This is a literate roleplay aimed at mature, experienced roleplayers. These rules are for your protection, so take a look over them.


General Rules

1. Do not start roleplaying until you've posted your character sheet. You can talk on the OOC chat board, PM people out of character, and post on the help board before you create a character, but please, don't post on the IC boards until your character page is up there for everyone to see.

2. Adult content is allowed. The rating for this RPG is approximately 17+, though if you have the maturity level to deal with what this rating allows (sexual references, heavy petting, murder, swearing, occasional descriptive violence, drugs and alcohol, etc), go ahead and join. Please keep in mind that we don't need to go overboard on the adult RP instances. I would like to keep things tasteful. Gruesome, explicit and unnecessary violence will not be allowed, and neither will descriptive sexual acts on the public forums. If your characters are gonna go at it, draw a curtain or fade to black.

3. Remain as active as possible. If your account doesn't register as active when we decide to do a pruning, you might lose it.
Note: If you became inactive and your account was deleted, you are welcome to re-join at a later time if you plan on being active. Don't worry, we don't do this too often. We've got a lot of members in University; we understand end of term.

4. You can play as many characters as you can keep active. However, once you create five or more characters, the administrators will be taking a close look at your character to make sure they are all active, being used, and being developed.

5. Keep in character as much as possible. If you need to say something quick relating to your post or someone else's, that's fine, but no discussions about how cute so-and-so is popping up in the middle of a roleplay. If you need to hop OOC for a moment, just put "OOC:" before what you want to say, and "IC:" when you're ready to go back into your in character post, or use ((double parenthesis)). If you want to have a whole conversation with another player OOC, then use the OOC board.

6. Your username does not have to be your character name. It can be, if you want, but it doesn't have to be.

7. No oversized signatures. The most important thing in your post is supposed to be your post, not your signature. Therefore, no giant fonts or large pictures in your signatures. Smaller pictures are okay, and if you want to type something long, put it in a minuscule font. Please.
Rule of thumb: don't make it taller than about 1 inch or 125 pixels on-screen, and don't make it wider than about 700 pixels (too wide and you stretch the screen).

8. No advertising. No advertising of any kind on any of the boards except for the Advertising Board found in the OOC section. Any advertising in that section deemed inappropriate or not related to roleplay (e.g., links to porn sites or pharmaceutical companies) will be deleted.




Role-Playing Rules

1. BE MODERN. Be REALISTIC This is a modern-set roleplay with an emphasis on the real world, and I expect you to keep true to that. In other words, don't carry daggers and swords around without a damn good reason-- and don't carry around a bunch of guns, either (this is Canada, you know). Don't use gold coins-- it's cash, people. If ancient characters want to be a bit eccentric and use older language and things, that's fine, but I expect people to, in general, be modern and be realistic. We do expect realism from you, even though this is also a fantasy roleplay!

2. All characters over 200 years of age MUST be approved with the admin before you post their description. We're fairly concerned about the ancient characters being played by people with no respect for history. If your character is older than 200 years, send ||| a private message explaining why she should let you make them that old. If they are older than 1,000, it had better be a damn interesting reason-- and you'd better know your history. If they're 199 years old... we don't appreciate your cheek, mister.

3. Don't reveal the existence of magic to the general public. The premise of the roleplay is that magic exists, but the general public does not know that it does. Please refrain from doing things that would reveal the existence of magic at large.

4. No pre-existing characters/fandom rip-offs. In this RP we require that you make characters that are unique to you, and not pulled from a book or movie or video-game-- e.g., No Lestat, no Gandalf, no Yugi, and no Sonic the Hedgehog¹.

5. Write interestingly. This is what you might call a "literate" roleplay, or a roleplay aimed at people who can incorporate writing skill into their roleplaying. I expect the players to be capable of writing interesting posts. Length doesn't necessarily matter-- If you're in the middle of a conversation, your posts will probably be shorter in order to give the other person a chance to reply. If you're starting a board, they have to be long enough to describe a bit of setting and character. Constant single-line posts are not appreciated.

6. Don't be ridiculously descriptive. No one wants to read a five-post description of a dress, down to the last seam. Please. I'm serious. "literate" doesn't mean "make it as long as humanly possible"!

7. Use clear, precise language, and always be sure of the meaning of a word or synonym before using it. Pet peeve, here. No wolfspeak. Don't thesaurus-thump². I should just say-- 'Orbs' are not eyes. 'Orbicle' is not a word. Femora is a pluralization of femur. Articles are meant to be used and passive tense is fine... in moderation. This also means no chatspeak, please- see number 5.

8. Keep an eye on spelling and grammar. *This sort of goes with the good writing rule; use punctuation where it is required, and always check for typos before you post. And no chat-speak. Also: saying, for example, "Elbow rests on ground" instead of "Her elbow rests on the ground" isn't really that great. Try not to leave out necessary words in order to sound more 'poetic'.
Addendum: Read this. It's funny, really.

*Typos happen. We won't crucify you for them, I swear-- just try not to litter every sentence with them.

9. Do not powerplay, godmode, be a twinkie, etc. If there is one thing that annoys everyone, it's joining a site like Once without knowing the bare basics of roleplay. Play your character and your character only, please, and leave the purely-ego-stroking characters at home.

10. General etiquette rules are to be followed. Don't eat the board. Don't interrupt plots. Don't try to hijack a plot. Don't join a board in progress unless you've been invited. You know, the usual polite stuff. (For a more comprehensive list, see the Etiquette Tips board in the Help Section. It's your friend!)

11. Your characters can die. If they do, you can always make another, but remember-- they CAN die. (Sometimes it's fun to kill them off in a plot. You're also perfectly allowed to try and make a deal with Death.)


In Character Rules

1. If your character is an uninitiate, they cannot know that magic exists everywhere. If they know, then they become an Initiate, don't they? However, your character can know that they have a power or that someone else does, so long as they do not understand that magic is a reality in this world. That's what makes someone an initiate: knowing that there's such a thing as an initiate, and what exactly it means to be one.

2. Uninitiate characters are allowed to have magic. Unnish with magic would either not know they have magic or not know that anyone else does.

3. Non-human races are not allowed to have a class. There seems to be a lot of confusions over this. If you are not human, you may not have a 'class.' Just list N/A in that place. Half humans may not have a class, either. I may occasionally allow non-humans or half-humans to have a class, but you must contact me with a good reason-- one other than 'I want it.'

4. General laws still apply. The setting is Canada, but we don't expect you to be up on Canadian criminal code. Specific laws may be a bit difficult to figure out, but murder is still illegal. Child labour laws still apply. The legal drinking age is 19. Et cetera. (This also means that homosexuality is not illegal, and gay people can even get married.)

5. Once is not an animé roleplay. Animé and animé-style characters are not welcome. Once is based on the concept of realism mixed with a mythological fantasy background; animé is a completely different thing. If you're picturing your character in your head in the animé style, then Once isn't the site for you.

6. Young characters are at a disadvantage. If your character is young, they are either a street kid and therefore poor and probably unhealthy, an orphan³, or living with their parents. They can't go into bars and they can't go many places alone, because adults will attempt to send them on their way or find their 'mommy.' Just remember this.


I would like to note that since this is not an anime roleplay, if your character has a Japanese name, there should be a good REASON for it, such as-- I don't know-- they are Japanese. (This applies to all names. Put some thought into your name. This site and this site could be useful.)

Questions? Check out the Once FAQ.

These rules are subject to change (we'll notify you if anything major crops up). There is no statute of limitations on holding to these rules; if you slip something in when we're not looking, we can ask you to change it at any time. We will attempt to clarify problems as soon as possible, but that doesn't mean mistakes aren't made. Just chill; we're not going to kick you off for having a bit of trouble acclimatizing.



¹(Yes, we actually had that last one happen once.)
²(Of course, don't be afraid to use one, either!)
³(Everyone hates orphans. You're better off not playing one-- they're incredibly cliché.)



This site, concept and structure are copyright to me. Characters, writing and roleplays are copyright their respective players.