All members should be familiar with our
Community Ethos page as a general guide on how to engage with the Aeipathy community (both IC and OOC). This guide is for the
hard-line rules and lines in the sand necessary to keep a community our size rolling happily along.
01. The Community
01.01 Profanity and excessive language is permitted on our Discord server and OOC sections of the site. Please use such language with care.
01.02Sensitive topics such as politics, religion and social commentary are permitted. When being discussed on Discord, please use the
#nsfw-channel where appropriate.
01.03We care about our members and wish them well but
personal drama or rants should be handled with care and without swamping other discussions.
01.04The occasional change of your username on Discord is not a problem but we ask all members to
keep such changes to a minimum. Discord's feature of server-profiles should allow you to retain a familiar name. This stops confusion and reassures members new and old that they are talking to the right person.
01.05All name changes should be mimicked on the site under the
'Your Alias' section of your accounts.
01.06Repeated changes in your IP address may result in you being asked for a reason. If you are unable to provide one, your account(s) may be banned from the site. IP addresses are only ever checked after spamming rules are broken or to confirm poll votes. Normal users operating multiple devices and IPs should have no concerns regarding this rule.
02. Registering / Applying
02.01 One character per account. Our profiles, trackers and shippers are built into our profiles so members must create multiple accounts for more than one character.
02.02Accounts must be registered with the
first name only of your character. If you are (for example) signing up as Alehandros of Antonis, your username will be 'alehandros'. This feeds into our tracking and tagging system. Any account made under the wrong username will have to be deleted and the profile begun again.
02.03Applications can take as long as necessary to complete, unless another member is interested in claiming the character / a character of the same name. The following process occurs:
WhenA member wants to claim a character already in progress by someone else, the other account is...
CheckedIf the application has been in progress for more than six weeks (originals) or three weeks (canons and wanteds) the maker will be contacted. If not, the interested party must wait until these times are up before the creator is messaged.
After MessagingIf the maker is contacted by staff and does not reply within 48 hours, the account is removed and the interested party can have their turn. If the maker does reply, they will be given 48 hours from the timestamp of their reply to complete the application.
Only ThenIf the application is not completed within the 48 hour period it is removed and the interested party can have their turn. If the application is completed within the 48 hour period, the interested party must find another character to make.
02.04 All removed applications, completed or otherwise, are
saved. Simply message a member of the staff team to request your copy of past apps.
02.05New characters can be created at any time. We have no time-limits, accumulative post counts or gender ratio restrictions. To ensure character integration our only rule is that, prior to applying for a new character, all of a member's
current character(s)...
Must Havea total of
30 IC posts (not including posts in the
Alternate Reality,
Pre-Roleplay or
Letters and Missives boards).
Must Havea total of
3 Interactions in our Events and/or Provincial Stories. These can be any combination: three character interactions within one event, one interaction in three different Events etc. Three interactions total. An "Interaction" includes any meaningful verbal or physical exchange with another in-play character. All Interactions must be with different characters.
02.06 When claiming a canon character, all claims are limited to
one canon character per House. Women born to one House and married to a man from another count as
both Houses. Men do not count as part of their wife's House.
02.07Provided all characters are meeting the requirements of our Activity System, we have no character limit on Aeipathy.
03. Face Claims
03.01All images of face claims used must not break the contextual vibe of Aeipathy. You do not need to find images of your face claim in ancient/archaic costume but members
are required to choose their images with care so as to not appear overtly modern. Ergo, no excessively modern clothing, accessories (such as watches), buildings or vehicles should be seen in images. Zips should be avoided, formal suits refrained from. Images can be cropped in order to keep them looking as time-fluid as possible. If you need help with this, please a request in our
#graphics-help channel on Discord.
03.02Face claims
must be unique. Unless a character has an identical twin, or wishes to use the same face claim as another character in order to promote a plotline (a la Prince and the Pauper), members are not permitted to reuse face claims already listed in the
Face Claims page.
03.03Family resemblance should be considered when choosing face claims. Whether you are requesting a change to a canon face claim or are making your own family with wanted characters attached, we suggest a careful selection process: what colour are your character's eyes? Is this colour shared by siblings and parents? What about face shape, the width of the jaw, the general sharpness/roundness of the features? Try to choose faces that work as
believable relations.
03.04All face claims should work with the general
aesthetic of the lands from which they (or their parents) hail. This means choosing faces with the
appropriate ethnicity to promote immersion and respect for all. We encourage our members to remember that global migration of different populaces across the ancient and into the modern world could influence these choices.
[1] [2]
Example #1A Hispanic actor, born and raised in Central America might seem an impossible choice for a face claim when Aeipathy's world is focused on the Middle East and Europe. However, the Spanish colonisers of Central America inherited their olive complexion and dark features from the Roman occupation of the Spanish isles. The Romani in turn took these characteristics from Persian influence under Alexander the Great, an empire that expanded out from the Arabian Peninsula and into mainland Europe in 300 BC (just after our time period). These migration patterns can be traced through ancestral anthropology. A Hispanic face claim, with traits potentially originating from Persia, therefore, is an acceptable option for a character from Assyria, Babylonia or Hattusa. This choice would not be a racial generalisation but a historical possibility.
Example #2Instead of looking at historical migration, you select an Egyptian actor for your character from K'm't. Geographically this is perfect. However, the face claim in question is female and Muslim (the official faith in Egypt today). This means she is wearing a headscarf in every image you can find. Depending on your character's personality, this may not be an issue. But as the Islamic faith was not in existence in our historical time period and fashion in K'm't is deliberately scanty and revealing... this may cause a problem aesthetically. A face claim from another area may work better.
03.05Face claims can be used from
any point in an FC's life. Whilst it is allowed that you may use a fifty-plus actor for a twenty year old character, so long as the images you choose are of that actor when they were young enough to pass as twenty, we urge caution when creating characters with family members or whose face claim is more famous
in their sixties than their twenties. For example, Michael Gambon is more famous as an aged face claim than a young one and OOC discussion and chatter on our Discord server often includes gifs and fun poked at the expense of face claims. Explaining to newcomers or new roleplaying partners that your Michael Gambon face claim, who everyone is giffing on the server as an old man is actually twenty years old is going to get old very quickly and potentially confuse others. Please bear in mind your choice of face claim carefully. Any images that do not seem to fit with the current age of a character
may be removed. This also means that long-deceased face claims are permitted so long as the images used are appropriate (i.e. if you
can find images of Katherine Hepburn as a viking, go for it).
03.06Recently deceased face claims, however - especially those who have
living immediate family (i.e. children or spouses) and who may be grieving a traumatic loss - are not permitted on Aeipathy, as a mark a respect.
04. Activity
05. Roleplaying
05.01All posts are to be written in
third person limited and in
past tense.
05.02We are welcoming to all roleplayers with English as a second language but all posts must be written in English.
05.03Double posting with the same character is not permitted and considered
spamming. You may post a second time in the same thread under a different character if you have more than one character in the thread.
05.04Provided you do not double post, we have
no posting order. If there are more than two players in a thread, players can roleplay as much as they wish to without the third character posting
unless it leaves that character behind. All posting should be done with consideration for others in the thread and whether they may wish to be part of a discussion or action.
05.05All threads and posts are in flux until they are locked. This gives other members the chance to request changes or raise a hand to staff if they have been left behind in a story.
05.06Fake Tags are often used in our discord server to identify when a member is deliberately
not posting and waiting on someone else. These are not mandatory.
05.07Use of drugs and alcohol are permitted. Instruction manuals on how to abuse them are not. Take care to balance artistic detail with instructive information.
05.08Due to social opinion during our historical setting all character opinions are solely IC and are not taken as the opinion of the writer.
05.09We have almost no content restrictions and are a
3-3-3,
mature site. For further detail on this please see rules 04.11-04.13 below. Any and all threads that include any kind of violence, drug use, or sexual content should be marked as such using the 'Labels' system. These labels can be applied at any point as a thread progresses (see rule 04.13).
05.10Life Events with your character are yours to control and decide. However, as our story is told collectively, our staff must be kept informed of all major developments such as marriage, pregnancy and death. This is particularly true of Major characters. As such all Life Events must be approved by our staff team so that they are a) kept informed and b) can identify any potential issues further down the line for the members involved.
MarriageIf your plot is leading towards your character getting married, remember that your character will need permission from the appropriate characters to go ahead with their union. e.g. The woman's father may need to approval the match. You can find information on marriage in the appropriate 'Law' page of our Encyclopaedia. If the characters who need to consent are in play, permission must be gained from their players. If they are currently wanted/canon characters, please contact our
IC Admin for guidance. If the appropriate characters do not grant permission for your characters' marriage, other options may be possible. In this case, please contact a member of the staff team.
Divorce / Declaring WidowhoodDuring this time period, such events are rare. Please contact our
IC Admin for information on how to get out of a marriage your character may not want.
PregnancyContraception is limited if not entirely unavailable during our context For information on which realms and kingdoms offer preventative and abortive measures, check their appropriate pages in the Encyclopaedia. Every time sexual congress is initiated on site (either in fade to black or written out), the writers must choose: will their character(s) utilise the historically relevant contraception available? If the answer is yes, the story continues as normal. If the answer is no, you must contact our
Hearsay Moderator or
IC Admin. They will complete a
pregnancy roll. A six is confirmed conception. Otherwise, no pregnancy occurs. These decisions are final.
Child BirthWith no ultrasound available in ancient times, the biological sex of a child is only determined at its birth. Once your character has been pregnant for nine IC months, contact our
IC Admin for a
birth roll. This roll will determine the sex of child, the number of babies (twins, for example) and the difficulty of the labour. A character can hope for and mentally think of their child as a particular sex but bear in mind they cannot
know this until the birth thread is written. Birth rolls are weighted depending on the father's genetic history.
MiscarriageGiven the sensitivity of this subject, all players wishing to roleplay a miscarriage must seek permission from our
IC Admin. Normally, no issues will be raised but it is important that our staff team are kept in the loop. Miscarriages are only permitted if the writers of both the father and mother of the unborn child agree. Characters that are known to have fertility issues may have a second pregnancy roll at the conception stage in order to determine if the pregnancy will come to term ahead of time.
DeathIf you wish to kill off your character, please message our
IC Admin. Our staff team need to be kept informed of characters being killed so that we can update the
Character Compendium. If your character is an Original Character, you do not need permission to kill them off but the staff team do need to be informed. If your character is a Canon Character, you must seek permission for them to die IC from our staff team.
05.11Any sexual content involving one or more characters under the age of fifteen is
not permitted.
05.12Any sexual content involving congress with animals or non-human entities is
not permitted (the sole exception to this rule is copulation between humans and our Godly
mortal personas).
05.13All
trigger labels must be applied to relevant threads:
| Assault | Any violent contact between characters or sexual contact in which both parties are not wholly consenting. |
| Rape | Any sexual contact in which both parties are not wholly consenting and which progresses to full intercourse. |
| Underage Sex | Any sexual contact beyond kissing in which one or more parties are between the ages of fifteen and eighteen. Sexual content between characters, any of whom are under fifteen, can be referenced (and should be labelled as Underage Sex and Abuse) but cannot be fully roleplayed on-site. |
| Abuse | Any harmful, deliberate and repeated treatment (physical, mental or emotional) of another person kept in the violent-er's care. For example: animals, children or spouses. Unrelated characters enacting violence should be marked with the label Assault. |
| Violence | Any harmful, physical treatment of another person that results in blood or gore. |
| Death | Any description of an actual death (animal or human). References to death should not be labelled. |
| Mature | Any sexual contact that goes beyond kissing, including Fade to Black scenes. |
| Explicit | Any sexual contact beyond kissing and is described in vivid detail. |
| Incest | Any sexual contact between relatives of one removal (uncles/aunts to nieces/nephews) or closer. Due to the era, first cousins do not count and should not be labelled. |
| Drug Use | Any use of a drug substance that is not alcohol and any excessive use/abuse of alcohol. |
06. World Contribution
06.01To contribute a faction, guild, House or other element to the site, follow the instructions in our
World Contribution page.
06.02All such creations added to the forum
remain the property of Aeipathy after creation, so that other characters and members are not left in the lurch should a creator part ways.
07. Ads and Affiliates
07.01All affiliate images must be
88 x 31 pixels in size.
07.02All affiliate images listed on Aeipathy have been
compressed and
hosted on our own site to save homepage loading time.
07.03All affiliated sites that are
18+ or contain mature content must be displayed separately on our homepage.
07.04Due to space issues, all affiliate images must be
static .jpg images. No gifs or randomisers. If you cannot provide one, our staff will create one from a screenshot of your current affiliate.
07.05All affiliate images are subject to minor aesthetic changes to meet with our theme design. We never adjust or edit the images themselves, only CSS coding such as borders or opacity to fit with our theme.
07.06You must be submitting a request for affiliation with the permission of your site's admin team.
07.07Adding affiliates to our homepage may take up to 3 working days. Please be patient with our staff team.
07.08We regret that we
cannot affiliate with any site that:
OneHas fewer than 50 member accounts.
TwoHas had 0 IC posts in the last 60 days.
ThreeDoes not have Aeipathy's affiliate image on their homepage.
07.09We affiliate in like-for-like. If you place Aeipathy's affiliate image on the first line of your affiliates, we shall do the same for yours.
07.10We do not host scrolling or random-choice affiliate boxes. All of our affiliates are viewable on our homepage at all time. As such, we do not accept any randomiser-choice affiliates in return. If your site only has scrolling affiliation, we permit your affiliation so long as Aeipathy's image is the first on your scrolling bar.
07.11The codes for our ads
cannot be adjusted in any way.
07.12Our ads
cannot be posted where hosting sites will not allow - always check local rules regarding advertising.
07.13Our ads
cannot be posted on resource sites such as RPGDirectory, except by staff members. These are for forum posting only, not directories.
07.14All ads must be posted in the
correct coding format, based on the site you are posting it on.
08. Staff Conduct
08.01Respect is a
two-way street. Our staff are expected to give respect, a fair mind and an open ear to all of our members. Members are expected to trust and listen to our staff. Disrespect to our staff members (just like disrespect to any member) will not be tolerated, no matter the subject at hand.
08.02Members are perfectly allowed (and encouraged) to politely disagree with a staff member's choice or ruling in any particular matter, such as site alterations, profile acceptance, or the decisions made over member disagreements. Our staff will then respectfully and politely explain the decision-making process and, if we have made a mistake, change the judgement made. However, the staff team reserve the right to hold to original choices if we still deem them best. A difference in opinion is
not a judgement upon others.
08.03The Aeipathy staff reserve the right to
disallow any element of a character or plot device on the site. This will rarely be done and may only be a case of refusing certain face claims for lack of historical elements or banning a certain type of historical detail because we feel the plot device has become saturated on the site.
