[Kiel]

Heya, Drae! Officially welcome to EF! (That sentence sounds awkward, for some reason...)

Ooh, questions and sweeties.

• Can you swim in the Esper Channel?
  Well, you could but I wouldn't advise it? It's about 80 miles at its narrowest point. You'd probably be fine close to the Espur shore, and you'd probably be too small to attract the larger or more commonly roleplayed predators (like the kraken), but it'd still be pretty dangerous. Then again, water elementals like Nymphs or Zanaryans might have ways to shield themselves from such threats? But, naw, I wouldn't say swimming as a pastime would be recommended.
  
  
• What sort of ships use the Esper Channel? (I'm guessing a lot of merchant ones due to the nature of Esper, but in what way do they vary?)
  We have a list of the different types of ships on the transportation page, but basically there's long-haul fishing boats, merchant/cargo types and a few naval warships. The latter two are sometimes commandeered by pirates, but all of them are sailed ships. They vary according to size, speed (I'm not familiar enough with ships to go into much detail on how one is faster than the other, but from my reading it has to do with the pointiness of the bow and hull and the shape of the underwater bits), number of sails, and amount of cargo space. Dori (ocean fishing boats), for instance, are flat-bottomed and triangular with a single mast and a large, rectangular sail. Polémiki, on the other hand, are the warships so they're faster, narrower, with four masts.
  
  
• How busy a port is Esper? Is it one of Elysian's busiest?
  Espur is the largest port in Elysia and definitely the busiest. It's the fastest connection to the smaller continent of Dardanos from the mainland (across the Espur Channel), so basically, anything headed to or from Dardanos (which is mostly farms, taroch breeders and such) has to go through Espur. They also have access to other trade towns via their portal.
  
  
• Do you pay tax for docking at Esper or for deliveries that come in by sea?
  Hrm, never thought of this before, but yeah, I would say so. Ship owners probably have to pay docking fees to the Harbourmaster, possibly getting it back by including it in cargo/passenger fees. Merchants would pay taxes on commerce, and part of the docking costs could be a tax toward providing protection from the navy. But the loads they could carry would make it cheaper (and faster) to go once by sea than, say, six times by anka.
  
  
• Where's the best place to import/mine metal ore from?
  Ooh, this probably depends on exactly which metal ore you mean. I'll assume you mean steel or bronze for weapons? The Dusky and Apolli Mountains are riddled with metal ores, but most of those mountain ranges belong to the Anyeli Empire and they tend to hoard the stuff for their own armouries. That said, there are mining towns in the foothills who don't belong to the Empire but that we haven't explored yet, so you could just make one up. (Yiannis and Pelagias, in the Sunset Foothills, are examples of places named on the map but that don't have pages yet if you wanted to take them over. )
  
  
• Do you have blacksmiths in the sense of weaponsmiths, armoursmiths, general smithies, horsesmiths (I've forgotten the proper term), or does "blacksmith" cover all?
  Yup! (Blacksmiths, so far as I remember, are the ones who shoe horses. ^^) We have general blacksmiths and specialists (though I think armourers and weaponsmiths would be the same guy). It ultimately depends on where they've set up shop, though. According to Medieval Demographics, you'd need 1500 people to support a blacksmith. Elysia's not too different in terms of the kinds of techniques craftsmen use, so I'd say the same applies here. Specialists are trickier to gauge, though; in the Empire, there'd be a much greater number of weaponsmiths/armourers to citizens than there would be in a neutral town like Hesia.
  
  
• How does the Priesthood of Xanth worship her? I read only one statue remains so are there temples? Do they pray? (if this is answered somewhere just throw me a link )
  There's a page on them here but I don't think it really answers the question about prayer because we haven't really explored worship beyond saying there are temples and shrines. There is definitely prayer of some sort, but we've not really looked at the rituals surrounding such prayer.
  
  There is only one intact shrine (the statue you mentioned) on a large scale, but some households have miniature versions. (A member was exploring individual worship with her PC a couple of years ago and had a small shrine in a corner of her house.) The Voice/Priesthood of Xanth is also attempting to revive their religion on a grander scale and are petitioning for the building of new temples and shrines in the major cities and towns. Dionica (alleged to be the first temple built in Xanth's honour) was recently rediscovered in the mountains, and there are a few other ruins scattered across Elysia (though not all are related/built by the Priesthood themselves). Xanth does have a "temple" of sorts that she built herself, but it's a "pocket realm" (basically a small realm just large enough to house a temple, its gardens and her menagerie) that most Elysians don't actually know about.
  
  
• The Nubian Delta is dangerous due to hydras and other animals. Is it also dangerous in general due to such things as bandits? Do/could the farms get raided or extorted?
  Yup! There are several trade routes across the delta, but the hotspot would be the "road"* from Espur to Kyriake (which exports precious metals and gemstones), so bandits would be common. I'm not sure to what extent bandits would raid farms since they could forage and hunt for themselves, but yeah, I think during harvest season especially there would be opportunists coming in to steal crops.
  
  
• How long would it take (very roughly) to travel on horseback or by foot between Esper and the Nubian Delta? And by Anka?
  There's a chart on the Transportation page that helps decipher travel times, but I just realised Nubia's not on it. Looking at the map, I'd say Espur to the city of Nubia is about 650 miles. On foot, though, travelling at 20 miles a day, you could make it in a month. By anka, about three quarters of a day. Landstriders are more common (and faster, especially at a steady pace pulling carts) than horses, so you're talking 26 and 21.5 days respectively. You'd follow the river, though, so you could maybe use a dashiri barge to speed things along a bit. They're not on the chart either (I think I created them after I made that table); they'd be slower than horses but could probably travel further in a day and pull more weight, so they could probably do a trip upriver in about 18 days.
  
  
• Can a character be afraid of the portals and still use them?
  Yep! So long as they're thinking of where they want to go, a portal will kick them out at the portal nearest to their destination regardless.
  
  
• Scientifically, do the characters know how the Portal Nexus works? Are there any dangers to using them other than being distracted on one and ending up in the wrong place?
  It's not something Xanth has ever made any effort to explain, so while there are probably inventor types who have tried to understand (and maybe even emulate) them, it's more of a mystical "they're just there" kind of thing. As to the dangers... Well, there's nothing set in stone at the moment, but I was discussing with another member at one point how the elementals came into being, and I decided then that they're created by a surplus of the cosmic "stuff" Xanth uses to create planets and portals. I think a side effect of that would be that elementals might be attracted to portals like they are to each other, though probably to a lesser degree. If that's true, then portal users might encounter elemental blobs frequently, and sometimes those blobs might merge into clusters or even tertiaries, which are more sentient and a bit more dangerous. Certain elementals are more dangerous than others (fire, for instance), so it could be a hazard to be aware of.
  
  
• Can a knocked out or abducted character be carried through a portal by another?
  Yup. The portals expand to accommodate anything pushed or carried through them. The only thing is that you couldn't just shove an inanimate object or unconscious person through without someone conscious to make the portal work. There has to be a conscious "guide" mind to tell it where to connect to.

I hope my answers helped. And that I didn't get too long-winded!

* Elysia doesn't have paved roads, for the most part, so I put the word in quotes. They tend to be dirt tracks worn down by years of use.

[Kiel]

Well, ankas are pretty distracting. Let me know if you need any more help.

[Xanth]

Ooh, fleshy. :3 And don't worry, there's a lot to absorb. I sometimes wish I was a sea sponge toddling along.

• "http://faroah.com/efwiki/index.php/People/Sentinel" Doesn't work *cries*
  Ah, some links don't actually have pages yet and I haven't done a lot of development for Therians lately. I'll hopefully add that page soon. With Sentinels, I was aiming for a combination of a wolf pack alpha and a clan chief, but not all clans have a pack mentality so it varies from clan to clan.
  
  
• It says on the Therian page that they often have a lot of kids. I'm planning on making my guy somewhere between the age of 21 and 28 (haven't decided yet). At the moment I'm seeing him with definitely one son, but in case he does end up in the younger years, can he adopt?
  Well, he could have a kid at 21. Therians are a bit freer about that sort of thing. Adoption's not out of the question, though, if he found a parentless child along the way. (Elysia doesn't have orphanges or child care services so often they only way they survive is to be taken in by another family.) It'll be awesome to have another character with a kid, either way!
  
  
• Is it common for male Therians to have children without marrying?
  It would depend on the clan and how much they're influenced by any forms they prefer. Wolves mate for life so a clan who all have a wolf form would probably lean toward lifelong commitment, whereas a clan who are predominantly feline probably wouldn't. (As an added info bonus: Something that's probably not on the wiki but that I've been looking into is that Therians don't marry. Like Nymphs, they probably have some sort of handfasting ceremony, but they'd call a spouse their mate rather than husband/wife.)
  
  
• For the character's back story, if he does end up with a wife and I opt to kill her off, could she have been one of the ones to compete for the position of the Sentinel?
  Sure! She could have died during the challenge if it was a physical one, or she could have lost, or she could have become the sentinel of their clan. :3
  
  
• Are you still looking for murderers/villians-in-general? I've come up with an interesting idea that involves blacksmithing...
  Definitely. We have a couple of not-so-good eggs but nothing really villainy, so I would encourage you to explore those ideas.

Ooh, ice cream! *omnomnom*