It's easy to feel a little lost after getting approved. The guide below is meant to help you figure out how to get started and get settled on our game.
Gray Harbor is a game with a rich and detailed lore. Everything is documented in wiki pages and logs. At first glance, the wealth of available information can be intimidating. But don’t worry!
All you need to know to jump into the game is who your character is.
Everything else can be picked up along the way. We recommend reading up on Theme but don’t be discouraged by the size of the infodump. There will not be a test.
Gray Harbor is a coastal town in Washington State, roughly in the spot where Aberdeen, WA would be found. Whether you’re an outsider, a townie, or a townie who went away and came back, you don’t need to know anything else before you hit the ground running. While the supernatural does not bother to hide well, it is not visible at first glance. There are no rumors or stories about the supernatural aspect outside of town -- the Veil protects itself.
These are terms for the supernatural powers at play in Gray Harbor. This phenomenon is well documented in the wiki pages, but you need to know very little in order to get started. As a player, you need to decide how powerful your character is (or isn't), and what sort of past experience they have had with their powers (if any). If your character’s power is low or undiscovered, this may be almost equivalent to starting from scratch.
The most important thing to know is that people who do not have Glimmer--that ability to touch the supernatural and interact with it--will automatically explain away supernatural phenomenon to themselves, and will forget about Gray Harbor if they leave it. As a result, all player characters Glimmer. How much is up to you; one measly dot on your character sheet will ensure that the Veil does not wipe your character’s mind, even if the character never does anything with their power at all. You can be as powerful or not powerful as you want. Your character may not even know that they have a supernatural ability if you want this to be an in-game discovery.
People who Glimmer can -- or can learn to -- recognize each other pretty much on sight, depending on the strength of their gift. Because of this, people with the gift tend to be observant of each other, and curious about new people with the same powers. The Veil prevents the truth of Gray Harbor from becoming widely known, but people who Glimmer tend to spot each other, and be curious about each other. Breaking the ice and getting past the ‘masquerade’ is not difficult.
Townies have lived here all their lives. They have at least some idea that Gray Harbor has Issues and strange things happen. Townies likely have connections in town -- family, friends, co-workers. A Townie player benefits from a wiki pages splurge, and from taking a look at the Townie list in the player directory for other characters to talk to about pre-existing connections. Existing Townie players are usually very happy to make such connections so don’t be shy.
The majority of Gray Harbor's lifelong residents have no Glimmer. Most of the town is composed of perfectly normal people. Player character Townies are those who have the gift.
Outsiders are people who are not originally from Gray Harbor. Depending on how long they've been living in Gray Harbor--be that days, weeks, months, or years--they may not know much of the town’s history, especially the Glimmer parts. If you want to hit the ground running without reading all the lore first, an Outsider is for you. All you need to decide is who your character is, how much power they have, and how long they've been in town. Ostensibly you should also decide why they are going to some obscure small town in the PNW, but in reality, Gray Harbor attracts people with Glimmer as much as it erases itself from those who don't. Accordingly, the reason for an Outsider to come to Gray Harbor could be as simple as 'I wanted to'.
Due to Glimmer causing people empowered by it to notice one another, being an Outsider doesn't preclude a character from much beyond the dubious honor of 'being born here'.
Returning citizens are Townies who for some reason or other went away and are now coming back. They may be recurring summer guests, or people who moved for opportunities that didn't pan out, ran their course, or just plain got sucked back in. They may never have discovered how strange the town is in the first place. They may have known, but once they left, their memories of strange occurrences started to shift and become confused. Returning citizens are often on the same journey of discovery as Outsiders but may have local contacts and connections like Townies, and so a little more wiki reading helps in playing one.
You have them, and we want to answer them. Everything you want to know about the Theme and about Glimmer is detailed in the wiki menus from the website top bar. You can also create a guest character and log into the game proper; the Questions channel exists for this purpose, and players are very ready and willing to answer.
We have roster characters available, if you prefer to start with something pre-generated. The instructions for claiming a given Roster are present on the entry for that roster character.
Alternatively, if you're ready to chargen from scratch, we have a tutorial to help you out with that. We recommend the portal as it makes chargen a snap, though instructions for client-side chargen are included as well.
You now have a character! What's next?
After you hit the grid, you'll probably want to figure out where your PC lives. If you're looking for a quick hook, we recommend checking the Want Ads forum for anyone looking for a roommate, or posting for a roommate for your character.
If you don't want to go the roommate route, you can have a home created for your character. You can submit a request on the game or via the web portal, making sure to include the neighborhood where you want to live.
Be sure to check our game policies for information about our building guidelines.
There are three main avenues for your character's employment:
If your character owns a business, be sure to check out the Guide to Owning a PC Business for information about how to get a business added to the grid and the wiki.
If your character works for a staff-owned business, you should be able to edit the wiki page for that business to add your character.
Check the list of PC businesses to find yours, then just edit the page.
If your character happens to work for the police, fire department, or hospital, you should have had the appropriate tags added after Chargen. If not, you can edit your character's profile to add them.
hospital-doctor hospital-nurse paramedic hospital-miscpolicechief ghpd-captain ghpd-sergeant ghpd-lieutenant detective patrol ghpd-miscfirefighterIf you were approved as working at an off-camera business, feel free to RP that your character works there (e.g., a gas station attendant at an off-camera gas station), and you're welcome to use the scenes system to create temporary rooms as needed.
There's no additional work or updates needed for your character or the wiki in this case.
The main way that roleplay is handled on the game is via the scenes system. You'll want to check the help for the scenes system on the web or by typing help scenes in-game.
You can type scenes on the game or visit the active scenes on the portal. Scenes that are listed as OPEN are exactly that: you're free to join them. Scenes that are listed as PRIVATE cannot be joined without an invitation.
You should also join the RP Requests channel - channel/join RP Requests - where people often ask for RP or announce any open scenes they've created.
We usually have several plots running on the game at any given time, both those that tie directly to the metaplot and close-ended plots. You can view our plots most easily from the plots listing on the portal.
Joining plots should be relatively easy for most players. We have active storytellers that often promote their plots on the Plots & Stories forum, and we make extensive use of the events code. You can type events in the game or view the list of events on the portal.
Responding to calls from people on the forum or joining events will help get your character integrated into stories. You can also follow-up on scenes that you've had with storytellers and admin by sending requests.
We welcome players to run their own stories! If you're interested in running plots (PrPs), check out our Guide to Player Plots for information about getting started.