Playing actual natives of St. Alexander instead of refugees is allowed, but will be limited. I want the story to focus mainly on the outsiders.

Keep in mind that actual social and cultural norms of the period will be present and will have affected your characters. People who aren’t straight white males are going to have a somewhat less privileged upbringing.

A lot of lower-class refugees paid for their voyage by agreeing to become indentured servants, i.e to work in the colonies until travel fare is paid off. You would have arranged a contract with your ship captain from Europe, who is now probably a shambling ghoul in Nassau. You would have then arranged another contract with the captain of the Lioness in exchange for safe passage to St. Alexander.

Characters are encouraged to have combat experience, whether it be from a upbringing in the slums, military service, or being in a profession that requires it (e.g bounty hunting). No secret assassin badasses, though - while capable, your characters should also be human.

Like most real life refugees, your character would have initially planned to escape with family or friends. Said family may or may not have been killed in the Nassau outbreak, though if they aren’t dead bear in mind your character will have to balance caring for them with interacting with the other characters in the RP.

NOTE: Other follow-up questions about character creation will be amswered here.

Name: (Self-explanatory. Make sure to be in line with the naming conventions of the era and of your country of origin.)

Age: (No small children or very old people unless special permission is granted.)

Nationality/Country of Origin: (A good portion of the refugees will be subjects of the British Empire, but the Council of Lyons has made a lot of escape efforts more internationally cohesive.)

Religion: (Religious conflict was very much alive and well during this era.)

Appearance: (Should be brief yet descriptive. Pictures are optional, but are not a substitute for at least a short written counterpart.)

Personality: (I really hate filling out this part, because it’s not that simple to describe what is essentially the entire identity of a person. Keep it short and sweet, 4 sentences will do.)

Biography: (Refer to the Timeline for what could have happened to your character during the plague. Remember, you’ve also just escaped from an outbreak in Nassau.)

Talents/Abilities: (Can you pick a lock? Sing a song? Throw a good punch? Remember to make your skills appropriate to your background - peasant farmers would not have had private fencing lessons.)

Belongings: (Only what you could take with you on the voyage. Weapons would probably not be as highly regulated - a refugee who can defend himself is better than a refugee dead or turned.)

Before the colonial era, St. Alexander was the island of Pequosset, ‘bloodshed’ in the native Indian tongue. The nature of said moniker was due to the notoriously violent and allegedly cannibalistic Lawcasee tribe, who had made Pequosset part of their territory. Through centuries of violent infighting with neighboring tribes, the Lawcasee were raid-for-raid gradually exterminated, the climax of which occurred on the island of Pequosset itself, where legend holds that the last of the Lawcasee were massacred in a bloody last-stand battle against the neighboring tribes just decades before the first colonists landed. Due to the bloody history of the island, Spanish and French colonizers largely ignored Pequosset until the British arrived. In the early 1670s, as the city of Charleston was founded, Pequosset was incorporated with it and renamed St. Alexander (after the Christian martyr whom the lions of the Roman Colosseum would not touch).

As Charleston expanded economically over the latter half of the 17th century, St. Alexander progressed with it. However, what set the two islands apart was the prevalence of smallpox and yellow fever on the mainland, which, after repeated outbreaks, had rendered the citizens of Charleston practically immune to it. However, those on St. Alexander were isolated from the disease, and so did not develop said immunity. It was thus that a major cultural split developed between town and island: the native Charlestonians would never really consider the St. Alexandrians as geographical natives, and the solitary St. Alexandrians generally considered Charleston an unhealthy and unsafe place to stay in. Nevertheless, St. Alexander earned a reputation for being a good stopover point by visitors and traders to avoid the yellow fever on the mainland, and by 1756 was thriving on the commerce of pine timber, beaver pelts, rice, and (naturally) slaves.

When the Grey Rot started, St. Alexander was a natural checkpoint for the screening of refugee ships for infected, and also temporary housing for refugees. This also naturally made St. Alexander the first territory in South Carolina to fall should an outbreak happen. As the influx of refugees increases and increases, it is clear the island is becoming a giant ticking time bomb - a single outbreak could merit an island-wide quarantine by the colonial authorities.