With new ideas, comes new terminology. Words that might be new to us. Familiar words that have unfamiliar game mechanics tied to them. Old words we just sometimes forget. All those terms are brought together here with their Elyrian definitions.

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Adolescence	The period of time before a character’s 18th birthday where skills increase more quickly when learnt.
Affinity	Souls have an affinity to the light or dark (good or evil). This Affinity is developed over the time you play the soul and will affect the story you are presented. While soul will start with a neutral affinity they will quickly go one way or the other, as all choices have some effect it will be difficult to remain neutral.
Aging	All characters age at the rate of one year per every four earth days. Aging affects your characters appearance and attributes.
Attributes	The ability for your character to perform various actions and skills is based on your attributes.
Bardic	One of the six skill trees. It focuses on skills regarding knowledge, discovery, and entertainment.
Behaviours	Offline player characters can be given actions to perform, and also be given ways to react to situations around them using scripts called behaviours. Players can use the range of provided scripts or write, share and trade their own behaviours.
Bounty	If a character breaks a contract evidence of the broken contract can be taken to a Sheriff who can then issue a bounty token. This allows the person with the bounty token to enforce the consequences written into the contract.
Children	Children can be made by a family looking to expand and to continue their family name. They appear in the world at the age of 8, and then can be taken over by a player at the age of 15. Parents of a child can choose to either keep the child for themselves to play, share a child code with another player so they can play them, or open the child to the public so anyone can choose to play them.
Combat	One of the six skill trees. It focuses on skills regarding fighting and the use of weapons.
Contract	Players can make formal agreements between either two individuals, two groups, or an individual and multiple others. There are too types of contracts; explicit contracts and implicit contracts.
Corpse Loot	Corpse looting can only be performed on the body of a character who has experienced perma-death. It allows you to loot all items off a corpse, including those that they are wearing or are in hidden pockets.
Coup de Grace	If a player is incapacitated you have the option of performing a finishing move, or coup de grace. This forces the player’s spirit from their body causing them to spirit walk.
Crafting	One of the six skill trees. It focuses on producing items.
Death	There are three types of ‘death’ in the game. Incapacitation, spirit walking and perma-death.
Deviant	One of the six skill trees. It focuses on skills that might not be socially acceptable, darker or crime based skills.
Dynasty	When families join, often through marriage, in order to create a larger inter connected group this is known as a dynasty. They are often used for political reasons, such as ensuring someone on ‘your side’ is in a position of power.
Explicit Contract	Where a contract is formally accepted by the people involved it is an explicit contract. They review the contract and sign up to it. This is used for trade agreements, exchange of services, etc.
Family	Characters can marry and have children to expand their family. These families are a social network that allows players to keep in close contact, share items and resources easily, and make a name for themselves as a dynasty.
Gathering	One of the six skill trees. It focuses on obtaining raw materials and processing them into a state useful for crafting.
Implicit Contract	Where a contract does not require the acceptance of the people it affects this is an implicit contract. By being in a region or wearing an item they automatically sign up to it. This is used for laws and special items.
Incapacitation	When a player has their health reduced to zero they are incapacitated. This knocks the player unconscious for three minutes. During this time they cannot see what is going on around them, however they can hear anything happening. Other players may bind their body, move their body, and also quick loot them.
Inventory Loot	Removing items for a player that is spirit walking. This perform of looting allows you to take any items taken during a quick loot and additionally scabbards, jewellery and other small items as well as anything in your backpack.
Law	Different areas have different rules that players must abide or face consequences. They work as implicit contracts and are set by the ruler of an area. Local laws can be stricter than national laws, but in most cases not less strict.
Lifespan	Your character ages over time, and their lifespan determines maximum age determine how long the character will live. All characters start with a maximum life span of between 80-120 years, or around 10 to 16 months in real time. This is a maximum and characters will live less if they lose spirit.
Magic	Characters who have a talent will be able to perform magic to some extent. Magic is very rare in the game, and it is also very powerful therefore feared. Due to the very low percentage of people that are likely to get a talent players should not expect to have any magic ability.
Mutations	During character creation the appearance options available to you will be based on the genetics of your family or your race if you are a ward. However, there is a chance mutations can occur that allow for some change to the expect outcomes and can lead to some quite unique appearances, such as albinism. You have the option to re-roll your genetic options once, so if you get a mutation and you do not want it you can try to re-roll for something different.
Non-Traditional Characters (NTC)	Players will have the option of starting their life as an older character that already has skills, a profession, perhaps land and belongings. This gives them an initial boost but comes at the cost of having no customisation.
Offline Player Characters (OPC)	When a player logs off from the game their character remains in the world. Your character will continue to react to the world and carry out tasks. They will age and they are still at risk of incapacitatopn, they can also be made to spirit walk however the timer will not start until the player logs back in. Offline player characters are controlled through Behaviours.
Perma-Death	When your character fails a spirit walk, reaches a very old age, or dies doing something incredibly dangerous (such as at sea) then they will not return to their body, and that character will dead and no longer be playable. This will then require you to start a new character. Non-player characters do not spirit walk, so if you perform a coup de grace on one most will experience perma-death. If someone finds the body of a chracter who has experience perma-death they can corpse loot the body.
Quick Loot	Removing items for a player that is incapacitated. This perform of looting allows you to take any items in the players coin purse and anything you were holding in your hands (which includes the reins for animals).
Races	All characters will be human, however depending on where their ancestors descend from they will have different physical appearance and also boosts to their attributes.
Regions	There will be more than a dozen different biomes. These regions affect the weather and climate. Characters are also given passive bonuses and skills based on the region they start their character in.
Seasons	Every day is a new season. The seasons (Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter) affect skills such as farming, animal breeding and also the weather in a region.
Sensory Map	A map is provided on screen which indicates what your character can hear and smell around them. This allows you to combine your own senses as a player with those of your character to be able to tell if there is danger, or more pleasant things, around.
Sheriff	A Sheriff is a player than can issue a bounty token if a contract is broken. Depending on the laws of an area they may also be required to enforce the consequences of the contract.
Skill Challenges	Crafting skills in particular, but also other suitable skills, use ‘mini-games’ in order to test the players skill in an activity and determine if they are successful in making the item or performing the action they intended. The characters skill makes these challenges easier or more difficult for the player.
Skill Ramp	The skills of a character are recorded by their soul, when you use this soul in a new character they will excel at the skills the soul previously knew allowing you to get back to the same skill level quicker than it was previously possible.
Skill Trees	There are six different groups of skills. The different trees are Combat, Gathering, Crafting, Survival, Bardic and Deviant.
Soul Mates	Every soul has an identical twin. When two characters with matching souls are near they can sense each other. If they find each other the affinity the players have chosen to give the souls will determine the outcome. If both players have chosen the same affinity (light or dark) then the soul mates will benefit each other, helping each other return from the spirit world and sharing skills they have learnt. If the souls have opposite affinity, they are now mortal enemies.
Souls	In order to start a character you need a spark of life and a soul. At this time it intended that the standard version of the game contains three souls. Unlike a spark of life a soul is intended to be a multiple use item. After a character has experienced perma-death their soul is placed back into character creation to be used again. However, it will have the affinity, skill ramps, talents and soul mate it had previously. This allows you to play one soul over many lifetimes to achieve things that would not be possible in just one.
Spark of Life	In order to start a character you need a spark of life and a soul. At this time it intended that the standard version of the game contains one spark of life. Once your character has experienced perma-death, or if you wish to start any additional characters, you will need to buy more sparks of life. This is the payment model for the game, there is no subscription.
Spirit	All characters have a maximum lifespan, how close your character gets to this maximum depends on how they live their life. Certain activities can cause a character to lose spirit which reduces the time they will live. Spirit walking reduces spirt, as does being sent to prison for breaking some laws.
Spirit Walking	If you have been incapacitated, your hit points brought to zero, another player or rarely a non-player character can choose to perform a coup de grace which forces you to spirit walk. Your soul is sent to the astral plane where you have a time limit to get back to your body. If you fail to get back in time you will experience perma-death. Spirit Walking costs you some of your characters spirit and allows other players to Inventory Loot your body while you are otherwise occupied.
Survival	One of the six skill trees. It focuses on skills that help your character to explore the wilds.
Talents	Souls can have special abilities that allow them to perform various types of magic. Talents are extremely rare, but also very powerful and can impact the story of the world. You will not know if your soul has a talent until it is unlocked, how they are unlocked depends on the talent and also on the story.
Wards	Characters that do not want to join a family can instead become a Ward of the State. This allows for much greater customisation of the characters appearance and skills. It allows them to enter the world at the age 12, experiencing three more years of adolescence than those joining a family.