What realm should I join?

[Norrel]

I'm pretty bored of Atamara and I'm thinking about moving my character to Beluaterra. I like Dwilight a lot, so I think I'd like to join a realm with some form of SMA-ishness, or at least no silly crap, and some level of RP, as well as high activity. Any recommendations?

[Nosferatus]

Sint has good character, controversial religion and insane stance towards humans.
Melhed is an intresting place for disusing... various stuff.... it has small 'conflicts' involving almost everyone on almost anything, but rarley really fight. it's a little like an arabian market.
I don't see any other war coming soon, but soemthing is brewing betwene some nobles in thal and some in melhed(you could easily say hate).
Then you have enweil, west enweil(with the weird name) and riombara who will be fighting there war for some time.
They have along standing rivalry, so such war can be fun, Riombara is characterized by beeing really democratic and Enweil by always beeing very huge...
All other realms are(will be) fairly boring with only a few traits:
OG has alot of food excess, nice to start as trader, is also in good diplomatic relations with everyone
Thalmarkin is a small tyrany with a strong leadership and quite effective military, who will certainly be looking for war, but unfrotunatly i found it a poor place for RP, some characters there never even heard of the word honor.
But there characters are fun and a good potential to cause many real conflicts with other nations.
Fronen is boring, in effective and beaten to pulp, perhaps it will be intresting to join now as they will have to make many intresting decisions that will decide on there future.
Nothoi sits in a mountain with the crapiest army in the continent, nothing more to say about them...

Actually I can't wait for the invasion to come to destroy all these silly realms.

[Draco Tanos]

I'll admit, my own views are biased due to my own experiences, but hey.  So's everyone else's.

Enweil - Once a huge power on BT, overthrowing governments with their awesome military power to establish democracies and republics, but they've hit harder times since the last invasion.  Contrary to a certain person's propaganda, they were starting to weaken militarily pre-Invasion as well.  Not sure on the status of their RP.
Fronen -  The Old Man of Beluaterra, Fronen was also once a military might, but the Invasion had seen many of their allies crushed into dust or switching sides when leaders change.  They had the misfortune to have had a leader who lacked any and all tact before old enemies charged against Fronen.  From my understanding, they once had a bit of RP, but don't know about now.  They certainly have opportunity for it.
Imperskoe Viys'ko iz Fheuv'na - IVF, aka Enweil, Jr. or Enweil West, is supposedly a theocracy.  No idea what faith they are.  RP is also unknown.
Melhed - If you like debating to have a vote to debate to have a vote, Melhed is for you.  They're generally the sloth of Beluaterra.
Nothoi - The democratic offspring of Old Bara'khur, Not sure how their RP is in comparison.  They have a rough going, as they're all mountains for the most part.
Old Grehk - Old Grehk's swayed in power many times over the years.  So too has the amount of RP that happens.  Right now, seems kinda quiet.  A few of us are trying to change that.
Riombara - Rio's been a bastion and fixture in the deep South, frequently aligned with the far North, like OG.  Not sure how their RP is, though it was quite common at one point.
Sint - My experience with them is colored.  There wasn't much in the way of RP while I was there and newcomers never seemed very welcomed, many leaving soon after arriving.  Not sure if that's changed with the new leadership, though I know it was different in the past.
Thalmarkin - This monarchy started out as a colony of Old Grehk and Riombara in the distant past.  Their loyalties have swayed many times over the years.  Not sure how their RP ever was.

Pretty much all the realms need knights, many characters having died or fled during the last Invasion.

[Perth]

Imperskoe Viys'ko iz Fheuv'na - IVF, aka Enweil, Jr. or Enweil West, is supposedly a theocracy.  No idea what faith they are. 

No religion. They're a theocracy without a religion. Chénier just likes the options the gov't style gives or something. lol.

[Draco Tanos]

...

*rubs temples*

[Silverhawk]

Thalmarkin is a small tyrany with a strong leadership and quite effective military, who will certainly be looking for war, but unfrotunatly i found it a poor place for RP, some characters there never even heard of the word honor.

Lol, let me gues, you play in Melhed :P

[Shenron]

If you want to join Dwilght, The Grand Duchy of Fissoa is undergoing some really positive changes currently. When theres new activity it's often a good time to join.

But to be honest every realm on Dwilight looks fun, I wish I could play them all haha!  ;D

[Norrel]

stuff

It seems like you're unsure about the RP of basically every realm  ??? Which ones would you say are the best?

[Geronus]

It seems like you're unsure about the RP of basically every realm  ??? Which ones would you say are the best?

In my experience, BT is not a very RP-heavy island. In Riombara, Fleugs' character has been writing a fair number of RPs concerning the religion he is thinking about founding, though it's been a little while since I last saw one, and the realm is active internally with debate and an open political system. Fronen is largely devoid of RP, although intra-realm and inter-realm politics are pretty interesting there at the moment as a result of tension between Vur Hagin Duchy and the others, and the fact that they have been ganged up on by the entire northern part of the island. Lots of intrigue at the moment. I cannot speak for the other realms, but Nothoi seems particularly miserable to me, while OG seems particularly bland (as an outsider). Sint has a very interesting religion, but I don't know what that realm is like internally. Melhed is famous for Machiavellian politics, but historically is very insular and does not often get involved in wars. Thalmarkin is highly organized, so I suspect there is a fairly high level of activity there, but I know very little about the realm's internal culture.

[Lorgan]

Thalmarkin is a small tyrany with a strong leadership and quite effective military, who will certainly be looking for war, but unfrotunatly i found it a poor place for RP, some characters there never even heard of the word honor.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of tyrannies and I think there's way too few of them but I don't count Thalmarkin among them. Yes, we have strong leaders, but they're far from unquestionable, we've got a pretty stable government at the moment but that comes only after our previous judge was protested out, a new one was voted and in and he has also suffered his share of protests and criticism, especially from the previous judge. :P (Of course before that we had tons and tons of protests coming from the clan who I'm guessing inspired you to use "tyranny" ;) Glad we're rid of those tbh.)
Furthermore it's the Royal Advisors (containing 17 out of 32 of our nobles) that take most decisions, the King rarely acts alone. Oh, and all the positions are elected, the general even every month.

Anyway, no honour... let me explain our "switching of sides": we are traditionally allied with OG and things have now returned to their natural order, the reason we warred them before the invasion is because they chose Sint over us in their war against Fronen, Sint being the realm that nearly destroyed OG with the help of the daimons during the third invasion, and the ones who set this "invader-allying" fad in motion, a trend that Thalmarkin steered clear from.
This war, we were allied with both sides and OG and Sint supplied us with the food necessary to survive during the invasion while Fronen sent an army North once when the undead had already temporarily moved on, stationed it in Unger eating that precious food and then they moved blindly into the blight, losing their army. For some reason they never returned after that... Maybe they thought we used some sort of dark magic to destroy their army.
That aside, of course conquest was a defining factor as well, in particular the conquest of Jedinchel which was ours before our crazy general defected with it to Fronen and which they didn't want to return to us, because we were too "unstable"... But we could just as well have gone after OG for conquest, I had 15 knights in Unger, we definitely needed some new regions to load them off, damn knights ate away +60% of my income... :P

Melhed on the other hand doesn't even seem to take honour into account when making decisions, just the nobles' opinion of the moment. But well, I do applaud that you've finally managed to get into a war.

We also just had a very, very lengthy discussion because one of our nobles unsuspectingly admitted relation to a commoner (advy), duel threats were being thrown around and it climaxed with a failed assassination. Never did this affect the stability of our realm as a whole or the dedication our nobles show in the war. Sure, a few more vendettas may have been created to add to the existing one, but the loyalty to Thalmarkin and the will to work together was never in doubt. I love it. :)

But there characters are fun and a good potential to cause many real conflicts with other nations.

I consider it our duty to keep BT warring until the day the 5th invasion starts! :)

Anyway, that aside, Thalmarkin has a bit of both rp-wise. We don't really have much written roleplays, but we've definitely got a bunch of chars who take SMA very seriously, and then there's also a couple of silly chars. If for example a member of the Cosula family ever rises to the throne again, you can bet your account on it that sock-sucking is going to be publicly demanded from our enemies and that spanking will be promised. In other words: if you want hardcore SMA, then Thalmarkin probably isn't for you, we like our SMA sprinkled with some good old-fashioned silliness.
We do however have a high level of activity and it is not very hard to rise in our ranks if you are involved in the realm.

As for Riombara, the other realm I'm in (you might have noticed I'm not going for the usual semi-neutral report of all realms): it is indeed a very open republic where pretty much everything is voted on. We are fighting our eternal war against Enweil (now with extra mini-Enweil) and are doing pretty well even if the war has been pretty much of a stalemate so far. We are in dire need of nobles and it's easier to get a lordship position than to spot a rat in the sewer so to speak. All positions are voted on monthly and for every important decision a referendum for all nobles is held. In theory a weekly diplomacy report should be presented to the nobles but that is not really practice. There are a few (not very well defined) political factions, we've got the hardcore Enweil haters, the pragmatists, the monarchists and the republicanists. We tax every region 25% and every duchy 100% and then spread everything out amongst the nobility, ensuring everyone receives a good tax share.
We've got a decent SMA atmosphere (even though our tax system has been called communist :P) driven by the desire to go medieval on Enweil and strong morals, SMA is not really a main concern but there's next to no silliness. But as Geronus has said, written rps are quite scarce as well, with the exception of Fleugs' descriptions of inventive ways of killing people.

So that's it, I find it hard to speak of things like atmosphere and roleplay as an outsider, so I'll leave that to the others.

[Lorgan]

Melhed on the other hand doesn't even seem to take honour into account when making decisions, just the nobles' opinion of the moment. But well, I do applaud that you've finally managed to get into a war.

Scrap that applause, they just signed peace. Congratulations to Fronen for getting the wimps out of the war with a hugely beneficial treaty.

[DoctorHarte]

Most everyone here is going to try to sway you to join their realm on BT; everywhere always needs more nobles. I am part of Fronen and IVF, though soon to be Melhed and IVF. Heavy fighting will be found everywhere except Nothoi, who seems to just chill in their regions.

I suggest that rather than ask the players where you should join, go to the wiki and read about each realm, their government, etc.

[JPierreD]

How much does a knight make in your realm(s)?

[Lorgan]

In Thalmarkin I think it lies around 60 gold/noble (correct me if I'm wrong), with unit recruitment being mostly paid for by well... me. :P Knights of Unger used to get between 80-100 gold back when we were smaller and I had more knights as I could run significantly higher taxes.

In Riombara I make 100 gold as knight of a moderately sized city.

[Norrel]

Most everyone here is going to try to sway you to join their realm on BT; everywhere always needs more nobles. I am part of Fronen and IVF, though soon to be Melhed and IVF. Heavy fighting will be found everywhere except Nothoi, who seems to just chill in their regions.

I suggest that rather than ask the players where you should join, go to the wiki and read about each realm, their government, etc.

Obviously there's going to be some bias, but there's still more than a grain of truth hidden in it. I'm just looking at general trends that everyone's agreeing on.
The wiki, I've found, is basically hopelessly out of date, especially for Beluaterra.