Hi folks!

Following up on a conversation from our Discord a few weeks ago, we're excited to release a brand new system and overhaul to character descriptions in the form of the characteristics system!

This system lets you define and display physical traits about your character - things like eye colour, hair, build, height, and more - that will show up when others look at you or glance your way. Think of it as an extension of your description that gives a quick snapshot of your character's most notable features at a glance.

Here's a brief rundown on how it works:

THE BASICS
Type CHARACTER by itself to see all available fields you can set, and what you have currently set them to. The list of fields will be determined based on your race - but when you achieve one of the endgame races (e.g. Azudim/Idreth/Yeleni), all fields become available to you.

Almost all of these fields are entirely freeform, so you can write what you want. But we have populated a list of suggestions under CHARACTER OPTIONS <field> (e.g. CHARACTER OPTIONS SKIN) that would make sense for your race or heritage. Again, it'll just list all of them if you're endgame.

There are some extra hidden fields, such as 'scent' and 'pelt' which you cannot set but are derived from other systems. e.g. applying perfume/cologne will display the scent field. Being mutated as a shapeshifter will display the pelt field.

There might also be a couple more hidden fields that will be tying into a new trade skill releasing very soon........


SETTING CHARACTERISTICS
* CHARACTER SET <field> <value> to set a characteristic.
e.g. CHARACTER SET EYES sparkling blue eyes

* CHARACTER SET HEIGHT <number> <cm|ft|in> to set your height.
e.g. CHARACTER SET HEIGHT 170 cm
e.g. CHARACTER SET HEIGHT 5 ft 8 in

* CHARACTER CLEAR <field> to remove one.

Height is a little special: it's validated against your race's natural range, and when someone looks at you, they'll see a relative comparison based on their own height (e.g. "She is noticeably taller than you.") rather than a raw number. You'll need to set your own height to see these comparisons on others! You can see CHARACTER OPTIONS HEIGHT for the range you can set.

VERBOSE DESCRIPTIONS
Want to add a bit more flavour to a trait? You can set a verbose description that others can examine more closely:

* CHARACTER SET VERBOSE <field> <description>
* CHARACTER CLEAR VERBOSE <field>

When you LOOK at someone, you'll see a hint if they have verbose descriptions available, and you can LOOK <person> <field> to take a closer look, e.g. LOOK RAZMAEL EYES.

OTHER NOTES
Ascended/Endgame Races: Those of you who have ascended can display up to six of the pickable characteristics on your look. Use CHARACTER SHOW <field> and CHARACTER HIDE <field> to choose which ones are visible.

Quicklook: The QL <person> command will now show a quick summary of someone's race and visible characteristics without needing a full LOOK, handy for getting a read on someone at a passing glance.

Description appearance tweaks: The way descriptions appear on LOOK has been adjusted (credit to Lin whose design we roughly copied) to fit this new system. Notably, the 'He is a <race>' line is separate from the actual description, and things like blessings/other description appends will now show up at the very end after your clothing.

Descriptions are now also entirely freeform! As mentioned, the 'He is a <race>' part of your description is now divorced from the description, so you can open your description however you please. Do note that as part of this, I've automatically added the 'He is a <race>' into your existing descriptions so that people aren't running around with sentence fragments for their descriptions until they update. Note: This is only for your active description. You'll have to update any stored descriptions yourselves.

Handmirror: Has been updated to show both the new characteristics field (if the target has them set) as well as the ability to look more closely at specific fields if verboses are set if your handmirror is level 2. If you want an example of this new system in action, take a look through your handmirrors at Arvelis.

Have fun fleshing out your characters! We will, as always, keep an eye on things and make adjustments as needed.

Penned by my hand on Tisday, the 2nd of Sapiarch, in the year 18 AC.