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faq
● ● ● OVERVIEW
what is this game about?Ximilia is a panfandom, mission-based sci-fi roleplay game that is heavily character-driven.
The characters are given a choice to be able to undo one thing they regret in their lives, if they agree to gather all the scattered orbs from different worlds — and if they complete the task they are given in each world. The orbs will lend them the power to undo their regrets, but each individual has to provide the orbs with that power by completing their individual task.
Characters’ actions affect the success of the missions, as well as the overarching plot. The characters will have to work together in order to recover the orbs, but also consider how much they are willing to risk to be successful in their individual tasks.
what are the themes of the game?
As the game is a mix of different genres, the tone of the game varies from more serious and action-packed to psychological horror to more light-hearted. As such, the game’s themes are a mix of light and dark.
One of the main themes of the game is how characters balance the tasks they are given with their own morals and temperament. The characters have to face choices that are not always easy, and make decisions that challenge their morality and ethics. The choices will force the characters to confront unpleasant things about themselves, but this also gives possibilities to form bonds with the other characters and support each other.
what does it mean that the game is character-driven?
It means that the actions of characters heavily influence the direction of the game, as well as the conclusions of different missions.
Depending on how characters choose to act, missions can have a variety of different conclusions. Character actions also have IC consequences - during missions, the way they act may influence how NPCs react to them and thus the conclusion of the mission.
The game also has an overaching plot. As the game progresses, characters can find out more about the station, the orbs, and their history. There is no pre-determined ending for the game, and instead what characters uncover, when, and how they react to these things will determine the direction of the game.
how can we contact the mods?
Avenues of mod contact is available via our Mod Contact page, this FAQ, and question/search request threads under mission logs or OOC plotting posts. Do not PM the mod or NPC account to contact the mods, as we do not make a habit of checking those inboxes and would hate to miss anything important. (On rare occasions, we do use the mod account to send out PMs to individual journals as it is our only means of reaching out privately. In these cases, it is alright to reply back that way as we will be expecting it.)
● ● ● BASICS
how do characters arrive?Regardless of where they fell asleep, the characters wake up in a bed in one of the rooms on the station.
what will they see upon arrival?
The ceiling, probably? And when they look around, they will see a room that can have anything from one to four beds, bedside tables, a closet for personal items and clothes, and a small bathroom.
what if my character arrives severely injured?
They will wake up in the infirmary instead of their room on the station, and upon inspection they’ll find that their injuries have been treated. If the injuries are very severe, it may take them some time to fully recover. If the characters are in need of medicine, they’ll find the appropriate medicine next to them on a small table.
what if my character was dead?
Nothing to say that the dead can’t still have regrets! Instead of having the voice speak to them while asleep, those who are dead will suddenly find themselves aware again and hear the voice speak to them.
what if my character has a terminal illness / specific diet / etc?
It’s all up to you! If you want it fixed, it can be magically gone when they arrive on the station. If not, you can keep it. For specific diets, the characters will find the appropriate food etc on the station.
what can my characer bring with them?
Whatever they have with them in the room when they initially agree to the contract in their sleep: clothes, weapons, jewelry, etc. Note that this does not apply to furniture or other bigger items, only personal items that one could reasonably carry with them.
what if my character has an animal companion?
At the moment, animal companions will not accompany characters to the station.
what about powers?
As your character needs their powers to be able to get the orbs as efficiently as possible, the characters' powers will be mostly intact — only game-breaking powers will be nerfed. However, sometimes your character may need to hide their powers, depending on the planet, but the powers themselves won’t be gone.
is mature content allowed in this game?
Yes, just use the appropriate warnings!
is there a network?
Characters are given an earpiece that connects straight to their minds. An earpiece can transmit messages to other earpieces, a restricted number of earpieces or just one specific earpiece.
Characters can use either audio, video or thought-to-text functions; all of these work simply by decisively thinking of what they want the message to be like, though actually speaking the message out loud (in case of video or audio) works as well.
The messages will appear in the characters’ minds. The characters will find the earpiece pinging them to them having a new message, and the characters can then decide to either view it, or listen to it. For viewing messages, it is recommended to close your eyes; otherwise, the messages may look strange as you’re viewing both the possible text or video and the real world at the same time.
The characters are also recommended to focus well when making messages — thought-to-message can be very messy if you’re not focusing on thinking exactly what you want to say, after all.
how will characters understand each other?
The earpieces include automatic translation. To break this, the characters have to think very clearly that they want something to remain in its original language.
what happens when a character is dropped?
There are two options:
Option A: something in the orb’s power malfunctions and they are sent home.
Option B: they decide they want to go back home and not stay to fix the regret, in which case they can just return.
what about canon updates?
Go right ahead and inform the mods of your canon update, along with a brief summary of the new memories they are gaining here.
Please note that new canon needs to be at least a month old in order to canon update to it.
ICly, whoever is in charge of bringing the characters to the station decides that you’ll be a better asset to the team with new memories, hence they return you back to your world to get new experience and then whisk you back to fulfill your contract.
what if my character wants to change which regret they want undone?
At this point in the game, there is no information about this available to the characters. As of this network post, characters will be made aware that changing their regret is possible — but that it is not without its price.
● ● ● MECHANICS
how do the missions work?The characters are sent to different planets to find the scattered orbs. On each planet, their mission is the same: to recover the orb that is on the planet. In order to do that, the characters have to work together as a team. The more orbs they recover, the better their chance of having enough power to undo their regrets.
On each planet, the orb is causing a disturbance of some kind, and in order to recover it, the characters have to fix the disturbance in the way they see is best.
the disturbance?
Yes. You didn’t think it was going to be as simple as going to a planet, grabbing the orb and leaving, did you? On one planet, the disturbance might be a war. On another, it might be that the orb’s power has caused bunnies to multiply and they’re eating all the plant life…. or it might be that the orb has made everyone in one city fall asleep and not wake up. The disturbances will vary in severity and reach.
how do the characters get the orb?
More often than not, characters will have to find out information during the mission about the orb's location and how to get it. This will be done via search requests in the logs. You can read more about how the search request mechanic functions here.
what are character-specific goals?
On each planet, in addition to the characters all having their mission to complete, each character is also given a personal goal to fulfill. If they succeed in fulfilling it during the mission, the orb they recover will eventually lend its power to undoing their regret. If they don’t succeed, the orb they recover during that mission will not lend them its power.
Here’s a quick cheat sheet for this:
• If the orb is not recovered, its power will help none of the characters.
• If the orb is recovered, it will help only the characters who have completed their personal goals.
• If Character A completes their goal, the orb will eventually lend them its power.
• If Character B fails to complete their goal, the orb will not lend them its power.
so... the characters absolutely have to complete their personal goal as well?
Well yes, if they want the orb’s power to help them. However, it is up to them to decide if the goal is something they can or want to fulfill. It’s not always pleasant, or easy. That’s kind of the point here.
what does that mean?
It means the characters have to decide how far they’re willing to go to reach their goal. Will they betray a friend? Stab a friend in battle? Do something that sabotages their overall mission? Reveal unpleasant truths about themselves? Risk being ridiculed?
The categories that the goals fall under are typically (but not limited to):
VIOLENCE: the characters will have to commit a violent action towards someone
BETRAYAL: the characters will have to go against their moral code
SABOTAGE: the character’s task will somehow go against their overall mission
RANDOM: the character’s task will have absolutely nothing to do with the mission
Some examples of these are:
VIOLENCE: “Assassinate one of the locals without getting caught.”
BETRAYAL: “Leave a friend behind when they need help.”
SABOTAGE: “Steal one of the paintings you have been tasked to protect.”
RANDOM: “Organize a birthday party during your mission for someone who actually has a birthday then.”
can my character tell others about their personal goal?
Yes! Keeping their goals a secret is not required for them to be completed, unless it is specifically stated in their goal. As a matter of fact, sometimes sharing their goal may be beneficial to actually completing it.
do characters need to complete all their personal goals to undo their regret?
No. All the orbs have to be recovered in order for them to work, but how many orbs a character needs depends on their regret. If their regret involves an event where several people died and they want to undo that, then the more orbs they have to power that, the better. But if their regret is something simpler, say, undoing one character death, or making a different choice than the one they originally did, then that could be done with less orbs.
To recap: no one’s regret can be undone before all of the orbs have been recovered. However, a character doesn’t necessarily need the power from all of the orbs to undo their particular regret - which means that if they fail one or two goals, it doesn’t mean their regret can’t be undone.
can you give examples of a regret a character might have?
Sure! Let’s say Peter Parker’s regret is Uncle Ben’s death — he could wish to undo that. Merlin could regret telling Arthur that magic is evil (a decision that led to Mordred living and eventually killing Arthur), and he could wish to have made a different choice and told Arthur the truth about magic.
Note that regrets are not limited to specific events, or even serious topics. Regrets can also be an aspect about one's character (like Rogue regretting being born a mutant) or something more frivolous (like Shaggy not getting that extra sandwich when he had the chance).
Can a regret be unconscious / not fully known to the character?
Initially, yes. The character can think of something in the dream and not realize or remember it upon waking up on the station. However, the regret they have will be entered into the files on the station upon arrival, and they will be told the regret before their first mission.
When the characters go back after undoing their regret, will they go back to that moment, or to their current canonpoint in a changed universe?
There is no information available to the characters about this — they would have to find a person who has successfully undone their regret to ask about this.
● ● ● SETTING
what is ximilia station like?Ximilia Station is a large, round space station with three wings that house the characters. Along with the living quarters, there is a big industrial kitchen and a mess hall, a training room, a simulation room, an infirmary, an armory and a sunlight simulation room. For most of the time, the North Wing is entirely inaccessible to the characters, but information is available of what it contains.
In the middle of the station, there is a teleportation room, where the characters leave for missions and arrive back at the station.
Notably, there are no spaceships or space suits on the station, as characters do not travel to planets by spaceships but rather teleportation.
For more information on the station and its layout, please see the settings page.
where will my characters live?
The living quarters have rooms of three sizes: one-person rooms, two-person rooms and four-person rooms. Each room has a bed or several beds, a small bedside table, closets for clothes and a safe for personal items, a small table and 1-2 armchairs, and a bathroom with a shower.
what is the technology like?
The station is managed by Viveca, a former human who now inhabits an android body (that looks exactly as her human body once did) and also functions as the station's AI. The characters can speak to Viveca at all times, ask questions and ask for alterations to their rooms.
This does not mean there is no manual labour on the station, though. Food will not cook itself, and items will not transport themselves - however, for the technologically adept, there will be plenty of tools available. If you are unsure whether your character could make something or not, ask the mods.
so does this mean viveca will tell characters everything?
Not really. Viveca is there to help the characters adjust, to give them practical information about the station and eventually about their mission, but there are things she will not know the answer to — or will not tell the answer to, depending.
are there npcs on the station?
At this current time, characters have met four station NPCs: two are from the previous team that gathered the orbs and eventually remained on the station after the orbs scattered again. These two are Viveca, a former revolutionary leader who replaced the station's original AI and lost her human body in circumstances not known to the team at this point; and Degar, a former bard and now the station's commander. He resides within the North Wing for most of the time and is responsible for maintaining the barrier around the orbs so they do not affect the station.
If you want your character to ask Viveca or Degar a question and receive an IC answer, ask it here.
Alongside these two, there is 0-L1V-14, known as Olivia, the station's former, orb-corrupted AI now contained into Viveca's former robotic body; and an unnamed cleaning bot that can often be seen tidying up after the characters, especially in between missions.● ● ● APPS & ACTIVITY
who can app?Absolutely everyone! Reserves go up at the same time as TDMs do, but you don't need a reserve to be able to app. For more information on when reserves and apps are open, please refer to the Calendar.
what kind of characters can i app?
Both canon characters and original characters, as long as they’re 15 years old or older.
What you cannot app: real people, non-canon AUs, fandom OCs and characters with little-to-no screentime. If you are unsure about what is considered too little screentime, ask the mods.
Differing adaptations: as long as the characters are significantly different from one another, they can be apped. If some events in adaptations are different but the character’s core personality remains the same, the character is considered to be the same in both versions. For example, despite the differences, book!Frodo and movie!Frodo are similar enough that only one of them could be in the game at a given time. However, comics!Loki and MCU!Loki are different enough that both could be apped.
Malleable protagonists are judged on a case-by-case basis.
what makes a character a good fit for this game?
If you're considering Ximilia but aren't sure if the character you have in mind would work out, here are a couple of things you can consider:
- Is my character a team player? Ximilia is a team-based mission game where the success of missions often rely heavily on the cast of characters working together towards a common goal. Even if they often prefer to work alone, consider whether or not they'd put that aside in order to succeed.
- What are they willing to do to achieve their goal? Ximilia's missions often involve making characters confront their morals and ethics, and some choices may not be easy. Note that characters are recruited into the team and thus join by choice, and ICly they can leave at any time for any reason. Therefore, because they are not being held against their will, consider what your character's limits are.
- What can they provide to the team? ICly, characters are recruited by the two station NPCs, Viveca and Degar. The two make choices based on whether or not a character can be an asset to the team. To find out more about this, check out the "suitability" section in the application page.
Keep in mind a character does not need to hit all of these to do well in game; these are just a few suggestions to help the decision-making process a little easier.
what is the app cycle like?
Apps are open for the last 5 days of the month. Reserves open at the same time as the TDM goes live, and are valid through the first three days of the app cycle.
Apps are usually open monthly, but can sometimes be closed during a mission. The months when there are no apps will be noted on the Calendar.
cast caps? player caps? game cap?
At the start, the game has a cap of 60 characters. Casts are capped at 6 characters.
Casts include only that specific canon — for example, Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy VII would count as two separate canons, not one. Franchises spanning multiple movies/series/games like the MCU are capped at 8 characters.
Players are allowed a max of 2 characters.
what about crau?
At this moment, CRAU characters aren’t appable.
how many characters can i play at once?
You can app one character per app cycle, and play a total of two.
can i app two characters from the same canon?
No.
what's the wait time for new canons?
We ask that you wait one month from the release of a new series, book, chapter, etc. before apping a character from it. The same applies for canon updates for characters already in the game.
what is ac like?
As we are all old and tired, AC is 10 comments across 2-4 threads. For more information on AC, please refer to our Activity page.
how does hiatus work?
If you need to take a break, you can hiatus for either half the month or the entire month. For a hiatus that spans less than two weeks, you will need to provide half AC; for a two-week or more hiatus, you don’t have to provide AC at all.
You cannot take two consecutive month-long hiatuses, unless extenuating circumstances come into play. In that case, please contact the mods. In addition, every player may only take one strike or one hiatus every three (3) months.
While you are on hiatus, your character can always be on autopilot. The other two options depend on whether or not the team is on the station or on a mission.
On the station: your character falls into a trance to be the voice that contacts new characters.
On a mission: your character experiences a teleportation malfunction so that they either remain behind on the station while everyone else goes on the mission, or they are sent somewhere else than the others - a different city on the same planet, or a completely separate planet. For this, you may provide your own suggestions to the mods alongside your hiatus comment.
● ● ● COMMENT QUESTIONS
• What is the max height for a character to fit into the station?• What will characters be wearing if they wake in the infirmary? Where will their items be?
• What if my character doesn't experience serious regret/jokingly answered the voice in the dream?
• Do semi-sentient items (like Dr. Strange's cloak or Xie Lian's Ruoye) count as animal companions or clothing items?
• How much headcanon would be allowed in an app?
• Can characters find other clothing available for them in the station?
• Do characters with special environmental needs (like vampires and sunlight) get any help with that?
• What happens if a character is in another form right before arrival?
• Can characters change their regrets?
• What options do robotic characters have if they are normally immobile?
• Is 12 years old too young for the game?
• What accommodations do amputees get in the game?
• What limitations and options are there for seeking canon-specific weapons that are somewhat magical in nature?
• Are characters ICly aware of the OOC drop mechanic that allows them to request to go home?
• What happens when characters die in-game?
• Are characters brought in voluntarily?
• Is there a privacy function in the network?
• Can a canon update automatically lead to an updated character regret?
• Can characters bring items from other planets back with them after a mission?
• Will characters who have suffered injury or death before appearing on the station have visible scarring or feel phantom pains from the wound?
• Are characters who are physically below the age minimum appable if they have technically lived for much longer?
• Are different versions of The Doctor considered different enough characters that they can be appable?
• Do non-human characters remain non-human?
• What constitutes permadeath (aka "orb-related deaths")?
• Is a character who would actively murder or harm their teammates a good fit for the game?
• Are proxy reserves and proxy applications allowed?
• Can you tell us more about the station?
• Will there ever be an official housing chart?
• Does a character regret have to be personal or can it have larger, more widespread implications?
• Does the network have emojis?
• Are characters able to be taller than 9ft outside of the station?
• Do NPC threads count for activity?
• Is there a set calendar date in the station?
• If asked about characters who have previously disappeared, what would Viveca's IC answer be?
• How does the arrival mechanic work for characters who do not sleep?
• Are there exceptions to the animal companion rule if they also double as a character's weapons?
• Can a character's regret be an ongoing, long-term behavior?
• How does the network handle different languages?
• Is it possible for recently accepted characters to respond to network/log posts that were dated during the time of the TDM they were playing in?
• Can the simulation room draw on fictional settings from a character's world?
• How is pregnancy/birth control handled in the game?
• Do characters need physical bodies to be appable?
• Can damage be done within the sunlight and simulation rooms?
• How authentic are things in the simulation room?
• When and why do certain powers work on others and some do not?
• How does re-applying a character back in-game work?
• Can regrets be something that hasn't happened yet?
• For activity proofs, can you use threads that started in a previous month if there are tags within the AC month?
• Can the earpieces send images/gifs?
• Are OCs based on existing mythology/legends appable?
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