The OOC thread for New Elmwood on the Far Shore.<br/><br/>The Cast Thus Far:<br/><br/><strong>Polymorph:</strong>Shona Ronsdottir, human paladin of Athena<br/><strong>schnookums:</strong>Natacia, half-elven ranger/cleric of Freya<br/><strong>Tackyhillbilly:</strong>Invril, elven thief<br/><strong>Meliai:</strong>Kera Ross, human thief<br/><strong>Muse:</strong>Atasha Elohim, half-elven fighter/mage<br/><strong>AdmiralJ:</strong>Authmund Alfsson, half-elf magic-user/specialty priest of Loki<br/><strong>Jobe352:</strong>TBA<br/><br/>I'm looking to start this next Monday...so if everyone who hasn't done so could put together a character concept by Thursday, I'd appreciate it.  This way we can iron out things like specialty priests, backgrounds, and traits prior to the beginning of the game.<br/><br/>None of your characters know many specifics about New Elmwood.  It has a reputation for being a rough-and-tumble place, being an admixture of coastal garrison, penal colony and mining town.  The population is approximately 30,000...officially.  If you count native servants, stowaways, and refugees with questionable pasts (not unlike many of your characters!), you would likely reach 50,000 souls.  The 50,000 breaks down roughly as follows:<br/><br/>10,000 soldiers, marines and sailors.  Most of these live in the barracks near the docks, contained in an inner fortified compound.  They live about as you would expect military men to live, and perhaps a bit better.  Morale is decent to good.  The New Elmwood post is, while not the best a soldier of the Empire can draw, far from the worst.  And there are some lovely dark native beauties to be had...<br/><br/>5,000 native servants and slaves, scattered throughout the city, generally working as menial servants, scullery maids, prostitutes, and so forth.  Conditions for them range from austere to harsh.  A few manage to escape.<br/><br/>5,000 prisoners transported permanently, most working in the fields or mines.  Conditions for them are harsh indeed, with about a 10% mortality rate per year in this population--and about a 5% escape rate.  Escape is technically punishable by death, but the jungles around the area are dangerous enough that the local garrison is generally disinclined to conduct searches.  The whereabouts and conditions of the escapees are largely unknown, though the jailers love to circulate all kinds of stories about savage tribes, man-eating plants, human sacrifice, and so on to convince prisoners that, however shitty life is in the camp, it beats the alternative of a gruesome death outside.<br/><br/>10,000 prisoners transported for terms of indentured servitude (generally 2 to 20 years), some working in fields or mines, others as unskilled laborers elsewhere in the city.  They live a half-notch above the permanent transportees, with around a 4% mortality rate.<br/><br/>5,000 refugees, unofficial residents, generally living outside the city walls, some working as farmers.  While their presence is technically against Colonial law, as a practical matter they are largely safe so long as they are out of the city proper by sundown.<br/><br/>10,000 "legitimate" immigrants, working as semi-skilled or skilled labor.  These live a working-class life.<br/><br/>5,000 landed citizens of New Elmwood, working as artisans and craftsmen, merchants, administrators, priests, and so forth.  This is the upper class, owning plots of land.  Of these, around 200 are peers, the Viceroy and his advisors, and so forth.  Those 200-odd souls are the elite of New Elmwood, owning sizable estates.<br/>