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 In-Character Terminology (terms that your character would likely be familiar with), Out-of-Character Terminology (terms which refer to the game itself and the roleplaying styles within it), and Safety Calls. Safety Calls are phrases used to indicate the appropriate OC (out-of-character) conduct when a player may be feeling uncomfortable with an IC (in-character) interaction. As Uptime will take place over Discord, we have also included some OC calls less directly related to player comfort under the same heading.
A term used colloquially to refer to anything sentient. This includes but is not limited to animals, mortals, cryptids, and Entities.
Chimerae are Manifestations whose appearance is mostly a mishmash of animal parts, although some may incorporate features of fungi, plants or minerals. They often govern natural or primal concepts or are known to mortals as mythical monsters and tend to be particularly physically capable.
Cryptid is a catch all term given to any possibly living thing which is native to Emporium but not part of the staff. Their origins are mysterious, and their natures wildly variable. They may be Entities, lesser beings, strange animals, animated objects, etc. and their impact on the running of the store vary through the full spectrum of “oddly helpful,” “mostly harmless,” and “wildly inconvenient.”
Entities are godlike beings responsible for a particular aspect (by the loosest definition of “responsible” and “aspect”) of their universe. In-universe, Entities may be roughly categorised as Glories, Chimerae, or Implements.
Glories tend to push the limits of strangeness possible for a Manifestation. Entities which manifest as Glories often act as patrons or servitors in commitment to a single cause or ideal for all time on their homeplanes. Most Glories have wings and at least one eye, but their forms are otherwise incredibly variable and often abstract. Most have some kind of aura or presence which affects the world around them.
Implements are object-headed Manifestations which tend to be responsible for more mundane or artificial things within their worlds. An Implement's head may be a physical object or a manifestation representative of the Implement's main function, powers and weaknesses. They also tend to come equipped with a variety of more mundane skills and equipment, making them one of the more versatile Entities in terms of ability.
This is the term used for your character's form within Emporium, which may be that of a Chimera, Glory, or Implement. As Entities flock to Emporium from many different planes of existence, the form they occupy within their homeplane is unlikely to be entirely compatible with Emporium's laws of reality. All Entities' Manifestations are three-dimensional and physical, and of a comparable power level.
A soul is not a living being in and of itself, but one of the basic building blocks of life required to grant beings sentience. Unused souls, known as proto-souls, are accepted as currency in Emporium, although it requires a truly staggering number to amount to anything more than small change. PCs can expect to have some on them in play, and they can be used to buy items which have no major mechanical or narrative benefit. Once a soul is incorporated into a being, it cannot be extracted and no longer has any monetary value.
In addition to souls, SoulCoin is the main currency accepted by Emporium. More expensive items (which can be expected to have a significant narrative or mechanical effect) are priced in SoulCoin rather than souls, and a single SoulCoin is worth a truly astronomical quantity of souls. The store pays its employees in SoulCoin, and is often willing to grant store credit to customers who perform services which aid in the running of the place.
Entities are capable of teleporting at will within the warp zone, an area that encompasses most of the shop floor, excluding the warehouse and the administration offices. Warping during uptime is controlled OC using the !warp command.
A term for roleplaying romantic or similarly emotionally intense relationships between characters.
A term for the separate chat 'rooms' within a Discord server. In-game, these will usually represent distinct places such as aisles within the store, although some may represent a psychic connection to other characters, and will be clearly signposted as such. There will also be out-of-character channels for GM announcements, player-to-GM communication, 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. You can move between channels via the channel sidebar, where all channels will be labelled with a # (hash) symbol.
The debrief is an OC session where 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, at a date still to be determined.
Downtime refers to the period of time between sessions, which will last two weeks out of character. In character, the time moves fluidly - you have enough time to perform or enact one major plan or action. During downtime, you may finalise your plans with other characters by email if you wish, though the key part of downtime is the turnsheet. We strongly recommend taking a look at our downtime page for more information.
After the fifth and final session of uptime, players will be asked to submit an Eternity instead of a conventional turnsheet. The GM write-up for this will give an impression of how each character is affected by the aftermath of the game, rather than detailing a short-term action.
An Excursion is a short adventure run by a GM for 3-5 players within the world of Emporium, a little like a single short session of a tabletop RPG. Excursions - also known as 'linears' - focus on adventure, exploration, and investigation during uptime.
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.
The seven people who moderate the Discord Uptime sessions, write turnsheet responses, 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 Emporium (IC) or in real life (OC).
Another term for Excursions.
Metagaming is the practice of using OC knowledge to determine the course of your character's actions, for example by finding out a character's location or alliances 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 rather than you, the players. You can look through the NPC list here.
Characters played by you, the players, rather than the GMs. 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. Please take a look at our Conflict Resolution page for information on how the GMs will respond to PvP, and our guidance to players who may wish to engage in it.
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. With the exception of employee role colours, 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 Emporium. 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 Emporium server, see here.
A short piece of writing completed by players each week, used to let the GMs know what each player character is doing during downtime. You can find templates for each turnsheet at the bottom of your user page, and will need to create and then edit the template according to the guidelines found here. Your turnsheet can be freely edited up until the Thursday 23:59 following a session, at which point - unless a GM has agreed to give you a turnsheet extension - it will be taken as final. The GM team will then read each turnsheet, discuss what happens during downtime, and respond to each player. Responses may include prose writeups, art, videos, audio recordings and physical objects (sent by mail). You can find examples of what a turnsheet might look like here.
Uptime refers to the weekly sessions of Emporium, which will take place over Discord. During uptime, you may use text channels to communicate with other online Player Characters and Non-Player Characters and to come up with plans for Downtime. We strongly recommend taking a look at our uptime page for more information on how we will be using the Discord format.
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 that have been underlined so that you are able to recognise or use them as required.
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 or 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 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 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 Emporium in such a way that your experience will not be negatively impacted by needing to do so.