THE LAW

General/Out of Character

These are the general rules: they also apply to your out of character conduct.

• Read these rules: there is no excuse of "I didn't know" if you break one of them.
• Please do not join if you are not willing to make a long-term commitment to your character, or at least tell us if you must quit at any time. There's nothing worse than just having people disappear.
• On this note, you are limited to three characters. Why? Because whenever people get more, they spread their time too thin and all ten of their characters end up inactive.
• There will be activity checks once a month, for the first full week of that month. I will make it absolutely clear when there is a check. I will post a notice on the OOC board. I will put a notice in red in the updates. I will highlight the activity check link in bright red on the OOC menu, and I'll include the ending date of the check there. There is no reason to miss an activity check. Anyone who does not reply to an activity check with a list of their active characters within a week of me posting the check will have their characters deleted. If the person comes back, they will have to re-join their character and start from scratch, re-earning all abilities, ranks and honors and re-establishing all relationships. Inactivity is the bane of all RPGs - let's keep it at bay.
• In exception to the rule above: If you are on excused abscence when I call a check, you are (of course) excused. And if you had a death in the family, or your computer went conk without warning or something equally life-disrupting, contact me and I'll bring your character back without penalty. I understand that some things are just beyond our control.
• All skill levels and age groups are welcome here. Please note that some facts of equine life make our game PG-13. I work very hard to keep a clean and friendly operation, though, so don't be too concerned.
• There is a post minimum of 100 words. It's not that hard, and you can seek out the RP Academy if you need help. I'm tired of one-liners; It's a huge let down when someone writes a 400 word post and gets 'The mare looked at him' back. Don't do it, it's depressing.
• No pornography, sick language, extremely suggestive language, explicit pictures or language, potentially disturbing images or potentially disturbing stories may be posted on my boards. I keep a close watch on the boards and I will know when you're doing something naughty.
• I am not enabling profanity filters, nor am I banning the use of swear words. If you have a rant with a lot of swear words, please warn people before you get into it, okay? And use your good judgment. I will talk to people I think are overusing profanity.
  
  
• If you use HTML, you must know how to close your tags. If you don't close your tags properly, it will mess up the whole board. I will go around assisting people who want help with HTML. I will also clean up after people, but please learn to use it properly! I'm always available for questions, I won't bark at you, and I hardly bite. ~_^
• You may not join anything other than a horse or equine-themed mythical creature without the owner's permission. We do allow a few dragons and other creatures, but you MUST ask Darkwing first or else you WILL NOT get to play the character. Thestrals are acceptable, you don't need to ask about them. ^_^
• Do not argue on my ooc board or on any other boards. If it is the characters arguing, fine. If it is the players arguing, I will reprimand you. If I find you arguing ooc on more than three occasions, both people will be banned. We've had one major blow up in the life of this game, let's not have another please? If you have a problem with someone or something that's going on, contact me PRIVATELY, that means by e-mail, MSN, or AIM. I'll take care of it or help you work around it. Okay?
• Keep religious and political beliefs to yourself. They tend to be the kindling for major arguments.
• No advertising anywhere but on the advertising board. I won't exact punishment other than deleting the post. People who break this rule more than once will be banned, though.
• This isn't a rule, just a suggestion, but it would be nice. When you join, if you're new to our game, post a little hello message on the OOC board, tell us a little about yourself, how long you've been role-playing, how many characters you play. Just something we can reply to. We're, as a rule, very curious about the new people and want to meet them so we can make friends, that's what makes this place special: friendship. Don't worry, we don't bite....okay, maybe we nibble a little, but we're harmless, I swear it!

Special Abilities

Ah, yes, the good part. The special powers. At one point people were just allowed to join with them, but this version we're going to spice things up a bit.

• There is only one way to earn special abilities: Questing. If you complete a quest successfully, you'll advance a step on the road of the lovely abilities. Check out the abilites page for mre information about what the abilities are and how to get each one.
• To get a quest you go to the Quest board and post there asking for one. One of the gods will then set you a task. Tasks will vary in type and difficulty, and may be very specific to a god's personality. One may ask you to do something you're weak at. Another might ask you to seek out a specific type of horse and say something specific in a conversation with them. They can be wacky, they can be very challenging.
• Special abilities may be used in wars, but not in raids. They may be used in battles over ranks in the realms, but they cannot be used in training battles for stars (again, for clarification on what training battles and stars are, see the abilities page).
• A witch or wizard can use their abilites as much as they want in a fight. An Elemental Mage can use one ability per round.
• If you are going to persue either Stars or Magery, make sure you read the whole Titles and Abilities page. You don't have to do that now, but its certainly imporant.

Battles & Stealing

You do not need to read these before joining. If you choose to pass this section by, though, please come back and read it before you challenge or steal.

• There will be NO powerplaying or godmoding in Mercury Isle battles. Brownie cannot jump forty feet in the air, miraculously avoid all of Blackie's attacks, and crush Blackie's spine. Just don't do it, it won't get by unnoticed.
  
  
• On the flip side, if someone is powerplaying or godmoding in your fight, don't start yelling at them. Don't say anything. Just downsize their attacks if they're godmoding, accept inconcievable dodges, and dodge powerplays without harm. The judges will see what's going on and will choose the winner accordingly. This means the powerplayer/godmoder will always lose.
• Because of some recent insight into battling, I have changed some of our rules. TWO posts for each horse per fight, but one or two attacks per post, two allowing for a combo hit, one if you just want one. You may dodge from attacks, but use your good judgement. If your instincts tell you that you can't really get away from it, try to and take any damage that you get. I will be watching and will penalize anybody who is not being fair when I judge the fight, same with the other judges. Powerplaying is still the same, no saying that you landed a blow or pushed another character anywhere. You can outline how they might get hurt if they move this way or that, thus making it more difficult to get away from it. Godmoding's definition is a litte bit different now. Godmoding is when a player has their horse do something completely impossible like jump twenty feet in the air or kick a horse in the rump while biting it in the rump. (Yes, at the same time. Somone actually did that to me once, I nearly choked myself laughing.) Dodging attacks that are extremely hard to get out of without something VERY creative is also godmoding, so watch it. And just so we're clear, our definition of powerplaying is if you say you land a blow, or if you move the other person's character in any way (even saying they fall down is powerplaying).
• Anyone in a realm can post a steal, but they may only do this if the leader or co-leaders of the herd approves. Steals can become diplomatic crises and turn into raids and war, so it's not likely that the lead would allow just anyone to gallavant off and steal someone from another realm. The person who brings the idea of stealing to the leader/co-leader is the one who posts the steal and makes the riddle.
• To make things a little more complicated, when a horse approaches the leader to ask for steal approval, the horse SHOULD NOT mention the name of the horse they want to steal. They may state the realm of the horse, and if the leader wishes, describe rank or some physical characteristic. This is to stop the people from other realms trolling the boards and finding out who is being stolen. If the leader needs more clarification on who the horse is, they should be contacted OOC by email or some other private way.
• When posting, the stealer puts their realm in the subject, and their name in the name box, so it'll look like: Steal for TREFAUGLIR MEADOWS by Brownie.
• The steal post should be a riddle in English, no using words of other languages. It should include a few telling characteristics of the horse being stolen, and at least one clue about the realm that is being stolen from.
• The realm being stolen from has three days (72 hours) to reply with the correct answer. Anyone from a realm can reply to a steal, but only two people from each realm may try to solve the riddle. So if two people have already posted from your realm, but you think they're wrong, tough luck. The ONLY exception to this rule is if you go to the lead of the herd, and they post an answer. They may be a third guess, but ONLY the leader, not the co-leader or any other lower-ranked horse.
• Here's the advantage of getting to know a lot of horses in your realm: if they're being stolen and you stop the steal, you may have more favor in the lead's eyes, and the eyes of the realm. Come promotion time, you may just find yourself in good. So get to know everyone, notice personalities. It pays.

Okay, that's it. Go join, and have fun! ^_^