Site Properties

[K]

This is how the site works. It's what everyone will be expected to comply to, with exceptions being incredibly rare, if existent at all. We'll adjust things to be sure that everything is optimized, making as much sense and being as fair as possible. We will not make such adjustments without informing the site members and asking for their opinions, and rules will not be made just to mess someone up, especially not in an ex post facto manner. Please read these entirely, and, if you have any questions, feel free to ask. We will never silence opposition; if you have a genuine point to make and there is not some other reason for us to keep you from continuing in a thread, we will listen maturely to your points and take them into the proper consideration. We ask that you show us the same respect.

Character Types
Note that all accounts will be one character per universe (barring exceptions in other universes) per account. You can have as many accounts as you wish, but name each one in accordance with its Houcm character. Although it is not recommended, you can also reuse names for characters, but name the accounts with different nicknames or something to that general effect. In addition, you can have one character work in different RP universes, but the rules still apply. If you have a The Legend of Zelda-Halo-Metroid crossover character, and you are in a Halo-Metroid crossover forum, the things that you gained that are TLoZ-oriented are temporarily locked away. You can always ask an admin for details on which of your things will be allowed and which will not in what forums. As a side note, it is allowed for you to make a totally new character for each of the universes, crossovers included, and multiple characters in universes in which there are multi-character RPs ongoing.
Royals: These accounts are run by admins only, with exceptions being made only by the unanimous will of the admins. These are severely overpowered characters, with impossible stats and abilities. Why are they allowed to exist as such? Relax. They don't actually do a bunch of things. They don't get involved in battles (except with each other, sometimes) unless absolutely necessary, and they're not prone to get involved in much anything else unless they are called upon. These are the forces that determine when someone just randomly finds a treasure or money that just happens to be lying around that, for some reason or another, no one else noticed. Sounds like it doesn't make sense? That's because there really isn't a good way to explain it until you see it first-hand.
NPAs: These "non-player accounts" act like NPCs (non-player characters) in video games. They have a wide variety of purposes, but the majority of it can be said to be to make stuff fair and keep things running smoothly without getting the Royals involved in everything.
Civilians: These are docile characters. They don't necessarily have much character development (except mentally, spiritually, and whatever else; just not necessarily growth for battle, as RPGs are made of) and are either normal people or close. They can be of any race, and they can have abilities and stuff, but even the best fighters of the Civilian group would struggle to hold their own for very long against any other RP character. They can train up to eventually become normal characters, if they wish, and civilian characters can be even just a little bit inferior to normal characters.
Villains: These guys will know better than to get too active and too troublesome. In character, their desires can be relentless and maniacal, but, out-of-character, the users who are granted a Villain character (That's not many, for sure.) will know to keep things from getting too badly out of hand. They'll cause a lot of mayhem and destruction, and most character deaths will be results of Villain activity, as they will kill people more regularly than others, but they know that their purpose is to cause crap and give people a reason to become more powerful, not to just mess everything up.

Censorship
Standards: This site could be considered to be PG-13 or the never-used rating of PG-17. As far as ESRB ratings, a simple T for teens works, to give a relative idea. Blood and gore is fine; you can pretty well get as descriptive as you want and, for the most part, even accompany some things with pictures, though that would rarely be applicable. Alcohol references are fine, and alcohol usage will not be banned unless it expressly gets in the way of something, to put it simply. If a character drinks a bottle of Baccus's Wine to go berserk and tear things up, that will not be censored. If a character does something that's bad, then tries to use their drunkenness as an excuse, that character's alcohol usage might be banned by a Royal, and their conduct will be punished. If the conduct is an error of the user, not the character, it's a different situation, obviously. As far as sexual content, there is a difference between pictures/videos/et cetera and text. Textual descriptions may say that a person is naked, but that person will certainly not stay that way (Someone will come along and have you wear something, and it will probably be immediate.), and explicit details will not be allowed. Non-textual content (such as pics, vids, and the like) will be allowed within reason. Questionable content (such as displays of underwear, skintight clothing, et cetera) will be allowed, but explicit content (private areas shown and such) will have to either be edited to be appropriate before posting or will be censored. If anyone has something that they wish to post, but are unsure of whether it will be censored or not, send it in a PM to an admin, and one of us will decide on it. If one of us is unsure, that one will ask at least one other admin. Oh, right, and cussing is fine, for the most part. If someone asks you to stop cussing, please be respectful and stop cussing when you're around/talking to that user. If someone makes a thread and asks for a "no cussing" rule to be in play throughout that thread, please respect that. For general purposes, though, cussing is fine. At all times, however, please don't just randomly throw so many cusses around that there is just a random cuss in every three words, since that makes a post a lot longer and more tedious to read than it should be.
Methods: If something that should be censored is posted, the user who posted it will receive one warning to edit it out. If the user does not edit it out, we will edit it out for the user, and we may entirely ruin the plans of the user in doing so, so we recommend for your own good that you edit such infringements out. If the user edits, but the content still requires censorship, we will be amenable and lenient. We will give the user a chance to fix things up without punishing the user, but, if the user is just messing with us and trying to irritate us, the user can be reprimanded, and the post deleted. Repeat offenses can result in punishments of various kinds, but we're pretty reasonable; if you're trying to be fair about things, we'll keep trying the same.

Gov't
If you think that politics are dirty, and/or if you think that everyone being equals should mean a lack of all authority, it doesn't truly matter. The fact is that some of us have power to keep things running effectively, thus there is a form of government. We will not abuse our power, and we ask you to inform us if it seems as though one of us is. It's probably just a misunderstanding. If someone does start to abuse their powers, they will be reprimanded, to be sure. Please respect the authorities that are put into position. There are to be two different governments, one being of the users, one of the characters. Always remember this:
This site is founded on the basic principle that everyone is equal. Therefore, we will all have equal opportunities, and all opinions will receive attention and be taken into account accordingly.
User Gov't: Administrators are the highest position that one can aspire to. People who are in this group have pretty much absolute power over the site. An admin could even wipe the entire site off the internet with a couple of clicks, leaving no trace. However, this absolute power will absolutely not corrupt us, and we each act as a checks and balances system on each other. Signs of corruption are to be investigated, and confirmed corruption is to be stamped out. This group is almost completely exclusive to the site's founders. Do not ask to join this group as soon as you join the site! An admin can be established by the other admins, but only if they agree by majority that the admin-to-be is trustworthy and reasonable.
Moderators are lesser admins, in a sense. Becoming a mod is far easier than becoming an admin, and the power is far less. Again, do not ask to join this group as soon as you join the site! You may become a mod as the admins deem to be acceptable. As with adminship, you may ask for the position, but only if you have good reason to believe that you have earned the privilege.
Members who are not mods or admins still have a say in things. Those of us with power do indeed hold the power, but we also hold your benefit at heart, so we want to know what you want to be done about things, and we want you to point things out that we may have neglected. That doesn't mean that we want to wake up every day (or night, for those of us who are nocturnal) to an onslaught of messages to alert us of things that we simply haven't gotten around to, especially those that happened in our sleep, but, if something requires our attention and doesn't get it for a long time without reason, friendly reminders are appreciated. Happy face.
Character gov't: See the discussion in the moderator/administrator discussion area.

Templates
These don't much exist, here. Make your stuff the way that you want to, and, if it's reasonable, it's fine. We'll have separate areas for character bios, character abilities (powers, techniques, skills, spells, jutsu, and whatever else), inventories (everything that you have, including equipment and items of every kind), and allies (all manner of sub-characters), all of which you can make with your format and your style. We just ask that you try to make sense. If you say at one point that your character was born on Tallon IV, don't talk about how their entire life was with a French culture. It really must be said that things must make sense. If your character was not born on Seinvocc, please say where it is from, or at least that it come from elsewhere, and state how they got here. Even if the char doesn't know, the user can say so out-of-character. However, stating those things immediately is not entirely necessary; they can be revealed at some point in the character's story, and the bio can be updated at that point. There are further possibilities, but the general point is that we will not give you forms to fill out like this:
Name:
Age:
Sex:
Height:
Weight:
Build:
Elemental Affinity(ies):

No. There'll be none of that. You can make it the way that you want it to be. It can be in any perspective. Noah's bio is in first-person, for instance, while Learpabru's is in third-person. You could even use second-person, if you know how. You could also combine perspectives, such as a third-person list of the person's traits and appearance, a first-person introduction, and a second-person quote from someone else about the character. Whatever floats your proverbial boat is fine.

Obligations: Unless otherwise stated, no one is going to be mad at you if you don't post for a long time. Even if you only get the chance to post once per year or something, it's fine. If you know ahead of time that you're going on a vacation or otherwise will not be posting for some time, it's polite to say so in the Inactivity thread. If you sign up for some sort of mission or something else that's kinda' important, please be active so that people don't have to wait on you for it. If you're not going to be on the site very much, that's fine; just try not to get in the way of those who are.

Death: Character deaths should not be commonplace. A lot of people put a lot of time and effort into making their characters, so treating them like cannon fodder is not going to fly. It's not that there will be no character deaths; there will be some, but people will be rescued, people will be spared, and such. No one is going to run around and be a maniac with a machine gun in a mall. If a user can not generate a reasonable solution to a would-be kill by dodging, blocking, et cetera, and the character is to die, unless the user just openly admits their character's death, the admins (at least two) will decide whether or not the death is genuine, and not as a result of god-moding or the like. If a character is declared to be dead, that's it. They are dead. They are not undead. They are not banished to a different dimension or caught in transdimensional flux to be transported or redirected back. They are dead. The end. No more. No soul transfers. No reincarnation. No clones. No nothing. Dead. Make another character if you want to and move on. If you think of a loophole, tell an admin about it, and we'll probably tell you that it won't be allowed.
User deaths are never fun to hear about, obviously. If a user dies, his/her characters will undergo a story deviation in which they die without a chance to react. This will only occur by admin approval, and only admins (or others by admin approval per situation) can kill a character without a chance to react, unless it is part of an event, in which case it is by their will, as well.

[K]

We are now introducing the Archvillains! These chars are essentially the anti-Royals. They're the in-character reason for the low activity of the Royals: The Royals and Archvillains are constantly warring. We generally have a sort of gridlock; the Archvillains can't successfully do much evil against the Royals, and the Royals can't successfully do much against the bad guys, but some actions manage to fall through the cracks or overpower the opposing forces to cause trouble for either side. You won't generally see these little victories of the Royals, but the Archvillains' actions that get through will often cause deaths or other serious detriments to others. The Archvillains each have their own ways, but all have the grand intention of an early apocalypse. Pleasant, right? Aside from causing trouble on their own, they of course rely heavily on manipulation. Archvillains are always looking for more fools to add to their ranks. As soon as a char becomes a villain, the Archvillains gives the villain its first Level. The villain just gets a dark glow for a moment, then it fades into the villain, giving them an innate Level 1 recognition status. From then on, the villain must answer to the Archvillains for Levelling Challenges. Because the villains don't just go to a spot in a guild and wait for someone, they go find some place to privately take a challenge, then they just call out to the Archvillains.

[Noah Ivaldi]

In case you missed the memo, there is one other character type that has not been explicitly listed here, and that is simply the "normal" characters. Normal chars are on even grounds with other normal chars (at the same Level), a property that is only otherwise shared with villains. This is because villains are like normal chars, but with the obviously villainous properties, as described above. A normal char is a fighter. You decide on the moral status ("good," "dubious," "well-intentioned," "mislead," "ambiguous," "self-righteous," or whatever) of your char. You make the background. You make the abilities and whatnot so that it's not overpowered or underpowered (Obviously, the staff helps you with changing things to unite your wishes with what's fair.), and you make the goals of your char.

The usergroups that correspond to guilds, such as "Locco Members" and "Grigori," should be read about in the Character Gov't thread. They are not listed here because those classifications are separate from "character types" and are simply a matter of in-game guild status.

There is much leniency on what defines a civilian. As long as one is at all below the capabilities of a normal character (e.g. You have apparently normal abilities, but your statistics and parameters total up to just under the normal character total.), one is not a full-fledged character and qualifies as a civilian. There is a "recommended power range" to consider when composing a civilian. At the top of this range is a character that could be described as such:
"My abilities are decent, but I'm not as versatile as most others. Some of my abilities could stand some improvement to be up-to-par with the norm, but they're at least functional. My inventory can be described in roughly the same manner, mostly, but I have a nice enough ride and more than a few potions. Statistically speaking, I'm about 3/4ths as good as normal chars, or maybe a bit less. I have a pet and some other tag-along ally, but our combined battle capabilities are still far below those of a normal char."
Does the character that you're making sound similar to this? Is yours a bit more powerful, but still less than a normal character? That's okay; it's still a civilian. I just recommend that you tone it down to roughly what I just described so that your civilian actually has room to grow, rather than just being a civilian and immediately attaining normal char status.
Does your civilian sound like less than this? Great! That's fine. As long as your char is under a normal char and is, well, animate, it's a civilian. Technically speaking, you could have a dying cancer patient as a civilian, but it probably wouldn't last long enough to be put to use . . .
In-depth civilian "recommended build":

The bio, as with normal chars, is up to you. It can be really complex or really simple. As long as it has some basic info and some manner of acceptable backstory, it should be fine. Just be reasonable with it.
The abilities can be as good as those of a normal character, or maybe a bit better, if your stats reflect the fact that you'd still be unable to put up a decent fight. However, it is recommended that your abilities be about the same or slightly lesser than those of normal chars. Make some costs slightly exceed the outputs, make some be mostly normal, but have terrible range, has some unnecessary cooldown time on this and that, and so forth. Don't make a ton of abilities; you should probably start out with moderately low versatility. The idea is that there aren't any real "limits" on these beyond what other chars have to respect, but, if you're a civilian, it makes sense that you're sub-par in the abilities department.
Weapons and armor should be similar. It's fine to have a sword that's just as good as many others', but most of your equipment should be a little sub-par. This one could be made out of iron or some not-particularly-strong steel, so it won't stand for a whole lot of combat. That one could be made of some good enough materials, but be put together shoddily. This other one could auto-repair, but be so fragile and repair so slowly that you still have to be careful with it. Another could be totally indestructible, but be pretty weak. This one has the strength of a good hammer, but the range of a small dagger and the weight of a friggin' greatbow. This armor could slow you down more than it protects you. This one could magically speed you up, but actually lessen your natural defense. Use your imagination! There are a ton of ways to make some stuff that just aren't up-to-snuff.
Disposables are disposables. Civilians usually follow about the same guidelines as normal characters, but they actually tend to pack a few more disposables than normal chars. This is largely because civilians will need them more. If you need twice as many potions as I do, and you have 1.5 times as many as I have, that's just fine.
Civilians tend to have a little bit more leniency with vehicles. Starting vehicles for most chars are really crappy. Tixxi Eldixac can be said to be an exception, but one may notice the fact that the very beginning of her adventure starts with leaving said vehicle. Normal chars tend to have something along the lines of a collapsible, hollow titanium bicycle (portable and functional, but a little heavy and still just a bike . . .), if anything. Civilians are more along the solar-powered moped level (automated and easily fueled, but not especially efficient, fast, or capable of long distances). Those are just demonstrations of the differences; you don't have to conform to those exact specs or anything. Just keep in mind that a civilian's vehicle can be a touch beyond the norm for a character.
Statistics have to be below those of a normal char. You don't have to be as frail as a little girl, and you could have some stats that are actually pretty good, but the total or average has to put you behind a normal char. Like I said, about 3/4ths of the normal char stat total is fine, and so is anything below that.
Civilians don't tend to have many allies. Some pets and/or other tag-alongs are fine, but, when it comes to anything that could help in battle, mind your place. If you're a civilian, that doesn't mean that you are a sub-par character with another sub-par character on the side, and that the two of you work together to be stronger than or as strong as normal characters. A typical civilian char may have a little help in battle from a somewhat tough pet or something, but not much. The rule of thumb still applies: Be logical. Do remember that a civilian's total might, including allies, should leave some room for improvement.

When all is said and done about what defines the starting build of a civilian, one must keep this fact in mind: A civilian can rise to the status of a normal char once they are powerful enough. They can take a Guild Exam at any point in time, and, if the proctor determines the civilian to be good enough, the civilian will become a Lv1 normal char.

There is no such thing as a villain-civilian char. A civilian is not capable of a fair fight with a normal char, so villainous intents are pretty thoroughly ignored. It is possible to have a civilian character that seeks to become a full-fledged villain, but the Archvillains will probably ignore said civilian until said civilian has trained enough to be at least on-par with normal characters.

An NPA can take the position of a civilian, normal char, or villain. The "Standard Foes" account typically acts as monsters and some random bandits, but can act as more of a full-fledged or nearly-full-fledged villain char. When you're walking around a town or guild, you don't know whether you're talking to someone who is or is not capable of putting up a fight with you. A "regular character" NPC can be of any Level; an NPC can be a civilian, Lv1 char, Lv2 char, all the way up to a Lv7 char, a Lv1 villain, a Lv2 villain, or all the way up to a Lv7 villain. NPAs have full access to make chars as they see fit. They actually have a bit more leniency than the norm; an NPC Lv1 char can actually be slightly less capable than a user-controlled Lv1 char, as though the proctor that brought the NPC in was not as strict as the proctor should have been. The Lv1 NPC can be a little more capable, as though the character has done some training. At Levels beyond 1, the NPCs should be equal to or greater than the norm for their Levels (since consecutive misevaluations are not likely). Hence, an NPC can be just below Lv4 capability by being a Lv3 character with a lot of training. NPAs can basically be as weak or as strong (to a limit) as they deem to be fit; the only character types that they can't mimic are Royals and Archvillains.