Post by Aquillaflyer on Dec 31, 2020 21:12:02 GMT -6
I do apologize for the length of this thread, I just figured it would be useful to chuck it all in one spot rather than spread this info across multiple threads.
Welcome to Breaking Day! I'm gonna assume you either saw us recruiting in game, or were introduced by a friend. Or maybe, I even asked you if you wanted to join, myself. Either way, you're interested enough to check out our site. So congratulations!
We are literate, (although we allow semi-literate people if they're willing to learn), semi-realistic (as in, our characters are pretty realistic in behavior, abilities and coloration), very character-driven, plotted, and require a minimum age of 13 to join. We only have a few tags, none of which apply to living characters. Based on the events of SCP-001: When Day Breaks by S.D. Locke, we do deviate a little bit from the original story and hope to create an immersive experience for all who end up here. We have multiple factions, many of which have high-rank spots that need filling. If that's not your thing, you can make your own! You can have up to five living characters at a time, but this may change to allow more.
Since most of our characters are animals of some sort, we deviate from strict realism by allowing things like human-level intelligence, the crafting and wearing of naturalistic items like crude armor and such (assuming your character has hands or the level of dexterity required to make these things), and many similar quirks. You know, the sort of stuff allowed by many animal roleplays you've probably come across. Despite this, our characters cannot use magic, nor do they have any sort of magical powers, abilities or anything of the sort. When it comes to the metaphysical, aside from maybe being able to interact with local spirits, our characters are completely mundane. It doesn't mean that they can't or won't do rituals and other things they associate with magic if they have the materials or know how to conduct them, it just means that the rituals involved have more to do with a character's beliefs than them actually working.
Our main hub is on discord, but if you don't have an account, feel free to look for us on FeralHeart Unleashed (known colloquially as FHU) or on this forum!
Much of what happens in the RP is determined by what happens to and between the characters, and the actions they take. So instead of having a chill, cardboard cutout wolf pack or lion pride RP, your character can go absolutely buck wild and end up changing the course of the story. Bear in mind, they have to do some pretty drastic stuff in order to do this, and I can tell when you're trying to get your character to the top of the attention hierarchy vs actually trying to contribute to the plot.
We only accept people who are at least 13 or older due to the many dark and more adult themes in this RP. Breaking Day is not a cake walk - we deal with heavy topics on the daily. Things like death, injury and forced captivity are among the most common, but things like mental illness and torture are also frequently employed. Although, we do make sure to keep the darkest of topics between players who are OK with them. If you're one of those people who needs a trigger warning on everything, stay at least ten feet way from this RP at all times, because you will be offended if you don't.
Recruiting, at least at first, is going to go rather slowly until we can establish a playerbase of people who don't suck. The first people I'll be dragging in will be friends of mine, and friends of my friends if they're interested. I'll be watching the behavior of everyone pretty closely, especially before we've got a definite behavior standard. Well, we've got one outlined in the rules, but I need to make sure people are willing to comply with them before I start letting people off the hook for breaking or bending them. Basically, we won't be sending out movie spam on FH until we can make sure the players we get at first are willing to play nice.
Be warned! In the first few phases in the RP, I will probably be far more assertive with the rules and how I treat my players for breaking them. It's gonna be my way of weeding out the people who could help to bring the RP to a crashing halt with their drama. I can be relatively lenient when it comes to character creation, but I will not hesitate to step up when you're breaking more serious rules (like the ones on godmodding, metagaming and being snotty to other players). So, before you get the idea to, don't test me. Just don't. I might ban your ass, and it might be permanent.
The main language used in the RP is english, so you'll need a good grasp on it. It doesn't have to be your first language, and you don't have to be perfect at it, but you need to be able to be understood about 90% of the time or more. We do not require a roleplay sample in all cases, but if I'm suspicious of your literacy, I will ask for one.
Next part of this is the rules! I expect you to follow them. I don't mind being asked questions and the like on the rules and why they are the way that I've made them, but don't debate me about the rules expecting me to change them. Because I probably won't. I'm sorry about the length of rules and how much there are, but I wanted to close any loopholes before someone even had the chance to find them. And trust me, if someone does find the loopholes, I will swoop in and close them.
I also apologize for the snarky tone I might take with some of the rules. I didn't intend to sound rude, but I guess I went further off than I thought I did when writing them. Think I'm still gonna keep them since they do really drive the point home.
Bullying is an obvious no. I can see why you might have a problem with another player, but insulting them or bringing up things that have no bearing on the topic at hand is just a no-go. Try to avoid it whenever you can. Harassment, threats, and other things of the sort are another obvious no, and if you find yourself feeling bullied, harassed, or otherwise tormented by another group member, report it to me or someone else who would help you take action. No, being a dickhead back to said person is not what I meant by "taking action".
I get taking the RP seriously, but don't bring IC happenings out of the RP and turn them into OOC drama. Characters don't like each other. Characters do stuff that you might not like. That does not mean that you need to bring it up to start an argument. I don't care if someone's character doesn't like you, and I don't care what they did. That doesn't mean the player doesn't like you. Hell, they probably do like you at least a little bit, so don't go off hating them or shit-talking them or whatever the hell. If you end up starting an argument over the stuff that's happening in the RP, I will get involved, and I might not take your side.
To avoid this, always work out if someone's going to die or if the character you're fighting is going to go for a fatal/permanently damaging attack. Or just avoid fighting altogether! That's another perfectly good option! If something that you didn't want to happen to your character happens because you weren't asking questions about if anyone was gonna die and the like when you initiated combat with another player, well... suck it up, buttercup. For the record, I'd prefer people talk it out if anyone's characters are gonna die or be badly injured when the fight begins. It's a little unfair to kill off someone's character when they didn't want their character to die. But I also hold the caveat that if you repeatedly do something stupid and put your character in danger, they're probably gonna die at some point.
Cussing is allowed here, and I don't give a fuck how much you cuss. Just don't be that person who drops N-bombs and similar-level slurs, since even I think that's crossing a line. But some members do care when or how much you cuss. Either because they're younger, or just have a distaste for such sentence enhancers. If someone tells you to tone it down or stop, respect their wishes and do so. It's not worth getting in a fight over, and ignoring it isn't going to get you far. In fact, it's going to get you warned if I'm around.
Another note on cussing, try and keep any words that would get you banned on FH out of the game's public chats. I don't want to end up dealing with the mods and with one of my members being banned because you were mouthing off.
I don't really want the mods involved in too much problems that involve this RP and only this RP, but if some really important rules get broken (such as someone's account getting hacked or something like that), I'll probably be the one to contact them myself rather than asking the rest of my playerbase to go running to them asking for help.
Gonna add this before it becomes a problem, keep real-world politics and similarly touchy issues out of the group for the most part. Nobody wants to have to remember all of the BS going on right now, and it's bound to start a flame war. I don't care what your opinion is, just know your audience and realize that this isn't the place for this sort of stuff, and keep it to yourself.
Don't call each other names, unless it's a joke. Even then, I'd suggest you avoid it. I'm not the best at sensing a joke, especially over text, and I might mistake your joking antics for something more serious and warn you.
Despite the intimidating look of these rules, I try and keep things on the friendly side for newcomers and more established members alike. If you want to join in, slot yourself in politely. Nobody here has any tolerance for edgy shit children, and if you have a penchant for emo behavior, stirring the pot, or otherwise being a pain in the ass, take your behavior elsewhere. If you don't, you will be noticed and warned. Potentially even removed.
A sleeping or unconscious character has no real way to sense or stop an attacker. If your character is sleeping and is attacked, the only real way they can defend themselves is when they've already been attacked and woken up. For instance:
In this scenario, Forest wouldn't really be able to tell that River was creeping up on him until he was attacked. Unless Forest was horrible at sneaking up on anything, then he might hear something. But that might not be enough wake him up, let alone alert him to River's presence. Your character might be able to smell something off, but that would only really fly if your character's species are equipped with good sniffers. And again, that might not be enough to wake them up, let alone locate an attacker. If the character is completely unconscious and unable to wake up when an attacker shows up, then they're SOL.
You are likewise allowed to scruff your character's cubs, pups, crotch goblins, or whatever else you'd call your character's babies without the player's consent. At least, if they're still quite young. As in, not old enough to put up a major fight. Example:
For the record, once they start to get big enough (as in, half the size of an adult or larger), you'll probably need the player's input to successfully drag them back to the den via the scruff of the neck or otherwise.
This might be a no-brainer, but you are allowed to interrupt a character when they're speaking. Example:
Another no-brainer, you cannot initiate a fight with someone who is not online, nor can you kill their character while they're not there to represent said character. You can only NPC someone else's character with their permission - something I tend to avoid, as I don't want to misrepresent the character or misportray them in any way. So, don't go barging into someone's territory and kill their character while they're not online/present to respond. That's beyond a dick move, and obviously not allowed.
Whenever you intend to attack another character, your moves are always an attempt. Regardless of it being phrased as such, or being phrased more like an auto-hit. For instance:
The lioness grabbed her opponent by the neck, biting hard and pulling. Tearing off a massive chunk, she watched as the male bled to death. She spat the chunk of meat out and licked the blood off her chops.
vs
The lioness made a swift lunge for the male lion's neck, hoping to get a good chunk of it in her mouth. If she did manage to bite onto the male's neck, she'd bite down hard and pull. Her intention being to pull off the largest chunk possible, and for him to bleed to death.
It doesn't have to be phrased exactly like this, but you get the idea. Just don't act like your character's made a successful hit until the other player says they have. Because, regardless of how you want an move to go, all attacks are attempted. You can act like your character's made a 100% successful attack, but the other player still has the option to have the attack miss unless they're unconscious or otherwise immobilized.
When it comes to poisons, there are many toxic substances in the areas outlined in our maps. But just because you could hypothetically use it does not mean that it'd be easy or safe to do. Some poisons are really, really hard to get without getting yourself killed, and others are just so toxic that any interaction with them can be dangerous.
For the record, you are allowed to use dangerous poisons with a high mortality rate. But remember, the more lethal poisons are often the hardest to source or use without getting the would-be poisoner killed. At least with many if not most poisons, just dipping some on your claws might not be enough to kill someone, and using your teeth to deliver the dose is probably just going to get you killed. Best to use a spear or some other large pokey thing, especially if you have hands. More surface area to lace with toxins, and it's less likely to come into contact with your flesh. Making a usable spear or pokey thing is gonna be hard for most characters, though.
Keep track of your character's canon size. This is often quite important. Not only are weight and size alone important to determining who has the advantage, but also how that weight is distributed and how a creature is made. Let's say you've got a 300 pound wolf (not realistic or allowed, but this is for argument's sake) vs a 300 pound homotherium. The homotherium is the same weight as the wolf, but it has more weight - muscle weight - in its forelimbs. Wherehas the wolf's forelimbs are far thinner and poorly equipped for wrestling. This doesn't need to be exact, but try and keep track of their rough size range, as in putting down that a character is 350-360 pounds and around three and a half feet at the shoulder.
Varying species have varying lifespans, along with most individuals. Many creatures are susceptible to age-related illness and disability, be they on the individual scales, or on the scales of entire populations or species. Some animals live past the usual cap-off age, but this is truly unusual, and damn-near impossible in this RP. Remember, the sun will melt your ass if you sit in it for too long, and your fur/feathers won't protect you for very long. If the damage is relatively minimal, then you should return to normal. Eventually. But this doesn't sound like a world conducive to long-lived characters, does it?
Sadly, we DO NOT live in the world of modern medicine. Humans have been known to survive some pretty impressive injuries, but the biggest reason they pull through is because of medical treatment. Usually, of pretty intensive varieties. There are medicinal plants scattered around the wastelands, but these are or at least can be somewhat few and far between. And sadly, although they may help with an injury or illness, they do not form a replacement for modern medicine. So, the more debilitating injuries and illnesses will always carry a rather high risk of death.
You know how I mentioned that characters will take variable amounts of damage during fights? Yeah, you might need a reminder that some of those injuries can be quite serious. For characters that get their limbs ripped off or their abdomens torn open, this is a pretty serious injury and you won't be able to just walk it off. Pain tolerance varies wildly between characters, but even characters with a high pain tolerance aren't usually going to be able to withstand such an injury without lots of screaming. This is probably another no brainer, but serious injuries are called "serious" for a reason - injuries like that typically lead to death, especially if you don't have anyone on hand to help.
Now, let's go along the list of things that can cause death. These things being things that I've seen characters either shrug off or otherwise survive without medical treatment, or expect to see people finding ways to play off. This is by no means a complete list of things that can get your character killed, but some of the more common scenarios I can see people trying to play off as less deadly to make their characters appear more badass for surviving them.
-Having your limbs torn off. Once saw a lion have his forelimb - his entire damn forelimb - ripped off and just walk off after a while. Apparently, it just "stopped bleeding". In reality, he'd have a pretty slim chance of survival, even with medical treatment. Yeah, there's a chance he could have lived, but he'd probably be out of commission for weeks or months if he was lucky enough to survive.
-Injury to the neck. This isn't always the case - it has to be deep and/or sever a blood vessel. And even if you do get your neck scratches and the bleeding is dangerous, there is the possibility of you finding a way to stop it. But this is far from a given, and survival without medical treatment is unlikely. And this is assuming the best case scenario. If you get shanked in the neck, you're probably screwed. If you have your throat ripped out, you're usually SOL.
-Head injuries. Yeah, if you get hit in the head hard enough, you could die on the spot. This can be partially negated by things like head armor, horns, or similar ways of protecting your noggin. But your average wolf or lion could easily be killed with by a strong enough impact, like in real life, where members of both species are often killed with a kick to the head from their would-be prey. Brain bleeding is also a thing. So if your character survives the initial impact, there could still be some brain bleeding which could easily lead to death. Both of these things require a pretty substantial impact, and it's not a given that any of the animals in this RP could deliver that kind of force. But let's at least try and be reasonable here if your character gets bashed in the head in a brutal enough fashion.
-Getting crushed. With there being so many species allowed in the RP, there's going to be a ton of animals that are out of your character's weight range. If you're a wolf and get walked on by an elephant, you're probably not gonna come back from that. Remember, this RP is not in the world of modern medicine - injuries that a human might recover from in real life are not always going to be the same for our characters.
-Falls. It's important for me to elaborate on this one, since a lot of people aren't aware of terminal velocity. And there's a lot of high spots in the RP - such as trees, cliffs, mountains, and other large obstacles. What's terminal velocity, you might ask? Well, it's the maximum speed something can fall at. Air resistance and gravity eventually equal out, and once you've hit that point, you can't fall any faster unless you have some way to propel yourself. Heavier creatures have higher terminal velocities - a height that could kill something in the 100 pounds range can be shrugged off by something that only weighs about 5 pounds. And if you're something mouse-sized, you cannot physically die from a fall - your terminal velocity is simply too slow to be fatal. But this works more and more against your favor the larger and larger you get. The heavier you are, the faster you fall. And a fall that an 8-pound cat could survive could pulverize a half-ton horse on impact.
-Getting stabbed or torn open. A couple pokes to the limbs or side with your average sized teeth are pretty fine, and even more severe punctures and lacerations can be recovered from. But there are such a thing as saber-toothed cats in this RP, and if you get stabbed in the gut or somewhere else similarly vulnerable with a smilodon's near-twelve-inch teeth, you're gonna have a bad time. There are also creatures like monkeys and maybe even the occasional human who can wield long, pointy objects like spears. Even if you survive the original effects of the stabbing, (bleeding, organ punctures, ecta), there's the potential risk of infection to deal with. And if that happens, you're probably screwed. Not all stabbings and pokeings are deadly or even potentially deadly, but again, let's be reasonable here.
-Infections. One of the biggest reasons it's so much harder to make a successful recovery out in the sticks vs in a hospital is due to the heightened risk of infection. Even though germs are small, they can cause devastating damage, potentially even surpassing the original injury. Sterilizing your makeshift medical equipment is basically impossible, and there's no way a wild animal could even know what causes infections, (germs, animals can't see germs), anyway. Not all infections are fatal, and many can be recovered from. Not to mention that some herbs can reduce the risk of infections and help to treat existing ones. But this doesn't negate the risk that an infection can cause to your character, and a once-benign infection can still get worse over time and eventually reach a tipping point, especially if not actively treated.
There's a flip side to this coin, though. Just because your character might want to do something, or is capable of it, does not mean the other player(s) involved are A-OK with it. This RP involves lots of stuff, you probably saw that at the top of this list. But for things that tend give other people the squiggles, ask before you act. They might not be up for it. And if they are, try and keep it in a private chat, like party or whisper - or for those RPing on the discord, designated chats - and between players who are cool with it.
For the record, we do not condone RPs of a sexual nature. However, I at least respect the fact that we really can't stop you from doing whatever you want in the most private of chats, and I'm not going to be the one who's lording over you 100% of the time you're online to make you're not doing that sort of stuff. But, FHU does prohibit these sorts of RPs, so I can't in good conscience condone them without risking the fury of the mods. However, if you do end up engaging in such RPs, I ask that all parties involved be willing and of-age (at least 18 or older) before participating.
-One, you do your research! Unless you've done it previously, I don't care if you think you know all that you need to know about wolves, there's probably something you missed if you just watched a bunch of animal documentaries and are obsessed with the things. A good read-through on the wikipedia page should be good enough. Don't worry, I'm not going to make you read the whole thing, but the description and anything pertaining to life cycle should be good enough. Since I'm going to assume you want to know the size of your character, how long their childhood was, and how long the rest of their life will be.
-Two, the species existed. You can't go around making some half-hellhound, half-angel, half-dragon, half-demon or whatever. I don't care if you're disappointed, the creature has to have existed in real life. So no weird, "super cool" wolf characters or whatever that a lot of kids make when first introduced to the concept of character making. SOME custom species may be allowed in the future, but they have to be something that could have feasibly existed in real life, and be related to an existing group (such as a custom breed of canine related to the grey wolf).
-If you're going to make a dinosaur/pterosaur/anything from the mesozoic or before, you must ask first, and it must be under 400 pounds. This puts most dromeosaurs and even things like quetzalcoatlus on the table. This is probably going to change later as we get more players, and the size limit may be moved or even done away with entirely. But for now, stick to small-ish dinos.
We allow and often encourage inventive designs, just as long as they aren't over the top. But that doesn't mean that we allow all the colors of the rainbow. Green and purple are not allowed, regardless of shade or hue. Reds have to be muted, and blues even more so. Oranges and yellows are fine, but they must also be muted. Browns, blacks, greys and whites are fine. Pink is not allowed unless we're talking about skin, or is more of a hue, like the pale orange-ish color found on some cat breeds. These are the case for mammalian characters - the rules are slightly different for reptilian or avian characters, as we're working with different types of integument and slightly different biological principles. Even so, you're STILL not allowed to make your characters neon-bright. Even the brightest of macaws are still far from neon, remember that.
Just for the record, we often don't know what colors these extinct animals were. But we know for damn sure that they weren't bright blue with rainbow markings and near-neon emo hair. Keep your colors naturalistic, for the sake of everyone's eyes.
Before anyone asks if their colorful benevolent or benevolent-esque (as in, hailing from a pack with similar attributes and realism laws) is allowed, no. Unfortunately, at least for you, no. Your character is gonna need to have coloration that a real wolf or dog could actually exhibit in life, although the marking patterns can be rather inventive. Your character also has to be a realistic size, before anyone tries making any 6' at the shoulder canines anytime soon.
The only characters these do not apply to are ghosts, and I guess hallucinations if you want to make one. If your character has been melted by the sun, stick to a reddish-pinkish flesh color.
On a similar note, I'd prefer if you avoided flooding the RP with black and white characters. Although many animals - wild and domestic - come in these colors, and we accept them, that doesn't mean that they should be the dominant color palette. For instance, black wolves, white wolves, and black-and-white wolves do exist, but there are so many colors that a wolf can come in that it's unfair to default to the monochrome ones. The same is true for basically all feline species. Melanistic, or black individuals, as well as white ones - usually leucistic or albino - also exist. Many patterned creatures with melanism - like leopards, for example - have patterns even with the melanism making them near invisible. Chances are, if your character's species has any sort of pattern, it'll be visible - however faint - with melanistic individuals.
Hybrids in general are a bit of an iffy subject - different species that one would think are closely related cannot breed, wherehas others that are further apart can. My suggestions are to stick to hybrids that have been done before in real life, like ligers/tigons, savannah cats, wolfdogs, mules, coywolves, beefaloes, pizzlies/grolar bears, zedonks or zorses, and stuff that you can find examples of with a google search. If there are no examples of the type of hybrid you want to make, just ask me or someone else in the know about animal taxonomy and how that stuff works.
One problem with making a hybrid species is the idea of gametic incompatibility. Basically, it's when the sperm of the father animal can't pass into the egg of the female animal and create a baby. Sometimes, gametic incompatibility between two species isn't a problem or can be bypassed (usually with human intervention and using modern technology), but the viability of any hybrid fetus is basically nil.
Another issue is that if the mother's species' babies are half or less than half the size of the father's species babies' (like in a lion and clouded leopard), then the mother would probably die during birth. Baby sizes are pretty important! If the newborn can't fit through its mothers pelvis, or through the birth canal in general, there will be problems. So, try not to pick a mother for your hybrid animals that's half the size of the father or less, that can probably only end badly.
Something you should also keep an eye out for is the side effects visible in the hybrid offspring. Many hybrids, such as ligers, suffer from a higher degree of neurological problems, deformities, and other issues. Ligers are also known to suffer from a high degree of infant mortality, usually occurring minutes after birth. This issue is not universal, though. This is another reason you should stick to, or near to hybrids that have been done before. So you can either look up the issues they may face, or extrapolate based on known counterparts.
Many hybrids are also sterile, at least, most of the time. Again with ligers, males are sterile, wherehas females are not. Mules of both sexes are sterile. Wolfdogs are rarely sterile, regardless of sex. The more closely related two species are, the less fertility problems they will have. But this can vary rather widely.
However, avian hybrids can be created by two vastly different species and still be at least somewhat viable, unlike in mammals. Some of the more extreme examples of this are with the parents belonging to two separate families, such as the chicken and guineafowl, but many are between closely related species. Like with mammalian hybrids, try and stick with hybrids that have been done before, or hybrids within the same genus.
A good rule of thumb, if they're in the same genus (example: genus Canis, contains wolves, dogs, coyotes and others, many of which have interbred in the past), they're probably not gonna have a problem genetics wise or birth-wise. The species should be similar enough that the size and genetics are similar enough so that problems don't occur. This is not universal, though, so watch out!
So, things that are obviously off the table are things like wolves with wings, domestic cats with horse hooves, and lions with saber teeth like what you'd see on a smilodon. Yes, I'm outlawing your lioden-ass saber-toothed lions, and I'm sorry if you don't like it. Having longer and thicker canine teeth on any animal is fine, but they wouldn't be same as your quintessential smilodon sabers, which are long as hell, flattened side-to-side and curved. They'd be more like the regular canines of your average lion - or whatever creature you're using - but really overgrown.
The thing is with mutations, they are allowed and often encouraged, but try and keep your animal looking like a member of its own species rather than a hybrid. Of course, you can have a lot of weird mutations that go on. But, with hybrids, try and stick to things that have been seen in real life. More innocuous things like a color change in a creature's fur (melanism, leucism, piebaldism), or something bigger like having a whole-ass new set of limbs, which has been documented in several animal species.
Something you should be aware of is that mutations have their upsides and their downsides. For many benign mutations, there are few of both. Some mutations provide more advantages and others offer little other than cons. Albinism, for example, makes for quite the pretty creature. But it leaves a creature more susceptible to sunburn and skin cancer, along with disparities in vision. Albinos tend to live shorter lives than their non-mutant counterparts. So if you're going to make a mutant character, do your research. See what advantages your mutation of choice offers, and weigh it in with the inevitable downsides.
Your group can be formed in the area of the map over the course of the roleplay, or you can have a more developed coalition come in from further away. There are no real rules about group types or behaviors - members of solitary species can form groups and members of social species can remain loners. Just as long as we're keeping behaviors semi-realistic (as in: no magical powers, trying to keep things a little realistic with non-magical abilities, ecta)
As there are no rules on the behavior of characters, there are no rules on the behavior of groups and those in them. You can make a really violent, warmongering group that attacks everyone they see, or a really peaceful group who is nice to literally everyone. Most groups will probably fall somewhere in between, though.
Being in a group as opposed to on your own offers some advantages, and some disadvantages. You have a lot of protection from outsiders, but you have to follow the group's rules. Hell, the group might even see you as a liability and might abuse you or even execute you, so the protection from outsiders thing might not seem like a fair trade-off. You should definitely stay outside the territorial boundaries of other groups as a member of a group, especially your group's enemies. Since if you piss some other group off by wandering into their territory, breaking their rules and generally causing havoc, your entire group can easily take the fall for your actions. Worst case scenario, a full-on war might be waged over the actions of one member.
Wherehas as a loner, you have to be very wary of wandering into anyone's territory unannounced. You don't have the protection of backup in most cases, so if you catch problems, you're usually gonna be on your own. You can't really start a full-on war, but that won't really stop the group you pissed off from tracking you down and obliterating everything you know and love, probably including you.
In general, keep territorial boundaries in mind. You can do this OOC and still have a character that doesn't care one bit about them, but expect trouble.
As I mentioned, nobody starts off as a member of any faction, unless your character is born into it or you get prior permission from the faction's leader OOC. Do not walk into someone's territory like you own the place or you're already a member of that faction. Because nobody else will treat your character like a fellow of theirs, and you'll probably just get murdered, taken captive, or chased off in the best case scenario.
You're not forbidden from trying to take over a group as a loner, but that doesn't necessarily mean that'll go well in your favor. There's a high likelihood that once the group sees you attacking their leader, or realizes what you're doing, they'll try and kill you. And even if you manage to chase off, kill, or otherwise win one over on the original leader, that doesn't mean the rest of the group will accept you, and your victory won't necessarily stop the rest of the members from killing you.
If you do want to join a group, however, just ask the leader OOC on how you can join and if they'll let you in. Then, good luck.
How does one become plot-relevant? Well, the best thing I can suggest to start with is create an interesting, unique character. Make them stand out, and don't just go with whatever other characters you might like in the RP or what might be popular. While we're at it, keep copying to an absolute minimum. I get inspiration, and I get that sometimes you run out of good ideas. But if you're gonna rip someone's stuff, ask them first. And if they say no, don't do it! And even if they say yes, don't be surprised when you're viewed as unoriginal or just a lesser version of whoever's ideas you took from.
Next step would probably be them generally doing notable things, like starting a group or waging a war. Even killing enough characters, preferably player characters (called PCs), might be enough to make your character stand out. Try and balance that out with good decision-making - you might not want to be known as the player of "that one stupid character".
While we're at it, don't go totally derailing plots. I get wanting to be innovative, but let people do what they want to do, unless they're being harmful to the userbase or even to a specific player if it's bad enough. In that case, just get me and I'll find a way to deal with them. Or I'll just get my characters and fuck with them myself if it's not severe enough to warrant actual punishment. And don't be that person trying to be dramatic for the sake of trying to bring attention to you and your character, I can tell when you're doing that. Because I was the queen of that and it was super annoying, so you'll definitely get in at least minor trouble for it.
When it comes to drama in general, I don't really mind. Run of the mill RP drama is pretty fine and par for the course here. But there's a difference between doing it for the sake of the RP or because it fits the narrative/character/moment/story in general, and doing it to bring the spotlight to your character, and most importantly, you.
There's something called meta-gaming, where you apply information that your characters couldn't possibly know to the RP, usually just for the sake of making you and your character look cooler or trying to get one over on other people's characters. Obviously, this is not allowed. Your character only knows what they have been told, been taught, or overheard/witnessed. You do not know another character that you've only just met in RP, and you definitely don't know anything about them that they haven't told you. Only exception is when you've been warned by another character in RP before you met the character you've been warned about. And even so, this information is limited to what you've been told by the one who warned you. Pulling things out of a character's bio like backstories and other information is going to get you yelled at by both me and the disgruntled RPer you just pulled this trick on.
On the topic of meta-gaming and such, your character does not know everything about everything. Sure, you may have a jack of all trades type character, but even these have their pitfalls and gaps in their knowledge. Your character will not have the solution to every problem they face, so don't go around acting like they know everything or can do everything. Same goes for basically anything you might know in real life - your character doesn't know all of the stuff you do, so don't act they would.
I might add more if people still find ways to fuck up that I didn't put down. But there's most of the rules, they're long as hell and I'm sorry about that. I didn't intend to put any of these rules up to be restrictive or scare you, I made them so long to stupid-proof them. And I didn't want to leave anything unsaid in case someone did do something and use the excuse "there wasn't a rule for it", or otherwise believe because it wasn't written down, that it's A-OK to do.
Some Guidelines:
These are things you don't have to follow, but are often expected. You won't get yelled at for ignoring most of these, but that doesn't mean you should ignore them.
-When someone comes online, try and say hi. If they're getting back from an AFK or similar absence, try welcome them back. If someone's going offline, try and say bye. We all end up missing people, so don't get too caught up if you accidentally miss your chance or slack off.
-Don't use wolfspeak. You sound like a dipshit. Avoid it at all cost if you can. Hell, I might make this a rule because it's one of those things that gets under the skin of damn near everyone. Hell, this is one of the guidelines that might get you a talking to from me if you break.
-Give your character a bio, at least on FH. Even if it's basic stuff like age, gender, species and stuff like that. Because I want to read it and get a half-decent idea of your character from that simple double-click, and I'm pretty sure most others do, too. I'd give my character a bio on the forums, too, especially if you don't play FH. But maybe that's just me.
-Copying someone's character is looked down upon, try not to do it. This includes wanting to make your characters into siblings, so you can give yours a similar design. This siblings point is not always bad, though. Although it can be annoying, it's not always a big deal. Just, don't be a dick. This is the other one that'll get you a talking to from me if you break, since this is generally not good to do.
-There are beds in the densites in the maps, but it's assumed that they need to be assembled in-RP. Pay attention to detail in general, it's important. Also, we'll assume that most dens have a nearby obstacle to block them with, such as a rock or a thick stand of plants. But if you want to find your own rock to put in front of the doorway in the mornings, be my guest.
-Presets on FH are allowed and encouraged! But don't be that person who has a badass preset but leaves the character underneath default. It looks ugly, and not everyone can download presets or even has access to your preset download. So it's unfair that they just get to see your default character while you and everyone with your preset get to see an awesome character. Don't be that person with a default character and no way to download your preset without the discord/forums.
-Discord is heavily encouraged, since it allows us to get in contact without being on FH or on the forums. And it's often a lot easier to RP there, even though we RP on FH and on the forums. Because why not give people the utmost opportunity to cause chaos? Plus, not everyone can get FH or likes playing on it, and discord also makes it far easier to contact other members and see if they're up for hanging out or RPing or other fun things.
-Promoting other servers, RP groups and etc is technically allowed, but frowned upon. We have a certain chat for server promotion in the discord, so if you're going to do it, do it there. And do it respectfully, don't be like "these guys are so much better than the guys at breaking day, come join them!" because that's just a dick move no matter who you're talking to or about.
-Find a way to incorporate the behaviors of your particular animal species into your character's interactions. Even some of the weird or gross ones, like how dogs and other canines sniff each other's butts, roll in dung and occasionally hump each other to assert dominance. I'm pretty sure that most animals have their weird rituals and behaviors. Makes the different animals in the RP feel more different. Plus, it's damn funny.
-Although I do have a love of inventive designs, I don't honestly want to see designs that look like they're straight out of lioden or wolvoden. What I mean is that I don't want to see your average lion with ten types of markings, twenty different colors and shades, and/or saber-teeth. There's a line between semi-realistic yet inventive and pretty unrealistic, and these designs often cross them. So try not to over-complicate your designs or put contrasting colors on the same character, since that stuff can get pretty old. You get a lot more leeway with extinct characters, since for the most part we have no clue what they looked like, and have no real "base" to compare them to.
-Before you ask, yes, you can make your characters LGBT+. I don't really care, just try and not be stupid about it, y'know. Your character can also hold whatever biases or be whatever-phobic you want, just as long as you, the player, do not hold said biases.
-Instead of saying you're bored, start a new RP topic! Go to FH, or the discord, or even start a thread on the forums! Don't just sit there and be bored, try and find a solution. If you're too worried to just start up an RP apropos of nothing, ask someone if you'd like to do an RP. I'd pretty much always be up for it, unless I'm sick or crunching on a project.
-If you don't know all that much about something you plan to use in an RP (species, mutation, poison, herb, hybrid, mental illness, ecta), you should either be willing to learn more about it or stay 10+ feet away from it at all times. If you're too lazy to do your research yourself, just ask me. I might know something about the thing you're curious about, and if not, I'm more than willing to look it up and get the basics down pat for ya.
-Use. Basic. Proper. Grammar! Punctuation can be difficult, and half the time I don't know where to put a comma. But if you don't know the difference between things like your and you're, to and too, there and their, then just look up "basic english grammar" or something that tells you the difference and keep that tab open at all times until you learn. I get it, people mess up. But there's the difference between accidents and stupidity. Or would it be ignorance? Either way, you probably know what I mean.
-Don't put trigger warnings on things that aren't genuinely and/or universally upsetting. (I.E., Abuse, severe gore, suicide, in many of these cases it might be wiser to warn someone about the presence of these topics.) Please, don't be that person going "trigger warning, blood" on pictures with some minor bleeding or whatever, just because "someone might be offended".
Aging system:
3 weeks OOC = 1 month IC.
6 weeks (a month and a half) OOC = 2 months IC.
9 weeks (two months, one week) OOC = 3 months (one season, a quarter-year) IC.
12 weeks (one season, a quarter-year) OOC = 4 months (a third of a year) IC.
15 weeks (three months, three weeks) OOC = 5 months IC.
18 weeks (four months, two weeks) OOC = 6 months (a half-year) IC.
And on and on and on, until the RP crashes and burns.
Time is generally going to pass at 3 OOC weeks to an IC month. You can slow it down to IRL time, but seasons and the ages of most characters are going to follow this rule of thumb. Although young characters tend to age faster than older ones, adult characters are not allowed to age faster than 3 weeks = one month rule. Aside from one exception, parents who have offspring that are still going through the fast-aging process. After all, we wouldn't want the offspring to age so fast that it looks like their parents don't age at all. 'Cause if that happens, then we get the problem of the characters potentially being too old to conceivably be their parents' offspring.
When it comes to younger character aging laws, juvenile characters do not always have a set age system (with increments of slowing aging) but that does not mean that they're aging instantly. Even newborn characters are not allowed to age at a faster rate than 1 week = 1 month. After your character hits the one year old mark (if your character is any species of feline or canine, some smaller species might hit this point earlier), they are not allowed to age faster than 2 weeks = 1 month.
You get to timeskip once per character, adding about five months onto their age. But only if the character's siblings, and preferably their parents, also agree to timeskip. That way we don't get weird continuity problems like littermates being different ages, and again, the offspring potentially being too old to conceivably belong to their parents.
Another thing, if your character is pregnant, you should probably have your character be pregnant for roughly the same amount of time it would amount to in the timescale mentioned above. For instance, a real wolf is pregnant for about three months give or take, so your wolf character should be pregnant for roughly the same amount of in-character time. This doesn't have to be exact, down to the damn day or hour, but it should be pretty similar. No animals have kids in the blink of an eye, even the smallest ones like mice. You might get the chance to timeskip, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure if it would fuck with the continuity to just have your character have babies two or three days after they got pregnant. Before you get worried about having to play a fat as hell character for the duration of their pregnancy, your characters aren't going to be an absolute blimp for most of it - even in the womb, young animals start out small. Hell, for the first few days or even week or two, your character will probably have no idea about it. Unless they're really intuitive and/or know to look for the signs.
The afterlife:
When your character does eventually die, you have two options. One, the character passes from this world to the next. The other, they linger as a ghost. Not everyone can see ghosts, mind you. Only spiritually sensitive characters, or those who have come close to death themselves can see ghosts. Aside from those who had a close bond with the spirit, who may be able to sense their loved one's presence. Although, many people have suggested that animals are more spiritually sensitive than humans, so it's safe to say that many if not most of our characters would be able to see them or at least sense them somehow. Ghosts have a wide range of appearances - nobody really knows why they take the forms they do. Two creatures of the same species who lived similar lives and died under the same circumstances can still take on radically different appearances. You can get as creative as you want with how your ghost character looks - they aren't bound to reality with their appearance like how the living are.
Bear in mind, ghosts don't have the ability to do much real harm to living characters, beyond scaring the shit out of them. Although they can't die, they can't really affect the living that much, either. Only very strong-willed and/or powerful spirits can do much more than the list below. The affects your average ghost may have on the living are:
-Projecting images, memories or emotions into the minds of the living.
-Enter or otherwise influence the dreams of the living.
-Form a cold spot, potentially even making a whole area cold. (As in a den, or maybe densite. Not a massive area like an entire goddamn forest.)
-Move things like dust, dirt, sand, snow or leaves. Sometimes even things like small pebbles. Many ghosts are capable of leaving footprints.
-Darken or lighten an area. The larger the area is, the less pronounced the effect is. Some ghosts can create a bright flash of light.
-Phase through living things and inanimate objects.
-Interact with the living as if they were immovable objects, like a cliff, tree or large stone. Most living characters won't be able to feel a ghost standing on them or whatever.
-Get into fights with other spirits, potentially banish, or "poof" other spirits for a time - usually from a few minutes to a week or so.
-Travel quickly between locations.
-Will usually tip off the danger or "I'm not alone" senses of most characters, even the spiritually insensitive. Unless the character's just oblivious like that.
What is a poltergeist?
A ghost that has grown very powerful, and/or very angry. Usually both, although sometimes the anger can be replaced with mischievousness.
Here's the stuff they can do:
-Leave minor wounds on the living, such as bruises, shallow scratches and bites.
-Interact in minor ways with the living, such as touching them or even shoving them.
-Interact with inanimate objects as if they were alive. But only stuff in the range that they could lift or move in their lives, even if it's multiple objects at the same time.
Try not to do all of these things all day every day, but you can take a crack at these once in a while if you've got a poltergeist character. It takes energy to manifest in the real world, especially when it involves moving things around and otherwise screwing with the living. So you wouldn't feasibly be able to do this much of the time, regardless.
What is a medium?
A creature who is close enough to the spirit world to see and hear any spirit not deliberately hiding itself. Mediums are also capable of interacting with spirits as if they were living. But bear in mind - this is a two-way street. A medium can touch a ghost or even push them around, but the ghost can do the same to the medium. Watch out!
Shamans and priests/priestesses tend to lean towards this level of spiritual sensitivity, but your average character without any particularly spiritual pursuits can be a medium. This level of sensitivity is somewhat rare - try and keep it so.
Spirits can affect mediums in these fun little ways!:
-Sap energy from the medium.
-Interact with the medium as if they were both living creatures, includes injuries and other fun stuff.
-Possess the medium.
-Probably more stuff that I'm not able to think of/remember right now.
Ghosts can linger for a wide range of time frames and a vast number of reasons. Many have unfinished business, or an unfulfilled desire. Some may remain as guardians for loved ones. Some are simply too determined to remain alive when they die, and fail to pass on. Many ghosts just "wake up", unsure of what happened or why. Those are the main four I could think of, but feel free to come up with your own reason!
Where your character falls on the spiritual sensitivity spectrum can vary wildly, but most individuals have a baseline that they don't stray too far from. Some are full-blown mediums, where some others are completely immune to the spirit world. Although, it is possible for one's sensitivity to greatly improve under some very specific circumstances.
When it comes to making your own ghost character, you can start out with a ghost, or have a living character who kicks the bucket. Even with the second option, feel free to make their appearances as ghoulish and all-around frightening as you want! That's part of the fun of playing as one of these things, after all - scaring the shit out of living characters and maybe even creeping out their players!
There are rumors about some psychoactive substances allowing for increased spiritual sensitivity. But are these ghosts, or just hallucinations? It's very difficult to say for certain...
D for dead - their business on this world is over, and you're not going to play them anymore, alive or otherwise.
G for ghost. These guys are the ones whos' spirits stick around to watch over - and sometimes torment - the living characters.
F for forsaken, or for flesh. You can pick one. These are the poor bastards who got stuck in the sun too long and are now able to wreak havoc on most characters.
There's more on the flesh in the plot thread.
If you read all of this, thanks for sticking with me! All of this information is at least somewhat important, and you'll probably be thankful that you know the basics now. Now go ahead and cause chaos, just not enough to ruin the fun, y'know?
This will be edited multiple times, bear with me.
Welcome to Breaking Day! I'm gonna assume you either saw us recruiting in game, or were introduced by a friend. Or maybe, I even asked you if you wanted to join, myself. Either way, you're interested enough to check out our site. So congratulations!
We are literate, (although we allow semi-literate people if they're willing to learn), semi-realistic (as in, our characters are pretty realistic in behavior, abilities and coloration), very character-driven, plotted, and require a minimum age of 13 to join. We only have a few tags, none of which apply to living characters. Based on the events of SCP-001: When Day Breaks by S.D. Locke, we do deviate a little bit from the original story and hope to create an immersive experience for all who end up here. We have multiple factions, many of which have high-rank spots that need filling. If that's not your thing, you can make your own! You can have up to five living characters at a time, but this may change to allow more.
Since most of our characters are animals of some sort, we deviate from strict realism by allowing things like human-level intelligence, the crafting and wearing of naturalistic items like crude armor and such (assuming your character has hands or the level of dexterity required to make these things), and many similar quirks. You know, the sort of stuff allowed by many animal roleplays you've probably come across. Despite this, our characters cannot use magic, nor do they have any sort of magical powers, abilities or anything of the sort. When it comes to the metaphysical, aside from maybe being able to interact with local spirits, our characters are completely mundane. It doesn't mean that they can't or won't do rituals and other things they associate with magic if they have the materials or know how to conduct them, it just means that the rituals involved have more to do with a character's beliefs than them actually working.
Our main hub is on discord, but if you don't have an account, feel free to look for us on FeralHeart Unleashed (known colloquially as FHU) or on this forum!
Much of what happens in the RP is determined by what happens to and between the characters, and the actions they take. So instead of having a chill, cardboard cutout wolf pack or lion pride RP, your character can go absolutely buck wild and end up changing the course of the story. Bear in mind, they have to do some pretty drastic stuff in order to do this, and I can tell when you're trying to get your character to the top of the attention hierarchy vs actually trying to contribute to the plot.
We only accept people who are at least 13 or older due to the many dark and more adult themes in this RP. Breaking Day is not a cake walk - we deal with heavy topics on the daily. Things like death, injury and forced captivity are among the most common, but things like mental illness and torture are also frequently employed. Although, we do make sure to keep the darkest of topics between players who are OK with them. If you're one of those people who needs a trigger warning on everything, stay at least ten feet way from this RP at all times, because you will be offended if you don't.
Recruiting, at least at first, is going to go rather slowly until we can establish a playerbase of people who don't suck. The first people I'll be dragging in will be friends of mine, and friends of my friends if they're interested. I'll be watching the behavior of everyone pretty closely, especially before we've got a definite behavior standard. Well, we've got one outlined in the rules, but I need to make sure people are willing to comply with them before I start letting people off the hook for breaking or bending them. Basically, we won't be sending out movie spam on FH until we can make sure the players we get at first are willing to play nice.
Be warned! In the first few phases in the RP, I will probably be far more assertive with the rules and how I treat my players for breaking them. It's gonna be my way of weeding out the people who could help to bring the RP to a crashing halt with their drama. I can be relatively lenient when it comes to character creation, but I will not hesitate to step up when you're breaking more serious rules (like the ones on godmodding, metagaming and being snotty to other players). So, before you get the idea to, don't test me. Just don't. I might ban your ass, and it might be permanent.
The main language used in the RP is english, so you'll need a good grasp on it. It doesn't have to be your first language, and you don't have to be perfect at it, but you need to be able to be understood about 90% of the time or more. We do not require a roleplay sample in all cases, but if I'm suspicious of your literacy, I will ask for one.
Next part of this is the rules! I expect you to follow them. I don't mind being asked questions and the like on the rules and why they are the way that I've made them, but don't debate me about the rules expecting me to change them. Because I probably won't. I'm sorry about the length of rules and how much there are, but I wanted to close any loopholes before someone even had the chance to find them. And trust me, if someone does find the loopholes, I will swoop in and close them.
I also apologize for the snarky tone I might take with some of the rules. I didn't intend to sound rude, but I guess I went further off than I thought I did when writing them. Think I'm still gonna keep them since they do really drive the point home.
Rule 1: Being a dick.
It's simple. You don't have to like someone to not be a dick to them every waking minute. Or even in general. I get it, sometimes you have to be a little harsh with people, but there's a difference between that and actively being an asshole. If you're going to fight someone, please do it in a private chat if you can. And while we're on the topic of assholes, do not go off and decide to be a prick to random people outside the group in a public chat. Like I said, fight them in a private chat. I don't want this group getting a bad rep because one person going off on someone else who wasn't in the group. Plus, the mods will probably get involved, and I just don't want to deal with them.Bullying is an obvious no. I can see why you might have a problem with another player, but insulting them or bringing up things that have no bearing on the topic at hand is just a no-go. Try to avoid it whenever you can. Harassment, threats, and other things of the sort are another obvious no, and if you find yourself feeling bullied, harassed, or otherwise tormented by another group member, report it to me or someone else who would help you take action. No, being a dickhead back to said person is not what I meant by "taking action".
I get taking the RP seriously, but don't bring IC happenings out of the RP and turn them into OOC drama. Characters don't like each other. Characters do stuff that you might not like. That does not mean that you need to bring it up to start an argument. I don't care if someone's character doesn't like you, and I don't care what they did. That doesn't mean the player doesn't like you. Hell, they probably do like you at least a little bit, so don't go off hating them or shit-talking them or whatever the hell. If you end up starting an argument over the stuff that's happening in the RP, I will get involved, and I might not take your side.
To avoid this, always work out if someone's going to die or if the character you're fighting is going to go for a fatal/permanently damaging attack. Or just avoid fighting altogether! That's another perfectly good option! If something that you didn't want to happen to your character happens because you weren't asking questions about if anyone was gonna die and the like when you initiated combat with another player, well... suck it up, buttercup. For the record, I'd prefer people talk it out if anyone's characters are gonna die or be badly injured when the fight begins. It's a little unfair to kill off someone's character when they didn't want their character to die. But I also hold the caveat that if you repeatedly do something stupid and put your character in danger, they're probably gonna die at some point.
Cussing is allowed here, and I don't give a fuck how much you cuss. Just don't be that person who drops N-bombs and similar-level slurs, since even I think that's crossing a line. But some members do care when or how much you cuss. Either because they're younger, or just have a distaste for such sentence enhancers. If someone tells you to tone it down or stop, respect their wishes and do so. It's not worth getting in a fight over, and ignoring it isn't going to get you far. In fact, it's going to get you warned if I'm around.
Another note on cussing, try and keep any words that would get you banned on FH out of the game's public chats. I don't want to end up dealing with the mods and with one of my members being banned because you were mouthing off.
I don't really want the mods involved in too much problems that involve this RP and only this RP, but if some really important rules get broken (such as someone's account getting hacked or something like that), I'll probably be the one to contact them myself rather than asking the rest of my playerbase to go running to them asking for help.
Gonna add this before it becomes a problem, keep real-world politics and similarly touchy issues out of the group for the most part. Nobody wants to have to remember all of the BS going on right now, and it's bound to start a flame war. I don't care what your opinion is, just know your audience and realize that this isn't the place for this sort of stuff, and keep it to yourself.
Don't call each other names, unless it's a joke. Even then, I'd suggest you avoid it. I'm not the best at sensing a joke, especially over text, and I might mistake your joking antics for something more serious and warn you.
Despite the intimidating look of these rules, I try and keep things on the friendly side for newcomers and more established members alike. If you want to join in, slot yourself in politely. Nobody here has any tolerance for edgy shit children, and if you have a penchant for emo behavior, stirring the pot, or otherwise being a pain in the ass, take your behavior elsewhere. If you don't, you will be noticed and warned. Potentially even removed.
Rule 2: Godmodding and character control.
Your character can do whatever the hell you want them to do. Or, at least, whatever they'd be physically capable of. But that does not mean you get to control other people's characters without their permission. It makes any confrontation into an unfair one, and it's a pretty easy way to piss people off. There are many grey areas, though. These are going to be explored with two characters I literally came up with on the fly to make a point. Two wolves, their names are River and Forest, two males of basically the same size, strength, and age.A sleeping or unconscious character has no real way to sense or stop an attacker. If your character is sleeping and is attacked, the only real way they can defend themselves is when they've already been attacked and woken up. For instance:
When River saw Forest sleeping beside the creek, he made the decision to attack him. Carefully, he stalked through the underbrush. Once he was close enough, he made an explosive lunge for the back of Forest's neck, sinking his teeth into his opponent's flesh and attempting to tear a large chunk off with the hope that he would bleed to death.
In this scenario, Forest wouldn't really be able to tell that River was creeping up on him until he was attacked. Unless Forest was horrible at sneaking up on anything, then he might hear something. But that might not be enough wake him up, let alone alert him to River's presence. Your character might be able to smell something off, but that would only really fly if your character's species are equipped with good sniffers. And again, that might not be enough to wake them up, let alone locate an attacker. If the character is completely unconscious and unable to wake up when an attacker shows up, then they're SOL.
You are likewise allowed to scruff your character's cubs, pups, crotch goblins, or whatever else you'd call your character's babies without the player's consent. At least, if they're still quite young. As in, not old enough to put up a major fight. Example:
Out of the corner of his eye, Forest saw one of his young pups making a run for it towards the wild lands beyond. He instantly ran after the pup, quickly catching up to him and firmly grabbing him by the back of his neck. Forest sighed as he walked back to the den. It seemed like the pups were getting more and more curious.
For the record, once they start to get big enough (as in, half the size of an adult or larger), you'll probably need the player's input to successfully drag them back to the den via the scruff of the neck or otherwise.
This might be a no-brainer, but you are allowed to interrupt a character when they're speaking. Example:
River, angry that Forest had dare lay claim to such a large swath of his territory, bared his teeth and hollered at his rival. "I'm only going to tell you this once. Get off my land! Take your family and go before I make you go!"
When River raised his voice at Forest, he quickly swelled with rage. Before he could even finish his warning, Forest butted in with "It's my land, now! Listen, bucko, I have a family to feed. And I don't care what you have to say, we're staying as long as we want!" just when his rival had told him to "get off his land".
When River raised his voice at Forest, he quickly swelled with rage. Before he could even finish his warning, Forest butted in with "It's my land, now! Listen, bucko, I have a family to feed. And I don't care what you have to say, we're staying as long as we want!" just when his rival had told him to "get off his land".
Another no-brainer, you cannot initiate a fight with someone who is not online, nor can you kill their character while they're not there to represent said character. You can only NPC someone else's character with their permission - something I tend to avoid, as I don't want to misrepresent the character or misportray them in any way. So, don't go barging into someone's territory and kill their character while they're not online/present to respond. That's beyond a dick move, and obviously not allowed.
Whenever you intend to attack another character, your moves are always an attempt. Regardless of it being phrased as such, or being phrased more like an auto-hit. For instance:
The lioness grabbed her opponent by the neck, biting hard and pulling. Tearing off a massive chunk, she watched as the male bled to death. She spat the chunk of meat out and licked the blood off her chops.
vs
The lioness made a swift lunge for the male lion's neck, hoping to get a good chunk of it in her mouth. If she did manage to bite onto the male's neck, she'd bite down hard and pull. Her intention being to pull off the largest chunk possible, and for him to bleed to death.
It doesn't have to be phrased exactly like this, but you get the idea. Just don't act like your character's made a successful hit until the other player says they have. Because, regardless of how you want an move to go, all attacks are attempted. You can act like your character's made a 100% successful attack, but the other player still has the option to have the attack miss unless they're unconscious or otherwise immobilized.
3: Fighting and injury.
Much of the previous paragraph talked about scenarios of fighting, but I'll go into more detail here. Your character can respond to an attack however you want them to, taking variable amounts of damage. However, there needs to be some sense involved in this. A much smaller character can be easily overpowered by a larger one (example; wolf vs lion). A seasoned fighter is going to be able to dodge attacks far more cleanly than a young or inexperienced fighter, and the younger individual is likely going to be a lot less creative and capable than their more experienced opponent.When it comes to poisons, there are many toxic substances in the areas outlined in our maps. But just because you could hypothetically use it does not mean that it'd be easy or safe to do. Some poisons are really, really hard to get without getting yourself killed, and others are just so toxic that any interaction with them can be dangerous.
For the record, you are allowed to use dangerous poisons with a high mortality rate. But remember, the more lethal poisons are often the hardest to source or use without getting the would-be poisoner killed. At least with many if not most poisons, just dipping some on your claws might not be enough to kill someone, and using your teeth to deliver the dose is probably just going to get you killed. Best to use a spear or some other large pokey thing, especially if you have hands. More surface area to lace with toxins, and it's less likely to come into contact with your flesh. Making a usable spear or pokey thing is gonna be hard for most characters, though.
Keep track of your character's canon size. This is often quite important. Not only are weight and size alone important to determining who has the advantage, but also how that weight is distributed and how a creature is made. Let's say you've got a 300 pound wolf (not realistic or allowed, but this is for argument's sake) vs a 300 pound homotherium. The homotherium is the same weight as the wolf, but it has more weight - muscle weight - in its forelimbs. Wherehas the wolf's forelimbs are far thinner and poorly equipped for wrestling. This doesn't need to be exact, but try and keep track of their rough size range, as in putting down that a character is 350-360 pounds and around three and a half feet at the shoulder.
4: Death and major injury.
This might be surprising, but your character is going to die. Assuming that the RP's run includes enough time for them to be killed or otherwise die of something. The luck of the draw is strong with this RP, and a character's path and future is strongly shaped by what choices they make. If you make dumbass choices, your character is going to die a lot earlier than most. Hell, I'm going to assume that most characters will be killed before their maximum lifespan, seeing as most real-life animals don't make it that long. At least, the ones living in the wild. But many will make it to old age. In that case, there's no escaping death once you hit a certain cap-off. This is why, later in the rules section, I specifically say to do your research.Varying species have varying lifespans, along with most individuals. Many creatures are susceptible to age-related illness and disability, be they on the individual scales, or on the scales of entire populations or species. Some animals live past the usual cap-off age, but this is truly unusual, and damn-near impossible in this RP. Remember, the sun will melt your ass if you sit in it for too long, and your fur/feathers won't protect you for very long. If the damage is relatively minimal, then you should return to normal. Eventually. But this doesn't sound like a world conducive to long-lived characters, does it?
Sadly, we DO NOT live in the world of modern medicine. Humans have been known to survive some pretty impressive injuries, but the biggest reason they pull through is because of medical treatment. Usually, of pretty intensive varieties. There are medicinal plants scattered around the wastelands, but these are or at least can be somewhat few and far between. And sadly, although they may help with an injury or illness, they do not form a replacement for modern medicine. So, the more debilitating injuries and illnesses will always carry a rather high risk of death.
You know how I mentioned that characters will take variable amounts of damage during fights? Yeah, you might need a reminder that some of those injuries can be quite serious. For characters that get their limbs ripped off or their abdomens torn open, this is a pretty serious injury and you won't be able to just walk it off. Pain tolerance varies wildly between characters, but even characters with a high pain tolerance aren't usually going to be able to withstand such an injury without lots of screaming. This is probably another no brainer, but serious injuries are called "serious" for a reason - injuries like that typically lead to death, especially if you don't have anyone on hand to help.
Now, let's go along the list of things that can cause death. These things being things that I've seen characters either shrug off or otherwise survive without medical treatment, or expect to see people finding ways to play off. This is by no means a complete list of things that can get your character killed, but some of the more common scenarios I can see people trying to play off as less deadly to make their characters appear more badass for surviving them.
-Having your limbs torn off. Once saw a lion have his forelimb - his entire damn forelimb - ripped off and just walk off after a while. Apparently, it just "stopped bleeding". In reality, he'd have a pretty slim chance of survival, even with medical treatment. Yeah, there's a chance he could have lived, but he'd probably be out of commission for weeks or months if he was lucky enough to survive.
-Injury to the neck. This isn't always the case - it has to be deep and/or sever a blood vessel. And even if you do get your neck scratches and the bleeding is dangerous, there is the possibility of you finding a way to stop it. But this is far from a given, and survival without medical treatment is unlikely. And this is assuming the best case scenario. If you get shanked in the neck, you're probably screwed. If you have your throat ripped out, you're usually SOL.
-Head injuries. Yeah, if you get hit in the head hard enough, you could die on the spot. This can be partially negated by things like head armor, horns, or similar ways of protecting your noggin. But your average wolf or lion could easily be killed with by a strong enough impact, like in real life, where members of both species are often killed with a kick to the head from their would-be prey. Brain bleeding is also a thing. So if your character survives the initial impact, there could still be some brain bleeding which could easily lead to death. Both of these things require a pretty substantial impact, and it's not a given that any of the animals in this RP could deliver that kind of force. But let's at least try and be reasonable here if your character gets bashed in the head in a brutal enough fashion.
-Getting crushed. With there being so many species allowed in the RP, there's going to be a ton of animals that are out of your character's weight range. If you're a wolf and get walked on by an elephant, you're probably not gonna come back from that. Remember, this RP is not in the world of modern medicine - injuries that a human might recover from in real life are not always going to be the same for our characters.
-Falls. It's important for me to elaborate on this one, since a lot of people aren't aware of terminal velocity. And there's a lot of high spots in the RP - such as trees, cliffs, mountains, and other large obstacles. What's terminal velocity, you might ask? Well, it's the maximum speed something can fall at. Air resistance and gravity eventually equal out, and once you've hit that point, you can't fall any faster unless you have some way to propel yourself. Heavier creatures have higher terminal velocities - a height that could kill something in the 100 pounds range can be shrugged off by something that only weighs about 5 pounds. And if you're something mouse-sized, you cannot physically die from a fall - your terminal velocity is simply too slow to be fatal. But this works more and more against your favor the larger and larger you get. The heavier you are, the faster you fall. And a fall that an 8-pound cat could survive could pulverize a half-ton horse on impact.
-Getting stabbed or torn open. A couple pokes to the limbs or side with your average sized teeth are pretty fine, and even more severe punctures and lacerations can be recovered from. But there are such a thing as saber-toothed cats in this RP, and if you get stabbed in the gut or somewhere else similarly vulnerable with a smilodon's near-twelve-inch teeth, you're gonna have a bad time. There are also creatures like monkeys and maybe even the occasional human who can wield long, pointy objects like spears. Even if you survive the original effects of the stabbing, (bleeding, organ punctures, ecta), there's the potential risk of infection to deal with. And if that happens, you're probably screwed. Not all stabbings and pokeings are deadly or even potentially deadly, but again, let's be reasonable here.
-Infections. One of the biggest reasons it's so much harder to make a successful recovery out in the sticks vs in a hospital is due to the heightened risk of infection. Even though germs are small, they can cause devastating damage, potentially even surpassing the original injury. Sterilizing your makeshift medical equipment is basically impossible, and there's no way a wild animal could even know what causes infections, (germs, animals can't see germs), anyway. Not all infections are fatal, and many can be recovered from. Not to mention that some herbs can reduce the risk of infections and help to treat existing ones. But this doesn't negate the risk that an infection can cause to your character, and a once-benign infection can still get worse over time and eventually reach a tipping point, especially if not actively treated.
5. So many choices!
This RP is extremely character driven, and with that, your character can basically do whatever they're capable of. There are no rules for their behavior, they can literally do whatever they want. However, that does not mean that there won't be consequences for bad choices. If you get horribly injured, you're probably going to die. If you decide to attack a group or a group leader, don't be surprised when you end up shredded by the other members. If you're involved with a coalition - be you a member, an ally, or even a random trespasser - expect to be punished for breaking their rules or otherwise pissing them off. Your character(s)/coalition(s) can claim as much territory/densites/whatever as they want. But they have to keep others away from it if they want to keep their ownership. If they're not around to defend your territory from wanderers that may have their eyes on the place, well, you can't really blame the new owners for setting up shop since the original owners weren't really paying attention to it. On a similar note, there are no forbidden attacks. Your character can bring harm to another character in any way they are physically capable of.There's a flip side to this coin, though. Just because your character might want to do something, or is capable of it, does not mean the other player(s) involved are A-OK with it. This RP involves lots of stuff, you probably saw that at the top of this list. But for things that tend give other people the squiggles, ask before you act. They might not be up for it. And if they are, try and keep it in a private chat, like party or whisper - or for those RPing on the discord, designated chats - and between players who are cool with it.
For the record, we do not condone RPs of a sexual nature. However, I at least respect the fact that we really can't stop you from doing whatever you want in the most private of chats, and I'm not going to be the one who's lording over you 100% of the time you're online to make you're not doing that sort of stuff. But, FHU does prohibit these sorts of RPs, so I can't in good conscience condone them without risking the fury of the mods. However, if you do end up engaging in such RPs, I ask that all parties involved be willing and of-age (at least 18 or older) before participating.
6. Character creation.
You can make almost any animal you want, extant or extinct! Under some basic conditions. This RP is semi-realistic, so there are some things that are outright outlawed. Most of these are up to common sense, but a lot of people lack common sense, so I've decided to list them here.-One, you do your research! Unless you've done it previously, I don't care if you think you know all that you need to know about wolves, there's probably something you missed if you just watched a bunch of animal documentaries and are obsessed with the things. A good read-through on the wikipedia page should be good enough. Don't worry, I'm not going to make you read the whole thing, but the description and anything pertaining to life cycle should be good enough. Since I'm going to assume you want to know the size of your character, how long their childhood was, and how long the rest of their life will be.
-Two, the species existed. You can't go around making some half-hellhound, half-angel, half-dragon, half-demon or whatever. I don't care if you're disappointed, the creature has to have existed in real life. So no weird, "super cool" wolf characters or whatever that a lot of kids make when first introduced to the concept of character making. SOME custom species may be allowed in the future, but they have to be something that could have feasibly existed in real life, and be related to an existing group (such as a custom breed of canine related to the grey wolf).
-If you're going to make a dinosaur/pterosaur/anything from the mesozoic or before, you must ask first, and it must be under 400 pounds. This puts most dromeosaurs and even things like quetzalcoatlus on the table. This is probably going to change later as we get more players, and the size limit may be moved or even done away with entirely. But for now, stick to small-ish dinos.
We allow and often encourage inventive designs, just as long as they aren't over the top. But that doesn't mean that we allow all the colors of the rainbow. Green and purple are not allowed, regardless of shade or hue. Reds have to be muted, and blues even more so. Oranges and yellows are fine, but they must also be muted. Browns, blacks, greys and whites are fine. Pink is not allowed unless we're talking about skin, or is more of a hue, like the pale orange-ish color found on some cat breeds. These are the case for mammalian characters - the rules are slightly different for reptilian or avian characters, as we're working with different types of integument and slightly different biological principles. Even so, you're STILL not allowed to make your characters neon-bright. Even the brightest of macaws are still far from neon, remember that.
Just for the record, we often don't know what colors these extinct animals were. But we know for damn sure that they weren't bright blue with rainbow markings and near-neon emo hair. Keep your colors naturalistic, for the sake of everyone's eyes.
Before anyone asks if their colorful benevolent or benevolent-esque (as in, hailing from a pack with similar attributes and realism laws) is allowed, no. Unfortunately, at least for you, no. Your character is gonna need to have coloration that a real wolf or dog could actually exhibit in life, although the marking patterns can be rather inventive. Your character also has to be a realistic size, before anyone tries making any 6' at the shoulder canines anytime soon.
The only characters these do not apply to are ghosts, and I guess hallucinations if you want to make one. If your character has been melted by the sun, stick to a reddish-pinkish flesh color.
On a similar note, I'd prefer if you avoided flooding the RP with black and white characters. Although many animals - wild and domestic - come in these colors, and we accept them, that doesn't mean that they should be the dominant color palette. For instance, black wolves, white wolves, and black-and-white wolves do exist, but there are so many colors that a wolf can come in that it's unfair to default to the monochrome ones. The same is true for basically all feline species. Melanistic, or black individuals, as well as white ones - usually leucistic or albino - also exist. Many patterned creatures with melanism - like leopards, for example - have patterns even with the melanism making them near invisible. Chances are, if your character's species has any sort of pattern, it'll be visible - however faint - with melanistic individuals.
6. Hybrid characters.
Ah, hybrids. They can be pretty awesome, and we allow them. Yes, you heard that right, we allow hybrids. BUT! You can't be completely off the wall with your hybrids. I once heard a story from my friend who was part of an RP back in the day, and someone tried to join with a fox/rabbit hybrid. Why? Because apparently, the creator of the character wanted the fox to have very soft fur. Yeah... as you can probably tell, we won't be allowing hybrids of that nature in here.Hybrids in general are a bit of an iffy subject - different species that one would think are closely related cannot breed, wherehas others that are further apart can. My suggestions are to stick to hybrids that have been done before in real life, like ligers/tigons, savannah cats, wolfdogs, mules, coywolves, beefaloes, pizzlies/grolar bears, zedonks or zorses, and stuff that you can find examples of with a google search. If there are no examples of the type of hybrid you want to make, just ask me or someone else in the know about animal taxonomy and how that stuff works.
One problem with making a hybrid species is the idea of gametic incompatibility. Basically, it's when the sperm of the father animal can't pass into the egg of the female animal and create a baby. Sometimes, gametic incompatibility between two species isn't a problem or can be bypassed (usually with human intervention and using modern technology), but the viability of any hybrid fetus is basically nil.
Another issue is that if the mother's species' babies are half or less than half the size of the father's species babies' (like in a lion and clouded leopard), then the mother would probably die during birth. Baby sizes are pretty important! If the newborn can't fit through its mothers pelvis, or through the birth canal in general, there will be problems. So, try not to pick a mother for your hybrid animals that's half the size of the father or less, that can probably only end badly.
Something you should also keep an eye out for is the side effects visible in the hybrid offspring. Many hybrids, such as ligers, suffer from a higher degree of neurological problems, deformities, and other issues. Ligers are also known to suffer from a high degree of infant mortality, usually occurring minutes after birth. This issue is not universal, though. This is another reason you should stick to, or near to hybrids that have been done before. So you can either look up the issues they may face, or extrapolate based on known counterparts.
Many hybrids are also sterile, at least, most of the time. Again with ligers, males are sterile, wherehas females are not. Mules of both sexes are sterile. Wolfdogs are rarely sterile, regardless of sex. The more closely related two species are, the less fertility problems they will have. But this can vary rather widely.
However, avian hybrids can be created by two vastly different species and still be at least somewhat viable, unlike in mammals. Some of the more extreme examples of this are with the parents belonging to two separate families, such as the chicken and guineafowl, but many are between closely related species. Like with mammalian hybrids, try and stick with hybrids that have been done before, or hybrids within the same genus.
A good rule of thumb, if they're in the same genus (example: genus Canis, contains wolves, dogs, coyotes and others, many of which have interbred in the past), they're probably not gonna have a problem genetics wise or birth-wise. The species should be similar enough that the size and genetics are similar enough so that problems don't occur. This is not universal, though, so watch out!
7. Mutant characters.
Mutations happen all the time, and are literally the driving force for evolution. So it's safe to say that mutations are allowed in your characters. However, this doesn't mean that the mutations turn our characters into superpowers. Nor do these mutations make them look like some weird hybrid. One of my friends ran an RP that allowed mutations like this - creatures that looked like half-cat half-fish creatures, or half-cat half-horses, or other abnormalities that really couldn't exist with the same animal. I'm not gonna call this friend out, because I love them to death, and I'm damn sure they're reading this. In the case that I'm right, hi, I'm not trying to diss you. Just trying to set an example.So, things that are obviously off the table are things like wolves with wings, domestic cats with horse hooves, and lions with saber teeth like what you'd see on a smilodon. Yes, I'm outlawing your lioden-ass saber-toothed lions, and I'm sorry if you don't like it. Having longer and thicker canine teeth on any animal is fine, but they wouldn't be same as your quintessential smilodon sabers, which are long as hell, flattened side-to-side and curved. They'd be more like the regular canines of your average lion - or whatever creature you're using - but really overgrown.
The thing is with mutations, they are allowed and often encouraged, but try and keep your animal looking like a member of its own species rather than a hybrid. Of course, you can have a lot of weird mutations that go on. But, with hybrids, try and stick to things that have been seen in real life. More innocuous things like a color change in a creature's fur (melanism, leucism, piebaldism), or something bigger like having a whole-ass new set of limbs, which has been documented in several animal species.
Something you should be aware of is that mutations have their upsides and their downsides. For many benign mutations, there are few of both. Some mutations provide more advantages and others offer little other than cons. Albinism, for example, makes for quite the pretty creature. But it leaves a creature more susceptible to sunburn and skin cancer, along with disparities in vision. Albinos tend to live shorter lives than their non-mutant counterparts. So if you're going to make a mutant character, do your research. See what advantages your mutation of choice offers, and weigh it in with the inevitable downsides.
8. Grouping up.
This RP is one of those RPs where groups can come together and fall apart at any point. If you've got a character, they can start a group. Nobody starts off as a faction member, you have to RP your way in So don't wander up into a group's territory like you own the place. You will probably be shredded, potentially even on sight.Your group can be formed in the area of the map over the course of the roleplay, or you can have a more developed coalition come in from further away. There are no real rules about group types or behaviors - members of solitary species can form groups and members of social species can remain loners. Just as long as we're keeping behaviors semi-realistic (as in: no magical powers, trying to keep things a little realistic with non-magical abilities, ecta)
As there are no rules on the behavior of characters, there are no rules on the behavior of groups and those in them. You can make a really violent, warmongering group that attacks everyone they see, or a really peaceful group who is nice to literally everyone. Most groups will probably fall somewhere in between, though.
Being in a group as opposed to on your own offers some advantages, and some disadvantages. You have a lot of protection from outsiders, but you have to follow the group's rules. Hell, the group might even see you as a liability and might abuse you or even execute you, so the protection from outsiders thing might not seem like a fair trade-off. You should definitely stay outside the territorial boundaries of other groups as a member of a group, especially your group's enemies. Since if you piss some other group off by wandering into their territory, breaking their rules and generally causing havoc, your entire group can easily take the fall for your actions. Worst case scenario, a full-on war might be waged over the actions of one member.
Wherehas as a loner, you have to be very wary of wandering into anyone's territory unannounced. You don't have the protection of backup in most cases, so if you catch problems, you're usually gonna be on your own. You can't really start a full-on war, but that won't really stop the group you pissed off from tracking you down and obliterating everything you know and love, probably including you.
In general, keep territorial boundaries in mind. You can do this OOC and still have a character that doesn't care one bit about them, but expect trouble.
As I mentioned, nobody starts off as a member of any faction, unless your character is born into it or you get prior permission from the faction's leader OOC. Do not walk into someone's territory like you own the place or you're already a member of that faction. Because nobody else will treat your character like a fellow of theirs, and you'll probably just get murdered, taken captive, or chased off in the best case scenario.
You're not forbidden from trying to take over a group as a loner, but that doesn't necessarily mean that'll go well in your favor. There's a high likelihood that once the group sees you attacking their leader, or realizes what you're doing, they'll try and kill you. And even if you manage to chase off, kill, or otherwise win one over on the original leader, that doesn't mean the rest of the group will accept you, and your victory won't necessarily stop the rest of the members from killing you.
If you do want to join a group, however, just ask the leader OOC on how you can join and if they'll let you in. Then, good luck.
9. Stay in your lane.
I know this sounds a little bad, but I hope it isn't once you read a little further. You, as a player among a potentially vast number of players and their characters, are not the end-all be-all of this story. Don't go around acting like you're the main protagonist of the RP, or that your character is somehow more important than the others and their business takes priority over all others. Your character is not the main character. Technically, there really isn't one. There are characters who are more relevant to the plot than many others, but that doesn't mean they take precedence over everyone else. And besides, they can be killed, removed from the RP, or their players may go inactive. Hell, they might even just stop being notable. Either way, they won't remain plot celebrities forever, for lack of a better term.How does one become plot-relevant? Well, the best thing I can suggest to start with is create an interesting, unique character. Make them stand out, and don't just go with whatever other characters you might like in the RP or what might be popular. While we're at it, keep copying to an absolute minimum. I get inspiration, and I get that sometimes you run out of good ideas. But if you're gonna rip someone's stuff, ask them first. And if they say no, don't do it! And even if they say yes, don't be surprised when you're viewed as unoriginal or just a lesser version of whoever's ideas you took from.
Next step would probably be them generally doing notable things, like starting a group or waging a war. Even killing enough characters, preferably player characters (called PCs), might be enough to make your character stand out. Try and balance that out with good decision-making - you might not want to be known as the player of "that one stupid character".
While we're at it, don't go totally derailing plots. I get wanting to be innovative, but let people do what they want to do, unless they're being harmful to the userbase or even to a specific player if it's bad enough. In that case, just get me and I'll find a way to deal with them. Or I'll just get my characters and fuck with them myself if it's not severe enough to warrant actual punishment. And don't be that person trying to be dramatic for the sake of trying to bring attention to you and your character, I can tell when you're doing that. Because I was the queen of that and it was super annoying, so you'll definitely get in at least minor trouble for it.
When it comes to drama in general, I don't really mind. Run of the mill RP drama is pretty fine and par for the course here. But there's a difference between doing it for the sake of the RP or because it fits the narrative/character/moment/story in general, and doing it to bring the spotlight to your character, and most importantly, you.
There's something called meta-gaming, where you apply information that your characters couldn't possibly know to the RP, usually just for the sake of making you and your character look cooler or trying to get one over on other people's characters. Obviously, this is not allowed. Your character only knows what they have been told, been taught, or overheard/witnessed. You do not know another character that you've only just met in RP, and you definitely don't know anything about them that they haven't told you. Only exception is when you've been warned by another character in RP before you met the character you've been warned about. And even so, this information is limited to what you've been told by the one who warned you. Pulling things out of a character's bio like backstories and other information is going to get you yelled at by both me and the disgruntled RPer you just pulled this trick on.
On the topic of meta-gaming and such, your character does not know everything about everything. Sure, you may have a jack of all trades type character, but even these have their pitfalls and gaps in their knowledge. Your character will not have the solution to every problem they face, so don't go around acting like they know everything or can do everything. Same goes for basically anything you might know in real life - your character doesn't know all of the stuff you do, so don't act they would.
I might add more if people still find ways to fuck up that I didn't put down. But there's most of the rules, they're long as hell and I'm sorry about that. I didn't intend to put any of these rules up to be restrictive or scare you, I made them so long to stupid-proof them. And I didn't want to leave anything unsaid in case someone did do something and use the excuse "there wasn't a rule for it", or otherwise believe because it wasn't written down, that it's A-OK to do.
Some Guidelines:
These are things you don't have to follow, but are often expected. You won't get yelled at for ignoring most of these, but that doesn't mean you should ignore them.
-When someone comes online, try and say hi. If they're getting back from an AFK or similar absence, try welcome them back. If someone's going offline, try and say bye. We all end up missing people, so don't get too caught up if you accidentally miss your chance or slack off.
-Don't use wolfspeak. You sound like a dipshit. Avoid it at all cost if you can. Hell, I might make this a rule because it's one of those things that gets under the skin of damn near everyone. Hell, this is one of the guidelines that might get you a talking to from me if you break.
-Give your character a bio, at least on FH. Even if it's basic stuff like age, gender, species and stuff like that. Because I want to read it and get a half-decent idea of your character from that simple double-click, and I'm pretty sure most others do, too. I'd give my character a bio on the forums, too, especially if you don't play FH. But maybe that's just me.
-Copying someone's character is looked down upon, try not to do it. This includes wanting to make your characters into siblings, so you can give yours a similar design. This siblings point is not always bad, though. Although it can be annoying, it's not always a big deal. Just, don't be a dick. This is the other one that'll get you a talking to from me if you break, since this is generally not good to do.
-There are beds in the densites in the maps, but it's assumed that they need to be assembled in-RP. Pay attention to detail in general, it's important. Also, we'll assume that most dens have a nearby obstacle to block them with, such as a rock or a thick stand of plants. But if you want to find your own rock to put in front of the doorway in the mornings, be my guest.
-Presets on FH are allowed and encouraged! But don't be that person who has a badass preset but leaves the character underneath default. It looks ugly, and not everyone can download presets or even has access to your preset download. So it's unfair that they just get to see your default character while you and everyone with your preset get to see an awesome character. Don't be that person with a default character and no way to download your preset without the discord/forums.
-Discord is heavily encouraged, since it allows us to get in contact without being on FH or on the forums. And it's often a lot easier to RP there, even though we RP on FH and on the forums. Because why not give people the utmost opportunity to cause chaos? Plus, not everyone can get FH or likes playing on it, and discord also makes it far easier to contact other members and see if they're up for hanging out or RPing or other fun things.
-Promoting other servers, RP groups and etc is technically allowed, but frowned upon. We have a certain chat for server promotion in the discord, so if you're going to do it, do it there. And do it respectfully, don't be like "these guys are so much better than the guys at breaking day, come join them!" because that's just a dick move no matter who you're talking to or about.
-Find a way to incorporate the behaviors of your particular animal species into your character's interactions. Even some of the weird or gross ones, like how dogs and other canines sniff each other's butts, roll in dung and occasionally hump each other to assert dominance. I'm pretty sure that most animals have their weird rituals and behaviors. Makes the different animals in the RP feel more different. Plus, it's damn funny.
-Although I do have a love of inventive designs, I don't honestly want to see designs that look like they're straight out of lioden or wolvoden. What I mean is that I don't want to see your average lion with ten types of markings, twenty different colors and shades, and/or saber-teeth. There's a line between semi-realistic yet inventive and pretty unrealistic, and these designs often cross them. So try not to over-complicate your designs or put contrasting colors on the same character, since that stuff can get pretty old. You get a lot more leeway with extinct characters, since for the most part we have no clue what they looked like, and have no real "base" to compare them to.
-Before you ask, yes, you can make your characters LGBT+. I don't really care, just try and not be stupid about it, y'know. Your character can also hold whatever biases or be whatever-phobic you want, just as long as you, the player, do not hold said biases.
-Instead of saying you're bored, start a new RP topic! Go to FH, or the discord, or even start a thread on the forums! Don't just sit there and be bored, try and find a solution. If you're too worried to just start up an RP apropos of nothing, ask someone if you'd like to do an RP. I'd pretty much always be up for it, unless I'm sick or crunching on a project.
-If you don't know all that much about something you plan to use in an RP (species, mutation, poison, herb, hybrid, mental illness, ecta), you should either be willing to learn more about it or stay 10+ feet away from it at all times. If you're too lazy to do your research yourself, just ask me. I might know something about the thing you're curious about, and if not, I'm more than willing to look it up and get the basics down pat for ya.
-Use. Basic. Proper. Grammar! Punctuation can be difficult, and half the time I don't know where to put a comma. But if you don't know the difference between things like your and you're, to and too, there and their, then just look up "basic english grammar" or something that tells you the difference and keep that tab open at all times until you learn. I get it, people mess up. But there's the difference between accidents and stupidity. Or would it be ignorance? Either way, you probably know what I mean.
-Don't put trigger warnings on things that aren't genuinely and/or universally upsetting. (I.E., Abuse, severe gore, suicide, in many of these cases it might be wiser to warn someone about the presence of these topics.) Please, don't be that person going "trigger warning, blood" on pictures with some minor bleeding or whatever, just because "someone might be offended".
Aging system:
3 weeks OOC = 1 month IC.
6 weeks (a month and a half) OOC = 2 months IC.
9 weeks (two months, one week) OOC = 3 months (one season, a quarter-year) IC.
12 weeks (one season, a quarter-year) OOC = 4 months (a third of a year) IC.
15 weeks (three months, three weeks) OOC = 5 months IC.
18 weeks (four months, two weeks) OOC = 6 months (a half-year) IC.
And on and on and on, until the RP crashes and burns.
Time is generally going to pass at 3 OOC weeks to an IC month. You can slow it down to IRL time, but seasons and the ages of most characters are going to follow this rule of thumb. Although young characters tend to age faster than older ones, adult characters are not allowed to age faster than 3 weeks = one month rule. Aside from one exception, parents who have offspring that are still going through the fast-aging process. After all, we wouldn't want the offspring to age so fast that it looks like their parents don't age at all. 'Cause if that happens, then we get the problem of the characters potentially being too old to conceivably be their parents' offspring.
When it comes to younger character aging laws, juvenile characters do not always have a set age system (with increments of slowing aging) but that does not mean that they're aging instantly. Even newborn characters are not allowed to age at a faster rate than 1 week = 1 month. After your character hits the one year old mark (if your character is any species of feline or canine, some smaller species might hit this point earlier), they are not allowed to age faster than 2 weeks = 1 month.
You get to timeskip once per character, adding about five months onto their age. But only if the character's siblings, and preferably their parents, also agree to timeskip. That way we don't get weird continuity problems like littermates being different ages, and again, the offspring potentially being too old to conceivably belong to their parents.
Another thing, if your character is pregnant, you should probably have your character be pregnant for roughly the same amount of time it would amount to in the timescale mentioned above. For instance, a real wolf is pregnant for about three months give or take, so your wolf character should be pregnant for roughly the same amount of in-character time. This doesn't have to be exact, down to the damn day or hour, but it should be pretty similar. No animals have kids in the blink of an eye, even the smallest ones like mice. You might get the chance to timeskip, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure if it would fuck with the continuity to just have your character have babies two or three days after they got pregnant. Before you get worried about having to play a fat as hell character for the duration of their pregnancy, your characters aren't going to be an absolute blimp for most of it - even in the womb, young animals start out small. Hell, for the first few days or even week or two, your character will probably have no idea about it. Unless they're really intuitive and/or know to look for the signs.
The afterlife:
When your character does eventually die, you have two options. One, the character passes from this world to the next. The other, they linger as a ghost. Not everyone can see ghosts, mind you. Only spiritually sensitive characters, or those who have come close to death themselves can see ghosts. Aside from those who had a close bond with the spirit, who may be able to sense their loved one's presence. Although, many people have suggested that animals are more spiritually sensitive than humans, so it's safe to say that many if not most of our characters would be able to see them or at least sense them somehow. Ghosts have a wide range of appearances - nobody really knows why they take the forms they do. Two creatures of the same species who lived similar lives and died under the same circumstances can still take on radically different appearances. You can get as creative as you want with how your ghost character looks - they aren't bound to reality with their appearance like how the living are.
Bear in mind, ghosts don't have the ability to do much real harm to living characters, beyond scaring the shit out of them. Although they can't die, they can't really affect the living that much, either. Only very strong-willed and/or powerful spirits can do much more than the list below. The affects your average ghost may have on the living are:
-Projecting images, memories or emotions into the minds of the living.
-Enter or otherwise influence the dreams of the living.
-Form a cold spot, potentially even making a whole area cold. (As in a den, or maybe densite. Not a massive area like an entire goddamn forest.)
-Move things like dust, dirt, sand, snow or leaves. Sometimes even things like small pebbles. Many ghosts are capable of leaving footprints.
-Darken or lighten an area. The larger the area is, the less pronounced the effect is. Some ghosts can create a bright flash of light.
-Phase through living things and inanimate objects.
-Interact with the living as if they were immovable objects, like a cliff, tree or large stone. Most living characters won't be able to feel a ghost standing on them or whatever.
-Get into fights with other spirits, potentially banish, or "poof" other spirits for a time - usually from a few minutes to a week or so.
-Travel quickly between locations.
-Will usually tip off the danger or "I'm not alone" senses of most characters, even the spiritually insensitive. Unless the character's just oblivious like that.
What is a poltergeist?
A ghost that has grown very powerful, and/or very angry. Usually both, although sometimes the anger can be replaced with mischievousness.
Here's the stuff they can do:
-Leave minor wounds on the living, such as bruises, shallow scratches and bites.
-Interact in minor ways with the living, such as touching them or even shoving them.
-Interact with inanimate objects as if they were alive. But only stuff in the range that they could lift or move in their lives, even if it's multiple objects at the same time.
Try not to do all of these things all day every day, but you can take a crack at these once in a while if you've got a poltergeist character. It takes energy to manifest in the real world, especially when it involves moving things around and otherwise screwing with the living. So you wouldn't feasibly be able to do this much of the time, regardless.
What is a medium?
A creature who is close enough to the spirit world to see and hear any spirit not deliberately hiding itself. Mediums are also capable of interacting with spirits as if they were living. But bear in mind - this is a two-way street. A medium can touch a ghost or even push them around, but the ghost can do the same to the medium. Watch out!
Shamans and priests/priestesses tend to lean towards this level of spiritual sensitivity, but your average character without any particularly spiritual pursuits can be a medium. This level of sensitivity is somewhat rare - try and keep it so.
Spirits can affect mediums in these fun little ways!:
-Sap energy from the medium.
-Interact with the medium as if they were both living creatures, includes injuries and other fun stuff.
-Possess the medium.
-Probably more stuff that I'm not able to think of/remember right now.
Ghosts can linger for a wide range of time frames and a vast number of reasons. Many have unfinished business, or an unfulfilled desire. Some may remain as guardians for loved ones. Some are simply too determined to remain alive when they die, and fail to pass on. Many ghosts just "wake up", unsure of what happened or why. Those are the main four I could think of, but feel free to come up with your own reason!
Where your character falls on the spiritual sensitivity spectrum can vary wildly, but most individuals have a baseline that they don't stray too far from. Some are full-blown mediums, where some others are completely immune to the spirit world. Although, it is possible for one's sensitivity to greatly improve under some very specific circumstances.
When it comes to making your own ghost character, you can start out with a ghost, or have a living character who kicks the bucket. Even with the second option, feel free to make their appearances as ghoulish and all-around frightening as you want! That's part of the fun of playing as one of these things, after all - scaring the shit out of living characters and maybe even creeping out their players!
There are rumors about some psychoactive substances allowing for increased spiritual sensitivity. But are these ghosts, or just hallucinations? It's very difficult to say for certain...
D for dead - their business on this world is over, and you're not going to play them anymore, alive or otherwise.
G for ghost. These guys are the ones whos' spirits stick around to watch over - and sometimes torment - the living characters.
F for forsaken, or for flesh. You can pick one. These are the poor bastards who got stuck in the sun too long and are now able to wreak havoc on most characters.
There's more on the flesh in the plot thread.
If you read all of this, thanks for sticking with me! All of this information is at least somewhat important, and you'll probably be thankful that you know the basics now. Now go ahead and cause chaos, just not enough to ruin the fun, y'know?
This will be edited multiple times, bear with me.