Rules and Regulations

[Realm of Tortall]

Prior Knowledge:

• We assume that you have read or have knowledge the Song of the Lioness, The Immortals, and Protector of the Small quartets as well as the Trickster duology. If you have not, we recommend that you read at least on of these books before joining. If you join without having read the books, be sure to ask the staff any questions you may have on them. Please don’t let us see any inconsistencies with or ignorance of canon on your character application.


Member Conduct:

• Please register for this board using the full and exact name of the character you are going to create. If your character’s name changes, the game staff will change your username, but we’d appreciate if you applied with your character’s name rather than a nickname or penname.

• We ask that you are respectful of your fellow members and staff at all times. Any conflict not in character should be resolved outside of the game.

• The rating of this game is a loosely enforced PG-13. Please keep the language and content of both in and out of character posting at or below the PG-13 level. If you are not sure whether your post exceeds this level, post a warning in the title of the thread.

• Chatspeak and other types of abbreviations in your posts, or typing in sTicKy CaPs, is discouraged on the Out of Character boards and absolutely unacceptable on the In Character boards. It is considered immature and rude.

• Please don’t use more than two smilies per post OOC post—they can be hard on the eyes and give the board a cluttered, disorganized look.

• Spam in any form is not acceptable and will be removed from the boards. Members (or visitors) who spam will be banned.


In Character Posting:

• In Character posting is not allowed until your character has been officially accepted into the game.

• Please go over your posts for spelling and grammar, clarity, and general readability before submitting them.

• In Character posts should be in third person, past tense. Post what your character did, not what your character does or is doing. Your character should narrate as he or she rather than I or you.

• Please post In Character frequently. If you do not post make an In Character post for more than two weeks, your character(s) and membership will be put on probation. If you fail to post beyond this, your character(s) will be deleted. To keep this from happening, let us know when you will be absent or unable to post.

• You may not control, directly or indirectly, any characters but those with which you have gone through the application process. This means no godmoding or powerplaying.

• We do not have a minimum or maximum posting length. However, we’d still appreciate if you put some effort in your posts. If you are used to sentence-long posts, try to lengthen your posts into paragraph length by adding detail.


Character Rules:

• Your character’s beliefs, appearance, speech, and actions should all be appropriate to the setting. You don’t need to use Old English, but try not to include words like ‘wazzup’ or 'cool' or have your character wearing a tank top.

• We discourage Mary Sues. If you apply with a girl page who is also the Shang Unicorn and is looking to avenge her brutally murdered family, you will not be accepted, not matter how well-written the application.

• At this point in time, we are allowing original characters only. This means absolutely no book characters, or relatives of book characters. If there is a canon (book) character that you desperately want to play, and if you feel that you can write an exceptional character application and have a good grasp at roleplaying, you may PM Realm of Tortall.

• Your are allowed only two characters in your first month in the game. At this time, one of them must be a page. At the end of the month, you may apply for up to five characters. Please do not apply for a greater number of characters than you can actively handle.

• Your characters should be from the Tortallan universe only. Characters from other books, movie characters, or any other canons not from Tamora Pierce’s Tortallan universe are not allowed. Please do not apply with them under any circumstances.

• We are discouraging any form of the Gift, the Sight, or wild magic right now. They will only be allowed under these special circumstances: if your character application and sample post are exceptionally written, and if one of these three magics is vital to the character.

[Artemis of Tirragen]

Update 7/11/05:

The page rule is no longer in effect - you are allowed to create any character you wish, although it is suggested that you chose between a rider trainee, page, Dove regular (aka assasin, bard, etc), or squire. Why? While we have noblewomen, servants, and cesspool cleaners galore, its nearly impossible to play them, as you have to really go out of your way to interact. You can make a university student if you so wish, chances are, however, that you won’t get much out of him/her.

There’s a new band in town! Well, perhaps that’s incorrect, as the Rambling Roses have been Dove regulars for a while now. However, if you have a character in mind who is artistically inclined, perhaps you’d like to join. The Roses’ discussion thread can be found here.