The player species of the game are the Lokai, Cavolon, Eshlar, Tyrusin, and Unarra.  The Lokai tend to be explorers, guides, scouts, and cartographers, the Cavolon are secretive, and do a lot with developing and breeding plants for various uses, the Eshlar are builders, creating great works of architecture and design, the Tyrusin are a warrior culture, focusing more on combat and related areas, and the Unarra are tamers of creatures, as well as being well suited to the nature of Atriana.  Although these are just basic trends of the cultures of these species, each of the species can do many of the things that the others can, just that the cultures of the different species tends more toward certain areas, and people of that species will likely have an advantage in that area.

There's also quite a bit more information that can be found on the species in the species section of the official website, and in our species profiles of the Lokai, the Cavolon, the Eshlar, the Unarra, and the Tyrusin. There are also a number of creature movies over at Atriarch Vault that will give a good idea of some of the other inhabitants of Atriana, and also a screenshot directory on the official website.

Atriarch is unique not only in it's setting, but also encompasses much more in it's gameplay.

Atriarch is an RPG, but it also has elements of strategy in it as well, where cities and empires can be built up by people, where soldiers and citizens are all people in the game.  Groups can make and enforce their own laws, and group together for their common protection and benefit, be they peaceful, or warlike, if they fight to take what others have, or to prevent others from doing the same, and forge alliances and trade with other groups.

All of Atriana is a dynamic world as well, and can be changed and altered by players.  Buildings and towns can be custom designed and created  by players, as well as it being possible for them to be destroyed over the course of time.  The story and history of the world is made by the actions of the players.

Atriarch also has a number of features to it that make possible a large variety of things.  For one, it has a full physics model in place, including things like mass, force, surface geometry, friction, gravity, elasticity, rotational dynamics, air pressure, etc., effecting all of the things in the world, and making many things possible,  From being able to pick up a chair and throw it at someone, or kick over a table and duck behind it to avoid getting hit with a ranged weapon, to having things like siege weapons and range weapons following ballistic paths, to having an inventory in the game, not using a separate interface, so things like putting a huge item in a tiny pack wouldn't be possible, and allowing things like carts and such to be filled with goods, and pulled by creatures, for things like trade routes and caravans, to being able to kick around a ball, or play or even create games or sports or such using the physics model in the game.

Customizable buildings means that you can create buildings to your design, whether that be designing a building for a guild to meet and live in, or designing a workshop in which to create and sell your wares, or in designing walls and defensive structures for a city, to protect it from outside forces.  Also along with this, buildings can be destroyed, and siege weapons exist in Atriana, so wars between groups can result in buildings and structures of cities being damaged or destroyed, and structures like walls and moats and such actually have a purpose because of this.

Also, Atriana is a huge world to be explored, and traveled, and for buildings and cities to be created on, among other things.  The current size of Atriana is somewhere around 682,000 sq. miles.  For comparison, the world of Asheron's call, is 576 sq. miles, 1184 times smaller, or about 473 times smaller if you only consider the area of Atriana that is land.  The worlds of Everquest and Ultima Online are both smaller then that.  Atriana is also completely seamless, as well as being a spherical world, so there are no zones or artificial barriers of any kind in Atriana.

Serafina Pechan, Atriarch's Lead Designer, described this best in an IGN Reader Interview: "Atriarch is a 100% seamless environment, indoors, outdoors, in the air, underground, underwater, everywhere! There is no need to have "portals" to go inside nor zones to travel from one location to another. You can travel from the Lokai continent through a wind tunnel to the Unarra continent; go into a building to sell your rare gem; take a river down to the Tresed Village to hire a flying creature to take you to the Tyrusin continent; fly over to the Tyrusin City of Arenas; go into the arena to fight with another player; then go to buy drinks at a local pub (because you lost the fight) covering hundreds of miles of terrain inside and out and never once hit a zone, a portal, or an arbitrary limit. Atriarch is completely seamless whether you travel by foot, air, boat, ground, wind tunnel or whatever other means available."

As well, characters in Atriana are persistent, they exist in the world all the time, even when you're not online.  This means that things like a place to be in can be quite important to your character, because they aren't just going to pop out of existence when you leave.  Although there's also a scripting system for this, so you can control what your character does, or how they respond to certain situations.  It also means it could be possible for them to do things while you're not there, like running a store, or being a guard for a town, as well as practicing certain skills, or traveling across distances.

Creatures in Atriana also are more dynamic to the world, and possess greater intelligence and variety.  Creatures don't spawn in the way that they have in other games, with creatures appearing out of nowhere at set positions, but instead, creatures spawn asexually from creatures in the game.  This also means that it could be possible to thin out a group of creatures in an area, and that some creature or person isn't just going to pop back into place somewhere in the world.  As well as playing a part of the economy of the world as well, from hunters who have meaning and importance in the world from hunting creatures and getting supplies for those who could use them, as well as in that creatures can be tamed, creatures that travel across land, sea, or air, and might be used for transporting people or goods, or assisting in combat, depending on what creature they are and what they would be good at.

Weapons and items don't just appear in the world either, be it with some powerful item that appeared out of nowhere with an unintelligent creature, or an unlimited stock of equipment and supplies on NPC shopkeepers.  Virtually everything in the game that can be created can be done so by players, allowing for a player economy to form that would be involved in a lot of the game, from weapons and armor to equipment and supplies, buildings and structures, even things like furniture or a drink served down at the local bar. And, things like trade routes would be possible as well, groups selling or buying certain things from other groups, traveling merchants, bringing a resource that's common in one are to someplace where it's more rare, and so on.

Quests in the world actually have meaning and importance as well, and are not static quests that are just repeated by a bunch of people with no apparent reason or effect in the world from them.

 Serafina described this well in an interview at FourBelowZero: "Quests are more fun when they are tied to the economy, the environment, or the story in some way. When a baker gives you a quest to plow down a field and bring him wheat, it should be because he needs it. If that same baker is now using that wheat to bake a cake for the emperor in celebration of the birth of his child... well, now you've just added a whole other level of immersion. When conducting a quest, the player should feel like there is a purpose and that he or she can actually make a change to the world. In Atriarch, that is exactly what we are striving for... players making a real impact in the story, economy, and world. Imagine that in Atriarch, no one went to plow the field and the baker never got his wheat, so the emperor never got his cake. The emperor gets upset and decides to declare a tax. There are so many little and big implications to players' actions in Atriarch."

Because of all of this and the way the game is structured, there is a large variety of things that you can do within Atriana:

You can adventure, and explore the vast lands, and discover places that other people haven't seen, areas where resources might be, or where ruins and history of the past might be contained. Or you could study creatures, discover more about them and how they act or their environment. You could create maps of uncharted lands, or write books about your journeys, and about the information you've learned.

You could track and hunt creatures, selling hides and claws and more valuable resources to those that could use them to create something. You could be a mercenary, working between different groups for money, or be a guard or soldier, and help to enforce the law or protect a town. You could be a bounty hunter, hunting down criminals or those that certain groups may want to see captured or killed.

You can grow and breed plants, that might be used for food, elixirs, poisons, or plants that could be used for defense, and many other things. Or you could create weapons or equipment, which could be used in conflicts, in helping change the course of a battle from how well equipped someone's army might be, or help to make you money by selling weapons to both sides of a battle. You can custom design and build buildings and structures. Building houses or shops to what you want, as well as designing walls or defenses, or structures that could be used for the common good of a city or group, such as something that may be used to help create certain equipment or to be used with certain skills, like something like a forge in UO might be.

You can tame creatures that could be used for transportation of people, or transportation of goods, helping in trade routes, and moving things around for construction, or so on. Or which could be used in a military way, for soldiers to ride, or fight directly, or using some large armored creature as a type of battering ram, or so on. Many creatures of various types that may travel by land, sea, or air, some that are small, others that could carry multiple people.

You could gather resources, or get them from other people or groups, and help to build a village or city from the ground up. You could help to protect it from dangers, and forge a government and laws, and enforce them, or see that they're enforced. You could get involved in the politics of a city, forging alliances with other groups, setting up trade routes to trade for resources that may be rare where you are but more common someplace else. Or waging war with another group, helping to fight with others against a common foe, and so on.

Or perhaps you could get involved in the more disreputable side of things. You could try to be a thief or burglar, trying to grab something from someone, or trying to break into a building to steal some things. Or you could be a brigand or highwayman, waylaying travelers and relieving them of their goods. You might get involved with a group of brigands and form a town or something for your common protection. And live your life running from those who would hunt you, and living outside of the areas of towns. Or on the other side of that, you could do things that are more oriented with a larger group of people. Including the things listed above, things like being a spy, or an assassin, or a saboteur. Or be part of a group who has conquest in mind, and try to take over land or resources, be that militarily, economically, politically, not all of which may be disreputable. :)

Or you could live off in the wilderness somewhere, living off of your own skills and abilities, and using your own knowledge and wits to survive and get what you need. Or you could be part of a small village, that you might help to form and grow. Or a nomadic group that could travel from place to place, traveling around together, setting up temporary encampments, or traveling together on large creatures, on which small structures and such might be built. Or you could run a guild or group within a government, with some common idea or purpose of its members. Or you could run a shop inside or outside of a city, or be a traveling merchant, finding people to buy things from, and others to sell them to, setting up trade routes, or selling your own things that you make. Or you could run an inn or tavern, dealing with customers, and hearing and passing on information and so on.

And for more information, there's a good deal of information on the world, species, screenshots, a FAQ, and so on at the Official Website, There are also a number of logs of Developer Chats at End of Atriana, and there are forums on Stratics at Atriarch Stratics, Atriarch Vault, Crossroads of Atriana, and right here on the Atriarch Board, which can all be good sources of further information, for asking questions, and for making comments or suggestions. :)

-Soralis