~ Newbie's Guide ~

Neil McManus · Subject: ~ Newbie's Guide ~ Fri Oct 31, 2008 2:04 am

Bonjour et bienvenue~

My name? That's of no importance. I'm here to show you the ways of the school and how to enjoy your time here. *chuckles* I still remember how confusing everything was when I first started. This tour was thought to make the new students understand the school mechanics easier. *smiles*

First of all, this school consists on sororities that work with each other in order to make the unique place that St. Theresa is.

There are 4 gardens available for you to choose and each one of them have their own set of rules and requirements to follow. Each garden is under the caring wing of a rose and a rose groom.
The gardens are:


Rouge Rose Rose: Lady Murasaki Groom: Brahma Rules: Both genders accepted Shonen ai discouraged Shoujo ai encouraged	Noir Rose Rose: Jeanne d'Arc Groom: None Rules: Both genders accepted Shonen ai encouraged Shoujo ai encouraged	Rose Rose Rose: Lady Artemis Groom: Kannon Rules: Both genders accepted Shonen ai encouraged Shoujo ai encouraged	Purple Rose Rose: Lady Freyja Groom: Lord Shamrok Tyrone Rules: Both genders accepted Shonen ai encouraged Shoujo ai encouraged

After choosing your garden, it's time for the next step. Let me explain something... you, as a student of such a prestigious school are made responsible of managing your own student files. These should only be stored on the "Student files" forum and there you should state not only your character's information, but also the credit (our currency) history, inventory and stats. Try to keep it as organized as possible for easy reading but don't complicate it too much since it can be a pain to update.

You are also encouraged to keep a diary to record what your character goes through on his/her everyday life, which is very useful to keep track of what's happening around you.

After that, feel free to make your first appearance at school, most of us felt so confused and overwhelmed when we first got here that we waited at the "Statue of the Angel of Justice" which is on a very popular part of school, so someone most likely would help you and welcome you if you stop there. Dorms are next, of course you need a place to stay... just stop at the dorms and request a room. Remember that girls quarters are in Helen's Hall while boys sleep at Ernest's Hall. You are not forced to interact in this area but it is encouraged in order to create bond between roommates.

Now I'll talk about the student organizations and clubs...

Student organizations

Knights
The Order of the Knights of Saint Theresa is the organization in charge of maintaining the peace within school premises. They bravely defend the honor of those that study on this prestigious place and also train in different fighting styles in order to do so. To Join you just need to apply at the Main Gate. Their headquarters are the premises of the Knight's Castle and their private training grounds is the Victoria Garden. Courage and grace are necessary to join such an important organization.

Phantoms
No one knows who they are, No one knows what they want. They are the school pranksters and non-conformist lot, who blame the director of many many horrible things. Beware of them.

Clubs
In St Theresa, you will find many clubs of different kinds, they can be divided in the following classes.

Sports Clubs: Tennis, Kendo, Fencing, Cheer leading and Gymnastics.
Cultural Clubs: Literature, Ballet and Drama.
Musical Clubs: Idol and Choir.
Arts and Crafts Clubs: Couture and Cosplay.
Miscellaneous Clubs: Pet's, Horseback ridding, Cuisine and Host.

You can join as many as you want, just make sure to participate on the club's activities~

La Societe d'Honneur
This is a group formed by the best of the best. Those who are considered worthy will be assigned to this prestigious society, getting special privileges that not many students have. If you want to be a part of it, not only do you have to be active, but also helpful to all those around you. Do your best.

With this you're ready to start your adventure at St. Theresa... Next we'll talk about credits and how to get them.

Credit System

Like I mentioned before, here in St Theresa we use credits as our currency. With them you can buy items, gems, roses, stats and even buy items from other character's stores. It is fairly easy to get them... you just need to know where to look. *winks* I'll tell you one way to get them fast, which is also the most popular way.

Picking Roses.

Check your map~ See that lake to the east? That's the Moonlight Lake. *comes closer and whispers* ..On the other side, there's an amazing rose garden were you can find a lot of useful and valuable things. Everything you might find here is worth an amount of credits, and picking is free. Which means that staying here a couple of hours per day will not cost you a credit and will give you back a couple of thousands. Sound like a pretty good deal to me.

There's another option, if you go more for the creative side. *beams* You can open your own store at the Marketplace, where you can sell anything you like. Just remember that the items you sell are exclusive from your store, so nothing on one store should be repeated on another. Gotta keep the people interested with new and different content, you know?

Now, going back to picking roses, when you pick at the garden, you might find either roses, ribbons, diamonds or rings. Some of them are more useful than the others, which takes us to the next point on our little guide...

Stats System

Here in St Theresa, there's stats that determine your character's attributes, it might affect his/her personality and it might not, but it certainly affects how others perceive you. These stats are:

Beauty - Allure - Elegance - Pureness - Holy - Happiness - Joy - Pleasure - Evilness - Despair - Dark - IQ

All of them start at 0 when you first start, but don't panic!
Most of them can be raised using roses and diamonds, while other are raised by classwork and quests (like in the case of IQ). Remember what I said before about picking roses? Well... every time you pick you gain stats depending of what you get, if you decide to sell the items instead of keeping them, you get the credits they are worth. I personally prefer to keep diamonds, because is easier to calculate the stats with them, however you can manage your files and items whichever way you like.

Another tip... User's shops have a lot of items with high stats. Just keep that in mind.
Stats are also linked with something else, check Magic in St Theresa to understand.

Battle System

The battle system is reserved for those who carry a dueling permit or a fencing permit. One is given to you if you join the knights, while the other is a permit needed to participate on the fencing club.

Everyone start with the same raw stats. Raw stats means stats not affected by accessories, weapons or items.

HP: 1500
EXP: 150
HK: 200

These are the stats that you start with originally, and they can be raised by training. If you're a knight, each stat has to be trained individually, while if you train with the fencing team, the training is done in pairs. Remember however, that having the fencing permit does not make you a knight. Both groups have a very explanatory post for their training mechanisms, check them out. Gabriel, the fencing club's president loves sapphires, so most of the services and items available at the club can only be payed with these gems, on the other hand, most of the Knight's services and items can be purchased with credits. Takes this things into consideration when joining each one of them.

Let's explain a bit about the stats and what are they used for...
Here, the battle stats are the following:

HP - EXP - SP - GP - AP - HK - SK

HP - Health Points: This is your life bar, if it goes to 0 it means you lost the battle or training.
EXP - Experience Points: These points are your hit points in game, that can be used anywhere and anytime.
SP - Stamina Points: You're able to perform certain skill in-battle by using these points.
GP - Glory Points: These are special attack points that can only be added to your atk on special places or with special items.
AP - Armor Points: This amount is related to how tough you are and how many hits you can take. Basically is a defense bonus.
HK - Heal Skills: Is the amount of how much you can heal another student. If you learn Sanctuary, you can also use it to heal yourself.
SK - Speed Points: determine the agility of your character.

Fights are not permitted within school premises unless they are for training purposes.

Now let's change subject... after talking about violence let's change the mood by talking about heart meters.

Heart Meters

Aren't you excited? Paris!~ the city of romance! *winks* I seriously don't understand how the school expects us not to fall in love in such a beautiful place. *sighs* Anyway... back to the guide.

In certain clubs, especially the host club. There's an specific way to determine a character's feelings for others... This method is the Heart Meter.
It consists of 3 levels that will get filled gradually depending on how the characters interact with each other. It can be both negative and positive feelings, depending to what fits better on the situation. This heart points can be added too by giving other characters special items. Not only that... the feelings evolve depending on the level... what started like a friendship can evolve to love. The same happens on the Meter... Each level represents a more intense feeling than the one before. For example:

Level 1 Positive hearts: friendship and respect
Level 1 Negative hearts: fear, hate, lust and bored

Level 2 Positive hearts: love, loyalty, admiration, jealousy and lust
Level 2 Negative hearts: hate and bored

Level 3 Positive hearts: best friends, passion and platonic love
Level 3 Negative hearts: jealousy, bored and hate

So... in the case of a relationship that started as a friendship and ended romantically, the meter should look like this.

Level 1: friendh

Filled with friendship
Level 2: loveh

Filled with love.
Level 3: lusth

Evolving empty hearts into lust hearts.

And I know you're wondering why two feelings are listed like both positive and negative. Well, that's because depending on the relationship it might be a good or a bad thing. Wanting to protect a friend from others is a form of jealousy, it doesn't necessarily mean a bad one.

For more information on this matter, take a visit to our host club.

Magic in St Theresa

St Theresa has it's own kind of magic. What? Magic wands? *chuckles* What are you talking about?! Hah! Silly.
Here the magic is condensed in special items called eggs, which evolve depending on different factors... Most of them are linked with stats. These items can evolve into not only interesting but also beautiful items with tons of special attributes that you'll only find on them. If you ever get one, make sure to take good care of it. Here, dreams can come true... and even if there's a price to pay for it, nothing gives more hope that to know that anything is possible.

With this we've concluded our guide... however...

One last thing~

If you ever find yourself lost, feel free to ask around on the chatbox, everyone around here is always eager to help. I hope this guide helped you out, at least a bit. Enjoy your time at St Theresa, I hope to see you around~

Thanks to Kirin and Raine~ for helping me put together this mini guide.