Revak Jestrol
Replies: 6

Giacomo Ablar
Replies: 2

Darkling
Replies: 1

Rowul Stromblade
Replies: 18

Rowul Stromblade
Replies: 0

"Oooh! New forums for the archives!"

"Who the hell is Farin Tohma?"

"Why are there huge gaps in some of the stuff?"

Well! Here are my answers! lol Farin Tohma is an account I created to solely be the archiver of world history, just because I like to keep my character separate for some reason. The gaps are where alllllllll of you come in! XD (exciting isn't it?!)

I have already had tons of help in building this site and I'd like to thank all of you that have been there to push me along, lol! Any of the archives that went up and were written by someone other than myself, I tried to make sure it was noted, if I missed one, please let me know and I will amend such an error. As for the holes? That is myself being completely and utterly burnt out from the ten and a half hours I spend at my preschool everyday, lol. I do try to keep up with site work when I'm home, but as you can imagine, I'm fairly exhausted from my students by the end of the day. I posted up all the things I had concerning the four main countries thus far (and yes, Jair and Will, I know you've sent me oodles more!) because I didn't want to with hold it from you guys just because I couldn't get it polished up to perfection.

Soooo... if you have something you'd like to add or some polishing you'd like to do any of the archive threads, please just send it along and I'll dutifully copy/paste to the threads with a note of recognition for your hard work. If you're as tired as me or you just don't want to, certainly don't feel like you should! This is just a chance to help lighten the burden on me a bit (selfish aren't I? lol).

Thanks to everyone in advance!! XD

I'm SO excited to see all the posting going on around the site! We've still got a lot to do history wise for referencing (meaning mostly I have a lot to do, with my lovely little helpers Ranai and Cabrean) but no reason we can't post away so long as that is going on! XD

Here's a few guidelines that its good to follow when writing up a post. Yes, it may sound a bit anal on my part, but believe me, if everyone does it, things with go MUCH smoother for all!

1. As with any writing do what you can to spell and grammar check. Naturally you'll not catch everything, every time, but do the best you can. Run it through a spell checker (like in Microsoft Word, or even using Mozilla FireFox as your internet browser) and give it a read through before hitting that send button.

2. Always copy/paste into something at some point in your writing (always before you send it and sometimes in the middle if its a particularly long post). Stuff goes down and I've lost more posts than I care to count (and, of course, they were all sheer brilliance, lost forever!) over the years and so far this is the best way I've found to try and deter this post gobbling phenomenon. (Writing the entire post in a word processor is an even higher step up, as it will not crash should your net mysteriously go haywire)

3. Within posts, please do all "inner thought" (that is, anything your character is thinking to themselves, rather than saying out loud) in italics. Sounds strange, maybe, but it really helps clarify whats going on and where when other members are reading through your post.

4. Still on the subject of dialog, all out loud speaking (self-explanatory, right?) should be separated from the bodies of text describing action and thought. Example:

Rowan walked into the room and took a seat next to the window. The snow falls so much earlier here in the Borderlands. She shivered slightly through the blue silk of her gown as if feeling the cold intimately. As Lord Rian walked into the room she stood to greet him,

"Good morning to you, Lord Rian. It is an honor to be in your household."

The Shienaran bowed his head graciously to her... etc. etc. etc.

I realize this format is a bit askew from the general use of dialog in novels and the like, but again, it really helps to clarify in posts what is going on.

5. Post length... wuh oh! The dreaded word count! LOL! No, I'm kidding, I'll not be so harsh as all that, but it is important to remember that posts do need to be of a decent length for the RP to continue.

This is a post by post site, significantly different from a chat RP (that anyone here may or may not have done in the past). What that means is you write a proverbial piece of a story (a post) from your character's point of view. You are not allowed to see anyone else's point of view or use things that they have though internally as if they had been said aloud (hence the inner thought guideline previously mentioned).

Each post should have a few parts:
1. The characters reactions (emotionally, physically), thoughts(mentally) and responses (verbally) -- This sounds like a lot, but it is really quite simple, just put yourself in a similar situation and imagine what you would do. (If you are starting a thread, try to tie in whatever brought you to that new beginning point).

2. The second part is a bit more difficult to do at times. This is where you advance the storyline (plot) through your own character's actions and words. You should always make sure the character(s) posting after you have enough to build off of for their own post(s).

My own personal goal when writing a post is simply to make sure IT is longer than the space my avatar and rank avs take on the left side. As my av is a full 200 pixels in height and I have a particularly huge rank av, that's a good chunk of text and I do not expect all of you to be quite so extravagant. Generally I think that a two or three paragraphs, three to four sentences each, is a solid post, anything above that is extra icing on the cake!


Now that I've likely scared the bejeezus out of everyone with my ridiculously high expectations, relax. These are guidelines, not actual rules. I will not be a tyrant in enforcing these by any means. I like to just think of this as a challenge, even for myself, to push the boundries and become a better RPer one post at a time! Ha!

If there are any questions or concerns about these, PLEASE, feel free to contact me about them. I'm your admin, not a ruthless dictator!

I love you all and I am VERY proud of how fast everyone has jumped into everything! MWAH! XOXOXO