Aeipathy Re-Vamp

For those of you already taking part in the community poll on our server, I don't have to tell you about the near future of Aeipathy looking shiny and bright! As our beloved members go back to school or generally become busy in RL situations or COVID difficulties, we at Aeipathy are adjusting to match. Our activity system is currently offline and we're not holding our community to unattainable standards for no reason (where would be the fun in that? XD ).

Instead, as everyone is posting slowly and merrily, the staff team at Aeipathy would like to take this opportunity to upgrade the site, budgeting roughly six months tops from now, to see these new features implemented whilst there is less activity to interrupt. Our community poll on Discord has encouraged our membership to offer their opinion on just how roleplay will work around these changes so thank you to everyone for leading us down the path most wanted by the majority of our community!

For full reference and disclosure, below is a full list of our intended features. Some will come into being as they are developed, instantly becoming available (don't worry - we'll make proper announcements on Discord as and when this happens). Others are intended changes that we will be putting into action on particular launch dates (simply because this is the best way to implement them into universal use) or as soon as this 'upgrade period' is concluded.



Along the Way Updates
De-Eurocentricising

I think that's a word. For those who don't know, 'eurocentric' is the term used when the western/first world/english speaking/european... ish.... world imposes its ideals or thoughts upon the rest. Generally, however, it has come to mean any instance in which a more powerful or richer culture dictates over a 'lesser' one. Usually linguistically. In this, I take this opportunity to hold up my hands and say that Aeipathy has fallen prey to this. At the time of making Aeipathy nearly four years ago now, I was not a historical expert in this area, nor did I have much more than Google at my fingerstips. Now, as a student of archaeology in the mesopotamia and mediterranean ancient worlds, I am far more knowledgeable on the subject. As such, I and the rest of the staff team are taking steps to correct this eurocentricism on Aeipathy.

You will, as the weeks go on, notice terms changing across the site. For example... did you know the Greeks did not call themselves Greeks? In fact, it was the Romans that called the Greeks 'Graeci' (likely in a manner that the Greeks did not much appreciate). The Greeks, in fact, called themselves Hellenes - the people from Hellas (which is what they called Greece as an area). Now, whilst this isn't the greatest faux pas in the world, given that the Roman name stuck and the same area of our world is now called Greece, this assumption was wrong and should be corrected. As such, you will begin to notice that 'Greece' on the site is being altered to 'Hellas'. Do not worry or fear - the place is still the same, the characters are still the same. And we're not insisting that everyone go back and retroactively alter their posts. No-one will be expected to follow the new terminology (which will be listed in the Encyclopaedia) until after the 'upgrade season' has passed. At which point, you'll get a full list of the changes made for you to check in on for your own writing.

That being said, it's important to note that, as the staff team work on the Encyclopaedia, you may notice terms or names morphing into something new. Please simply ignore this until told otherwise. No need for panic! ^_^

Re-Structure

In order to accommodate new realms and kingdoms (you can read about those below), the set up for these areas is going to go through a slight alteration. Some of the areas previously called 'realms' will be altered to 'kingdoms' or 'kingdom' areas renamed to a better word more synonymous with its origin/area (given kingdom is a Germanic term semi-routed in Latin. Not likely that the Egyptians would use such a word (for example).)

Again, you will see evidence of this as it is added/shifted around the site. But again, no-one is expected to change the language they are using in posts until told otherwise.

Likewise, you may notice some of the boards on the main page move location or shuffle around to accommodate these future changes. Please do not worry about this and continue to create threads in whichever boards seem most appropriate to you.

Local Language

To add to our de-eurocentrification (I will find the right word) of the site, and the terms we use OOC for regions or areas, we will also be adding in the terms/names that each peoples used to refer to the others in character. Such as the Romans calling the Hellenes 'Graeci' or the western europeans 'Gauls' instead of 'Celts'. Regions and peoples will not be referred to by a singular name but by the name the speaker knows them to be.

When it comes to our Encyclopaedia, the information pages will refer to each people with the name they use for themselves.

Encyclopaedia

Our Encyclopaedia is going to get a huge overhaul in terms of structure and information. Whilst nothing that is already there will be deleted or changed (don't panic!), we will be adding more information regarding each of the new realms and a few new features to boot:

- An OOC calendar. This will lay out the events, updates and staffer plans that we foresee for the future including member social meets online, gaming nights, movie nights, IC event launches, IC event polls for you to decide what even makes it to launch, OTM awards, wanted spotlights, Pinterest challenges and all that good stuff.

- With more information comes even more help on how to navigate it. A better Newcomer Guide is in the works, a Follow the Crown step by step tutorial feature will be done soon (where you literally follow the crown from one significant thread to another depending on your own character) and tables of contents will be added to every page.

- A full glossary and how-to-use the encyclopaedia pages will be created.

- And we'll be writing up advanced plotting and writing help on everything from character creation to how to describe paint drying. Not to mention aid in how to get your character into our new features for plot expansion (see the below information on Pushing the Red Button and Character Spotlights).

Historical Timeline

Currently our timeline offers only the in-depth history of our Greek (Hellas) kingdoms. Over the next few months we intend to build this timeline by:

- Adding a diverse and detailed history of the African kingdoms we already have in place (if not yet open).

- Adding periodisation for each kingdom to the timeline, including those not yet open for Lands Afar awareness. I.e. - which years was a kingdom at war... In which period did they struggle with famine? etc etc.

- The above basic information and periodisation will also be added for all of the new realms/kingdoms, making it easier for members to create characters from Lands Afar areas with some kind of grounding and awareness of what they homeland is like, even if they cannot currently roleplay within it.

- Additional House histories will be added.

- Additional Faction histories will be added.

- We will be editing the timeline to be searchable, editable (i.e. click your family's crest and only history connected to them will appear), collapsible, and any other '-able's that make an information source this in-depth easier to use.

Automated Thread Trackers & Auto Character Tag Links

Within the next few months our automated thread trackers should be up and working. This is also true for the auto-tag links for family and acquaintances in profiles and encyclopaedia pages. These feed off of the code for the Compendium so now that this is being finalised, these codes should come back into working order.

Visual Accessibility

A new feature that you may see crop up on the site as it's worked on is our new visual accessibility options in the profiles. When selected in the profile, a user can alter the appearance of the website (for themselves only) to have:

- higher contrast AND/OR
- darker backgrounds AND/OR
- bigger text AND/OR
- a different, dyslexia-friendly font

NPC / Wanted Pages

You may notice that the NPC pages for wanted ads will be altering slightly also. They will be given more information for those wanting to take on canons, including what is and is not confirmed about the character already so that newcomers can have more confidence when creating their own unique take on the characters.

Participated Box

The participated box pop up on the site will be improved and made a little more aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

Bookmark Pages

The bookmark feature normally applied on Proboards forums will also be in use, so that you can keep track of your favourite storylines.

Plotting Boards

Plot boards are being built for members to chat as they would on Discord, divided by family or faction or location. These discussions will be rated and listed under members' OOC post count as well as keeping track of each family member's thread tracker and major plot points. This will move the majority of plot discussion to the site, where chats will be both grouped but open for all to see, should they wish to join the fun.

The aesthetics of this board will be different from normal posting boards and appear as if you the member are chatting, not you the character.

Pre-Roleplay Board

Ever wondered if you could really roleplay a character? Or think you need to practice with them first, to be sure? Maybe you want to explore how they would react with certain stories, or how you might react to certain content? One of our new features will be a Pre-Roleplay Board. This will be a location in which you can roleplay, without an accepted character, with already accepted players. Try out a character you're considering or a family you might want to rp with. If your character is accepted in the future, the threads in this board can always be moved to our in-canon boards, if you want them to be!


Specific Launches
New Kingdoms / Realms

Let's start with the headliner shall we? We have spoken many times on Aeipathy about how we would one day want to expand our realms and kingdoms into far off places and bring about a whole continent of the ancient world (or at least the European and Mesopotamian part of the Eurasian one). Whilst our staff team stand by the decision not to open further realms until our community reaches the appropriate levels each time, I can confirm that we will be publishing the basic information, history and even a little canon information about each and every one of our future realms and kingdoms in the next six months. No, they won't be roleplayable right away but yes members will be able to create characters from these realms/kingdoms to roleplay as foreigners in the currently open world. Here's the full break down of what you can expect:

- A complete map of Aeipathy's entire ancient world.

- The everyday life, culture, basic political structure and historical periodisation of all realms and how they interlock together.

- A simple timeline of the major clashes between the different realms.

- The reputation/stereotypical ideas that every realm holds regarding one other.

The intention is that this will be enough information for players to confidently roleplay original characters from these kingdoms/realms, even if they do not have the same level of information/detail as the currently open areas.

Limitation: Please be aware that there will be no canon character information published until the realm in question is opened for roleplay. Canon families may be described but not individual people. The same is true for the current socio-political landscape of the kingdoms. All current 'plot' or 'characters' will remain unknown until the realms/kingdoms are opened for roleplay.

But what, I hear you cry, are the kingdoms/realms going to BE?? Well, I am here to please... The lands below are what we might have previously called 'kingdoms' which are now al of equal size/geo-hierarchy.

Realm: Aegeanus

Kingdom: Hellas
The land of Hellas will include the basileia of Athenia, Colchis and Taengea. It will include the ancient areas of Thracia and some of Macedonia.

Kingdom: Hattusa: The empire of Hattusa will include the city principalities (shehir) of Kizzuwadna and Carchemish. This will include the ancient areas of Anatolia and the Hittite Empire.

Realm: Sharqaan

Kingdom: Phoenicia
What was previously called 'Judea' on site. This will include the city principalities (akkads) of: Israel, Ammun, Judah, Jerusalem, Moab and Damascus, known as the Six Cities. This includes the ancient areas of the Levant and Phoenicia.

Kingdom: Assyria
This will include the city principality (akkad) of Mitanni. It will include the ancient area of and inspiration from the Persian empire.

Kingdom: Babylonia
A single city state (kissuti) of Babylon and its surrounding lands. This includes the ancient area between the Levant and Iran.

Realm: Sa'hra

Kingdom: Kemet
What was previously called 'Egypt' on the site. It will include the powerful cities (niwts) of Thebes and Cairo. This will more or less be the same area that Egypt occupies today.

Kingdom: Bedoa'mt
What was previously called 'Bedoa' on the site. This includes the six tribes (gesin) of Buuchu, Mekaki, Rwandi, Somalu, Ubuntu and Zaire. As these gesins are nomadic people-based groups, not lands or areas, the boards for this kingdom will be focused on different areas of the Sahara and Northern Africa, including what is now Libya and Algeria.

Realm: Europa

Kingdom: Roma
Based on the 'kingdom' period of Roman history (pre-Empire), this will include the ruled areas (lex regnum) of the Veneti Family and the Cannae Family as, well as the capital city (oppida prima) of Rome itself. This will include the area that, in current time, is Italy and parts of southern Switzerland and France.

Kingdom: Osthøj and Valland
Considered two distinctive lands by it's denizens Osthoj (North Land) is the homeland of the Celts, whilst Valland is the territories they have claimed over the last few hundred years on mainland Europe, bordering Roma. This is the area that the Aeipathy community have referred to in the past as 'The North'/Viking-based realm they want in the future. Not to be confused with the area that characters in Colchis call the Northern Lands (which is the mainland Balkans).

In the future, as our community grows and new realms are open for roleplay, our community will be asked to vote on which kingdoms they want to see opened up. This will be member-led and decided and new details/further information added for each when they are opened for roleplay.

Excited yet? ^_^

Version-ised Encyclopaedia

Feeling a little lost with all this changing terminology and new information? No problem! We intend to build different versions of the Encyclopaedia. These will be selectable so that you, as a writer, can view only the information prevalent to your character. If you're playing a Hebrew from Israel, you just click that region and the Encylopaedia will refer to other peoples by the terms your character knows them as. It will highlight the international information between your character's homeland and others. And it will completely hide all irrelevant information about other areas so that you can focus solely on the information valid to your character, in the language that best suits them.

This addition will be built with the idea of immersion and realism. But also as a deliberate means of diversifying our character base. It is our hope, as a community that a diverse character roster will promote the need for the communication and understanding of difference and xenophobia that is still an issue in many parts of the world today. We cannot, after all, escape a repeated future without first learning about the past. Even a fictional one.

Interactive Map

Using the amazing embedding software by WorldAnvil, we will be making a fully interactive map of the Aeipathy world. This will allow you to view the entirety of Europe and the Levant when zoomed out and bring you all the way down to provincial level when able to zoom in to the power of 5. An Aeipathy Google Maps so to speak. This map will have:

- Provincial statistics and information, including population, area squared land, additional description, military vs. population numbers and NPC characters in charge of each area who can be claimed or surplanted with original creations.

- Plot devices and suggestions, both obvious and hidden.

- Travel times and road maps to get from A to B.

- Thread location information, turning the map into a clickable thread search.

Character Compendium

In order to clarify the difference between information on long-dead characters (continue reading for information on roleplaying these) and current-timeline characters, the Character Compendium will be being renamed to the 'Living Census' and integrated into the Encyclopaedia alongside a complete 'Character Database' (which will include all characters, living or dead, claimed or otherwise).

As the Compendium (Census) is now nearly complete, this should be becoming available sooner than other features. This will include:

- A fully searchable character list. Searchable by: Acceptance Status, Occupation, House/Faction, Kingdom/Geography, Writer or whatever they are a Canon or Original.

- The hiding of accepted character links from Guests so they no longer click through to broken pages (as profiles are hidden by our host for privacy reasons) and are instead redirected to an example profile, so they can recognise our expectations and style for characters.

- A full face claim list will be included alongside the Compendium (Census) in our Encyclopaedia.

- A fully interactive flow-chart questionnaire has been built for newcomers to choose their first character. This will direct members to the best wanted/open canon characters that fit their interests in plot and character type.

- A similar flow-chart will also be in place for those wanting to create original characters, supplying suggested occupations, plots and connections with already accepted characters to help them get started.

Major and Minor Characters

We all have characters that we want to bring into the action but occasionally struggle to keep active the year round. Why? Because some characters aren't made to be a constant presence. They are designed to be insurgents that come in, mess everything up and then sail away on their pirate ship or be killed in the fray, leaving desolation in their wake. These characters are going to become our Minor characters. In the near future, you'll be able to create Minor characters with different activity rules to the normal Major characters. It will not be required that you make a Major character at all if you don't want to. You can solely play Minor characters if this fits with your activity desires.

Please note: Most canons (if not all), will be classified as Major Characters. Ancestral/Deceased characters will almost always be classified as Minor Characters. Both Minor and Major Characters will require full character accounts and applications.

New Character Awards

A new feature and slight reshuffle of the posting page layout (don't be surprised if the threads suddenly look wonky for a second one day) will give members the opportunity to gain different 'levels' of character awards. If you've achieved the Bloody Nose award more than once - your account will show it!

New Post Layout

Not only will the post layout be altered to make space for the new character awards but also:

- for the display of triggers, there on the thread page
- and user pronouns, clearer for people to see

Staffing Assistants

We will be looking for a brand new form of staffer. Who isn't a staffer. I know. How confusing. - let me explain XD...

We have many members on Aeipathy who have at one point or another expressed the desire to help Aeipathy out on a staffing level but fear the committment of being STAFF (with capital letters). And this is a valid concern. As a member of the staff team on Aeipathy, members are expected to jump in and help out where needed and/or hold an area of responsibility within which issues may arise and need to be dealt with. It is a large committment that not everyone enjoys.

So, to meet in the middle, we have two feature solutions that we will be bringing forward...

- Assistants: We are looking for members on the site who would be interested in taking on a single task. Just one. Without expectation of more, without a staffer title or name colour (ergo - no-one will treat them like staff or ask them questions as they would a staffer). In fact, unless someone looked closely at their Discord roles, no-one would even know they were an Assistant. Instead, they are the staff team's hidden helping hands. One person, one task. The task might be, keeping track of the points in the member-challenge channel. Or it might be locking threads whenever they are listed as completed in the roleplay-tags channel. Perhaps you'll be in charge of posting a wanted ad highlight once a week. Something small and simple that will take only a moment of your time. But all of those moments, spread across a community of Assistants, takes hours of work from the shoulders of our staff team, leaving them free to handle any issues or queries as they come up.

- Interns: These are staffers who wish to only be staffers during the summer months - the Summer Interns that have been previously mentioned in the voting polls before. These are members who only operate as staff between June and September (UK times) or the equivalent months in their own country. These members will be full staff and they will be displayed and treated as such, but with the understanding that they will be stepping down at the end of their holiday break - not continuing permanently. This way, members can help out in times where they are less busy with things like school or work commitments.

It is worth noting that members will be permitted to alter what state of 'staffer' they wish to be. They might begin as an Intern, then realise they still have the time after school term starts and upgrade to a universal staffer. Something might then happen in their private life and they drop down to an Assistant, keeping hold of the main task they particularly enjoyed doing on the staff team.

This new structure of staffing is not designed to be about 'Staffers' and 'Members' but a fluid and flexible community of people who are all helping to sustain the same place - the roleplay haven we all care for. The 'titles' are only used for the sake of knowing just who has what time to spare. That's it. Not a hierarchy. Just an informative, cooperative stucture.

After Completion
After the completion of the upgrade period you can expect:

1. Applications for deceased characters and ancestors to be opened. You'll be able to roleplay members of Aeipathy history. Ancestors of your favourite houses, or particular plots that you want to have fun with but don't suit your own character. If they're listed in the timeline, they'll be open for application as a Minor character that you can play around with to your heart's content, at your own pace.

2. Threads (both past and present) to be added to our in-depth Historical Timeline when they are locked by staff. These will be added in their chronological place.

3. We'll be introducing a six month long AU category event (like Apollo's Muse!) to occur every half-year so there is always somewhere you can go to rp your characters in a new time, place or setting, if ever the ancient world starts to get dusty.

4. Character Spotlights will be a thing. Nominate your character to have the light shined their way and give a shout out to the types of plots you're searching for. Our Character Spotlight will be advertised on our Discord server as a formal discord Event for all to see!

5. Pushing the Red Button, on the other hand, is a feature where you can nominate your character for a bigger slice of the global plotting pie. The catch? You're going in blind. Our staff will give you whatever plot we think is most likely to pull your character into the action. We won't GM your character's actions or reactions, but we can certainly set them up into a pickle for you to get them out of.

6. The new feature of Minor and Major characters will be officially introduced (see above for more information).

7. New yearly events that are not western/Christian in origin will be added to our OOC event calendar. Lunar new years, Seasonal events, National celebrations, Social focuses (such as Black History days/months or LGBTQA+ inclusion events) etc. Whilst we aim to be less eurocentric in our fictional world, we will be doing the same in our OOC world.

8. Regular social events will be hosted for members and staffers alike! Including gaming, movie nights and writing workshops! Several of these will include special guests such as Creative Writing professors, publishing editors, and professional writers! (Yes, we already have contact with these people, no this isn't an empty promise/open brag).

9. Pinterest challenges will be recontinued, once a month!

10. Wanted highlights will be recontinued.

11. The Weekly Broadcast will be moved to a fortnightly event and renamed the 'Aeipathy Broadcast'.

Concluding Remarks
In short, Aeipathy is being taken to the next level. We have never, nor ever will, have the intention of closing Aeipathy. We have been through ups and downs in terms of memberships and activity but this is a clear example of the way Aeipathy works. If activity drops, we don't close - we improve. We take the opportunity as it is presented and work to better ourselves and the experience we offer for our community.

The bottom line is that, over the next few months, you will likely notice all kinds of alterations on Aeipathy. Terms might change, boards might shift, whole pages in the Encyclopaedia might disappear for a few days as we work on them and republish them. The reassurance we are here to give is that you can ignore all of it. Until there is an actual announcement in the Discord server with actual information about a change or alteration, it is likely not permanent, and due to us staffers working hard to create something epic. You can ignore everything until you hear otherwise from us.

So sit back and enjoy the ride as Aeipathy gets taken to a whole other level of epicness...