Rules

GENERAL

Respect. It's important to us that everyone on the board is respected, no matter what walk of life they come from. That said, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, racism, religious intolerance, ableism, and so on are not tolerated on this site at all. If someone is saying intolerant things about you or about someone else, please do not hesitate to contact the administration so that we can handle it.

Drama. This site does not condone out of character drama of any kind. If you have a problem with someone else on the board or something you see on the board that you don't like, don't make vague comments or talk about them or the problem behind their back. Contact one of the administrators directly.

Admins. There is one administrator and two moderators that you can turn to for help: WASH , syd , and BARAMATT . Our word is law. We reserve the right to remove anyone from the board for the good of the group, delete certain threads if we don't like the message that they send, and so on. Please respect the administration of this site, and we will respect you in turn!

Activity. Although activity is lax and we don't expect people to post every single day, we do want to make sure our members are still interested in the role-play and will hold periodic activity checks to prove this. Additionally, if you haven't posted in a while or if you have a lot of cats and some of those cats haven't been getting enough attention, we'll discuss with you about the possibility of putting those cats up for adoption.

IC vs OOC. We want to keep in-character and out of character separate as much as possible. All out of character posts should be limited to your out of character account or the Chatbox, private messages, and so on. Of course, you are more than welcome to leave small OOC notes in your IC posts, but aside from that, your IC accounts should be IC only.

Off-Site Links. Please keep off-site links to a minimum. Absolutely under no circumstances should any off-site links lead to pornography, illegal activities such as gambling, and so on.

Trigger Warnings. We understand that some plots or topics may be sensitive in nature. That is completely fine, but please take care to utilize trigger warnings, either in the title of your thread (mostly for plotting) or at the very beginning of your in-character post.

Interaction. We want this role-play to be a very welcoming and friendly community. If you see a new person's plotter not getting a ton of attention, hit them up for some plots! Even if you don't have cats within the same clan, there are definitely ways to make cross-clan interactions happen. Be friendly and don't hesitate to put yourself out there. We're all here for the same reason, after all!

Basically: good luck, have fun!!!

IN-CHARACTER

Word Count. Our site has a minimum word count of 100 words per in-character post.

Literacy. We expect our users to have a decent grasp of spelling, grammar, and syntax. We want your posts to be creative, engaging, and well-written. However, we know that some folks don't speak English as a first language or are using role-playing as a way to improve their writing. If you find yourself struggling, please do not hesitate to reach out and ask us for help.

No Godmoding. You should never control the character of another player without their express permission. This is considered godmoding. Additionally, we discourage things like metagaming, which is when your character utilizes information that you know even though they have no way of knowing it, and powerplaying, which is when your character becomes all-powerful and cannot be hurt or injured and so on.

Tense. All in-character threads should be written in the third person. However, tense is up to you; past or present—choose whatever is most comfortable for you, but please try to keep it consistent (i.e. don't switch between past and present tense in the same post when you don't have a good reason to).

PG-13. Our site has a PG-13 rating, so anything that would be considered mature such as smut, excessive gore or violence, and so on should be moved to a private role-playing platform. However, things like general violence and swearing are allowed.

Forbidden Relationships. Forbidden relationships are 100% allowed on this forum! However, they must be discussed out of character and approved by the leaders and moderators before you go through with them.

Kits. Kits are extremely vulnerable, so please keep in mind that they are not allowed out of camp unless approved by a leader and escorted by other warriors. Also, we do not have a minimum age for kits; feel free to role-play them at whatever age you like.

Adoptables. You do not have to put every NPC you include in your character's backstory up for adoption. You are more than welcome to control them in your IC posts or even create NPC accounts for them (though you will be expected to apply). However, you are more than welcome to put these NPCs up for adoption so that you can role-play against them!

CHARACTER CREATION

High Ranks. There are special rules regarding the creation of and application for high ranks. PLEASE make sure you visit the "Auditioning for High Ranks" thread and review all of the information there carefully.

Accounts. This forum runs on a one-character-per-account rule. Start by joining with an OOC account and then create all of your character accounts from there by clicking the two-person icon in the lower right hand corner of your screen (). Remember to join as your character's FULL NAME, whether that be a warrior name or a full medicine cat name. This includes leaders, who should join as their warrior name.

Applications. All applications should be posted from your OOC account. You cannot make your in-character account until your application has been fully approved by the administration.

Character Limits. There is no limit to the number of cats that you can have. However, as we mentioned earlier, if you have a lot of cats and some of them aren't getting enough love, we will discuss the possibility of adopting some of those cats out.

High Ranks. You can have two high-ranking cats at any given time, so long as the cats 1) aren't in the same clan and 2) aren't the same kind of rank. So, for example, you could have one leader and one medicine cat apprentice, but you can't have both a leader and a deputy.

Naming. We like to believe that we are extremely flexible with names. However, please note that all of the names used on this site should be based on things that the cats are familiar with. Additionally, due to the nature of these unique clans, certain prefixes and suffixes would be more common among specific clans (i.e. gem- or stone-based names being especially popular in CavernClan).

Appearance. Although all of the cats in this role-play would be considered mutts, any kind of cat appearance or breed is welcome, so long as they do not not have any kind of unnatural coloring (this includes their eyes).

Diversity. LGBTQ+ cats of all kinds are welcome and encouraged!

Mental Illness. If you plan to role-play a cat with mental illness, please take care to handle the topic sensitively; as stated before, ableism is not welcome here on this board. Avoid terms like "p*ycho" or "s*ciopath" and so on in a negative context. Additionally, it would be helpful if you suffer from the illness yourself, or have done a significant amount of research so that it's portrayed correctly.

Vernacular. When creating your cat and role-playing in general, take care to avoid descriptors that wouldn't be known to cats since... well, they're cats, and they're feral to boot. This ranges from referring to StarClan instead of God to saying "another cat" instead of "another person".

KITS

Kits are absolutely allowed on the forum, but there are some special rules regarding them. First and foremost, cats should be at least 10 moons old before doing anything pregnancy-related, even if it's part of an apprentice drama plot. 

For expecting parents, meaning the cat that is actually pregnant, the following requirements must be completed before having kits:

• One thread about finding out
• One thread out of your choice of these three options: telling your mate or the parents, sharing the news with friends or the clan, or moving into the nursery
• One thread of the kits being born (NOTE: this, of course, can be very vague and can just be an after-birth thread of the kits being named.)

For the parent or parents who are not expecting, the following requirements must be completed before having kits:

• One thread about finding out or being told
• One thread out of your choice of these two options: spending time with your mate or surrogate, or trying to help out
• One thread about meeting the kits, or some kind of after-birth thread

These rules apply for cats utilizing a surrogate as well. In that circumstance, the surrogate meets the "expecting parents" requirements, and both adoptive parents meet the "parents who are not expecting" requirements.