Clothings!

Okay so, what will be allowed and what won't be allowed? My personal thoughts are as follows:
Some bendings should be OK! For one, clothes a bit too modern for the time setting doesn't give any kind of superior technological advantage. In a world of magic and what not it isn't too weird to have weird (moderner(yes I made that word up!)) clothes, and speaking of weird clothes: For two, they wouldn't look too out of place either and if they do it could be considered fashion from some land far away. What I'm really trying to get to here is that the fashions of ye olden days are rather limited and as long as people don't wear jeans and hoodies and latex tights I don't really see why it shouldn't be allowed! I am totally not writing this because I want to have a character with a top hat. <.< Seriously though, in NK I had to remake the entire visual appearance of a couple of characters due to these limitations and while I don't really mind (rules are rules) it's still a bit frustrating when you have this nice visual concept of a character and then have to rework it.

So to conclude. The use of clothes that are more modern (not present day of course) should be allowed, or so I think. It will give people a bit more freedom to make a visually appealing (or not appealing) character without destroying the spacetime continuum!

Thoughts? Wanna kill me for this stupid post!? You like it!? DISCUSS!

It depends on the individual character. Sometimes just looking more Victorian can bring down the illusion, which is why I ruled against stuff like that in NK. A lot of things are already anachronistic. I suppose in some ways it'll be less strict and in others it'll be MORE strict in SH. Since we're trying to better maintain the illusion, but a lot of stuff is free-er as well...

I dunno. What do others think?

Perhaps set a certain time border for clothes? I personally don't think that wearing clothes that are, what, a few ages after medieval would be too illusion breaking.

I'd personally be very disgruntled if somebody dressed as a Victorian gentleman came along. Skuldhellir is medieval fantasy, yes, but it's still medieval. No matter how one might try to justify it, anachronistic clothing is still anachronistic and damaging to the setting, even if the characters all believe it's just attire from elsewhere.

Once again, let me reiterate what we're going for--a strong medieval fantasy flavor akin to high adventure settings like those of Dungeons and Dragons or The Elder Scrolls series. Just like those settings, ours is our own and there will be differences from the real medieval period (some of these will include small anachronisms), but they can't be large or major enough to jar people out of the setting by making them go "Hey, that reminds me of (completely different era/setting)!"

Things like glasses, monocles, vivid dyes and--dare I say it--pocket watches were not found commonly in the medieval period, and if they were, they were very different from what we know today, but if you put one on a character that's otherwise attired as you'd expect of one from a medieval fantasy setting, it has little impact. If the character's entirely decked out in clothes from another era, though, you won't look at them and think 'medieval fantasy' anymore.

That said, however, you definitely COULD get away with giving a character a top hat, so long as they wore something medievally with it. Maybe some fancy merchant's clothes in white and black! It's just a hat, not a whole suit, which makes it an accessory that can easily be balanced out with other aspects of your character.

I have a very firm stance on this matter because I feel that it contributed to Northkeep's downfall. Even so, I like to give folks leeway--if you can make it work, go for it. If your character sticks out like a tapdancing green giraffe on the face of Time, however, they might require some rethinking, at least so far as their clothing goes.

Well what Ed says is pretty much what I had in mind. Having the freedom to bend a bit should be all right but err... tapdancing green giraffes is not OK, obviously. :P

Personally... I'd prefer keeping out anachronisms, but hey... I guess if you can put one in without it being glaringly glare-y and stuff.... go for it? I dunno-- I wasn't really keen on anachronisms towards the end of NK, to be honest.

Yeah, I feel that in many ways, the HUGE number of anachronisms that started turning up in NK just hastened its decline. Still, we have a line here in Skuld. You can have a thing or two but you won't get much further than that without getting called out by other members. NK's rules weren't strict enough for this to happen as much as it should've--the 'nice' rules, I think, made people afraid to complain when somebody's character made the setting feel off.

xD Among other things, perhaps... honestly for a good chunk of a while I didn't notice. I guess it was 'cause they weren't so glaring as mine were when I first came into NK. *cough*

Outta curiousity, would Lauren's coat and hat be considered an anachronism these days in SH? To be totally honest, I picked 'em when I saw Van Hellsing ('cause I ttly went "OMG WAAANT" when I saw his outfit) years back.

They're vague enough in style to pass, I think. And with the huge floppy brim, her hat isn't even exactly a fedora, ha.

And how about clothes that are more renaissancey in style? With this I mean more like fancy colours, frilled sleeves and wide floppy pants and so.

European Renaissance of the 14th–16th centuries.

The Middle Ages (adjectival form: medieval or mediæval) is a period of European history from the 5th century through the 15th century.

Renaissancey clothes seem perfectly fine to me, considering that the style was around even before the 14th century.

Renaissance is perfect. Wizard robes? Perfect! Orange jumpsuit? GO AWAY DAMNIT.

Yah, I don't mind people like maybe having one modern/out of date thing in their outfits, if it helps define their character. For note, the top hat; however, the idea of someone coming in with some tech suit, or decked out with sunglasses, a bandana, and blue jeans would make me slap someone.

What about YELLOW SPANDEX? ;D No, j/k. Anachronisms aren't fun at all, especially for people who mind details as much as me <<
Most common people would probably walk around in dark, raggy cloth. It's ony the rich that can afford colorful (colors back then weren't easy to make and FUCKING EXPENSIVE) and more expensive materials.

Purple silk ftw!

It also depends on the type of cloth. Most cottons and linens were beige in color, though they'd quickly get dirtied up. And some colors aren't too hard to make--red, for instance, was easy, and therefore rather common.

I'm in full agreement with Ed, here, though I do have less of an opinion about dye colors. I DID make the NPCs all kinds of crazy colors. :p It lets the imagination go wild without bringing down the feeling really. To me, at least.

XD Yeah. I KNOW that only the rich could have really fancy colorz and materials, but it still hardly bugs me if I see someone's character who isn't rich who's in nice enough colors (materials like silk or velvet however... that's a bit of a stretch XD).

As for the type of materials and clothing, you have to remember in fantasy settings, we have alchemists, mages, etc. Dying clothes different colors wouldn't be to out there. While of course, poor people probably wouldn't have extensive fancy clothes, I wouldn't say these things are as uncommon as they actually were in medieval times >.> Fantasy changes things. Alchemists could possibly make inexpensive dyes and things for certain clothes and so on and so forth. Magical clothing and other things.