CHARACTER CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT
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You  will have the opportunity to create a new character each time you
start  up  omega.  A random selection of statistics will be generated.
Just keep on rerolling until you find a character that fit's your like
Since  your  statistics  tend  to go up as you play, it isn't fatal to
have low statistics when you start out.  On the other hand, high stats
don't hurt, either....

Each statistic is very important, but depending what sort of character
you  wish  to  play,  different  statistics will stand out.  Combat is
helped  by  Strength and Dexterity, Magic-use is aided by Intelligence
and Power.  Agility helps you avoid getting hit and avoid traps, while
Constitution determines how many hits you can take before dying.

The  character you create can be saved to the .omegarc.  The stats are
set  up  so that a "renaissance man" type of person will probably have
stats generally around 14-15.  The rest of us will stay around 9-12 on
average.   If  you  are  really impressively good at something you can
start  out  with  a  stat of up to 18, but this is pretty unlikely for
most of us.

As  you continue to play, you will hopefully accumulate experience and
treasure.   You  can  gain skills and abilities through various means,
the most important being training in one of the Rampart establishments
devoted  to self-improvement.  Thus, you can choose to work out at the
gym,  study  at  the Collegium Magii, meditate at a Temple, and so on.
Certain  skills  and abilities may only be gained through adventuring,
and  others  are  mutually  exclusive.  For example, you can only be a
priest  of  one  particular deity.  One of the appeals of omega is the
variety  of  different types of characters you can play, each with its
own set of goals and benefits.

Another aspect of your character is alignment.  Characters are aligned
towards  the  primal  forces of Chaos and Law, or they can be neutral.
Various  actions  affect  this  factor;  killing peaceful monsters, or
committing   burgalry,  for  example,  are  chaotic  acts.   Alignment
determines  which  guilds  will  let  you  in,  the  behavior  of some
artifacts and monsters, as well as much else.

Your  character  will  gain  various  statuses, abilities, immunities,
etc.,  both  harmful  and beneficial.  Most of the time these are kept
hidden  from  you, but there are various ways of discovering the truth
-- self-knowledge is very useful in omega.  Remember, the oracle knows
all, sees all....

Experience  is accrued for skillful actions in the game.  As in rogue,
one of the main methods of acquiring experience is defeating monsters.
You need not kill an opponent to defeat it (you can use the 'threaten'
option  of  the 't' command, sometimes).  There are many other ways of
gaining  experience,  though,  including learning spells, deactivating
traps, using artifacts correctly, etc.

Experience goes towards two kinds of character development.  First, in
the bizarre tradition of role-playing games like * & *, hit points and
combat capabilities go up as experience is gained.

Secondly,  experience  gained  is  shared  out  to each of the guilds,
priesthoods, etc.  that the character belongs to.  The more guilds the
character  is a member of, the slower promotion will be (except in the
City  Nobility, and among the Gladiators, where promotion is not based
on  experience,  but on quests and combats, respectively).  Regardless
of  the  number  of  guilds  the  character  is  a  member of, overall
character  level,  the  first type of experience will not be adversely
affected.