If you've made it this far, it's safe to assume you're preparing to make a character for Miasma. That's great! Here, you can find both a quick reference as well as a more detailed guide (toward the bottom).

Our account switcher currently does not support an easy way to make new characters from the parent profile without logging out. Until our new character portal is implemented, please follow this short guide to get started.

First, make your OOC profile.
Using your referral code (ask an admin if you do not yet have one), please register an OOC account. You may list your pronouns, OOC name, Discord, and anything else that you'd like other members to know.

Next, make your character's account.
1. Once that's done, go to your User CP and scroll down until you see "Generate Invite Code." Click "Generate" and copy the invite code.

2. You'll then have to log out and register again. This time register with your CHARACTER profile using the code you copied in the previous step.

Finally, link your accounts together.
1. Once that is finished, go to your User CP and scroll down to "Account Switcher."

2. From there, click the box that says "Attach current user to a master account." In the username section, type in your OOC account name. From there, you can press the "attach" button and voila! Your accounts are now attached!

This will make it easy for you to switch between profiles when writing on Miasma. To switch between accounts, simply click your circular avatar, located at the top of the site on the navigation bar, and a dropdown menu will appear.

We require the following information to be available at the time a wolf enters Miasma:

- Height, weight, and build information.

- A physical description, detailed or basic, which includes at least the fur color, important markings and features, and eye color of the character.

- A profile picture. This must be a real photo of a wolf, though it can be edited to accurately show fur color, markings, and eye color. Sorry, this can't be a drawing! It must still look semi-realistic.

- A basic description of the character's personality. This can be a bulleted list of personality traits, or much more detailed, if you'd like!

- The age and gender of your character. We'd prefer that transgender and non-binary characters are marked somewhere on the profile as such, just so that we can keep breeding information in order.

• The minimum joining age for a character is 3 months. At this age, up until 1 year of age, any characters attempting to survive on their own must follow our survival wiki and starvation timeline. For example, a 4 month-old pup should not be living on its own without any mention of struggle to find food, or long-term consequences to their health without a guardian to protect and provide for them.
• The maximum age a character can be is 13 years old.

OPTIONAL
- Subspecies (any species of wolf native to North America before the 1900s)
- History information
- Familial information
- Quirks, a daily schedule, likes and dislikes, etc!

Note: Your characters are allowed to speak more than one language. However, we ask that, when speaking this language, entire sentences or paragraphs are not translated. Instead, anything said in a foreign language should be italicized in-character, with a note at the top of the post explaining what language is being spoken. Additionally, wolves should not refer to these languages by their English names (Ex: Russian, Spanish, French, German). Read more about this in our rules page, as well as the IC requirements for a character to learn a new language.

Need help? Feel free to message a staff member for assistance, ask for help from our members in our Discord server, or browse our adoptables for a pre-made character!

Good luck, have fun, and we hope to see you in our joining thread!

Alright, now that you've read what's required, let's talk about how to get there!

On Miasma, there are three options for bringing in a new character: you can create your own character from scratch, you can adopt a character someone else has created, or you can adopt a puppy, whose parents are on-site. There are advantages and disadvantages to all three options.

ADULT ADOPTABLES can require very little effort on the player's part. The character has already been designed, with all required fields for joining filled out, and it may even have family inside Miasma, which makes for interesting plotlines! Some adoptables give their players more creative freedom than others, though there are usually some established, non-negotiable traits about these characters. They're great for newcomers to Miasma who may not feel confident creating their characters, or those who want a new character but aren't sure where to start.

PUPPIES BORN ON-SITE allow you to mix some creative freedom with pre-established details. Puppies born on-site have non-negotiable designs, inherited from their parents, and some semblance of an established personality, usually. The good thing about this is that they're children who will grow and change, and will thus have personalities largely developed by in-character circumstance! They also will have family in-character from the start. Another bonus of adopting a puppy on Miasma is that some will have breed-only characteristics! This will be explained later.

CREATING A CHARACTER FROM SCRATCH means that you have complete freedom to create the character however you want (within our design guidelines)! These characters do not typically have on-site family or ties when they first enter Miasma.

Whether you've chosen an adoptable or to create a new character from scratch, the following are the rules you must follow. Miasma is a semi-realistic roleplaying site, so we ask that the colors you use for fur and eyes are colors you would see on a wolf in the wild, with some wiggle room. Markings should follow traditional patterns. Eyes are our most lenient category.

On Miasma, we allow the following fur colors: black, brown, agouti, gray, ginger, olive, white, blue, and cream. Visual examples of these colors will be available soon.

Fur mutations, such as chimerism, albinism and others, are available as random mutations via breeding only! In other words, adoptable pups with these fur mutations may pop up from time to time, so keep your eyes peeled if you're interested in adopting one. These mutations have a small chance of being inherited by offspring.

Wolves on Miasma have the most flexibility with eye color. Eyes can be the following colors: brown, orange, yellow, green, blue, or silver.

Eye color mutations for pups born on-site only include: the potential for lilac eyes and heterochromia, as well as other eye mutations not specified here. Lilac eye color can be inherited.

Markings are the category for character creation where we allow the least creative freedom. Wolves should typically only show markings seen on wolves in the wild.

Markings allowed include any combination of:
- Full or partial timber pattern.
- A dorsal, 'crescent-moon' stripe across the back, near the shoulders that is lighter in color.
- A darker 'saddle' which is found on the wolf's back, typically from the shoulders to mid-back, but can extend to the top of the head to the tip of the tail.
- Tail tip
- Marking which flares from the nose, can be short or extend as high as the forehead.
- Markings around the eyes: can be 'dots' for the eyebrows or extend to goggles which surround the eyes (should be within the natural pattern of a wolf's eyes! Please no round spots around eyes).
- Ear color (Can be a light-to-dark gradient, dark-to-light gradient, or a solid color that differs from the rest of the wolf)
- "Trim" - encompasses the fluff on the cheeks, the back of the legs, the underside of the tail, etc.
- Underfur. Can be as simple as a barely noticeable line of color on the underbelly, or can extend up the flanks, down the tail, to the throat, and as high as the cheeks.
- Band of color on the neck. We're a little picky with this one, so please ask staff if you have any questions on what is and isn't allowed! It should not look too unnatural or doggish.
- "Socks" or leg markings.
- Some ticking or phasing of lighter color as a wolf ages.
- "Points" of color that typically fade out from a "point" on the tip of the muzzle, color the ears, may color the legs, etc.

We may add breed-only markings in the future, but presently, there are none!

DRAWN-ON OR ARTIFICIAL MARKINGS
Wolves do not possess the ability to be precise in their markings. They may, however, mark (or have another wolf mark) themselves with a variety of non-permanent materials: berries, blood, clay, dirt, etc. Rolling in red dirt, for example, would add a red tint to a wolf which would be very noticeable in a white wolf but more of a sheen for black wolves. Adding a wet marking of blood would not be precise, but a jagged, rough marking could be applied. Light clay could be applied to dark-furred wolves. Again, however, markings should not look too clean or precise, and the wolf must have a logical explanation as to how it got there! If a wolf is traveling alone, they should not have markings made by their paws anywhere that they cannot reach.

A wolf joining Miasma may have a height of short, average, or tall. Weight is not permanent and fluctuates depending on the wolf's living situation, though they may be: emaciated, underweight, skinny, average, pudgy, heavy, or overweight. Build applies to bone structure. A wolf may be slender, average, or bulky.

For puppies born on Miasma, there's a small chance of receiving a +1 or -1 size to any pup. A small puppy who receives a -1 will receive the rare, breed-only size of "petite," while a tall puppy who receives a +1 will receive the rare, breed-only size of "giant." These sizes are inheritable by their future offspring.

Whew! Physical designing is a lot. Thankfully, mental characteristics aren't so bad. On Miasma, we allow wolves to have human traits. They can have any personality that you can reasonably think of! For more "out there" personalities, we may ask for a description of the character's history which might explain how they resulted in the way they did.

We ask that mental illness and disabilities are portrayed fairly and accurately and that players do their research before creating a character with these traits. They are, however, certainly allowed. We ask that a character's disability or mental illness is not the central aspect of their character. They have personalities, too!

Wolves are not allowed to be created for the sole purpose of killing. They may have made a vow to kill, say, all white wolves, or to avenge their slaughtered family, or simply be ornery and predisposed to violence, but they cannot only exist to kill. Even for characters who are assassins or cannibals, they must have more personality traits than just that.

Complete creative freedom (while still maintaining realism) is allowed in character histories, as long as they are tagged appropriately for any upsetting material. Histories are not required for joining, but if you decide to make up history as you go, please keep it consistent! A wolf should not have large issues with their father in one thread, and then two years later, admit to having a perfect, loving father (unless they themselves have changed their outlook on him).