Post by Keeper on Aug 26, 2020 19:07:54 GMT
You can read all the rules at once, but you don't need to. Please at least read the essentials before joining. You can read the rest as it becomes relevant to you, i.e no need to read roleplay rules until you begin roleplaying. If you want to search for a specific guideline, press CTRL and F and type in what you want to search for.
ESSENTIAL RULES
1. We do not tolerate any sort of prejudice (even expressed in opinion or jokes) against race, religion, or the LGBTQ community. While people are entitled to their opinions, they won't be allowed to share them here, as it impedes on our wish to maintain a safe space.
a. LGBTQ+ characters are of course allowed, but in our roleplay we will be having the clans accept love is love and therefore care not for same sex couples or cats with decisions to change their identity. In other words, homophobic characters are not permitted, nor is centering the LGBTQIA's arc around their identity struggles. In BT, cats are just vibin' as cats, and don't give a heck about sexuality, as it should be in real life.
2. Staff reserve the right to ban you if you lack the maturity needed to function in a group. This includes but is not limited to: being needlessly rude, inability to follow simple rules, refusal to learn lore, refusal to drop a problem after being asked to do so, taking roleplay out of character, anything that disrupts the peaceful flow of our group is worth a ban because staff here aren't paid to do what they do, and so I will not require them to put up with you.
3. Please follow our lore. You do not need to learn, memorize, and master it, but please be prepared to adjust some things to follow our creative vision here. Lore is listed in the wiki board and linked in the discord. Absolutely no one will jump down your throat for getting something wrong, but if someone nudges ya in the right direction, it is expected to adjust accordingly!
4. if you do not claim a role and go quiet, it is likely you'll be kicked within a month. If you go on hiatus but do not inform us, you may be kicked during an activity check.
5. Used lineart and photography shall be credited and sourced. A source to an image is sourcing the original site, pet owner, or photographer. It is not just a link to a pinterest post. If you have an issue with sourcing lineart and photography, please take your business elsewhere! You can find a source often by right clicking the image and clicking "search google for this image." Usable, source-able photography is posted under our catspiration channel. Always feel free to DM Shalestar/Leda on help with sourcing.
a. Tracing and art theft is worth a three month ban.
6. We prohibit NSFW content and discussion, we do not allow sexually charged conversation, and we will ban people who roleplay sexual intercourse even if in private. There is no way of confirming that the person you're roleplaying with is a consenting adult, and it's not what we're here for, so Blackthorn staff will not condone it. Minors are allowed to participate in Blackthorn, so please act like it. Drug and alcohol discussion may take place in the vent channel with appropriate spoilers.
a. Please add a warning and a spoiler before posting any of the following, blacklisted subjects/material: drugs and alcohol, body horror, flashing imagery, creepy/unsettling imagery, real life events, world or environment crisis, blood or gore, and mentions of familial or pet death.
7. You must have a forum account here and a discord account in order to participate in the roleplay. There is no application process currently, so sign up and hop in whenever.
8. Characters should be logged and approved before RPing. This is done in the Character-logs channel, and the approval is simple; a staff will react to it with a check mark if all is looking well. The only reason it may not be approved is if the character is too unrealistic, the face-claim is not sourced properly, they have a genetic rarity we currently have a capacity on, or their name is taken (see: blackthorn.freeforums.net/thread/17/bans-encouragements) It is also preferred you make at least a short bio before RPing them. All characters should be logged, even your first; however, your first does NOT need to be purchased, even IF they have genetic rarities we normally require the purchase of. All characters beyond your first character will need to also be purchased from the shop here on our site, and then logged alongside this. Always feel free to ask questions on our character system, as it's different, and we expect there to be confusion.
CHARACTER GUIDELINES & REALISM
1. Characters must be mostly realistic in appearance and have the mortal capabilities of any ol' cat. No immortal cats who can break their backs and then survive perfectly fine. No powers, no ninja flips in battle. Remember that you'll need a vet visit token from the shop for surviving serious injury, as injury will be treated realistically here. Additionally, if your character's pelt colors can't be seen on a normal kitty, they probably aren't allowed. We do, however, allow any eye color for the sake of creativity.
a. Backstories should be realistic as well; backstories should be plausible and fit in with our lore. You can always double check with staff if a backstory is okay. We do not permit tribe-based backstories, because the Erins created warriors tribes by ripping from tribal culture without actually crediting it, and we just think that's yucky.
2. Your first character can, within reason and as long as it isn't currently being overdone, be any sort of cat. Male tortie, purebred, that sort of thing. However, any cat past your first cat must use tokens purchasable from the shop. Please familiarize yourself with what can only be purchased from the shop so that we don't run into any hiccups, as it is against the rules to create a character using tokens you haven't purchased.
3. Characters require the purchase of an additional character token (excluding first characters), and for you to log them on the discord channel labeled "character logs" under the Submissions category. We realize this is a bit of a process, but hear us out: it helps staff see what tokens are in use. After you've done a character log, you can roleplay them anytime, post a proper bio, etc; staff will let you know if anything is wrong with your new character, but always remember to log them and note any tokens you are applying to them.
a. you can purchase unlimited characters potentially, so long as you have earned the token slots and filed the log in the discord, but no more than two of your characters can be related to avoid them being used for attention seeking.
4. While characters can have their own drama and hardships in love, please be sure to avoid having a mate or having consistent attention be your primary focus for them, particularly to an extent that disrupts normal roleplay. (i.e it's fine to suffer and RP out heart break but avoid disrupting every single roleplay session to have your character wallow about it.)
5. Never bring roleplay sessions out of character! Someone's character might be an absolute jerk, but that is not a reflection of the roleplayer behind it.
6. We practice fluid time here, meaning you can generally age your character as you please, but the easiest means of aging is to just age up a moon each gathering.
7. Characters must pertain to their clan's specific lore and appearances. WillowClan is a clan of wise, well-maintained, small cats. BoarClan is a clan of brash, wild-looking, hulking cats. When you stray outside of clan norms, it makes the lore and norms we wrote for both clans meaningless; you should only have one non-clan-conforming character, generally.
a. cats can of course have diverse personalities but we at least would like you to maintain the size and appearance in accordance with either clan.
8. Play a jerk or reckless character if you wish, but know that they will face natural consequence and will not be absolved of the consequences from their poor actions. Other roleplayers have the right to react realistically. This also pertains to having your character get morbidly injured; without a vet visit token, staff will request you be realistic and let them die.
9. We are currently not allowing characters who have ties or links to StarClan or the Dark Forest as our RP doesn't YET have spirit involvement. This may change later, if it does it will be applied for.
10. Please ask a staff before having your character undergo a plot or change that could affect the plot/clan as a whole, or how their entire clan views them.
11. Names must be from North America. We are far more loose here since we use a new naming system involving StarClan giving omens to queens to help name them, so there is more possibility for unique names. But Blackthorn itself is based on North American surroundings.
DISCORD ROLEPLAYING RULES
1. Unless discussed with staff or relevant to the plot, keep to your own clan's camp and territory channels.
2. We allow private, one on one RPs to take place in the channels. Be sure to specify at the beginning of the RP if the session is private. You will receive more mousetails for inclusive sessions.
a. Always ask or double check at the beginning of a session if it's private. You can @ and ask in the partner seeking channel, or DM the users.
3. Try to establish an order of posting and follow it, so that all users get equal opportunity to post. Avoid posting until all participants of the session have posted. It helps to start an RP session off with a list of it's participants and a post order before posting, or after all the participants have posted for the first time, follow that same order.
4. Do not initiate vastly plot changing circumstances without staff permission or involvement. Some things like predatory attacks may be initiated without permission, if the roleplay party all agrees to it.
5. When all parties agree a session is finished, please write something along the lines of "RP SESSION COMPLETE. ROOM OPEN" so others know it's fine to start a new session there.
6. Make sure to ask before joining into a roleplay. Some may want a private session.
a. If all discord rooms are taken up, feel free to DM or @ an admin; we're happy to create another channel temporarily to RP in. Each territory or camp has two extra channels you can use as well. Just make sure to note where exactly you're roleplaying since the channels are extras and do not specify exact locations.
7. Roleplay sessions not replied to in two weeks/fourteen days shall be auto-closed without warning by staff. By no means to be rude, we just want to keep things flowing, and fourteen days should be plenty of time to spend five minutes on a reply.
8. If you are using the option form pinned under RP-partner-seeking, please be honest about your reply window and keep to it. Otherwise, communicate with your partner if you can no longer meet it.
LONERS & KITTYPETS
1. You must have three characters before making a loner/kp. You must double check the bans and encouragements area to make sure they aren't presently banned. You will be asked to delete them if you make one when they're banned. Loners and kittypets still require a character slot token.
2. You can have one loner for every three characters. You may be permitted to have another loner without six or nine characters, if there are not too many already and you ask staff.
3. Your clan cat may naturally become a loner. This will still take up a loner slot and require three clan cats.
4. Any other loners or kittypets can temporarily be a loner or kittypet but must ultimately join a clan. As in temporary loners/KPs are fine regardless of character amount, as it simply pertains to character backstory.
5. If you are roleplaying primarily on your loner or kittypet, you will be asked to remove them, as this roleplay is clan focused.
6. Before using your loner to terrorize or cause drama, please ask permission.
QUEENS AND KITTENS
1. Your she cat may become a queen at anytime but please remember to log her litter. Info on this is included in the litter logs channel.
2. Litters may not exceed four kittens (three if conceived in Leafbare); these are cats with no access to good diet or care, they won't have healthy litters. Whether kittens died early on were stillborn is up to you. You may purchase a Lucky Litter token from the shop for a litter of up to 7 kittens.
3. KITS. MUST. ACT. LIKE. KITS. No kits who can fight, no overly wise kits who know everything, no kits who can speak to StarClan, kittens should behave like an average child.
4. Please run it by staff before having a kitten sneak out of camp.
5. You may age kittens as you please, but please have them be under 6 moons for at least ten days. Queens must be pregnant for ten days (or more) as well.
6. When designing a litter, kits may not have genetic rarities unless you've purchased the genetic rarity token desired to gift to your kit roleplayer, or they have it for themselves. Rarities kits are born with must be within reasonable genetics from either parent.
a. whether you require people applying for your kits to already have the use-able character slot, or you just buy it to gift to them, is up to you.
7. Litters must take after the parental pair and be genetically possible; we don't require specific genetics to be followed, but if both parents are plain black shorthairs, then don't have their kits be fluffy brown orientals.
8. You may play a kit with an NPC foster parent, but must ask staff first, in case there is currently an influx of kittens.
BATTLE, INJURY, AND BLOODSHED
2. That said, don't take advantage of it and dodge everything, especially if your character is heavy and not exactly agile. A general rule of thumb is large cats can dodge 3 hits, and agile little cats can dodge 6, depending on the length of the battle.
3. If a fight occurs, please @ a moderator so that they can serve as a referee of sorts, noting who is more injured or winning, and the realism of injuries. They will only interject if battle rules are not being obeyed or injuries are becoming too severe for the fight to continue in any other way besides a death or vet visit token.
4. If your character picks fights, remember our consequence rule; your character will face natural warrior code consequence if they attack or kill another cat.
5. Injuries or ailments will require you to see a medicine cat for a healing session. As we use fluid time here, a wait time is not required, but please still seek a medicine cat.
6. Severe injuries that can pretty much only result in death may be cured by using a vet appointment token from the shop. This entails your character is dragged off to a human place, where they're brought to an emergency vet and rescued. A time skip does occur if this happens. This is relevant to broken backs, cut throats, or loss of limbs. You should use this wisely, as each user can only buy up to two vet appointments, and remember that BoarClan prohibits and will exile over their clan mates succumbing to or interacting with two legs, if found out.
THE MARKET AND MOUSETAILS
2. You can gift your friends items, but we ask you not do this often, as it defeats the purpose of encouraging users to earn things on their own.
3. When you are using a token, you must log it in the channel of the discord labeled 'characters-tokens-logs.' There is a form in the pins that's quite easy to fill out. This helps staff know when to remove something from your inventory. Failure to do so will be seen as cheating, and three flags of cheating merits at least a kick.