User:Cedric/Start here

A fork appears along the roads of Creation. Small choices change many years of a person's life. You can play a character that you curate and develop over many sessions, even years of your life or you can develop the ability to represent the gods and play many characters on the large dynamics of the game universe.

So, do you feel you have something inside yourself that you wish to express, or do you feel like representing the dynamics of a complex universe?

PHB

A new player! Now we must figure out Who You Are in the game universe. There are many races to choose from, each one a subtle experiment of the gods, who work on time-scales far beyond the individual lifetime. The main experiments can be broken down by what ability score is affected upwards to be given advantage. The gods want diversification of language-enabled beings and to see what happens when oen ability is given favor.

What has forged your soul? Everyone is in battle in some way with the forces-at-large:

• Becoming victorious in the soul's battles of power produce a CON or STR benefit. You'd be a Dwarf or Aryan, respectively. Which one, you'll have to search in your own soul. It will probably be obvious to you as they are very different.
• Battles of intelligence give a WIS or INT benefit. You must join the Elves or Humans and shed your gross habits of humanness. If you feel purity is important to you, join the Elves.
• Battles of heartbreak produce a CHR or PTY benefit. Tarami or human. If you feel there is an injustice to correct in your soul, pick the tarami race, otherwise when such battles break the heart, many choose to become loyal to the gods above. In such case, a human becomes a better choice.
• If you fight for supremacy of physical form, you gain a DEX benefit. Your soul may be one with the Shou.
• Battles of purity (which the goddess calls battles of cruelty) create the feywild or elves which are also fey, but the gods gave to them their own race. If you already choose and elf but feel this is significant to you, may receive a PERception benefit. Did you get slammed around by the forces of everything that exist?
• Being tested in battles of Humans get the INT benefit? Shou/R great trials of fire get a DEX benefit. Tarami great trials of heartbreak get a CHR benefit.

Of course, it feels so natural and tempting to just choose to be a human -- and that's an acceptable choice for your journey into the magical world of role-playing. But, disregard the temptation and search within -- you may feel the yearning to stretch yourself and experiment with Who You Are.

The gods make very fine separations within language-enabled beings in the universe that the vast majority of humunoids never notice. Trust your instincts, and try not to resort to old routines or merely the familiar.

Dwarf

Ah! A dwarf you say!? You think you can pass the test for being a dwarf? Could you hammer through rock as if the fate of your family depends on finding the riches and mysteries that lurk within it?

Elf

Hmm. A new interloper in our mix. What is your relationship to the fey forces which govern the forests and animate life? Do not bother us with your ambitions of fame or fortune. Either you lust for the pure and the virtuous or you're mundane. Decide or be gone.

Feywild

... .... ..who is this? Are you a friend of ours? Seek here or be gone.

Human

Of course. Steady and ready. Not much to say here. Everyone knows our humanness. We seem to be the most generic of everyone else, yet one may gain an INT bonus. Should you? Or should you not? This is the praxis of the mind of human: choice.

DMG

Now we're talking. Big stuff. Gods and forces beyond the realm of any mortal. Questions of good and evil that will define the Ages. Are you up for it? You can play at your own table or you could manage many tables. If you get high enough, you get famililar with representing the dragons and the things they protect without knowing it.