I usually avoid recommending my own mud. Since it's a bit of a fringe case. But it might be worth checking out for you.
(I'm happier to recommend it now that I've handed over the lead position. So I guess I'm recommending someone else's mud)
It might be worth checking out Ironclaw Online -
Please forgive the dated looking introductory webpages.
It IS pay-to-play, but you get a free month trial play. Plans are also underfoot (and hopefully will be completed before a month is past) to make it free to play indefinitely.
It also is an anthropomorphic game. The characters are all walking, talking, clothes-wearing animals. That said, the playerbase isn't made up of "furries" - they welcome a few amongst them, but the vast majority wouldn't consider themselves to be "furries".
It's also a very different game engine, you won't necessarily be able to use the same commands you are used to from other games. That's both good and bad, bad because you have to learn the system, good because the game mechanics are built up specifically to support the game, rather than put in place because "that's how it's done" - which means every command has had thought put into it.
Heh. So I've just made a huge explanation of excuses and hedging. See why I don't usually recommend it? I suck at this whole promotion thing
On to your specific points!
The focus is very much on RP and "telling stories"
The game has political factions, including rival noble houses, the church, and the city law enforcement. Players can also create their own factions. When I say "factions" or "guilds" I mean roleplayed organizations, not an NPC that sets a flag on your character that gives specific skills.
Then there are plotter staff specifically there to support player stories about these factions. For example, one of the player-leaders of a noble house has decided to bring military forces into the city - which is basically an act of war. The staff are getting their ducks in a row to support that and run it as a game-changing storyline. Instigated by a player. I think that's awesome, he's roleplaying, and it changes the outcome of the game.
Staff genuinely don't know what's going to happen - he may decide to back off from bringing military into the city, other nobles might bring their own military in to oppose him, they might all talk it over while having coffee. It'll be up to their roleplay to see what happens.
That's pretty spot-on for how we handle it. We have player-vs-player combat, and that can lead to death - but the church has magic to bring people back from the dead.
There are cases that result in permanent death (if you are excommunicated from the church they won't resurrect you, for example. A criminal executed won't be brought back. If your body is never found, or if it's too tainted with black magic... and so on)
In a standard combat, you can choose "when to stop fighting" and if you stop fighting, that means you roleplay loosing the fight - but you don't die. If your opponent chooses to kill your character, the system explicitly asks for your permission.
If you decide to "fight to the end" then your character might die in the combat without giving permission (but it explicitly warns you that you're giving permission by continuing to fight past that point)
Staff also enforce that characters can be killed if they bring the action upon themselves through actions that could reasonably lead to their character being killed.
If you mess with the local mafia boss, the boss warns you to back off, and you mess with him again, then staff will enforce that, if the boss wants to send assassins after you, those assassins might be successful. You can't just say "Nope, I don't want my character to die" - since you clearly brought that outcome on yourself. (And it would have to be more than the mafia boss doing it on a whim or just because you had one argument) - that's just a random example, but the point is "you can die if you bring it upon yourself, but there are always clear ways to avoid the outcome"
Log on, log off, whenever you want.
Obviously, you have advantages to playing more regularly - more time online gives more chance to learn skills, more chance to roleplay with other characters and make allies, more chance to get involved in plots.
But if you don't play, your character won't loose anything they currently have. Won't get exiled, imprisoned, or anything of the sort. Their items won't vanish. Their money won't be spent. So when you return you'll have a similar level of resources to when you left.
There are, of course, individual exceptions. One halloween there were spiders wandering the game that could be caught and kept as pets. About eight months later there was a plot where those spiders died from a disease (and anyone foolish enough to poke, hug, kiss etc. the dead spiders caught the disease) - so in a case like that, your spider would be dead whether you were playing the game or not. But that's more because it was a "time-limited item" and not because of any penalty for not playing.
I'd find it absolutely unacceptable to be overtly unfriendly due to sexuality/race/gender.
Most of the playerbase would share my opinion. All of the staff do.
We have a player who is quite open about transitioning to another gender, and I'm not aware of her ever having issues from other players.
This is one of the big advantages of having a paid game. Players tend to be more mature about issues like this, since they have something more tangible to loose, and they've invested money into the game. It doesn't apply to every player (and there are some very mature playerbases on some free games) but it does seem to be one of the contributing factors to a mature playerbase.
That said, the game-world IS full of harsh injustice. It has slavery, duels to the death, a feudal society... and discrimination against homosexuality. The church is a strong influence in the world, and the church is a proponent of the family structure. This is very much an IN CHARACTER thing, and while setting that up, staff were VERY careful to make it not discriminate against any homosexual PLAYERS, and in fact they were careful not to stop homosexual CHARACTERS from roleplaying that. (And many characters in the game, of both gender, are homosexual) - what it requires is that the homosexual characters, as part of their roleplay, keep things "behind closed doors" and don't do something like publicly introduce their same-sex partner and tell people that they are lovers. They can still hint, and make it clear, but they need to leave the church enough leeway that they can look the other way.