Glossary

Over the course of playing this game, you may come across words or phrases that you are unfamiliar with. We've separated this page into Chronicle terminology (terms relevant to this game in particular), ORPGSoc terminology (terms commonly used in ORPGSoc that you may come across in the course of playing this game), Discord terminology (terms related to Discord, the social media platform over which Chronicle will run), and uptime calls (terms used during sessions to quickly convey information).

Vanished Endringian and Nemean god of navigation, birds and stars; also the artificial boat-island that travels between Endring and Nemeus, run by their worshippers.

Places of religious study in Nemean culture.

An organisation based on the accumulation and categorisation of knowledge, and the city-state in southern-western Dyzia it rules and takes up most of.

The political and mercantile leaders of Nemean society, chosen astrologically from among the ruling merchant families.

The focal points of Nemean religion, associated with particular moments of compact and gift-giving between gods and mortals. The sites of ceremonies where these are recalled and recreated.

The large, glass building at the centre of the Archive, home to offices and coffee shops. Outside sits the Source: a fountain into which are projected stories from global history.

An internationally powerful corporation, based in Mayton Greynes.

Nemean island, named for the god of trade, steady current and mindfulness.

Northern continent, containing the Archive and Mayton Greynes on its southern coast.

Large socialist polity on the coast of Ystokia, ruled by living gods.

Nemean island, named for the god of stories, trinkets and butterflies, Flitch Baggaban.

The online platform on which Uptimes take place in-character, run by the Archive.

A group of political officials in Mayton Greynes who enforce the rule of the monarch by restricting access to information.

Nemean priests, who moved long ago to the mountains. Half-considered myth.

Some of Endring's gods exist in mortal form, as Incarnates. Those the GM team have defined are Liria, Itztepex, Mumnos and Kleiops. Countless other gods are non-incarnate, and may be communicated with more obscurely, through prayer. These include Alaxus (a shared god with Nemeus) and Obix.

University in Mayton Greynes.

Technocratic monarchical city-state in Dyzia.

A global chain of coffee shops.

Outcasts in Endring, who do not submit to the rules of any Temple. Generally given food and shelter for a time, but always told to move on quickly.

Chain of islands in the central sea between Dyzia and Ystokia. Once a powerful trading culture.

Hidden areas of land in Mayton Greynes where poverty is rampant.

A Mayton Greynes shipping company, influential in Nemeus.

An ambiguous process of communion with the divine forces that Nemeans and Endringians believe underwrite everything, but which typically exist at a remove from it, as though off-stage. Only Endring’s Incarnate Gods can be spoken to face to face.

International hacker group.

Centres of both divine worship and organisation and industrial productivity within Endring. The incarnate gods wander between their different temples, giving advice and mingling with worshippers.

Endringian term for the gods who they believe manipulated the nameless feudal society that reigned before the revolution that founded Endring. Now commonly associated with all monarchs, including those of Mayton Greynes.

Volunteer Assistant Archivists - the role that PCs are fulfilling within the Archive. This is an unpaid position that does not equate to a full-time job at the Archive (and includes many people working remotely from other parts of the world), but they can have been working in it for some time, or only just started.

Nemean island, named for the god of creativity, chaos and progress.

South-eastern continent, containing Endring on its western coast.

Nemean island, named for the god of puzzles, mist and silence.

A term for roleplaying romantic or similarly emotionally intense relationships between characters. More detail is provided in our Conduct and Themes Policy.

Someone who serves the role of GM either in a more limited capacity, for fewer sessions, or both.

The CAMPaign Organiser, the person responsible for coming up with the idea of a society game and consequently leading it. Our CAMPO is Eloise P.

A document outlining the conduct expected from all players, GMs and crew and which sensitive themes are or are not allowed in the game, along with explanations. It is compulsory for every participant in Chronicle to familiarise themselves with this. Found here.

Assistant gamerunners who take direction from the GMs. They usually play NPCs, help adjudicate players' interactions with the world, and suggest ideas to the GMs. See Crewing and Crew NPCs for more details.

The debrief is an OC session after the game is over. In the debrief, the GMs and players discuss the game. Players will have the opportunity to share what they got up to during the game, and GMs can share “behind the scenes” details about the game. This will take place over Discord after the final session.

See When and Where for more details.

The time between online Uptime sessions, composed of emails and turnsheets. See Downtime, Emails and Turnsheets for more details.

Short for 'don't worry about it' – a tongue-in-cheek phrase commonly used in ORPGSoc as a light-hearted response to player questions that don’t require an answer, particularly useful when you want to leave them in just a little bit of doubt as to whether or not they really ought to worry about it.

After each uptime, you will have six days to email other players, GMs and crew in-character, before submitting your turnsheet. This gives you a space for more extended interpersonal roleplaying, as well as to plan how your character's turnsheet actions will intersect with others'.

A writeup about what happens to a character after the end of the game. These can be written by both players and GMs, or one or the other, depending on player preference.

A term for the non-mechanical aspects of a game which add flavour and nuance. Think along the lines of character backstories, casual interactions between characters, and building up your personal narrative around the basic mechanics of the game.

Short for ‘find out in debrief’, a response you may get to questions to which the answer is intended to be found out after Chronicle has finished. Especially likely to be used towards the end of the game.

Short for ‘find out in play’, a response you may get to questions to which the answer is intended to be found out in the course of playing Chronicle, especially from GMs.

The people who moderate the Discord Uptime sessions, read through your Downtime submissions and write Turnsheets in response, keep the Wiki up to date, and generally run the game. Please get in touch with us if you have any questions, or take a look at our page if you'd like to learn more about us!

These terms are used to describe events, places and people which exist within the world of Chronicle (IC) or in real life (OC).

Qualifying statements with “OC” can also be used to indicate that you're mentioning something out of character e.g. a question in an IC channel to GMs, or that the emotional intensity of a scene is getting too much and you'd like others to please tone it down a bit.

Metagaming is the practice of using OC knowledge to determine the course of your character's actions (e.g. finding out info about a character through their player's Discord roles). While we understand that such knowledge may be acquired unintentionally, we trust players not to abuse it.

Characters played by the GMs or by crew members rather than by current players. Some NPCs are listed here.

Characters played by the players rather than the GMs or crew members. You can look through the PC list here.

Terms describing the types of conflict which a character may face. PvE (Player versus Environment) refers to conflict between a Player Character and the world around them, while PvP (Player versus Player) refers to conflict between individual Player Characters. More detail is provided in our Conduct and Themes Policy.

Two parts of a reciprocal process. 1) A piece of writing the players submit to GMs with information about their intended actions and their character's narrative development over the course of the Downtime following each turn. 2) The prose write-up the GMs provide in response, often like a short story.

Uptime refers to the bi-weekly sessions of Chronicle, which will take place over Discord. During Uptime, you may use text channels to communicate with other online Player Characters and Non-Player Characters. These sessions are three hours long.

A term for the separate chat 'rooms' within a Discord server. In-game, these will usually represent different channels on the Archive's forum, as well as other methods of virtual communication. There will also be out-of-character channels for GM announcements, player-to-GM communication, your specific player channel accessible only to you and the GMs, etc.

Some channels may be read-only, meaning that you can receive but not send messages there, and some may be entirely hidden from you, only accessible to certain players. With appropriate actions in game Uptimes, perhaps these hidden channels will not be hidden from you forever…

A feature of Discord which allows an admin to easily control permissions, such as access to hidden channels, and the ability to send messages rather than simply reading them. This is a strictly OC feature of the game, and should not be used to gain IC information about other characters (e.g. their whereabouts, alliances or abilities).

The Discord server which hosts Uptime sessions of Chronicle. It includes both OC channels (for general discussion, game rules and tech support) and IC channels (where the roleplaying will happen). You can navigate between Discord servers using the leftmost Discord sidebar, where all the servers you are part of will be shown as circular icons. For information on accessing the Chronicle server, see the Uptime and Sessions page.

Uptime calls are specific phrases that may be used by a player or GM during Uptime to succinctly convey something of OC significance.

The use of safety calls in roleplaying is important to help ensure that everyone is able to feel comfortable engaging in a range of IC scenarios with a wide array of people. We strongly encourage you to familiarise yourself with the safety calls below so that you are able to recognise or use them as required. That said, terms that are not these specific calls but clearly convey the same meaning should be respected as if they were more “standard” calls.

As Uptime will be conducted over Discord, we have also included a range of calls related to players needing to disconnect temporarily. When using a call during an IC interaction, we encourage the use of square brackets to distinguish them as OC calls!

A call used by GMs at the start of session, or after “time freeze” has been called, to indicate that everyone should begin acting in character.

A call used by GMs to indicate that everyone should stop acting in character and pay attention to the caller. This may be used during a session if GMs need to get the whole playerbase's attention, eg. in order to narrate significant events, or to address a problem OC.

A call used by GMs to indicate the end of the session. Once [Time Out] is called, everyone should stop acting in character.

This is a safety call meaning that everyone in that channel must stop roleplaying the current topic. All players seeing this call must stop roleplaying the topic in question. When used by a GM, this may indicate that the topic has strayed into themes which are forbidden in the game.

This is a safety call meaning that the user does not wish to further engage in this topic. Once this call is used, other players should carry on roleplaying, but should treat the player calling [OUT] as if they are not/were never part of the interaction.

This is a safety call meaning 'tone it down', to be used when player interaction is getting too intense and you would like to signal to others to tone it down without shutting down the roleplay altogether. This is particularly important in angry, argument-based scenarios or highly emotional scenarios that deal with sensitive themes.

This indicates during a high-stress or time-sensitive situation that you would like to pause to look something up or ask a GM about something. This call will hold for a maximum of 5 minutes, after which it is automatically void.

This call can be made after any other call to indicate that it is all good now, you are ready to jump back into the roleplay and the IC situation can proceed as normal.

Short for 'be right back', 'got to go,' and 'away from keyboard', respectively, and are used to indicate that a player needs to drop out of play for OC reasons.

[BRB] is used when you need to leave your keyboard briefly but intend to be back soon, especially if you anticipate returning before a particular interaction or scene has ended.

[GTG] indicates that the user is logging off or needs to leave, either for an extended period of time or for the rest of session. Others will not wait for you to continue roleplaying but will not assume that your character has disappeared IC.

[AFK] can be used to indicate that a player is stepping away from their keyboard for a moment. This may be because they are feeling uncomfortable or overwhelmed, because they notice their internet quality dropping, or simply because they need to take care of something away from their keyboard. As GMs, we are aware that there are many reasons players may need to disconnect temporarily, and we aim to run Chronicle in such a way that your experience will not be negatively impacted by needing to do so to the greatest extent possible.