Post by . s p o r e l e t t ♪ on Aug 9, 2009 18:10:32 GMT -6
OUT OF CHARACTER
1. One account per member. Although there are sites where each member needs to make a new account for each character they make, that is not required here, and in fact is not allowed at all. It's much easier to keep track of who is who if everyone has their own single account for all of their characters, so let's keep it that way.
2. This is very important; you must stay active. Don't join the site and then pop on once a month to maybe make a post. If you're going on a short vacation or some such thing, make sure you inform us so that we know where you are, because otherwise your inactivity will be treated as such, and your characters will be removed from their places in the Clans.
Should you come back after an unexplained period of inactivity, do not expect to have all of your characters handed back to you. It is possible that they have been adopted out, or that their places have been filled in your absence. Finally, any member who disappears off the face of the earth and isn't seen for months without explanation will have their account deleted.
3. Activity checks will be posted at random intervals to assess the activity of the site's members, and you must post in them if you don't want to lose your characters, unless you have previously stated that you would be absent. If you are generally inactive for long periods of time and fail to do any actual roleplaying, even if you are making activity checks, your characters will still be moved to the deleted cats board.
4. Be respectful and polite to the other members of the forum. Insulting another member, whether in posts, on the chat box, or in PMs, will not be tolerated and will result in a ban. Mild swearing is tolerated, as long as it is not aimed at another member, but do use your good judgment and try to keep the air clean.
5. Use common sense when concerning images that you post on the site. Whether it's in a signature or on a bio page, if the image is large and obnoxious or stretches the page, the staff will first ask you to shrink it or turn it into a link, then simply remove it if no action is taken. Any pornographic or offensive imagery will be immediately removed.
6. On a related note, don't post inappropriate or pornographic content on the site. Do not spam or blatantly advertise for another site or product. Such behaviour is rude, inconsiderate, and will result in a permanent ban.
IN CHARACTER
1. Your character must be accepted before you begin to roleplay them.
2. Do not control the actions of another person's character without their permission.
3. Roleplay realistically. Don't make your cat into a super strong and fast beast who could take down a whole family of foxes on their own. Don't give them knowledge to which they wouldn't ordinarily be privy; if something is a well-guarded secret, accept the fact that your character doesn't know about it, and blunder about accordingly.
4. Do not introduce major, site-changing plots (such as a deadly plague or pack of ravenous dogs) without the consent of an admin. Also, know that any secret relationships or other plots that involve going against the Warrior Code may very well be found out by Clanmates, and in such cases the cats involved may face banishment or even death as punishment, depending on the views of their Clan leader, regardless of what you want for your cat. You run the risk of severe penalty if you have your cat do sneaky, illegal actions, so think carefully before you break the Code.
5. Do not use an excess of NPCs. You should not be introducing a horde of rogues, a long-lost relative, a fox and a pack of rabid squirrels in every thread you participate in. Theoretically you control your accepted cats only; controlling numerous NPCs strays into staff territory, and you do not want to do that. Similarly, you should not have your cats get injured every five seconds, because if everyone did that the whole Clan would be out of action and the medicine cat den would be bursting.
6. Be courteous when joining another person's thread. If it doesn't specifically say that it's open, or if two people already have an established thread going on, don't burst in without asking first.
7. Keep a reasonable posting order when in a thread with more than one other person. If one member of a thread becomes inactive, it is acceptable to skip over them, but just because two members of a thread happen to be online at the same time, that doesn't make it okay to totally blow past the third person and make a whole bunch of posts without them. They will be pissed when they come back and discover that they've been left in the dust, and the staff will be upset on their behalf.
8. There is no word minimum or maximum, but keep in mind that this is a literate site, and reasonable posts are expected. Don't post three sentences and call it done; no one is going to want to respond to something they can barely see. On a related note, don't post an entire essay and force your poor thread partner to read it all. We all understand that sometimes you just have a lot of muse, or none at all, but if your posts are really big or small all the time, then expect a talk from the admin.
9. Proper grammar and spelling are a must. We are on the internet; you have access to web dictionaries and spell-checkers. You also, hopefully, are able to use your own brain, and should be able to tell when a sentence is confusing to read or just doesn't make sense. So, please, read over your posts before you press the "Post Message" button.
On a related note, don't use chatspeak when you're making an in-character post or character bio. If you are so hard-pressed for time that you can't even squeeze in a few extra letters, chances are you shouldn't be roleplaying in the first place. Keep in-character when your cats are speaking and don't use terminology that they wouldn't know. And do not use "wolfspeak" in your posts or... anywhere, really. Just use real words that everybody knows.
10. Please post in past tense, third person. Make sure to mention somewhere in every post who you are posting with, because otherwise no one will know who they're roleplaying with.
11. Liquid time is allowed. This means you are allowed to post with one character in more than one thread at a time, and when starting threads, the exact day or time of day is more flexible. Simply make sure to keep track of all of your threads and stay active in all of them.
12. No graphic breeding or birthing. Everyone likes some romance and detail in their posts, but for all of our sakes, don't into the gory details regarding carnal acts. Descriptions of gore are acceptable if you want to make a battle particularly bloody, but be reasonable with your words so your readers don't want to puke.
CHARACTERS
1. Please use the provided outlines when making a character. Follow the length guidelines and make sure you specify in your thread title if you have posted a bio that isn't done. If a character's biography is left sitting, unfinished, for a period of three weeks, then it will be removed.
2. Each member may own up to five cats in each Clan. Guidelines for which kinds of cats are acceptable for creation are listed in the Clan Allegiances, at the top of every list. For high-ranking cats such as leaders, deputies, medicine cats and their apprentices, there is a limit of two per person. No one may own two high-ranking cats in the same Clan, nor may they own two leaders or a leader and a deputy.
3. Sues and Stus of any kind are not accepted here. If your character is a beautiful, perfect cat who is sweet and kind and good at everything, nobody wants to see them here. Likewise, any tortured, depressed cats who never have anything go right for them and hate everybody deserve whatever horrors they suffered in the first place, and will not be accepted under any circumstances.
4. If your cat has a serious disability such as complete blindness, a missing limb, or complete deafness, they will not be allowed to train as an apprentice or become a warrior. Creating such a character except as an elder or medicine cat is forbidden. In the case of a kit born with a serious disability, they will either move to the elder's den or remain in the nursery after their sixth moon, but they will not become a warrior except in very rare and special cases.
5. Do not make any cats with strange markings or unrealistic fur or eye colours. This RP was started so that its members could roleplay with feral cats, which is what Warriors are. That being said, we will not accept openly-stated pedigree cats or those with extremely rare or impossible genetics. Tortoiseshell toms are not allowed, and solidly-dark cats with blue eyes are frowned upon. If you can't find something approximating your cat's appearance in a non-photoshopped picture, then chances are it won't be accepted here.
6. This shouldn't need to be said... but keep your cat's history realistic. We can't have multiple cats in each Clan that came from being kittypets or loners. One or two in each Clan is fine, but when it comes to be more than that, it's unrealistic. It makes you wonder: if all of these cats came from outside the Clan, where were the Clan cats in the first place? I've also noticed that most of the biographies for these cats are the same. "So-and-so was found outside xClan's camp, less than a moon old and barely alive, and was nursed back to health by the medicine cat. They then became a Clan cat." Honestly, they're boring and not that creative. So please, only have a non-Clanborn cat if you must.
7. Plot characters and high-ranked characters are a privilege, not a right. All bios for such characters must be accompanied by a roleplying example from that character's point of view. Medicine cats are not obliged to take an apprentice if they do not want to, and no admin will accept a medicine cat apprentice's profile if they don't have the medicine cat's permission. Special characters will be awarded according to activity, literacy, and creativity, and it is the staff's right to deny any profile that they do not find suitable for an important role.
8. Please either list your characters names and ranks in your signature, or post a link to a list so that it is easy to determine the number of cats you own at any one point. This makes things much easier on the admins when it comes to accepting character bios and keeping track of who has how many characters.
NAMING
Here at Now Is Forever, we believe in traditional names. That means we believe in naming according to the guidelines that Erin layed out when she created the series, but with a little bit more common sense mixed in. We will not be accepting any Gloryspirits or Bloodfuries, and advise you to go elsewhere if you consider either to be acceptable names. This is assuming you know how Warriors naming works. If you don't, please direct any questions to the admins, who will be happy to explain it to you.
I. We will start with the prefix. The first part of a cat's name is given to them when they are a tiny kit, before their personality traits have emerged, before their eyes have even opened. As such, all prefixes must be based on a physical aspect of the kit's build or fur, such Redkit for a ginger kit, or Littlekit for the runt of the litter. Be creative and intelligent with your naming, and you will find that there are many more possibilities within this realm than you would think.
II. The second part of the name can relate to a warrior's physical appearance, strong skills, or personality traits. Let's take the name Rainpaw, for instance. He might be a good fighter or hunter, in which case we could name him Rainclaw or Rainfang. If he is a mellow sort of cat, he could be named Raincloud or Rainpool. Or, if you want to keep it simple, you could just name him Rainfur for his grey pelt.
Now that we've gone over the basics of naming, here are a few tips on what not to do in a name.
It's obvious that no feral cat is going to have human terms in their name. It's so simple you'd think it wouldn't need to be said; don't make any Bellpaws or Spatulakits and we'll be okay. However, there are words that sneak their way into Warrior names without people realizing it. 'Mask' is a verb that means 'to cover up,' but used as a noun, it is a human object that is made to cover the face. The pattern on a cat's fur is named after this object; a cat with the name of Blackmask might be better named as Blackface.
In addition, try to make sure that your cat is named after something that it would be able to identify if it came across it. Warriors live in a northern forest, not a tropical jungle; naming them after foreign animals, with the exception of the three great Clans, is strictly prohibited. Some people try to sneak rare stones, such as diamonds or sapphires, into names because they 'come from nature.' The whole point of a rare stone is that it is rare, and very difficult to obtain. Cats won't find them lying around, and will not know what they are.
Do not use a compound word as a prefix. Warrior names are already two-part words, and sound messy when combined with another word. Warrior seasons, such as greenleaf, are not to be used in names, because they are all compound words. Warriors are not familiar with the human terms for the seasons, so Summerkit is out too.
"Evil" or "emo" names will not be accepted under any circumstances. There should be no "Twistedsoul" or "Brokenheart" cats. Warrior names are about honor and respect; no mother would purposefully give her kit a bad name, and no leader would inflict such a disgrace on one of their warriors. Those who would object will leap to point out Brokenkit's and Lostface's names, but such cases were very extreme, and the names were given when the cats in question were not in their right minds. There are exceptions to every rule, of course; there are rare cases when similar names might be acceptable, but do not create a cat with this kind of name on a whim.
Emotions are not acceptable as kit names; a kit is born without a defined personality, and there is every chance that Quietkit will grow up to be as hot-headed and loud as a rowdy apprentice. Likewise, naming for physical traits that do not exist yet, such as Fleetkit, are also not acceptable because there is every chance that such a kit will grow up to be rather heavy on their paws, with an awkward gait and an even more awkward name.
LIFE CYCLES
1. As previously stated, liquid time is accepted on this site, so there is no set day or time during which RPing occurs. The season and general time of the year is the same for every cat, but within that frame, a vague progression is in place as roleplaying occurs. Every Gathering that is held will mark the progression of one moon; you will be required to adjust your cats ages accordingly at such a time and make a post stating that you did so in the corresponding thread.[/justify]
2. Before a cat can have kits, roleplayers must make a formal request to the Clan admin and have it accepted. The birth of kits will occur two in-character moons after mating, and kits will be playable after another moon, at which time their vision is still blurry and their gait unsteady. At two moons of age, kits are weaned off of milk and their eyes have changed from blue to their adult color. They continue to grow and learn to use their own bodies better for the next four moons.
3. At six moons, a healthy, mature kit is made into an apprentice. Kits may have their apprenticeship delayed by a moon or more if they are weak or sick. Apprentices are still growing, although not as rapidly as they were as a kit. They can expect to be made a warrior anywhere from ten to fourteen moons of age, but twelve moons is the usual age at which an apprentice earns their full name.
4. Usually once an apprentice earns their warrior name, they have reached or at least neared their full adult size. Young warriors may continue to grow slowly until they reach 18 moons of age, when they will be fully grown. Young warriors have few responsibilities other than to go on patrols, but they are the source of the bulk of the Clan's kits. Usually a warrior will not be chosen for mentoring until they have reached two years of age, at which time a leader may consider them for the task of teaching the next generation. Warriors three years of age or older are considered senior warriors, and will be relied upon to lead patrols, mentor apprentices, and give advice to the leader. A warrior who escapes injury or disease can expect to serve in this manner for years before retiring to join the elders.
5. Assuming a cat lives to become old enough, a warrior will usually join the elders at around seven or eight years of age. Signs of age usually start making themselves apparent on a cat's physique at this time, manifested in a stiffening of the limbs or a simple decrease in energy. Elders are treated with honor and respect in the Clan because they have served it for their whole life. They are fed before the warriors and apprentices, and have no duties, although some elders may continue to carry out minor tasks for their Clan in their old age.