 T aken Characters | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
After your application is accepted, please copy & paste the text from the box below into a comment and fill in the required information for the sanity of the mods. Thanks! |
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Castle Mods
03 March 2012 @ 08:46 pm
Taken Characters
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26 December 2011 @ 08:48 pm
Item Requests
I tem Requests |
Is your character requesting an item? Comment here with what it is, and we'll let you know if they get it! We'll also let you know what day they'll get their result based on the current queue. Please be sure to include the date your character requested the item in your comment. Remember, this works on a system of one request per day for the entire game, so whoever gets their fastest ICly gets to put in their request. OOCly, please don't make requests too frequently, and be respectful of letting other people have their turn. That said! Frivolous requests are perfectly okay and in fact expected. Make sure you're familiar with how the spring works before requesting, and let us know if you have any special requests on having it malfunction, and so forth. If it's especially important that they get their item intact and functioning, just tell us and we'll probably accommodate. |
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23 December 2011 @ 07:50 pm
FAQ
F requently Asked Questions |
Applying →Do I have to be familiar with Ico to play here? →Can I apply for an Ico character? →Can I apply for a character without a lot of canon? →What if my character's not human? →Can my character's animal companion come with them? →What items can my character arrive with? →Will my character keep their abilities? →How do the AU numbers work? →Does my character count as canon or AU? Game Mechanics →Where do I post memes? Are there any limitations on which ones and how often? →How do the phones work? →Is there a language barrier? →How does canon updating work? →When I go on hiatus, what happens to my character? Plot Details →What can I write in while my character's exploring the castle? →What will destroy the shadow monsters? →What will happen to the sword after it's found? →Will we ever see the Queen? →Is there an endgame? →Are any parts of the plot secret? →Will there be IC events? →What if I want to run a plot? Character Death →What happens when a character gets killed? →So how long are they dead for, and how do they come back? →What if my character has already died in canon? →What if my character's immortal or undead? →You haven't answered my question, or I think something is unreasonable in the rules. Do I have to be familiar with Ico to play here? No, absolutely not! This game is only based on Ico and does not actually take place within canon. Several key aspects have been altered to make this feasibly work as a panfandom jamjar, and while I've attempted to keep things within the spirit of the game, anything will by necessity be explained in full due to the differences. In short, you should be fine. Can I apply for an Ico character? Ico and Yorda are both fine, but they'd have to be pre-canon. Sorry! It just wouldn't make sense otherwise. Can I apply for a character without a lot of canon? Yes. Seriously, go for it. If you're really unsure you can ask me, but I can guarantee that I will not care 99% of the time. You're evaluated on your writing ability, not anything else. Be aware that most of the time I would classify these characters as AU, and not OU -- therefore there are only two slots for them, not three. What if my character's not human? If they're more or less human sized and shaped, this is not an issue and they can stay as they are. If on the other hand, their form would for some reason cause a major problem with living arrangements at the castle, you should probably consider downsizing them physically smaller or making them human on arrival. I could be persuaded to let them stay as is if you make a good argument, though. Can my character's animal companion come with them? If they're not appable as separate characters, go right ahead! Just make sure you mention it in your app somewhere so that we know they're coming along. What items can my character arrive with? Anything that would regularly be kept on their person can be reasonably expected to arrive with them, including weapons. You're welcome to flub this a little bit if you especially need them to have a certain thing. Will my character keep their abilities? For the vast majority of the time, yes. The only exceptions would be game-breaking abilities-- please ask if you're unsure if your situation qualifies, or if you're unsure on how to tone them down effectively. How do the AU numbers work? The numbers start from 1 within each canon and go up as needed. Numbers are repeated after characters are dropped, and are kept consistent. For example, my vampire Willow AU would hypothetically count as AU2, and if someone else apped in vampire Xander from the same AU, they would also count as AU2, regardless of if we have AU3, AU4, etc. on up for Buffy canon at that time. These numbers are used for consistency and are included in your character's entry tag on the IC comm, as well as for taken page and activity check purposes, so make sure you're clear on what number you have. Does my character count as canon or AU? Honestly, it's debatable. If you seriously can't tell after reading the section in the rules about it, drop me a line and we'll figure it out on a case by case basis. In general, if you could throw your characters into the rest of their canon castmates and the castmates wouldn't think they were off at all, they're canon. If we already have a version of a character you apply for as AU, but your interpretation is very similar to canon or an existing AU, you will likely get rejected on those grounds. Where do I post memes? Are there any limitations on which ones and how often? You can post memes in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small} oocinthemist! We don't mind the spam; just use the meme tags. You can post whatever you'd like and as often as you'd like, with the exception of the feedback meme, which is obligatory and posted on a bimonthly basis, starting February 15th. If we get a ton of memes I can make a spam comm, but I don't anticipate this being an issue for at least a good while.How do the phones work? They do two things: call people and text people. That's it. Everyone comes with everyone else's contact already in their phone, but you have to specifically select each person you want to add to a group call or text, so this can't be a community-wide communication. This is just for private conversation, though you're welcome to have your character randomly select someone to call based on their funny name, or something... Each character has an IC contact post in their journal, which is linked to on their comment on the taken page. Is there a language barrier? Nope. Everyone mysteriously understands each other when speaking, and via texts. Physical written language stays what it's written as and is not automatically translated, however, and the language that the Queen speaks natively, as well as the language that the villagers speak, is unintelligible to every player character. How does canon updating work? They abruptly vanish for a period of several days to a week (up to you), and when they come back they wake up in the spring, making the culprit obvious. They are, of course, soaking wet and very abruptly awake because of it. When I go on hiatus, what happens to my character? You can either say that they were on "autopilot" and around doing whatever they would usually be doing during that time, or you can say that the shadows successfully dragged them off and returned them to a stone sarcophagus for the duration. This works even for long hiatuses, like those that are a couple months-- for some reason they don't die of starvation or get bruises from being sedentary. They are unconscious during this time and wake up much as they did upon their initial arrival: headachey, groggy, and without any abilities for at least several hours. You may worsen or lighten these effects at your leisure. What can I write in while my character's exploring the castle? It would be way too cumbersome to try to make a floor plan of the castle's layout-- in fact, don't even suggest it, the thought is ugly-- so you're pretty much all welcome to write in things as you like during your exploring logs. Use the setting page for inspiration (that's what it's there for) and consider watching a Let's Play of Ico if you're really stuck. In general your explorations should include puzzles, physical obstacles, and periodic attacks by the shadows. It's worth nothing that the castle is an incredibly physically demanding place to explore, and any characters not up to the task will find themselves swiftly exhausted and easy pickings for the shadows. Carefully picked groups, stamina, and self-made maps or a backtracking system of some kind are key in order to find your way back efficiently and without injury or exhaustion. What will destroy the shadow monsters? There is a sword located deep within the castle that has special properties, one of which is the ability to permanently destroy the shadow monsters. It can also open the castle's doors on its own, without requiring another person. As of yet, there is no scheduled plan or location for where it will be found, but once we've gotten further into the game and we have a sense of who the dedicated explorers are... some of you will likely be contacted and asked if you'd like to find it. This will take some community-wide OOC discussion and depend mostly on who's most active as castle explorers, because realistically they are who would find it. What will happen to the sword after it's found? Whatever characters decide should be done with it. Whoever has it obviously has a ridiculously huge advantage (opening doors! slaying shadows! returning dead characters to normal! killing the Queen!) but aside from those properties it does not have any added affect against other characters, who are not denizens of the castle. It provides no advantage in combat against other characters than a regular sword would, basically, so wrestling for control of it is definitely a possibility. In character discord and conflict is meant to be encouraged with this mechanic, not out of character, so this will be closely watched by the mods but for the most part not interfered with. Removing obstacles does not make for good fiction. Will we ever see the Queen? The queen will make her appearances, rest assured! Mostly she shows her hand through the actions of her shadow monsters, which are more or less extensions of her will, but it is possible to find her. Whether she will talk in their language or reveal anything to the characters is another story-- but she can be located, and fought. The only thing that will defeat her, though, is (you guessed it) the sword. She has an aversion to the spring and will not come near it, which is what makes it the safe grounds and why it has the living areas based around it. The farther out you explore, the more likely it is to encounter her. She is a formidable enemy, and can teleport at will and turn people into stone, among other things. Make sure that when it's time to take her on, sword in hand, that you're ready for it, because everything will change after she is defeated. (In short, the game will undergo a major overhaul and we'll have to start a new plot, so seriously, guys. This is months and months off.) Is there an endgame? Once the sword is obtained, and the Queen is located and defeated, the castle will crumble and fall apart without her to sustain it. There will be a race to escape, but now when characters are outside of the castle they will keep their powers, and can presumably fend off the mass of villagers now. If they can't, they better prepare for a war in getting off the castle grounds, because the villagers don't speak their language and won't understand the Queen is dead-- and will therefore try to keep everyone in. If they do get out of there and past the villagers, though, the setting will switch and we'll move onto the plot of Shadow of the Colossus, roughly. But that's a long ways off and this should honestly take at least several months. Are any parts of the plot secret? Nope, no parts of the plot are secret! No mysteries here, sorry. The aspects surrounding the spring are things we frankly haven't fully thought through yet, and unless there's some huge outcry for plot and background surrounding it, we likely never will. There are a couple easter eggs we might throw in here and there, though. Will there be IC events? We will have occasional mod-run IC events like monster attacks on the living areas and other, hopefully more creative things, that are not plot-dependent. These will be warned about ahead of time to allow time for OOC plotting. Additionally, each month there will be a featured area posted about in the OOC comm. There are a lot of sections of the castle presented in Ico, and as impractical as it is to try to list them all out and make an approximate map for playing purposes, they are still great places to throw characters at! Every month will have a different featured area, detailed in the corresponding OOC post. Examples of these would include the windmill, the water caves, and the industrial crane. What if I want to run a plot? We would love for you to run a plot! If you have an idea for a way to use the castle, the shadows, or the Queen, go ahead and run it by us-- if we like it we'll probably let you run it yourself, if you'd like to. More crackish things like bodyswap events and so on are also possible, but anything off-theme would probably be put up to community vote before being implemented, with majority ruling. Anything that would ICly occur within character abilities on a widespread basis is perfectly acceptable and we'd just appreciate a warning. Especially if it's compulsory by nature. What happens when a character gets killed? Characters that are killed exist in the castle as a shadow monster. As per Ico, these are the souls of the Queen's previous sacrifices, and though they don't speak (or make much of any noise at all) in canon, here they will be soulless and emotionless, but recognizably themselves. Think how the Queen herself looks-- clothed in shadow, but distinctly herself. Characters will remember everything that happens during this time, vividly, as if they had lived it themselves. Shadow characters will wander around and generally behave as mindlessly as regular shadows do. They can speak, but not reliably or very intelligibly, and will attack or attempt to carry off other characters into shadow portals. They're somewhat lazy about this, though, because they're still confused and disoriented about dying, and fuzzy about the details of their life. If aggressive motions are not made toward them, they will tend to be apathetic. I realize this is a vague description, but that's intentional! You're free to play some wiggle room into this and do as you like, as long as it follows the general guidelines. So how long are they dead for, and how do they come back? They will remain in this state until one of two things happens: 1. Contact with the spring will restore them to their former selves, so herding them into it will work fine. Taunting and getting them to chase you, while more dangerous, will also work. The longer they have been a shadow, the more mindless they become, and the less there is to bring back-- therefore NPC shadows will fizzle angrily in the spring but ultimately climb out on their own. The spring will not restore them. or 2. While NPC shadows are simply slayed when attacked with the sword, dead player characters will disperse as shadows and reform as their usual selves. If you'd like to skip the playing-them-as-shadows-and-subsequent-revival process, you're welcome to assume that they were eventually brought back by someone or wandered into the spring on their own, and spent a week as a shadow. Just spend that week not playing them, and at the end you can bring them back. This entire system is intended to be a deterrent toward character death, and is not meant to be played through cheaply or easily. We don't want to foster a casual attitude, ICly, towards death, because that weakens the premise on the whole. What if my character has already died in canon? Characters that enter the game as having died in canon just before arriving are given the option of starting out as a shadow monster if you'd like them to. If you'd rather they not, though, that's fine! Otherwise they'll arrive the same as anyone else. What if my character's immortal or undead? Undead characters, whether vampire or zombie or what have you, are welcome to stay exactly as they are with no changes. The same is true for immortal characters, regardless of the reason they're immortal. If they get into a situation wherein they would be killed, the shadows will drag them off through one of the portals and dump them in another part of the castle, from which they'll have to figure out their own way back. You haven't answered my question, or I think something is unreasonable in the rules. Make sure you've read the rules and setting pages first, and then ask it below. (I'm not kidding, there's actual info on the rules page.) If you'd rather it be a private conversation, the mod contact post is screened. In general, I am very open to existing rules being challenged, and you are welcome to argue your case to me on anything and ask for an exception! If it's something that would affect the game at large, and it seems there is some support for it, it will probably result in a poll of the playerbase et al on the subject before anything is enacted. |
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23 December 2011 @ 07:20 pm
Applications
A pplications | |||
Applications are always open. Additionally, we will provide invite codes for anyone that is accepted, if need be-- let a mod know after you're accepted and we'll send you the link. Regulations Please read all of the info posts first, including the rules, FAQ, and setting posts before applying. You may link to your application if you wish, though generally we prefer it to be placed in the comments-- also do note that DreamWidth has a very large character limit for comments, and you can likely fit the whole thing in a single one. Parts are probably not necessary. We will screen apps or parts of apps on request. You have five days to respond to revision requests before your application is automatically denied. We accept challenge apps, but will wait the length of any existing reservation for that character before processing them against each other. There is a one week wait period before characters that have been dropped may be applied for. During this wait period, the previous player is welcome to pick them up again without penalty. You may apply during that week if you're so daring, but it won't be processed until the end of the week. Finally-- just don't plagiarize, man. We reserve the right to do whatever we feel like as a consequence if you do. Judging Process What exactly are we looking for in an app? We intend to be somewhat strict with apps-- say of mediocre difficulty. Grammar and spelling will have a high emphasis, and writing style will be valued over technically accurate characterization. This is a setting that requires a lot of player participation and creativity to maintain, so we want to ensure that everyone is up to that standard. That said! The samples are the most important part of the application, and probably the thing to be most frequently requested revisions about. Having a clear, distinctive grasp of voice, and an ear for their inner monologing, is what we're looking for. Seeing them in a variety of situations would be helpful, as well. We strongly prefer thread links over every other kind of sample, but there is no real penalty for not supplying any, though we may ask you if some are available. On the whole apps will not be held to a higher standard than what the mods would submit themselves, so see the sample app (the first comment) for an idea of what would be considered acceptable. Recycled content will not be judged against, and exact length is not terribly important, either-- but your intent to play this character as fully developed should come across clearly in your descriptions throughout the app. the Forms
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23 December 2011 @ 07:19 pm
Setting
S etting |
→the Castle →Doors →Puzzles →Shadow Monsters →Living Area →The Spring →Leaving the Castle As a note, all of the screencaps on this page are links to the full size image. the Castle There are several obvious things about the castle: it is absolutely enormous, easily the size of a town, and sprawls across an entire island. Everything is done a grand scale, and the only signs of life are the insects, the birds, and the fish. Gray stone prevails, but some light reddish is also present; any machinery is made from crude metals, and clunky. The courtyards have deciduous trees and vividly green grass as carpet, with cobblestone paths and torches set throughout. The exterior walls and defensive walls all have walkways flung across them, and this is easily one of the quickest ways to move from one side of the castle to the other, though also one of the most dangerous. Periodically one will find benches strewn across the grounds inside and out, again made of gray stone but etched with blue-green designs. While sitting on them no shadows will attack. Overall, pictures do it more justice than I ever could. There is a vast array of landscapes across the castle, and although it's impractical to mention every one of them or give a floor plan, from time to time we will point out ones in particular to you (as seen on the FAQ). Doors  Periodically throughout the castle, there are doors that are not strictly doors. They are large green statues lined in a row across the entryway, and they are completely impenetrable unless accessed by more than one person. When a pair or group stands in front of them, something like electricity suddenly sparks over them, and the statues shudder to the side of the threshold, allowing people to pass. They will close behind characters after they walk through. The sword, mentioned in the FAQ, will also open doors for individuals, and therefore bypasses the multiple people requirement. This mechanic is intended to foster forced CR for anyone that wants to explore the castle, whether to find the Queen, answers, or resources and supplies. It is encouraged for characters to make established 'partners' that they regularly go on excursions with, and to set up larger groups. I would even recommend something like an official meeting point by the exit door to the living area where characters could wait for someone else to come along randomly whenever they want to leave, without having to find someone in particular every time.Finally, you should carefully note that characters left stranded out in the castle itself will not have a way back to the living area, and therefore safety, on their own. Whether through intentional abandonment or their party members dying, solo characters require retrieval and should utilize their phones extensively. Puzzles  What amounts to puzzles at the castle are typically difficult physical tasks, or something needing critical thinking to get past. All of them have to do with getting from one place to another, and they are plentiful as characters progress throughout the castle. Most are due simply to neglect-- walkways in disrepair with gaps that look down onto a sheer drop of hundreds of feet, for example, or fallen debris blocking the most obvious exit. Ways around these must be found, frequently by pushing blocks, pulling levers, felling pillars, and most often, by making large jumps. The solutions to the puzzles are usually not complex, nor do they require great amounts of strength or agility, but instead are subtle. Everything in the room has to be taken into account: you can leave through the windows and come back in through a further one, bypassing obstacles. You can grab onto the blade of a windmill for a ride to the top. It could be as basic as cutting a rope to let down a bridge or obstructing wall, but the rope might not be easily accessible. There are mine carts, aqueducts, rickety wooden planks to walk across, ledges to climb, chains to swing from, and platform elevators. As you can tell from the description above, the sky is really the limit on what you'd like to write in. If you have difficulty coming up with anything, feel free to pull something right from Ico or any other adventure game-- this is meant to be an exercise in creativity and a chance to put your characters through whatever situations you'd like. Some puzzles will need more than one person to solve, or someone with a particular talent, like flight. This is an incredibly versatile opportunity to build CR, and you should feel free to write in new aspects or features of the castle at will.Shadow Monsters  Throughout the castle are living shadows, former victims of the Queen who have become puppets under her control. Despite their name, day light is no aversion to them, and they cannot be destroyed by any means native to the characters. They can be attacked and dispelled, but this is for a short time only, and will not diminish their overall numbers; in short, they will respawn once you leave a room. They can appear anywhere throughout the castle except the spring and the area neighboring it, i.e. the living area.They appear by means of portals, or what appear to be pools of shadow in the ground, and will climb out of them like wells. Aside from attacking characters-- sometimes with weapons whose blades appear to be made from pure energy-- they will attempt to pick them up and carry them off back to the portals, to return them to a stone sarcophagus so the Queen can resume draining their life force. Once all of the shadows in a room have been defeated, the portal they entered through will disappear into nothingness; therefore keeping careful track of whether there is a portal present is instrumental. Shadows will not appear without portals zapping into existence first for them to enter the room through, and once they are all gone, so is the portal they entered from.  There are several different kinds of them. Large, swooping bird-like shadows that lurk around the outdoor walkways; water-dwellers in the small pools throughout the courtyards and outlying grounds; and sometimes bigger ones, when struck, will burst into a multitude of tiny, scurrying ones. The shadows are mindless and do not speak or generally make any noise at all, looking truly like their name: wisps of shadow given a base form, and a single fluorescent white eye glowing from their head.Players are welcome, encouraged, and expected to NPC them as needed. Living Area The living area was not originally intended to be a living area, and upon first arrival that is very obvious. Aside from the amenities that the bedrooms provide, which are sparse (and further detailed on the roommates page), there is little else. The spring is centrally located, and around it are the multitude of bedrooms, along with a few empty rooms, all of them rather large and as spartan as the rest of the castle. In one of them is a long, somewhat rotting wooden table and a collection of matching chairs, all in various states of repair. Each day food proportionate to the number of residents will appear on this table, but it will be very bland, nutrient-high and taste-poor. Hygiene wise, all there is to start is the spring to bathe yourself in, which admittedly will not give any negative effects. Obviously most characters will not be satisfied with this arrangement. By utilizing the spring (next section down) to bring in more advanced items, including luxury goods, the living area may be revamped as they wish. This section will be updated as it is altered and gains features. They may also attempt to scavenge the castle itself for materials: there are fruit trees in the courtyards, fish in the ponds, and medieval or industrial era equipment located throughout, particularly on the lower and outer floors. These can include lengths of chain, metal, wood, and most importantly, basic tools. Overall, however, they will not find things such as furniture or cooking materials or cloth, because no one has ever inhabited the castle. The living area itself is clearly delineated from the rest of the castle by the fact that it is self-contained aside from two exits. One leads to the tower with the birdcage at the top, and past that, the room with the stone sarcophagi where everyone wakes up in. There is a door leading out of that last room, but the green statues face the other way and will not respond to anything, including the sword, from this direction. On the other end of the living suite is another green statue door, this one facing the appropriate direction. This will lead them out to the rest of the castle proper, and shadows will not pass in through this door unless lured by characters somehow. You will note that this means no one can leave the living area without someone accompanying them, as the exiting door will not open to individuals (unless they have the sword). the Spring Somewhere directly in the middle of the living area is the spring, revealed by a rather large and obvious door. It is a cavernous room with, strangely enough, uncut rock as if carved from a cave serving as the walls, markedly contrasting the rest of the castle. There is an eerie bluish-white glow about the water that does not diminish or change. (It should be noted that the fairies in the picture do not exist in the game-- at least not yet. Maybe you have to do something to make them appear.)  The spring is the force that actually brings the characters to the castle, though why it is doing so is unknown. The Queen certainly doesn't control it, and in fact dislikes it, making it a natural choice to set up base around. She rather opportunistically takes advantage of the arrivals and has her shadows ferret them away into the stone sarcophagi before they can regain consciousness, which is why the characters find themselves awakening as they do.Yet the spring has several other properties. For one, it will revive dead characters, who have been turned into shadow monsters themselves (again, see the FAQ for more detail). For another, it will retrieve objects from home at a rate of one item per day. When someone touches the water of the spring, whether it's dipping their feet in or full body submergence, and focuses clearly on something inanimate that they want, it will appear towards the entrance to the spring. There are several catches about this, however. The rate of one item per day holds true for the entire game, and anyone attempting to make subsequent requests will be out of luck, and nothing will result. As well, items that are complex or large have a tendency not to come through quite right, if they come through at all-- and the spring, if left to its own devices, will take rather undesirable things from home. Things like vampires. We welcome any and all suggestions on unintentional things to be brought through! This has a lot of potential. Also worth nothing is the fact that the spring can only retrieve items, not create them, so things that do not exist somewhere else will not appear. This is greatly influenced by whether the character requesting believes whether or not they exist, as well. We would like to humbly suggest that characters use this device to bring forth things that would make their lives easier, such as cooking supplies, weapons, and so on. Requests can occur by using the item request page; please don't play out your character receiving anything without screening it through this post first! Keeping limitations on object retrieval is intentional. Leaving the Castle  It is very possible to leave the castle even before the endgame, but there are several obstructions to it. For one is the sheer size of the castle itself, and its immense physical obstacles and shadows to encounter along the way. Next comes the fact that it's surrounded by a formidable moat-- more like a small river, in fact-- and you will definitely need a boat of some kind to navigate across. (There are none hitched to the docks presently.) Across the shore are escarpments broken up by short stretches of sandy beach, and beyond that, the forest and the village. The village poses its own problems, because for whatever reason, as you pass through the moat, your abilities are lost. Nothing supernatural, magical, inhuman, and so on will work once characters have left the castle grounds, and the people that live in the village have lived with the castle as a backdrop to their lives for a very, very long time. They know that unless the Queen has victims provided for her, she will seek out her own among them, and they are not keen to let anyone escape. In short, you will almost certainly not get to the village itself: you will be met by a force of armed and masked knights on horses, with crude but undeniably effective weaponry. There are many more of them than there are characters, and they will be violent and swift about returning escaped characters back to the castle. They have their own boats, and know the castle well, and will dump them in a stone sarcophagus upon return. The village defenders are difficult to combat without abilities, simply by sheer force of numbers and familiarity with the surroundings. The Queen must be defeated before you can hope to fight past them. |
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23 December 2011 @ 06:24 pm
Roommate Assignments
R oommate Assignments | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Comment here to receive your roommate assignment, with three characters to a room. Doors for other characters' rooms will not open to them, and there are otherwise no labels on their doors to signify whose is whose. Characters are free to wander off into the castle and set up a home base somewhere else-- their room will be kept for them, but there is nothing forcing them to stay. The rooms contain three each of: a twin sized bed, a night stand with a candle in a sconce that never seems to get smaller, an empty wooden chest at the end of their bed, a desk and chair with another candle sconce. On the bed itself is their anachronistic smart phone. There is a simple old-fashioned area rug, but otherwise the walls are bare stone. The door itself is heavy, iron-bound wood. If you want to be reassigned for whatever reason (roommate is inactive, etc.) go ahead and ask! We are also happy to take specific rooming requests. These rooms are co-ed and will not be separated by gender or sex unless you, as the player, request for your character's to be, so make sure to mention it if that's a concern for you. Otherwise these will be randomized on a weekly basis.
Please fill in the information below in your comment for the mods! Thanks! |
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23 December 2011 @ 05:30 pm
Mod Contact
M od Contact |
All comments on this entry are screened and anyone with a generic question that does not need to be a private conversation should absolutely use the FAQ post and not this. Anonymous is enabled, and IP logging is on only for anonymous comments. Feel free to contact any of us individually with questions using the information available below. You are also welcome to PM the mod account on Plurk, which is We also have an AIM chat room specifically for Castle. You can join 'Castled' or ask another player or mod to invite you to the chat. If you don't see anyone in the chat and have questions, you can always contact one of the mods. As a final note, both of the mods are in EST, so any dates referred to will be in that timezone. |
| Head Mod Name: Tsumi Journal: ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small} tseutsumiPlurk: IM: tseutsumi |
Helper Mods Name: Imp (Plotting Mod) Journal: impiouspilot Plurk: IM: impiouspilot Name: Kiki (Plotting Mod) Journal: diciassette Plurk: IM: Midgard Slots OR underthesakura Name: Kate (HTML Mod) Journal: mellonemrys Plurk: IM: mellonemrys |
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23 December 2011 @ 05:06 pm
Newbie Guide
Newbie Guide |
In Character After falling asleep at home, characters will wake up within a vertically oriented stone sarcophagus in an enormous, vaulted stone room, three or four stories high with stairways and walkways lining the walls. Originally the sarcophagus is sealed and pitch black inside, except for small cracks where light peaks through dimly... By rocking side to side for long enough they can break free, the sarcophagus crumbling to pieces. They will feel drained, tired and headachey as soon as they wake up, with no memory of their arrival and any powers or abilities unusable for several hours. There are literally hundreds of other sarcophagi, some broken and crumbling with visible skeletons in them, stacked in tiers along the walls. Others are waking up around them in the same situation. The only door that opens leads to the interior of a tower with huge windows letting light in at the very top, hundreds of feet up. Just barely visible is a black metal birdcage hanging from the apex of the ceiling, but there's no way to access it. The entire atmosphere of the castle is one of overwhelming neglect, gray stone, and an absolute lack of any sign of life. Light is yellowed and filters through open windows without glass or screen, and rooms without windows are lit with torches and sconces. After walking across the tower floor-- the stairs starting thirty feet up the wall, the bottom of them crumbled away-- the next room is the living area, and the spring. Only the door to their assigned dorm room and no other dorm room will open to them, and on their bed inside is their smartphone. Out of Character → First, join the comms, of which there are two: the in character and the out of character communities. The IC comm has moderated membership, and if it seems like we've forgotten about you, feel free to give us a poke somewhere. → Make an OOC contact post in your character's journal, or elsewhere-- having one that you use for all of your characters is perfectly fine. It should include your preferred methods of contact, and list whatever you're comfortable with. → Make an IC contact in your character's journal. These do obviously need to be one per character, and will be accessed ICly through the smartphones that they arrive with. For more information on how they work, make sure you've read the FAQ. →Comment to the Taken Page and post your information so you can be added to the list. → Comment to the Player Contact with your character. You're welcome to link to your application as either the comment on the apps page, or as a post from a journal. → Comment to the Roommate Assignments post. → There is a mod plurk that you are welcome to follow if you use that service, but it will only be used for announcement purposes and never involve anything not also mentioned in the OOC comm. We also suggest following it and not friending it because otherwise we can access your private plurks. As well, we tend not to check it very often, so we won't accept your friend request for some time. → We have an AIM chat room specifically for Castle. You can join 'Castled' or ask another player or mod to invite you to the chat. If you don't see anyone in the chat and have questions, you can always contact one of the mods. → Post your OOC and IC intros! If you're ever looking for direction on what to have your character do ICly while playing here, try rereading the setting page for inspiration. Resources →Guide to RPing on DW →Dreamwidth for Livejournal users →List of DW tutorials →Journal Watcher, including multi icon uploader, archiver, and deleter. →Blue skin for Dreamwidth →HTML table coding on DW →Installing LJ layouts on DW →Extension that saves your typed forms automatically for Firefox and Chrome →Auto-label notifications in Gmail. The DW notification journal is dw_null@dreamwidth.org → dreamcodes for profiles, CR charts, and muse lists. |
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23 December 2011 @ 04:02 pm
Rules
R ules |
1. All the standard stuff. Keep IC/OOC lines distinct, don't do things to other characters without permission-- just don't be a dick. 2. Activity requirements are currently... nill! Every other month there will be a post that you're required to respond to, but that's about it. If we receive complaints about you character sitting, something might still be done; we just don't have any hard and fast activity check at the moment. 3. We do allow original characters and alternate (AU) versions of canon characters, as well as background imported from a game they were formerly played at. Whether characters from previous games count as OU or AU depends on whether their basic characterization has changed from then to now. If you're unsure about this, please use the FAQ to ask about your specific scenario. 4. The character cap is five per player, and one canon and two AU versions of each character. You can play a maximum of two characters per canon, but playercesting is fine (just don't do too much of it, obviously). 5. Please comment every post you comment on with your character's entry tag. These are not moderator regulated, but should be kept to a very specific, particular format, because DW has lovely multi-level tags and we'd like to use them. The format has to be series name: character name [ou]. (Substitute [ou] for [au1] or [au2] and so on as appropriate.) Original characters should be listed as original: character name. 6. Castle is intended to be primarily, in fact almost exclusively, face to face in character interaction. That means there is no network system. Characters will arrive with smartphones that they can call and text each other on, but these only work on an individual, private basis, and there can't be mass posts to the rest of the community. In short, phone interaction takes place in a designated contact post in their journals, not in a community; there can be group calls or texts, but only with specifically designated recipients. 7. Prose or action style are both fine! We really don't care. If you care, put an OOC note in your post saying that you have a preference; otherwise, it's a free for all on what style people prefer. There is no "log form" to fill out for posts, though we do recommend mentioning somewhere exactly where your character is when posting (perhaps in the subject). 8. The time ratio is a simple real time. One day OOC is one day IC. That said, we are very backtag and forwardtag friendly and this should not be taken too seriously. There is a public calendar that will be updated with dates of interest. 9. Characters will all arrive with their full level of powers, unless it's game-breaking in some way. Use your judgement otherwise and, again, that's what the FAQ is for-- ask us if you're uncertain. There is one caveat here: characters that leave the castle will be without powers, completely, and will be beset by the local villagers and forcibly returned to the perimeter of the castle grounds. For more information on how this would be done, see the settings page. 10. Remember to put warnings for things and use Dreamwidth's age restriction system. We do not have a minimum age here, and there is no rule against adult content of any kind, but we do expect people to use common sense and maturity. |
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| comm. Main OOC Mod |
info. Rules Setting FAQ Game Wiki Calendar |
join. Taken Reserves Applying Drop & Hiatus |
misc. Roommates Item Requests Newbie Guide Player Contact Mod Contact |