A guide to the creation of new characters.

    First, ask yourself if you really want to make a new character. A new character will take a large investment of time (1000's of hours) to complete. Perhaps your current character is low level, and by making a new character you will correct mistakes that you made with your current character, and thus save yourself a few hundred hours. Perhaps a new class path will give you a whole new style of play to explore. Some people I know have created new characters to escape the reputation of their former character. Whatever your reasons for starting a new character, i implore you to not include boredom with your current character as one of them. There are innumerable things to do in materia magica with established characters, so you don't have to make a new character to keep yourself entertained.

    If you make the decision to create a new character, first choose your race and classes. When making these choices, consider your style of play. Do you want a class with throwing so you can more easily escape pk? Do you want a race with shift so you may be stealthy without purchasing a shift stone donation? Do you want a wizard that will require a large amount of questing to complete or a psionic with few spells to practice? If you choose to be a druid, will you get the cure blind spell from a monk or paladin class, or will you be forced to rely upon cure blind potions? Will you choose a race and classes different than your last character?

    Once you have choosen your race and classes, consider which class to be first. In first class, your primary class stat max is increased by 3; in subsequent classes, it is increased by 2. For example, if you are a paladin in your first class, then your maximum courage is raised by 3 points; if you are a paladin in your 2nd class, it is raised by only 2 points. Thus, which class you choose first may affect which equipment you may wear.

    Now that your class path is planned, choose a name and begin creating your character. Use your rerolls to get a high wisdom and luck because these stats will affect how many practices you get each level. Additionally, try to get a high vitality if you are a fighter class to gain more hp each level, or a high knowledge if you are mage class to gain more sp each level. If you are a thief or cleric, reroll until your knowledge and vitality are at least average and preferably above.

    The first thing to do in Lasler is to purchase new equipment. The weapons from the store do 2 or 3 times the amount of damage that your original weapons do. Much of the armor from the store gives bonuses to your stats, which boosts how much hp/sp/st you get each level. To purchase all the available armor, you will need more gold than you originally have. Convince a high level friend to loan or gift you the money; 50k gold is pocket change to an archon. This may be a good time to get the greed mark.

    Now that you are rich and equipped, it's time to spend your practices. Until about level 20, you should spend all the practices you get on training stats. As soon as you have enough practices to train, train; if you wait then you'll miss out on the increased level bonus you would have gotten if you'd trained earlier. In deciding which stats to train, consider all the equipment you will be able to wear by level 20. You can wear two octarine pendants or ornamental medallions each with 2 wisdom, and two octarine bracelets with 2 vitality each (if you are fighter). If you are a mage you may use two silver candleholders with 1 knowledge each. An ant thorax will grant 3 luck. Red gloves from rigel will give 1 or 2 vitality. More complete equipment lists can be found elsewhere. After learning what you will be wearing at level 20, figure out how much you need to train each levelling stat so that it is maxed when you are wearing your chosen equipment. Level stats are wisdom and luck for everyone; vitality for fighters and knowledge for mages. If you will need to train wisdom, it is a good idea to train it first, because the increased practices it gives you each level will let you train more frequently and thus max your levelling stats at a lower level.

    Acquire any equipment from outside Lasler that you may need before you are high enough level to leave and start levelling. When you hit level four, complete the lasler trials. If you have trouble with the first trial you might try using potions, wands, scrolls, or a friend. The second trial is fairly simple to figure out; light up all four runes on the central obelisk.

    Once you've completed the trials, level up to 6 and leave lasler. In addition to the marks previously mentioned, you can get charisma and passion at level 6. Once you have these, get to level 10 and collect the marks of Darkness, Faith, Judgement, and Truth. Now begin questing at the questmaster of your choice, and don't stop until you have the mark of Adventure.

    For the rest of first class, choose any combination of questing, exploration, socializing, pk, and levelling that suits you. Get the marks of fire, bravery, and patience before multiclassing (first classers collect tourms from the tower of riga on the isle of verity, not the proving grounds on wizardry isle). Keep in mind that if you complete 350 or more quests in first class you can't get the mark of exploration.

    Good luck with your new character.