F.A.Q.

[the_librarians]

COMMON QUESTIONS

Q: What is this game about?
A: The Library is a panfandom, post-apocalypse, survival game with inspiration from Doctor Who, the game Myst, and Terry Pratchett. It's set in a library so large it simply calls itself "The Library", however only a small portion of this library is habitable right now, the rest having fallen into disrepair and infested by monsters from the pages of the books that reside within The Library.

Characters are manifested by The Library from their Books and forced to help The Library repair itself via fighting monsters, entering the worlds within books, and, of course, literally cleaning up and repairing things.


Q: Is there an overarching plot?
A: Yes, it just might take awhile for characters to trigger it.

Q: What are the AC requirements?
A: AC requirements are very simple, either one thread in the_library_logs of any length (if you consistently submit threads with three or less comments this may be revised) or one thread in the_library of more than ten of your comments.


Q: What if my character's canon isn't a book?
A: For the sake of the game, all characters icly come from books even if oocly they do not. If Cloud from Final Fantasy VII enters The Library, then Final Fantasy VII is a book icly within The Library, even though it's a video game oocly.


Q: What if there's two or more characters from the same canon, do they share a book?
A: No. They each get their own Books. Normal libraries have more than one copy of a book, so does this one. Characters who are perceptive might realize their books look similar--but not quite exactly the same.


Q: Can my character read their/someone else's Book/find out their future/discover things about their/someone else's canon?
A: No. Attempting to read the book--even the title--will give characters headaches. It's in a language they don't know anyway. The Library translates everything but the Books the characters come from. Other character also cannot read them.


Q: What about the other books in The Library, can we read those?
A: Yes! Any book that does not belong to a character is perfectly readable and is translated automatically to the character's native tongue. It's worth noting that the books don't seem in any order and it can be hard to figure out how to find certain kinds of books.


Q: What happens if my character damages their/someone else's Book? What about if they rip out pages?
A: Damages to the Books result in damages to the character who came from that Book. This can be physical injuries or memory loss, depending on the mun's choice. Large/great damage translates to more damage to the character. Nicks and dents can be cuts and bruises or simple daily memories, but tearing out pages or damaging large portions of the Book could mean broken bones to dismemberment, important memories being lost, or some combination of both. Unless the Book is completely destroyed, the character won't die from these injuries--but they can die from the blood loss.


Q: So if my character is greatly injured, does that mean their Book will be damaged too?
A: Yes. Most characters won't notice this happening, especially if they don't keep the Book with them or look at it often.


Q: So what happens when they heal? Or If they have healing powers?
A: The Book will 'heal'/mend along with them. This also means if they begin to recover the memory lost, that the damage that caused the loss will mend itself. If a character has healing powers (which will only work within the Gates) it will work the same as normally, although their Book might take an extra day to catch up. See power limits below.


Q: What if a character writes in their/someone else's Book?
A: This will act as kind of a hypnotic suggestion. The character who came from that Book will constantly be thinking about whatever was written inside the book. If the aim is to rewrite memories, it can work, and if the character accepts the new memories over the old memories, their book will be rewritten and the new memory written into the book will transfer over to that untranslatable language. Other words will disappear once the character can get past the suggestion or force themselves to break the 'spell'.


Q: Can my character's Book be damaged to begin with? What will happen to it?
A: Yes, you may app a character and write in their Book description that it is damaged. You must have a good reasoning behind it being damaged, such as canon memory loss, grave trauma, time-traveling shenannanananaigans, or other such things that happened pre-TL. Another acceptable reason for having a damaged Book is if the character is AU, although AU characters' Books don't have to be damaged or look any different than their canon counterparts.

If your character's Book is damaged, there will be events later in The Library where they may 'heal', but it's up to the mun as to what this may mean to the character, and if it happens at all.




BOOKMARKS

Q: What is a Bookmark and why is it important?
A: Within The Library, characters' Bookmarks act as communication devices (as well as handy items for marking pages) and will be connected to The Library's intranet to talk with other characters who have their Bookmarks as well. Each Bookmark matches the character's Book, but can be changed to look how the character wants it to look. They are always rectangular in appearance and when in sleep mode look to be regular bookmarks.


Q: How do my characters use the Bookmarks?
A: The whole Bookmark is a touch screen, which can slide out to a small qwerty keyboard with a screen the same size. The menus are similar to apple devices, with large icons that lead into applications or menu functions. When the keyboard is not required, it displays three icons for text, video, and audio functions.


Q: What other functions are there?
A: Like most of The Library, not everything in the Bookmark works all the time. Sometimes icons may flicker or disappear completely at random. Some days the video response button may end up sitting out by the map function instead of where its supposed to be. There is also the option to project the screen on a nearby wall to view bigger images.

• intranet/network: This shows all posts, including ones made before the character arrived. Posts are never deleted from the network. This function houses the text, video, and audio options for making ones own posts.
  
  
• map: This is mostly useless as it will often only show the residental area the character lives in, even if they are out exploring or hunting monsters.
  
  
• notepad: Yes, you can keep notes on your Bookmark. They are not shared with the intranet and are private only to the character who writes them--or to anyone who picks up the Bookmark.
  
  
• camera: Why have a video function if you can't take your own photos? These are kept mostly private unless the character chooses to share them over the intranet, or until someone decides to go poking about in their Bookmark. Characters can only store about 1G worth of photos on the Bookmark reliably. Any more photos and some tend to get corrupted and disappear... Or end up on the intranet by accident. Whoops.
  
  
• music: Your typical elevator music is the only thing available for now.
  
  
• games: Enjoy minesweeper, tetris, or catepillar? Good, because those are the only games on there. The intranet may sometimes choose to share your scores with the rest of the group.
  
  
• catalogue: Like the holograms, the Bookmark can full up what books are available in The Library... however, for now this function is incredibly buggy to use on the Bookmark. Characters will be better off asking the holograms for their thoughts on books to read.
  

Q: What about privacy, can my character hack the intranet?
A: There are only three levels of privacy on the intranet: public, hackable private, and locked private. There isn't a method of percentages or fancy hacking 1337 skills that magically make things more hackable than others. The Library is glitchy however, and sometimes will drop privacy settings or accidentally allow viewers that shouldn't be allowed. If characters would like to take advantage of that, go right ahead. Threads listed as simply "private" will default to "hackable private", but oocly please contact the muns of the thread before jacking it or using knowledge of it icly. "Locked private" threads are threads that for ooc or ic reasons cannot be hacked. This is choice made by the muns, please respect their choices.


Q: What happens if my character loses their Bookmark?
A: If a character's Bookmark remains untouched for over two weeks, it will appear tucked back inside their Book sometime in the third week. If they've lost their Book too, then they had best steal someone else's Bookmark. Bookmarks will return to the Book of the last person who used them.


Q: Does my character get a snazzy username or picture for their intranet posts?
A: The intranet does not support userpics or usernames. Characters are identifible by a number that stays with them no matter what Bookmark they pick up. This number, for ic intents and purposes is oocly the number of the journal you use for the character. For example, The Librarian mod account's number is #724171. This number is found on the journal profile next to the time and date you created the journal.



GATE WORLDS

Q: How are my characters' powers limited?
A: Most powers do not work outside of the Gates. Powers that are allowed are limited to passive powers (like magical senses) and innate powers (like water breathing or night vision). All aggressive sorts of powers will be blocked outside of Gates. This means that your character won't be able to throw cars, or control other's minds, but they can sense people's energies, self-levitate, and such other non-combatant powers.


Q: Are my characters' powers limited inside the Gates?
A: No. Once a character goes through a Gate into one of the books' worlds, they will regain any and all powers at full. However, these powers will only be able to work within the world open at the time through the Gate. This means, if someone has planet-destroying powers canonly, then they can use those powers inside the Gate, but only towards the "fictional" worlds in the book being used by the Gate. Someone with dimension-hopping powers might fall short if the book in the Gate lacks other dimensions to hop to, and etc. If your character is going damage more than a single building inside the Gates, they'll have to check it out with the mods.


Q: Can you ever use your combatant powers outside the Gates?
A: Characters are allowed to win back their powers through Quests (see below) within Gateworlds. Keep on the lookout for these quests and notify a mod if your character completes one. If your character doesn't have any canon powers, don't worry, they have the options of winning any powers within their canonworlds, or within the Gateworld where they completed the Quest. We may allow the option to gain a power from another character's canon, if the above options are too limited and the muns have talked with one another.


Q: How do the Gates work?
A: The Gates are found on certain levels, and like the rest of The Library, not all of them work. The "dead" Gates are ones which have doors that are a black marble, have no handle, and are unable to be opened by normal means. All Gates will return to this state when there is no Book attached to them. However, when a Book is selected by The Library (oocly by muns and mods) the open Gates will all take on various appearances that mirror the place where they open in the Book's world. For example, a Gate which opens to a tavern may have a well-worn wooden door.

All Gates open to the same world as long as they're hooked up to the same Book. Yes, this means characters can run into one another while within the Gates, even if they entered through different places. However, people native to the world entered to the Gates are all considered NPCs and will be discussed in a later question.


Q: What are characters supposed to do inside the Gates?
A: Character are free to do anything they want, although The Library would rather they complete the Quests so that the Book can be fixed. Characters may destroy the world within the Book if they want (please contact mods before doing so) but they will have to deal with the ic consequences of their actions, which may be just getting locked out of the next set of Gates, or it may be something more severe, such as The Library taking away some of the character's senses, or some of their memories.


Q: Are there any people in the worlds beyond the Gates?
A: Characters may interact with the npcs native to the worlds beyond the Gates, however these people will seem to have the memory span of a goldfish to natives of The Library. This meaning that the character may bargain with the npc or carry on quite a conversation with a barmaid, but if they stop conversing for more than five minutes, then the npc will "forget" the character existed. Apart from a few npcs who may be able to further interact with characters, most npcs will be unable to do complex favors for characters beyond fetching a drink, selling items, explaining things about their world, etc.

If told about The Library, the npc may think the character is insane, or believe them--but they won't remember in five minutes so it doesn't really matter. These npcs are unable to leave via the Gates, and if the characters try to show them the Gate, the npc will be unable to see it and may see a barren wall, a empty field, etc.

This also means characters from The Library can kill npcs without much consequence within the world, because the npcs will forget about it after a few minutes. However, killing npcs is treated with the same ic consequences as destroying large portions of the world within the Gates. Outside of the Gates, The Library will find its own way to punish the responsible characters.


Q: Can characters live in the worlds provided by the Gates?
A: For a period of time, yes the characters can live there (if they can stand being forgotten every five minutes) but when the Gates get ready to exchange the Book they open to, the character will get punted out. When the Gates reopen, the character is welcome to reenter, but they are unable to stay with the Book the Gate was using before.


Q: How do the "Quests" work?
A: Quests are announced via the intranet when the Gates open to a new Book's world. They are generally oriented towards repairing the Book or fixing up The Library outside the Gates. Quests available outside the Gates usually include fighting the monsters loose in The Library, repairing bookshelves, and other such things.


Q: But how do the Quests inside the Gates work?
A: Quests can range from trying to get the prince to kiss the princess, to battling the evil army that shouldn't be winning in the plot, to simply wandering around and interacting with the Book.


Q: Do characters get rewarded for doing these quests?
A: Yes, rewards from quests are a good way to get items from home, any supplies that aren't available from the current Gates, or anything the character can request from The Library. Want an item that will allow the character to get special powers the next time they step through a Gate? They can request it as their reward from The Library.


Q: Do we get to pick books the Gates open up for our characters to roam?
A: Yes! This will be done via suggestions and polling in the ooc comm, make sure to keep watch of it! Remember that all canons are books icly, so you don't have to limit your choices to just oocly literal books.


Q: When will we get to do my character's world!?
A: For the time being, we will refrain from visiting the book worlds of characters who are in The Library. It's a huge library, there's plenty of other books for it to pick.



SURVIVAL

Q: Where does the characters' food come from?
A: Characters can get food from old stores within the Market sections or from worlds beyond the Gates. Food from the Market sections will be cans and such other sorts of dried foods that have survived a long period of time.


Q: What about clothes? Furniture? Trinkets? Toiletries?
A: There are simple tunics available in some of the better stocked residential areas. Some toiletries will also be available in those areas, but there isn't much left that isn't spoiled, chewed through, or simply in a bad state of disrepair. Better find and hoard a working shower and whatever shampoo and other stuff you can find. Characters will be able to restock with items, furniture, trinkets, and etc from beyond the Gates, but not all worlds available through the Gates will be worlds with modern items available. Characters should learn to keep a good stock of their items.


Q: Can we start up businesses?
A: If a character wishes to set up a business of collecting items and selling them, contact a mod for now. Later we may set up a business page as characters settle in. Any other ideas for businesses, just prod a mod for approval.


Q: Are our characters assigned rooms?
A: No, characters may decide to hole up anywhere they would like. There are residential areas with bedrooms, even if some of them are in various states of disrepair. However characters may choose to live within the abandoned stores of the marketplace, or perhaps hole themselves up in one of the many private studies.


Q: What do things run on? How does the electronics work?
A: If characters take things apart, they'll find everything runs on various combinations of steam, electricity, and a power source that seems to mimic a form of mana if any characters are familiar with it. Every wall of The Library has massive mechanics behind it, but seem illogical when you can only see bits and pieces of the gears and workings.


Q: Can our characters make their own devices out of pieces of The Library and stuff they get from inside the Gates?
A: Of course! Characters are encouraged to create and gather whatever they want, really. Make sure your character has the abilities to work with the mechanics and power involved, but only big inventions/creations (that have the possibility of changing how TL is played) must be approved by a mod.


IC PUNISHMENTS

Q: Do we have to punish our characters?
A: No, there's no strict enforcement of the punishments of The Library. It's basically TL's version of a 'curse' effect. More kinds of punishments may be added later on. What it comes down to is that the muns oocly decide when characters will actually get punished for their actions. The ic explanation for why this is allowed is that The Library is very glitchy and its punishment system isn't working in all areas.


Q: How long do the punishments last?
A: Most punishments only last a day the first offence. It's up to the mun after that when the punishments start getting bumped up to two days--up to a week of punishment.


Q: Can we suggest other punishments?
A: Yes, you may. If you have an idea about a new rule and/or a punishment for TL, you can post it below, in the FAQ.




MONSTERS

Q: Where are all the monsters?
A: They mostly reside in the more damaged parts of The Library, where trees grow through bookshelves and floors are untrustworthy. However, that doesn't mean that they all stay there. Even the more populated and well-kept parts of TL aren't truly safe.


Q: How do the monsters get there?
A: The same way the characters do. Most monsters don't understand the reason they're given a Book, and leave it wherever they spawned. Only if a character is really lucky (or unlucky) and runs into a recently manifested monster that they may be able to find the monster's Book and injure the monster via the Book. CHARACTERS DON'T KNOW THIS, AND POSSIBLY WILL NEVER MAKE THE CONNECTION. If your character magically figures this out within their first month within TL, they had better be amazingly smart or amazingly lucky--or more probably, both.


Q: Can we kill the monsters? What happens if we do?
A: The monsters are just as killable as the characters. The difference is that TL wants the characters to be there. It doesn't really want the monsters. Monsters can die just the same as normally, although if not interacted with (used for meat or etc) their bodies will disappear after about two weeks. Remember that characters can complete certain quests by killing monsters.


Q: If our characters befriend a monster, can they keep them as a pet?
A: Yes, they can be taken in as pets. If you suggest a breed of monster that exists in your character's world and your character happens to have a pet in their canon of that breed of monster, then they may find their pet within The Library while exploring.




APPLICATION

Q: What mediums can we app from? Do the canons have to be books?
A: No, characters don't have to be from books--they can be from any media that is accessible in English, either by official release or fansubing. However, if the canon has been released in Japan and is planning an official English release, we ask that the mun wait until the offical release comes out before playing from it. This mostly applies to games, not manga or anime. Webcomics and Vocaloid songs are allowed, but if there is not enough canon to support the character without intense headcanon, the character may be listed as AU or an OC.


Q: How many AUs of a character do you allow?
A: Three versions of a character are allowed at any given time. These may be all three AU, one AU and two OU (an example of having two OU characters would be Leon from Kingdom Hearts alongside Squall from Final Fantasy), or the usual one OU to two AU characters.


Q: My character is a silent protag/doesn't have much canon/doesn't have much screentime, can I still app them?
A: In short yes, these sorts of apps may be listed as AU rather than OU, because there is a great chance that someone coming into the same cast may not share your exact headcanon and this may greatly impact the CR between castmates. Differences in headcanon should be discussed oocly amongst the cast, so that the game runs as smoothly as possible.

The only characters we won't accept are characters from still running canons that have much more to be revealed about them. If your character is nothing more than a pretty face that you have constructed a personality to go to... You may be better off just making an OC rather than having to retcon later when more information is revealed about the character.


Q: I want to app characters that all exist in the same physical body/that have Multiple Personality Disorder/has a hallucination whom s/he talks to all the time. Can I still app them?
A: Most of the time, yes. If all the characters involved have enough personality to be appable, then you may app them separately so that in The Library they take on their own copy of the physical body they share in canon. Or you may be able to app them as a multi-app. This means that they will be counted as separate characters but can remain in the same body and all played by a single mun. A multi-app would need a full app for each person/personality/hallucination/etc and would be highly scrutinized because of the stress this will mean for the mun who has to play all these characters at once. We won't accept many of these kinds of apps. It may be to your benefit to get a friend and go with the first option and app each character/personality/etc as a separate character with their own physical body. There are also other ways for this to work, but please contact the mods to talk about possible options.


Q: On that note, can my character bring their pets/pokemon/familiars/summons?
A: Not at this time. If they are unappable because they are not of human intellect, then you may suggest their breed on the monsters page and have The Library bring the character's companion to find later--but they cannot come with the character themselves. The only exception to this are characters that require their companion to remain living, such as Lyra and Pan from His Dark Materials. If this is true, then please see the answer above for details on how they may be apped.


Q: What are some examples of prompts I can use on the samples?
A: Since a lot of people tend to have trouble with the samples, here are some various prompts to start you off. Remember all these should take place within The Library setting.

• Zombies are in The Library. (Personally I tend to find this one a good catch all for prompting character development. Unless your character deals with zombies all the time. In which case they're awesome.)
  
• Hello is anyone there? (Fumbling with the Bookmark and perhaps accidental first posts. Or their first moments waking up to find their world utterly changed. Remember guys, it's not like this happens everyday to them. Unless it does...)
  
• Your character is getting ready for a date. (For someone they like, for a blind date, for someone they don't like but couldn't get out of going... Or perhaps they're the ones who asked! Do they have any questions for the intranet..?)
  
• First time through a Gate. (Spin around and pick the nearest book in the direction you're pointing. Your character has now just walked into the world of this book. How do they react? Awe, wonder, fear, shock, etc.)
  
• One of your character's friends has left The Library. (Best friend, close, or just met, this can still be rather shocking to have someone disappear like that.)
  

If you really are having issues, perhaps try a random scenario generator.

Q: Can we bring in our character post-dead or dying?
A: Yes! Within the game, death within canon is just another page to the character's story, and is an app-able canon point. If a character is taken from a canon-described afterlife, they may be in the form they take in the afterlife, but otherwise The Library will use whatever form they had last (that wasn't gravely injured) when they wake up in game. This goes the same for injured or dying characters, they will simply have a body from a few moments earlier in their canon rather than wake up bleeding out.

Q: What about illnesses?
A: Muns have the choice to have The Library put the character in an earlier body they had, or to leave them with the illness and try to find a character to heal them. The Library doesn't actually heal anyone, it just uses a previous appearance of them to manifest.

Don't be afraid to ask more questions!
Please comment below if you would like something answered.

Comments

[the_excuse]

The answer to this is probably really obvious, but I'm gonna ask anyway!

My character is technically a genderswaped version of the Male Protagonist from Persona 3 and they're both silent protags. She's canon, though, and their personalities are vastly different. My question is, would she count as an AU or an OU character?

spelling, i knows it

[the_librarians]

Your character would be welcome at the library. Recently the Library was turned into a dressing room so AU or OC won't be a problem. If you would like to join the comm, please feel free to do so and the mod team will approve your membership.