Players should feel welcome to exercise their creativity in describing their character. Anthropomorphic animals of all stripes — mammalian, avian, reptilian — are at home in the Etherways universe. And, in a world with advanced bionics and gene editing technology, it isn’t so outlandish to see a person with four arms, purple fur, or a full suite of robotic augmentations. Fully robotic furs, or furry-esque aliens, are likewise acceptable.
However, there are a few restrictions. Please avoid creating characters that are…
Feral: Feral furries — non-anthropomorphic characters, resembling real-life animals — do not exist in the Etherways setting. No, not as a feat of genetic engineering, either. With few exceptions, Etherways characters possess human-level intelligence, two legs, and the power of speech.
Underage: All player characters in Etherways must be at least 18 years old. For the comfort of your fellow players, please don’t try to circumvent this; if it’s a dealbreaker for you, there are other furry MUDs out there. The following are all things that are not exceptions to this rule:
My character is an adult, they’re just visually indistinguishable from a child: Don’t do this. It’s fine to have a character who’s small — furries come in all shapes and sizes — but please avoid the “little girl who’s actually a thousand-year-old dragon” anime trope.
My character’s species ages at a different rate, so technically they reach adulthood before age 18: All species in Etherways enjoy a roughly-human lifespan; the age of majority everywhere is 18.
My character is underage, but they don’t participate in adult RP: You might have a fun idea for a teenage character, and no desire to put that character in a NSFW scenario. That’s understandable! However, since adult scenes can happen in public spaces in Etherways, it’s better that underage characters simply not be around.
Human/Humanoid: There are no humans in Etherways; such a species just never evolved in this universe. Other primates, however, are fair game. You can be a chimpanzee with hair loss if you really want to.
This rule extends to fantasy humanoids like elves, dwarves, and orcs. Orcs are excellent, yes, but there are other games for them.
Obviously Anachronistic: This is a sci-fi setting. That doesn’t mean that you have to have rocket boots or Borg implants; most modern-day characters would be perfectly fine if copied into Etherways. However, if your character is running around with a musket and a tricorn hat, they should probably have a good reason.
