If you are considering taking the path of roleplaying a Teir`dal - let me first do all that I can to encourage you! :) Dark Elves have naturally good dexterity and agility, and great intelligence (which makes learning any skill go much quicker). So you will be effective in whichever profession you choose.
We look unusual, always attract attention and we look damn fine in armor/robes! :) Yet, if you choose to roleplay it can be a challenge coming up with a character that hasn't already been 'done' in fiction or elsewhere in the game. Hopefully I can give you some things to think about to make your character well rounded and fun to roleplay.
Teir`dal history was written by humans and Elves. Do we trust humans and the inferior Wood and High Elves? No! :) As such, you can decide to go with it, completely discard it or start over again from scratch with your own ideas. Some things to question:
1. Did the Teir`dal come first perhaps and the Feir`dal in their fear and ignorance choose to spread propaganda to the contrary?
2. Where are our king and queen now?
3. Were we independently created by Innoruuk? OR Are we descended from the High Elves, Wood Elves or are we a combination of both?
Some of your answers to the above questions will influence ultimately how you see your own character and how they view others both of their own race and of other races.
Is Innoruuk Evil to *you*? Can you deal with RPing this out everytime you play? Is Innoruuk Evil to your *character*? Or is Innoruuk just your God and you do all that you do in tribute to Him. (remember: in RPing Evil, Evil is not what you think your Deity is, generally, unless you're falling from Innoruuk worship into worship of some other Deity.)
What God does your Dark Elf choose to follow? This can be *extremely* important as not only does it affect your faction in Neriak, but also your faction across the globe. Realize, also, that you can raise faction with the Merchants in Neriak and the guards, but you need to be able to enter Neriak and have them willing to talk with you first.
If you should choose a Deity and choose 'incorrectly' your character can 'convert' via Roleplaying but your Deity choice on your screen will remain the same. To change your Deity, you will need to delete and remake your character.
Some Deity choices are not popular with the citizens of Neriak - choosing Rallos Zek gets you regarded suspiciously by those in town, and Agnostic makes you indifferent to them. I don't believe any class/deity combination will outright get you killed in Neriak, but you may not be very popular there. There are quests around to raise your merchant and guard faction, should that be a priority with you.
I highly recommend you choose Agnostic for your character deity but roleplay as an Innoruuk worshipper. You already will have one strike against you in travelling since you're a dark elf. If you want the otherwise neutral faction (you will still be kill-on-sight on many areas), agnostic is a good choice and you can roleplay all you like that you worship Innoruuk. Some professions don't have a choice of Agnostic (clerics, necromancers and shadowknights) and they just have to deal with the fact that they are not given the faction-chance by other towns and are absolutely kill-on-sight everywhere.
Enchanters are a different case, they should always choose Agnostic. Their illusions then become effective and they can travel pretty much wherever they please. If you choose to play an Enchanter and want to do quests, be quite careful what you kill. Avoid the temptation to kill halflings (there are a few camps of them in the Nektulos Forest) and guards (at least until you are confident in your travel or your ability to patch up your faction). Your trips will likely put you through Rivervale (via the safer route currently know from Freeport to Qeynos) and being kill-on-sight there would be very awkward.
Choosing Agnostic is still not the 'easy way out' and it's not a 'wussy' choice. It's just a choice that you can make to either make your gameplay a little easier, or a little more difficult. If your priority is on travel and traveling as safely and swiftly as possible - Agnostic is a good choice. If you are planning on a lot of completely escorted travel and can invis, gate, etc. you may feel confident in choosing Innoruuk.
Most who roleplay Dark Elves overwhelmingly choose Innoruuk. Teir`dal are considered an extension of Him, and most take pride in serving/being an extention of their Lord of Hate. Consider what sort of character you'd like to roleplay before choosing a deity.
Next, think about your Deity and how your character will interact with others of a different deity choice. Innoruuk followers generally don't play nice with others, and this is the reason why many roleplayers insist on grouping only with other Dark Elves and Trolls (Ogres follow Rallos Zek primarily and so are not included in some guilds classification of a 'true' dark race, as Zek and Innoruuk don't particularly like each other).
Grouping with races that are neutral to good can be done, but you must find the best way for YOU and your character to justify it. And, doing so with Wood or High Elves would be *VERY* difficult to do and still stay in character for. Primarily, Dark Elves believe in getting what they want, however they want to do it - and such a justification *can* be used in the area of grouping with lighter races to hunt or gain money/experience. This is not a justification for being overly nice to lighter races, however. ;) My suggestion is that if you must be nice to the person behind the screen, do it in a tell prefaced with ooc in the text area. I personally *will not* group with a light race because *I feel* it would dilute my roleplaying experience.
Forget what you've read elsewhere - how do YOU feel you were raised? If someone says that every Teir`dal was kicked out of the house at the age of 12 to fend for themselves, decide whether or not this fits into the character you'd like to play. If it doesn't fit with your characters views, just go with what feels right. Within *every* society there have often been those who don't fit in completely with the profile of how they're 'supposed to be' and who have not suffered any ill effects as a result.
Do you feel that your parents were rich? Did they care for you in a smothering way while you were growing up, or were you left to run wild?
Your answers to this will lead you to...
Even if you do not 'need' a biography for any reason (most Dark Elf Roleplaying guilds will require one), you may want to work one up if you are serious about roleplaying your Teir`dal. This can either be a sheet of stilted sentences describing to you for your own note what experiences your character has had and who they've met (as EQ is in effect a neverending story) - or if you are feeling verbose, a fullblown short story of your characters early life.
One thing that makes a character interesting and makes it fun to roleplay with others are the various quirks about your character and the holes in their background. Never EVER plug up those holes, and if you do inadvertently as a result of ongoing roleplaying - make new ones! Think of a secret about your character that no one knows about that you can drop hints about every so often. There is nothing quite as boring as to know someone in real life who is bland, who has no passion and drive. Don't turn your character into that as well!
Another very good reason to have a biography and have it accessible on the net or on a guildpage is that it gives other roleplayers an idea of how to interact with you. If they know that you were kidnapped, taken to the Karanas and made to milk cows as a child before you killed your captors with a shovel and then escaped, then they know that ribbing you about cows is likely to really tick you off. :) And that they perhaps if they have less skill then you do in combat - they should run if you bring out a shovel as a result of their ribbing. :)
Find some mannerisms - does your male warrior tend to bite his nails when he's waiting to fight? Does your character have nervous habits when he's lying while talking to someone? Does your character tend to avoid conversations and how? Small emotes, nervous character ticks - when done correctly - can add to a roleplaying experience. And if you are roleplaying with a skilled player, they can act as cues to give you an idea of the characters unspoken emotions at the time.
Ideally, everyone who has their name in purple above their head is a roleplayer, but time and experience will show you that people go /role for a variety of reasons, only one of which is actually to roleplay. Some twinked newbies do this so that people can't tell that the guy in full crafted wielding a BBC and almost dying to a fire beetle isn't level 1. Some people want the further anonymity that going /anon doesn't give. And finally, people who want the world to know they're a roleplayer go /role.
I'll give some of the pros and cons of going /role, and you can make your own decision on it:
Pro:
1. Others who roleplay or who know general things about how Teir`dal are roleplayed will know how you will react in certain situations. A wood elf will know that your character won't be particularly eager to cast invisibility on him so that he can go through Nektulos without getting killed if you're purple flagged. Or that you may try to charge him a very large amount of platinum for your services.
2. Privacy concerns - would you *really* know in a 'real world' a persons profession by typing /who Nialia? No, and if someone wants to know your profession and rank, they'll have to ask like they do in the 'real world'. This also leaves room for a lot of very fun roleplaying with pretending to be a profession you are not, and is a great way for roleplayers to strike up a conversation with each other.
Con:
1. If you need to know where a friend is and don't want to bother them with a /tell, you can't tell that by a /who Nialia all if they're flagged /role. It can be painful typing to 5 others that you want to group with, asking them all where they are at the moment!
2. So few people use the purple flag for roleplaying, that it's almost meaningless. No one knows what it means anymore, so no one knows that you will react perhaps harshly to a High Elf. I had someone get very angry at me in tells when my character got snitty with him, though I had told them in a very nice tell previously that I'm a roleplayer. Had to point out that I am indeed purple flagged, and that's what the purple title means.
I think that every roleplayer has been in this situation - you're roleplaying with someone, and someone not involved makes a rude ooc comment about it in says, shouts or ooc.
There's a lot of different reactions you can have...I cannot count the number of times that I have been told 'Wow, I've always wanted to roleplay, but I felt stupid being the only one doing it!'. Sometimes you will roleplay and someone who isn't flagged and doesn't normally roleplay will join in for fun. At times, people will just ignore you. Sometimes you will be insulted, so be prepared to deal with that. But when the golden moment of someone roleplaying back comes, you will feel a rush of happy enthusiasm that will keep you treading the rewarding path of a roleplayer.