Petition for a beard.

[Jackard]

the black cauldron

[theTrav]

as children they fell into the cauldron!!!

Their real names are actually Loftarix and Jorbelix.

So kakafix, can you whip me up a batch of these potions? There's some roman encampments I'd like to knock over.

[Krantarin]

Where's Aster?

EDIT: Or, if you're into old poems, Astur of the fourfold shield girt with the brand none else may wield... But he got killed by Horatius, so it's not quite the same.

EDIT: the good poem is Horatius at the bridge... fun, and has good rhythm. Read it out loud. Very exciting and violent too.

[loftar]

I guess I might chip in a bit on this topic. The main reason why there aren't more hairstyles and beards in the game is, as you may have guessed, because Jorb has been too lazy to draw them.

Here are my (current; subject to change) thoughts on managing hair:

There ought to be some number (maybe 4 or 5) of different "hair lengths", each of which would have a number of associated hairstyles, including a "rough and wild" one. Every once in an ingame while, a character's hair would grow to the "rough and wild" style in the length above his current one. A character with the Barber (Barberism?) skill would then be able to cut it into any of the hairstyles that he knows of in any of the length levels strictly below the current one. A player with the Barber skill should be able to discover new hairstyles to cut in some as yet undetermined mechanism. It should be possible to cut the hair of unconcious players, so that you can knock down people and shave them bald. :)

It is unclear just how to handle hair colors. I'm thinking that a new character should be permanently assigned a hair color "at birth", which it would be next to impossible to change, and that all hairstyles should exist in all colors. Of course, once we add character aging, characters' hair should turn white (and maybe grey before that) as they grow old. Men might have a certain chance of turning permanently bald when old, as well. I'm guessing that the hairstyles would be completely disparate between men and women.

Beards would be handled analogously, of course, except that women couldn't have them.

[Erik_the_Blue]

I'm thinking that a new character should be permanently assigned a hair color "at birth", which it would be next to impossible to change, and that all hairstyles should exist in all colors.

What about hair dye (eventually)? There's historical precedent for it.

[kobnach]

I'm guessing that the hairstyles would be completely disparate between men and women.

Now what's wrong with a woman wanting to wear a "man's" hairstyle or vice versa?

[Krantarin]

Um, Aging? Sounds awesome... how will it work exactly? Will there be "families" ingame? Could you explain a little more, Loftar?

[sabinati]

It should be possible to cut the hair of unconcious players, so that you can knock down people and shave them bald.

lol

[kaka]

It should be possible to cut the hair of unconcious players, so that you can knock down people and shave them bald. :)

Hehe, just like The Prince of Tennis: The National Tournament, episode 13. :)

[loftar]

As for aging, I'm not really thinking of anything too fancy at the moment -- just keeping track of how old a character is (probably in relation to the amount of time logged in) and in one way or another killing it off when it reaches an age advanced enough. As for "families", I don't currently see anything more elaborate than the current lineage system, which will certainly, on the other hand, have more of an ingame effect in the future. We will certainly add such things as graves, ancestral worship, shameful executions, and other things along that line. Significant advantages should be obtained by having many powerful ancestors, as long as you work to keep your ancestors happy.

There can probably be some fun being had with the mechanism of killing old characters off, as well. It would be hard for me to imagine that we'd just kill people off when they reach a treshold age; rather, once we get a system for buffs/debuffs in place, we'll probably use it to implement illnesses (which should be the main negative aspect of using leeches for healing, for that matter), and aging might make it easier to contract weird and/or hard-to-cure illnesses. Thus, it may be possible to extend your character's life more or less indefinitely, but in the end, you may have to do it by bathing in the blood of 100 virgins and like methods.

(Note that dying of old age would probably be only very little related to keeping powerful players down, since the tradition/change slider works as it does -- it would, however, add more incentive for players to be traditionally aligned)