Post by RANJIT on Feb 5, 2018 3:51:43 GMT
THE BASICS— Rivale is an intermediate to advanced fantasy horse RPG. Our plot is heavily based around in-character combat, so if fighting isn't your thing, this may not be the place for you.
— We expect our members to be mature and understand that reading our rules and understanding them before proceeding with creating a character is very important. Due to this, failure to read these rules and the subsequent asking of questions in our Discord or elsewhere about the information plainly laid out in this thread will result in warnings from staff and possible banning.
— Please only use one account on this forum for all of your characters.
— Be respectful to your fellow members, staff, and to guests. Anyone seen being rude in our Discord or otherwise will get one warning from staff, and upon a second offense they will be banned from the site for an amount of time decided by staff.
— Keep your out-of-character issues out of your in-character posts. If anyone is seen bullying another member ICly, they will be immediately banned from the site permanently.
— Cursing/cussing/swearing is allowed here, but please keep it civil, and respect the wishes of those who are uncomfortable with certain words.
— Only use imagery that you are permitted to use. Rivale staff will not hesitate to report any art theft that goes on, and we will not hesitate to ban anyone who steals art.
POSTING— Our word count minimum is 250 words. Use the word counter in the "Info" tab of our sidebar to check your word count.
— Absolutely no god-modding, powerplaying, or meta-gaming. If you don't know what these are, this may not be the site for you. Powerplaying MAY be acceptable under the STRICT circumstance that both players are in agreement and that said powerplaying is not being carried out in a staff-judged fight.
— We allow Liquid Time here, but you don't have to use it if you don't want to.
— Dialogue threads are sometimes permitted in place of full threads to save time, but those who abuse them will lose the right to make them.
— Unfinished or WIP posts made MUST be finished within 3 days or staff will delete them. This includes "Coming Soon" or "Will Post Later" sorts of posts.
— Each site year is 4 months long, and each season lasts 1 month. The current season is shown in the "Info" tab in the sidebar.
— You keep track of your own character's age. This is something you would edit with each passing site year in your Character Log. Staff will step in if site years go by and your character is still the same age it was when you joined them.
THE SHOP— Rivale has a small store where you can buy a few items for your character or for your account. You buy these items with our site currency: Shards.
— Shards appear in your profile as well as your mini profile. You get 10 Shards for each post you make, no matter the board it's in. If members are seen spamming the OOC boards in order to quickly gain Shards, they will not be allowed to buy anything from the store for a time the staff will decide.
— Our Shop board is located in the "out of character" category.
CHARACTER CREATION— Your character is allowed to look any way you wish, as long as it remains equine. Your character may have complicated deformities or mutations. If these deformities or mutations permit your character any sort of magical ability, it must be approved by upper staff members - Admins or higher - and cannot be used to powerplay. For this reason, magical powers that effect combat are technically allowed but heavily moderated. If you are unsure about a power, contact Ranjit or Finn prior to submitting your character.
— Most characters on Rivale are born in these lands, and their family tree stretches back to the first Monarchs. Characters that were born in other lands ARE allowed, but are discouraged, as the lineage of the equine who live here is paramount in the reasoning for the split in alliances. For more info on why this is true, see our Plot. Characters may not be born in the Void but are permitted to be born in the Fissure.
-- Rivale permits ALL characters to have a level of minor telekinesis. You may decide if your equines do or do not have those but everyone is welcome to have them. Powers beyond this MUST be approved by upper staff.
— Characters must be between 13 hands high and 18 hands high. You are allowed 2 free passes to create characters outside of these heights (below 13, above 18) but any subsequent ones must be bought from our site Shop.
— Characters can be carnivores or cannibals.
— Your character may have one small companion NPC animal. These animals may NOT be used to powerplay or in combat. You will be allowed to purchase larger and predatory animals in the Bazaar.
— You may join a foal (a character under 3 years old) but you can only have 2 foals joined for every 5 characters you have.
— You can have as many characters as you can keep active.
— To create a character, simply head over to our Creation board and fill out the form provided. Please make sure to title your thread appropriately (see the form thread for more info).
— Obviously, please wait for your character to be accepted by staff before RPing them.
ALLIANCES— Neither the Dawnlands nor the Wastelands are considered good or evil. Both alliances have a mixture of all personality types and alignments. Where your character will live is up to their heritage and other factors that may or may not correlate with their personality.
— Please read our Plot as well as the history on the previous rulers of these lands to get a better idea of the differences in these two alliances.
— Typically, the Dawnlands have more horses in them than the Wastelands and usually than both Wasteland and the Strip combined.
— Restrictions will be put into place and enforced should any one alliance become overpopulated.
LAND CLAIMING— To claim a land, hail for the Royal of the alliance in which the land is located in an IC post.
— The Royal must accept your character's claim. This can happen in one post or several, depending on how the Royal chooses to go about it.
— Since the land names and descriptions do not change on Rivale, your character will simply take ownership of that land as it currently is.
— Members are allowed to claim 1 land in each alliance. This rule will change as the site grows.
— Lands are immune from challenges for 1 month after they are claimed/taken over by a new ruler. Royal lands are immune from challenge for three months after claiming.
HERD LEAD RESPONSIBILITIES— Herd leads have 1 week from claiming their land to get their rules and ranks posted for their new herd. If the lead fails to do this, they lose claim to that land.
— Herd leads are responsible for their land's capacity and rank information staying up-to-date. If your ranks are empty after you've gained several herd members, staff will remind you to update your rank information.
— Herd leads can exile any equine from their herd that they wish, and if that equine is exiled, they MUST go elsewhere and cannot rejoin the herd.
— Staff have the right to control the number of horses in each herd to keep the balance fair across the board. Hoarding more horses than the land can support will not be tolerated.
ROYAL RESPONSIBILITIES— Kings are chosen through auditions or challenges, usually. Queens are chosen by the Kings ICly. This can be reversed, where a Queen is chosen through audition and the King ICly.
— In the event that a King disappears/dies and there is no heir to succeed him, the Queen can choose a new King herself or, if the player doesn't want to choose, an audition can be held.
— Royal characters are responsible for keeping track of all of the herds under their regime. If a land is being claimed, the Royal must attend and see that the claim is accepted or denied.
— Royal characters are responsible to keep up with their kingdom-wide rules and ranks. They should know who the rulers of all of their herdlands are, and they should have all of their own herd's ranks updated regularly, just like a normal herd lead would have.
— Royal characters are permitted to permanently kill one character of their choice per site year (these can be against the will of the player of that character depending on the situation). Staff MUST approve these kills before they are carried out, as characters killed by a Royal character cannot be brought back to life (the exception to this is if it was a player-decided IC killing for the sake of a plot). Royal kills should only be used in drastic situations and should not be done out of OOC anger.
NOMADS— Rivale permits members to create Nomad characters.
— Nomads generally live in the Strip lands but have been known to venture into the Fissure.
— Nomads are not permitted to have herds but can group together for safety.
— They are generally considered "neutral" in Conflicts but individuals can decide to fight on either side if they desire.
— Nomads cannot steal or be stolen unless agreed upon by a plot.
— Nomad players should be aware that trespassing in Kingdom lands could have consequences.
CHALLENGING & FIGHTING— To issue a challenge, post a section of dialogue entailing what is being challenged for in the land in which the challenged resides.
— The challenged has 3 days from when the challenge was posted to accept it or to forfeit what the challenger wants to them. If they do not respond within the allotted time, they automatically forfeit. If the challenge is for a land, that means the land now belongs to the challenger.
— Fights happen most often in The Sands, but they can happen anywhere.
— The rules of a fight are decided by the members. Before the fight can begin, both members must be in agreement of the rules. READ THE CHALLENGER'S FIGHT RULES CAREFULLY if you are being challenged, as staff cannot help you if you agree to an unfair rule by mistake. These rules may include word count, time allotted between posts, how many posts in the fight total or per person, number of attacks or dodges allowed, etc. If you need help coming up with fight rules, a staff member can create some for you.
— Fights are judged by 1-3 staff members, depending on the fight's significance. Fights are judged by strategy, creativity, and quality. Physical stats are also taken into account.
— You are allowed to conduct unofficial fights that are not judged by staff. In these fights, the fight will go on until one character forfeits or dies. Members work out the outcome of these types of fights on their own.
LARGE-SCALE BATTLES— Large-scale herd-vs-herd battles or even larger alliance vs. alliance battles are always monitored closely by staff.
— They can begin with a herd lead issuing a challenge to another herd lead in the same way any character would issue a challenge to another character. The herd leads can decide amongst themselves where their large-scale battle will take place, or they can fight in the land where the challenge was issued.
— They can also begin in a "raid" sort of format where one herd's fighting party will invade another herd territory and issue their challenge there.
— Each herd chooses 3-5 of their strongest characters to battle against one another. Members can choose which characters will fight which, or, upon request, staff can match them up for you.
— The players may choose how the turns will play out (if the fights will take place alongside one another or if they will go fight-by-fight).
— Staff judge large-scale battles on a battle-by-battle basis, and the herd that has the highest amount of wins is the victor.
STEALING— Steals are done very similarly to how challenges are. If your character wishes to steal another character, you must post a challenge in the land the character lives in.
— The herd lead will respond to the challenge, either accepting the challenge and fighting for the character to stay within the herd or go with the stealer, or declining the challenge and giving up the character willingly.
— Characters that do not live in herds cannot be stolen via challenge. Player-agreed plots between characters where one character may "steal" a roaming, nomadic character are allowed, but they will not be considered official steals.
— Characters that are stolen are kept in the stealer's care for 2 real life weeks. During this time, there must be at least 1 thread between these characters.
— After a character has stolen another character successfully, they are not permitted to steal another character for 1 real-life month after their most recent captive was released.
— Characters that have been released from being stolen cannot be stolen again for 2 real-life months after the date of their release.
BREEDING & FOALING— Characters must be at least 3 years old to breed.
— Mares can only breed 1 time during the seasons of spring and summer collectively. Staff are very strict about this in order to avoid overbreeding.
— Stallions can breed 3 times during the seasons of spring and summer collectively.
— Breeding is prohibited in the seasons of fall and winter.
— Characters must have met at least once in-character to breed.
— Characters that are on hold cannot breed. If you want a foal from a character that is on hold, they MUST be brought back first.
— Breeding dead characters is allowed, but only with an item from our Shop.
— Breeding characters that were never played or created on Rivale is allowed, but only with an item from our Shop.
— To breed two characters, head to the Breeding board and create a thread titled (Sire Name x Dam Name). Within it, fill out and post the Sire and Dam forms. These are used to record the stats and ages of the parents at the time of the breeding. They also record any items that are being used for the breeding.
— Rivale members are permitted to design their own foals! If you would like a foal designed by staff, either tag one of us in the breeding thread or PM us.
— If you are designing your own foal, fill out the Foal Stats form and post it as a reply to your breeding thread.
— Breedings are not complete until the foal is given a name. To officially name a foal, simply post a final reply to the breeding thread with the foal's name. If you are creating your own foal, you can include the name of the foal with the foal stats you created.
— After a breeding is officially complete, a staff member will come and lock the thread.
CHARACTER DEATH & HOLDING— To put a character on hold or kill them off, use the Graveyard form in the Graveyard board and post a new thread with it filled out. A staff member will lock the thread when your characters' name has been removed from our Taken Names list.
— Be aware that if you want to ensure your on hold or dead character's name is reserved that you must reserve them yourself in our Taken Names thread. Members are allowed to reserve 5 names at a time.
— Dead characters can be brought back to life at any time for free after you've killed them off, except those that were killed via Royal Kill, as they cannot be brought back to life under any circumstances.
— To bring a character back from the dead or back from being on hold, you must repost their entire profile as if you were rejoining them for the first time in our Genesis board. Staff will accept the character as normal, and you can return to RPing them.
CBOX RULES— Be respectful to everyone, no exceptions. Anyone seen being rude will be reprimanded accordingly.
— If you have a problem with something someone may have said in the cbox, PM a staff member and we will handle it.
— Any fighting in the cbox is grounds for banning of both parties.
— Do not ask a bunch of questions in the cbox that can be answered by reading these rules. The cbox is ABSOLUTELY NOT a help desk and staff will NOT lead you by the hand through the cbox to get started on the site. All the information you need to know should be right here in this thread.
-- Our cbox is generally used ONLY by guests. Rivale has a Discord server that all members are HIGHLY encouraged to utilize. Discord is free and easier to moderate than cbox is.
Site rules (c) to Ranjit, Finn, and Befera.