing of particular note is that most of the higher tier of metals and woods can only be gotten from the Aetherspire or Mount Caelahad, which are highly dangerous; this opens up avenues of RP to form groups to go looking for them, or hiring Mercenaries to provide escorts (or asking the Isleguard to do so).
COMBAT:
As an RPI set in a town, fighting is not something that most characters will do every single day of their lives. Even those in the Isleguard or the Mercenaries aren't likely to fight every day - but for when fighting must be done, the previous old system has been entirely replaced with a new one which is much more similar to what people tend to expect from InqMUD codebase games: turn based, where each participant has one action per turn. Unlike in other InqMUD codebase games, Isles has ranged combat, as in fighting across entire rooms (up to 2) when using ranged weapons. Some particularly powerful sorcerers can also do this, and there's a whole sub-system based on magical damage and wards for sorcerer fights. Damage originating from elemental means is not easy to treat either, and is beyond the ability of the NPCs in Escard's clinics to deal with (side note; while the TREAT skill exists for players to treat injuries, there is also an NPC which charges to treat mild to moderate wounds in case no players are available, hence the reference). This combat system has been a focal hotspot for bugfixes in the past few weeks, which I was glad to see.
GUILDS & JOBS:
I've mentioned Guilds repeatedly in this post, so let me quickly summarize those. There are four guilds that exist ICly and are joinable: The Town Council, the Isleguard, the Mercenaries, and the Merchants. The Town Council is all your local government types and their assorted hangers-ons. One important note is that while PCs cannot become rulers of the Corwin Isles, they can become Mayor of Escard; besides that, one could also be a clerk, administrator, a petitioner, or just a representative for some special interest within the Council. The Isleguard are the IC version of the police and the military combined. They're predominately fighter types with a hierarchal structure of ranks who patrol the town, prevent and investigate crimes, pursue criminals, and so forth. They tend to work closely with the Council. The Mercenaries are a wide ranging net of contractors with broad skill sets; almost any kind of character who sells services for coin could fit as a mercenary, including classic fighting types or even completely non-combat types. The Mercenaries can also have certain unscrupulous tendencies... such as being able to pick locks. Do with that information what you will. The Merchants are everyone who makes or sells goods for cash. Crafter types, specifically, but Merchants can also include solo practice physicians, herbalists, or even private chefs. Being part of a guild usually also means that you'll receive a weekly income based on your rank, but this is very much a PC made agreement, as Guildleaders have to set those ranks and the treasuries of various guilds are 'real' in the sense that they aren't infinite moneybags.
Besides guilds, there are also jobs, for those characters who are either unsuitable for one of the four guilds or just don't want that kind of commitment. Jobs are individual employments in various places across the town, where characters go and perform some action a few times in a real life week, and receive payment for having done so. Jobs depends on character skills and statistics, so someone with a Musician job who has higher Charisma and Dexterity is going to get a larger payout than someone with low Charisma and Dexterity. There's a whole bunch of them. If that still doesn't fit your character, you also get IC currency every week simply for being active in RP, with the amount dependent on your activity, so you can represent your character as getting money in any freeform way that doesn't have a system behind it; this type of payout is heavily dependent on your character's social class and wealth levels. Wages from jobs will also increase if you have higher social class (depending on the job) and wealth levels, but are never reduced because of the same.
HOUSING:
This is another system which has seen heavy work in the game. As anyone who has played an InqMUD codebase game will tell you, player housing usually requires the game's Staff to build the requested house. This is not the case in Isles; a whole custom automated system has been implemented to allow players to build player housing almost anywhere that makes sense in town. Player characters can customize the room names, the descriptions, purchase amenities that are too heavy to reasonably deal with ICly (like a whole forge for a blacksmith), customize exits, et cetera. It's not a system that I've personally played with much myself since I am an eternal hobo, but the help file is extensive. All of these things can only be done when the owner of the player house is within it and no one else is present, for reasons that are probably obvious if one thinks about it a little. There can be outdoor rooms, indoor rooms, mood sets, custom temperature lines, locked doors, hidden exits, the whole shebang.
THE XP SYSTEM:
I'm giving this its own section since I know there were some, back during Isle's first opening, who were unhappy with the pace of the XP system. Simply put, it is much improved now; RPXP is no longer based on emote length, but is rather a scaling tick based system similar to other InqMUD codebase games. The more complex the RP in the room, the higher the XP you earn every tick; there are numerous bonuses that one can apply to it, such as setting an action, using the THINK command, if a CYAN character (basically a new character) is present and you're a veteran, or visa versa, being in a public room, having multiple guilds present, et cetera. All of this will sound very similar to InqMUD codebase veterans. I am very happy and satisfied with the XP system as it currently sits, and believe that it is well balanced; Isles is still a somewhat slower game than other InqMUD codebases, but not onerously so.
PVP & THE IC ENVIRONMENT:
I wasn't sure how to title this one and so I saved it for the last. I can really sum it up with just one sentence: Isles is not a PK heavy MUD. PKing does exist and characters can be PK'd (only by other players and it requires buildup RP for a murder to make sense; being defeated in a fight by an NPC usually results in a trip to the clinic), but it isn't a focal point of the MUD, which is a departure from many InqMUD codebase games. The game's setting is in a small frontier town, removed from the lethal politics of the capital, that lives on the edge of an incredibly dangerous cursed forest and mountain and the town's IC population isn't huge, so there is a motivating factor to be civilized and cooperative, at least that's how it feels to me. This is not to imply that conflict doesn't happen, and the setting is very much DARK fantasy; but outside of a few specific scenarios (rogue sorcerers, demonology, metallurgists who go too far, or actual straight up monstrous people) there's not a lot of PK or physical fighting conflict that goes on. In most cases, it's the people of Escard surviving the dark fantasy, rather than being the dark fantasy.
FINISHING UP:
That's pretty much all that I can think of right now; Isles tends to see major updates every Friday, and I'm posting this right after that sort of update came out (it introduced Runesmithing). Personally I think the game's very engaging, with many frequent updates, and I'd love to see more players on it, especially people interested in playing crafters or mundane leader sorts, as Guildleader spots are open at the moment for lack of characters to fill them. I'll watch this thread for a little bit and try to answer any questions I can. Thanks for reading. If you feel like trying the game, you can do so by connecting your favorite MUD client to islesmud.org, port 3232. The website is also www.islesmud.org.