Choosing your class
You may hear a lot that "Race A" is only good for "Class A" and "Race B" is only good for "Class B." That's all a load of B.S. All races have different strengths, and there's different ways to play each class. You should pick your race and class to fit YOUR playing style. For example, some people laugh at people that have dwarf diviners, but infact the added constitution can be very helpful for a mage, and the starting strength doesn't hurt at all when you're working. Each race has starting stats that they major in, that's all, they all tend to grow randomly afterwards with their random stats. There's no more chance of a dwarf getting random constitution or strength points than there is for an elf.
I recommend that you plan ahead and pick out your class. Then you decide how you want your stats to look in the future. Then, basing your pick on that, your race choice will come easily. For example, say I was going to choose a priest. So with a priest, you've got some choices. The early con of the dwarf will be great for you later on, but so will the intelligence of the elf for your MP. For most of my diviner classes I prefer having about 30 con added to them before level 10, then pumping dex and int. This means if I picked the dwarf, my con would already be at a head start and I would be able to pump other things along with it. Or I could pick the elf and have the mp already there and pump more con. Or I could pick human and have it all evened out. Each race is equal. There's no better race for any given class. Heck if you wanted to, picking the race just on looks isn't even a bad plan.
Starting the game out.
There are three different apprenticeships to choose from: Warrior, Diviner, and Journeyman. If you want to be any of the warrior classes, then immediately pick the warrior apprenticeship upon leaving the villege center. If you're going to pick any of the journeyman classes, then immediately pick the journeyman apprenticeship. Both of those apprenticeships have worth while skills to use and level up while training to level 10. However, if you plan on being a diviner, I recommend you choose the warrior apprenticeship until level 10. Reasons being that the diviner apprenticeship comes with no useful abilities (other than wood strike) and no skills to level. Choosing instead the warrior apprenticeship will allow you to use weapons and armor and make your training to level 10 much quicker. Then you can drop the warrior apprenticeship, pick up the diviner.
The class you want to be should also be picked according to your playing style. If you're just starting the game out and want a quick view of the game, and just a character to check things out, go for either mage or blademan. These two classes can attack multiple targets at a time, which makes soloing easier. So in turn they allow you to travel around and see the game more. This will let you see how the game works and let you get a feel for how you would like to play, then you can either continue with those classes, or start a new character and specialize it in the direction you'd like. Each class has it's own feel and playing style. You can look at each of the guides for a short description of each of the classes.
Pets
A major discussion about the game lies around this focal point. "How many pets should I have," "What pets should I have," "Why is my MP dropping." Well for the most part, each class has it's own different guidelines for the number and type of pets, and those will be explained in the guide areas. As for the other more trivial questions, those will be in the F.A.Q section. Here, I'd like to discuss the starting pet. There are several pets you can get (completely random) from the beginning quest. These pets are mud slime, red beetle, metal slug, wood rat, and water spider. All of these, with exceptions to the water spider, are useful pets early on. The metal slug has a high str/con growth, so it makes a great combat pet. The red beetle has a str/dex growth, which makes it not only a good combat pet, but a great weapon enhancer. Mud slime grows mainly con/luck, which means that this little puppy can be great for light armor enhancement. And wood rat, this is only a mildly good combat pet, with it's growth in con and int, it falls pretty short of greatness. But it can learn some good spells later on in the game if you want to stick with it, and that intelligence will help those spells deal more damage. Now you may want one of these pets more than another. My advice here is to keep deleting and restarting your character until you get the one you want. That way you're not stuck with a pet you don't want for who knows how long till you can get another one. This is especially for those of you who are starting your first character, or your other characters don't have a lot of money to be throwing around.
Now for you enhancement slots and what pet stats help them.
Magic Enhancement - For magic enhancement, the only stat that helps it is intelligence. The higher the pets intelligence is that is enhancing your magic, the better the effect. Having such a pet will increase spell potency and physical spells damage.
Armor Enhancement - For this there are two stats that are useful, luck and constitution. Constitution when in the armor slot will increase your defense. Luck in the armor will increase AC, which will in turn increase your ability to dodge.
Weapon Enhancement - Again there are two stats that have use here, strength and dexterity. Strength will increase the attack power of melee attacks when in the weapon slot. Dexterity will increase the hit rate of physical attacks.
Soul Enhancement - Constitution placed in the soul slot will increase your HP regeneration, and Intelligence placed in the soul slot will do the same for your mp. But soul is a different type of enhancement. When you place a pet here, it can only stay there for approximately 6 minutes (real time). Once the time is up, the pet will return to normal mode and you won't be able to apply another pet to soul for another half an hour (real time). This means that buying a pet solely for the purpost of using it for soul is not the most economical choice.
TEMPLES
Temples are asked about a lot. There are 3 main things you can do at a temple.
1. As a diviner class character, you can go there to learn new spells when your spell level is high enough.
2. You can take pets there to learn the spells they can, if they can learn them, and if their level is high enough.
3. You can get divine quests there to earn faith points in that temple.
1 and 2 are pretty self explanatory, 1 will be covered a little better in the individual diviner sections. 3 on the other hand may need a bit of explaining. You can get a diviner quest at any of the 7 temples in the game. The quest you get there are randomly chosen between a few different things. Upon completing that quest you are awarded faith points in that temple. You may have faith points in multiple temples, but only the temple in which you have the highest faith counts. So now on to what those faith points actually do.
Warrior and Journeyman Classes - The only thing it does for these classes is add the attack and defense element of the temple. That means that if you have the highest faith in wood, then your attack and defense element will both be wood. If you however put a pet on your armor, the pets element takes over and would no longer be the wood from the temple. But it will return to wood when the pet is removed.
Diviner Classes - The same thing is true for diviners as with the other classes, it'll change your attack and defense, however there's also a little added bonus. The amount of points you have in a certain temple effects how effective that elements spells are to you, this is especially effective for mages. For AoDs the only temple that affects it is the Temple of Darkness, and for AoLs the only temple is Temple of Light. But for priests and mages you can go to any temple. The higher the number of faith points you have, the more effective that elemenst spells will be. For example, with a mage, you are pretty reliant on flame spells. So if you go into the flame temple and get several devine quests and raise your faith there, your fire spells will soon become more powerfull and do more damage.