Welcome, Olwen to the game and possibly Navarr (which is of course the best nation).
There are hotels and the like not too far from the site if camping isn’t for you. Though you then have costs and a commute to contend with, depends what works better for you. And yes it can get cold at night, particularly during Event 1 in April. For me, a folding camp bed and a sleeping bag that isn’t 20+ years old have made the camping far more comfortable. There’s also a shower block on the site and caterers selling hot food so it’s pretty civilised, if not quite glamping.
The fierce fighters look has a tendency to coincide with the dramatic stuff that photographs well but there are a fair number of players that don’t go to battle so you won’t be stuck on your lonesome. And those outfits you see featured are often the work of years, tweaking and tinkering as the player develops their character; most players start with enough simple clothing to be comfortable and build on it from there. “Wood elf” can give you quite a range to play with too, as there’s a lot of stylistic difference between say Tolkien’s elves in Mirkwood and the purely carnivorous wood elves from the Elder Scrolls games. The nation brief says that we are fierce and uncompromising to our enemies but friendly and welcoming to other citizens of the Empire (i.e. all the other players). So a lot of the fierce types you’ll see on the wiki don’t look that way all weekend, as battles only take up a few hours of Saturday and Sunday (plus skirmish quests for those so inclined). To be a recognisable part of Navarr just needs you wearing earthy natural tones (material and style matters less than the colours) and having a prominent tattoo marking the oath you took in joining the nation.
The Navarr camp features a dedicated market space now, where you can be sure to find a variety of crafts and crafters. Apothecaries, Physiks (both professions requiring the magical herbs) and characters with herb gardens as their personal resource might well be interested in discussing gardening in character. Songs and Stories will get you a music fix but there are often musical performances and competitions going on throughout all ten nations, same for art displays but there’s also loads on show just in the way that people decorate and personalise their little bot of the field. And asking about a Navarr’s home territory could perhaps give you a travel fix, as players often love to talk about their character’s background. From a different approach, the Empire is expanding eastwards and while we’re pretty sure every vallorn site/ruined Terunael city has been identified, the Empire only actually controls three and we don’t yet know an overland route to Cavan on the borders of Axos. At least not without (probably) starting another war. So that could even be a potential grand goal (Ambition is a virtue, after all) for your character if it interests you at all.
Miaren would be a great choice for a character with little experience or inclination to fight. It’s not that there are no violent threats in Miaren but with the vallorn there gone for centuries, those are generally limited to bandits and more recently the servants of Cold Sun.
There’s no difference in game rules between being in a steading or striding. If you were to join an existing group then that choice is made for you, though nothing stops an entire steading from upping sticks and hitting the trods, nor a striding from settling a bit of land en masse to form a steading. I can think of one group based in Liathaven that has switched from striding to steading to striding within a year or so due to circumstances. And all that’s taken for them to do it is that the players got together and agreed that’s how the characters’ story has gone.
That said, I personally suggest hailing from a steading (or to have just left one and be looking for a new place in the Great Dance) as the default for a new player coming in without a group; to me at least it makes more sense to have lived in a little place off the beaten path and know very little about the wider Empire, than to have been walking the trods and not picked up a little more about the world.
I don’t know details for research avenues myself but a good first port of call would be the Anvil Library and the scholars there. The head librarian may still be Navarri; there have been otherwordly threats to librarians, historians and the like of late and I wasn’t at every event last year.
There has been an effort to guard the new Grand Library from hostile Eternals recently but most of that action takes place in downtime between events and requires you to have a military unit as your character’s personal resource or else be a general with an off-screen army at your beck and call.
Turn-up-and-see is absolutely the best plan. Navarr is very welcoming as a nation and walking up to people and introducing yourself with an added, “It’s my first time at Anvil” will almost certainly get you a seat by the fire or advice on whatever it is you want to know. A lot of Navarr groups will make out-of-character offers to act as a base camp for new players or to make time to interact, if you introduce yourselves on the facebook group which is often busier than here on the forum. There is also an unofficial discord server for Empire but I can’tspeak to how much Navarr traffic it gets. At my first event, I asked someone for directions; the person didn’t have the answer but took me to see someone who could probably help and gave me a mini-tour of Anvil along the way. So go around -all of Anvil, not just the nation, if you feel up to it- and ask questions of nearby people when something of interest happens. Chances are decent that you’ll get roped into something before too long. And if that doesn’t happen there are the Egregore NPCs in the field whose key purpose is to help you find ways into the parts of Empire that interest you, and/or you can look to build character links with other players between events.
I’ve spent the day mulling things over and the character is becoming clearer in my head. I’m especially grateful as I’m not on FB (I’d rather take on vallorn than FB, haha).