4.18 Personal Histories

Every character in Achaea is given the capability to write a publicly viewable
background and to keep his or her personal history up to date by writing
regular 'chapters.' This background and the chapters must be written in-role,
as they are there to be used as roleplay devices.

In order to promote consistent roleplay, you must remember that once you've
written your background, _it cannot be altered_. You can, however, provide
updates to your background by way of the aforementioned chapters. Ideally,
reading a character's background and then reading the various historical
chapters that the character has written will give one a sense of where the
character is coming from, where he's been, and where he's going.

Once again we must emphasize that this system is to be used _only_ for writing
in-role history of your character. It's not to be used for any other purpose,
and those using it for any other purpose will find they cannot use the system
anymore.

Syntax summary: (full explanations in the next section)
--------------
COMPOSE BACKGROUND (** READ THE INSTRUCTIONS BELOW FIRST ** )
COMPOSE HISTORY
COMPOSE HISTORY TITLE <chapter #> <title>

VIEW BACKGROUND <adventurer>
VIEW HISTORY SUMMARY <adventurer>
VIEW HISTORY <chapter #> <adventurer>

SET HISTORY PUBLIC/ALLIES/PRIVATE


Syntaxes:
---------

COMPOSE BACKGROUND
   - Takes you into the Achaean editor to compose your background.

   - You may only write a background ONCE, ever. We recommend writing it
     off-line in a word processor, spell-checking it, reading it over a few
     times to make sure it's just how you want it, and then pasting it into
     the Achaean editor.

   - There's no need to write excessively long backgrounds. What you want to
     do is give your character some flavour and give yourself a framework to
     roleplay in. What you do not want to do is write histories that nobody
     will respect, because they are ridiculous. Don't write that you come from
     some far off land, as you don't. Don't write that you are the spawn of
     some demon, because you aren't. Keep it consistent with Achaean history
     and consistent within itself.

   - YOU MAY ONLY WRITE A BACKGROUND ONCE AND ONCE SAVED, YOU CAN _NEVER_
     ALTER IT! SO BE CAREFUL!


COMPOSE HISTORY
   - Takes you into the editor to compose a new chapter.

   - Like with backgrounds, you may not edit these once saved.

   - Chapters are to be used only for the telling and explaining of personal
     history. They are not to be used to write whatever you feel like writing.

COMPOSE HISTORY TITLE <chapter #> <title>
   - Assigns a title to a chapter.
   - The title may be multiple words long. The title may be changed as many
     times as you like.


VIEW BACKGROUND <character>
   - Views a character's background.
   - Omit the character field to view your own background more easily.


VIEW HISTORY SUMMARY <character>
   - Displays a summary of the chapters a character has written.
   - Omit the character field to view your own summary more easily.

VIEW HISTORY <chapter> <character>
   - Displays the specified chapter of the specified character.
   - Omit the character field to view your own chapters more easily.


SET HISTORY PUBLIC/ALLIES/PRIVATE
   - Sets your background and chapters viewable by everyone, only your allies
     or no one. The only exceptions are the most powerful Gods (such as    
     Tecton) who can always read them.