Are you a 20-year veteran of pen-and-paper roleplaying? Or was Neverwinter Nights the first time you ever even heard of Dungeons & Dragons and the world of the Forgotten Realms? Did you find your way to us because you were "googling" for something else entirely? Don’t know the first thing about creating a character background and have no reason why you should?

Well, never fear, because every one of our players has come to us by way of one or more of these possibilities. We’ll be happy to show you what you don’t know. We have forum threads that discuss how to create a character background, from the ground up. We have a bunch of folks who will be happy to share their experience with you. All you have to do is ask. And if you’re one of those 20-year veterans, you’ll find kindred spirits in our numerous old-school gamers.

So just HOW do you join?

We’ve streamlined our process to get you in game as soon as possible. What we have done is create a "provisional player" status to allow a new player to check out us out and decide if our style and your style are compatible. This provisional status will give you restricted access to the server to look around, meet and interact with the community both in game and on the forum. We freely admit that we’re looking at you just as hard as you are looking at us.

The first step is to register on the forum. There you will find the password to the server. We are a passworded server to protect our players from harassment, griefers, and other problems that sometime arise on unpassworded servers.

Please read the Player Handbook. This will give you a lot of information about the kind of play we expect from players, as well as what you can expect from us. There are large sections on the history of the world, deities, races, and guidelines for play on a persistent world.

If you decide that you would like to become a permanent part of The Bloodstone Lands, we ask that you attend an orientation session that we call the S.O.S. This special session is not designed to teach you how to roleplay; it is designed to answer any questions that you may have about how Sojourney operates. There is a short adventure involved run by a DM. At the end of the S.O.S., you will earn enough experience points to gain your second level, or 1,000 experience points if you have already reached second level by the time you attend the session. You will also be given full access to the server at the end of the session.

CHARACTER CONCEPT

We no longer require approval of a character concept before you can begin play. However, we do strongly urge that you submit a background concept if you would like the DM Team help your character grow and develop in a meaningful way. Character background concepts ARE, however, generally required for DM-run campaigns. These background concepts help the Campaign DM fit the campaign to the players involved. Should you wish to submit a character background, just click the "Submit Concept" link to the left and fill out the form.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The above-described process only applies to Sojourney: The Bloodstone Lands. Menzoberranzan has its own application/approval process that is separate and apart from the one described above. If you wish to play on Menzoberranzan, you should consult their Player Handbook and forums for further details on their specific requirements.