Ashirion is a massive, original world with so much history that your first few hours on the MU* are spent swimming in it. At first this seems like a daunting task but when dealing with any new world is it not important to have a decent background? A decent hold on what is going on? In this regard, Ashirion more than provides. Now, in my opinion, a detailed history is great but I enjoy equally creative races or species. I have played on a number of fantasy MU* and after awhile, the basic human, elf, dwarf combo with it's variety of variants becomes tiresome. Not trying to bash these races/species, they are after all classics in many a sense, but playing something new and exciting, stepping out of the box, can be a refreshing experiance. Once again, Ashirion provides both of these things. Ever played one of the cat-like Felin, the Foxlin (the name gives it away ;) ), or jackal-headed Ishanti? Or, better yet, if your rp is up to snuff and you can provide a substantial background for your character, perhaps one of the application races is for you. In any case, a host of both old and new races/species (they are referred to as species in Ashirion) are available to play. Another beautiful thing about this MU* is its incredibly free form environment. I can easily say that it is the most free form out of any MU* I have ever played. This is accomplished in two main ways: Firstly, there is no combat system in the usual sense. Combat is a consent-based series of poses (actions) that the players enact as their characters. That is, one person may say lunge in an open-ended pose and the other will literally choose how or if they are wounded based on their skills and the other persons and the overall basic structure of their opponents pose. When this style is done properly, (I'll get to the opposite shortly) it is a lot more fun than watching a computer battle for you. The second way the MU* accomplishes its freedoms is through a unique magic system. You, the player, get to literally create your set of spells based on a set of factors (your skill at magic in general for example) and limitations (can't have gods walking around now can we?). The staff are more than helpful in working this out with the players though, for a variety of very good reason which I won't get into, first time players are asked to play more mundane characters or take the magic skill and learn their specials on the grid. As you can see, with these and a few other tweaks to the roleplaying environment you turn what can be slightly static to a something that is constantly evolving and highly player interactive. But, I know what you're thinking... A lot of room for twinkish people to mess up, right? 'So and so's death ray blasts your face You... Read More