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Pearl 101
What to Expect
Rules
World and Houses
Mechanics 101
Roles
Feeding 101
Innate Memories
Mechanics 201
Healing Mechanics
Drops and Activity
Questions
Applications
Getting Started
Mod Contact: pearlmods at gmail dot com
Game Closed
Nov. 17th, 2014 01:00 pmHey Bros x2
SO, it is not a surprise to anyone at this point that we are closing the game. In the end after discussing it we think breaking Pearl down to small, episodic events to be run over a week or a weekend is probably the best way to continue this.
We don't have more details than that right now, so as far as whether or not there would be applications, whether or not characters who were in this run of Pearl would be there or if this would be a direct continuation of what has already been done, no decisions have been made! It's currently in the status of "when we have time and energy, this is probably what we will do".
Once again, thank you all for playing! Pearl was always highly experimental and as such we knew this might be the outcome. But we learned a lot and I know even in the short time it was open, many cool things happened. We hope everyone got to take away something fun at least. Hopefully we will see you again in a few months when we roll this out in a different format.
-Aviy and Lady
SO, it is not a surprise to anyone at this point that we are closing the game. In the end after discussing it we think breaking Pearl down to small, episodic events to be run over a week or a weekend is probably the best way to continue this.
We don't have more details than that right now, so as far as whether or not there would be applications, whether or not characters who were in this run of Pearl would be there or if this would be a direct continuation of what has already been done, no decisions have been made! It's currently in the status of "when we have time and energy, this is probably what we will do".
Once again, thank you all for playing! Pearl was always highly experimental and as such we knew this might be the outcome. But we learned a lot and I know even in the short time it was open, many cool things happened. We hope everyone got to take away something fun at least. Hopefully we will see you again in a few months when we roll this out in a different format.
-Aviy and Lady
Drops and Activity
Oct. 18th, 2014 07:41 pmDropping
If you wish to drop a character please e-mail the mods at pearlmods@gmail.com and let us know how you want it to go down. If you are planning to get your character killed off (we highly encourage this option!) and want to play until you complete that, let us know! Or if you want to just not play them at all anymore, let us know that and we will take care of how to handle your character's absence. We make no guarantees or promises on what we will do if you leave it up to us (=
Activity
Characters who fail to make activity and do NOT email the mods before hand to let us know you'd still like to stay in the game will be idled. If your character didn't manage to eat twice but you still want to play, that's fine, but you must let us know ahead of time. The mods will not be taking on the job of making sure everyone has responded to AC.
Reapping
Works pretty much identical to apping, you can even resend exactly the same application! Keep in mind your character will not remember their previous time in Pearl and will likely not be on the same house. You may also choose to change their role and what they feed on.
If you wish to drop a character please e-mail the mods at pearlmods@gmail.com and let us know how you want it to go down. If you are planning to get your character killed off (we highly encourage this option!) and want to play until you complete that, let us know! Or if you want to just not play them at all anymore, let us know that and we will take care of how to handle your character's absence. We make no guarantees or promises on what we will do if you leave it up to us (=
Activity
Characters who fail to make activity and do NOT email the mods before hand to let us know you'd still like to stay in the game will be idled. If your character didn't manage to eat twice but you still want to play, that's fine, but you must let us know ahead of time. The mods will not be taking on the job of making sure everyone has responded to AC.
Reapping
Works pretty much identical to apping, you can even resend exactly the same application! Keep in mind your character will not remember their previous time in Pearl and will likely not be on the same house. You may also choose to change their role and what they feed on.
Healing Mechanics
Oct. 6th, 2014 12:35 pmSo when getting injured there are two main things to keep in mind about Pearl.
-Injuries are a pain in the butt and there is no natural healing speed boost
-Pierrots are the best healers by a large margin
In practice, here is what it all looks like:
All Healing Abilities Stack
This means you can have minor regen from two courtesans AND be utilizing Axum's medicines! Note that minor healing from Courtesan's only stack if they are from two different Courtesan's, otherwise you can only use minor regen once a day.
But All Non-Pierrot Healing Abilities are Very Weak
For example, say a broken bone takes approximately three months to heal. This means if you break your arm in Pearl it's going to be broken for basically the entire game. LAME! But, if you get your Courtesan to give you a minor regen every day, maybe it heals in a month. That's still a long time. If you have two Courtesans? More like fifteen days. Still pretty long in RP terms though.
However, if your character has a debilitating gash that might under normal circumstances hurt like a mother for two weeks, be tender for the next two weeks, and scar over completely in a few months, then taking care of it with Axums medical supplies + stacking some Courtesan regens on there will get it from JESUS I CAN'T USE MY ARM to Ok I'm just going to be careful with my arm in less than a week.
Of course if you are in good with like five Courtesans that number will decline!
Note that Courtesan's do, for now, effectively, make an unlimited amount of their healing whatever, so they can keep their entire family drugged up as necessary.
Medical Supplies Helpfulness Varies
How much medical supplies help kiind of depends on how much they are needed in a given situation. You don't really NEED fancy medical supplies to say, set a broken bone. But you sure as fuck are going to make a gash take way longer to heal if you don't have sutures and bandages and something to clean it with. NOT taking care of your injuries will make that shit last a while.
SO
In short, you have options in lieu of having a Pierrot but either having a Pierrot or being friends with one is majorly to your advantage if you're going to get mangled a lot.
-Injuries are a pain in the butt and there is no natural healing speed boost
-Pierrots are the best healers by a large margin
In practice, here is what it all looks like:
All Healing Abilities Stack
This means you can have minor regen from two courtesans AND be utilizing Axum's medicines! Note that minor healing from Courtesan's only stack if they are from two different Courtesan's, otherwise you can only use minor regen once a day.
But All Non-Pierrot Healing Abilities are Very Weak
For example, say a broken bone takes approximately three months to heal. This means if you break your arm in Pearl it's going to be broken for basically the entire game. LAME! But, if you get your Courtesan to give you a minor regen every day, maybe it heals in a month. That's still a long time. If you have two Courtesans? More like fifteen days. Still pretty long in RP terms though.
However, if your character has a debilitating gash that might under normal circumstances hurt like a mother for two weeks, be tender for the next two weeks, and scar over completely in a few months, then taking care of it with Axums medical supplies + stacking some Courtesan regens on there will get it from JESUS I CAN'T USE MY ARM to Ok I'm just going to be careful with my arm in less than a week.
Of course if you are in good with like five Courtesans that number will decline!
Note that Courtesan's do, for now, effectively, make an unlimited amount of their healing whatever, so they can keep their entire family drugged up as necessary.
Medical Supplies Helpfulness Varies
How much medical supplies help kiind of depends on how much they are needed in a given situation. You don't really NEED fancy medical supplies to say, set a broken bone. But you sure as fuck are going to make a gash take way longer to heal if you don't have sutures and bandages and something to clean it with. NOT taking care of your injuries will make that shit last a while.
SO
In short, you have options in lieu of having a Pierrot but either having a Pierrot or being friends with one is majorly to your advantage if you're going to get mangled a lot.
Family Journal Maintenance
Oct. 2nd, 2014 06:30 am- Each Family Journal has a filter set up with all members of the family on it. As new people join they can add themselves to this filter, allowing them to see past family-locked posts an ongoing.
- As people join the game, they should subscribe to all of the family journals, making it fairly easy to go to the manage circles page and grant then access, then the manage access filters page to add them to their respective family's filter.
- The purpose of having filters is so that you can have private meetings with other families! This is by no means required, but is a fun thing you can do with the game's mechanics. However, it's up to your family to maintain the filters.
- If someone drops their character and is no longer on the family, please remove them from your family's filter. Removing people from other family filters is less important to keep up on, unless it's one you're using regularly.
- Your family jouranls are yours! Put whatever you want in them. Lock or unlock posts as it suits you. You are also welcome to fuss with the layouts as much as you desire.
- You may also change the passwords to the journals, but please email the mod journal with the new password if you do (as well as the rest of your family).
- Please DON'T change the email for the journal or remove the mod journal from your family filter.
- Please do NOT change the permissions on the OOC Bulletin and the Season Submissions posts in each journal, these should always only be visible to current members of the family.
Mechanics 201
Sep. 28th, 2014 09:51 pmHow posting works is QUITE UNCONVENTIONAL particularly if you are used to other team games, so let's go over it now.
There is no central community. Instead, each family has their own community! Each family has moderator powers over that community and as such can create open or locked posts. Families can have locked just to themselves to play things out privately, or to make locked posts and invite other families for covert allegiances! However, you can also leave posts unlocked so that anyone can drop by.
Just because you are posting in your community doesn't mean that the post has to ICly take place in your territory. I.E. Borja can make a post in the Borja comm that they are visiting Ching Shih.
There are no mingles. None!! This isn't to say that every post must be 'managed', but it does mean that there are no 'everywhere' 'anytime' posts. If you want to play, make a post! It doesn't have to be designed for everyone and their mother to want to tag it. If you want to just have one thread with one person and there isn't currently a post in that setting/timeframe, make a post. We are trying to ween our players of the idea that all posts need to be for everyone, and also need to have at least 500 comments. This game is going to have a much tighter continuity than most and part of getting everyone into the mindset of that is posting is okay and you don't need mingles to RP.
Posting Format/Speed. Please add who/what/where/when info to each post. Per NO MINGLES please be at least somewhat specific on this. I.E. 'in Uruk's manor' is fine, 'anywhere in Uruk's Territory' is not.
For now speed will continue to be more or less 3 ooc days to 1 ic day, with posters able to forward or back date as needed.
The Network. The Pearl Network will show all unlocked posts any of the six family comms. It will not show individual player entries. It's strictly to be a resource for people to see what posts are open for play. HOWEVER, Dreamwidth won't show locked posts on someone else's reading page, even if the account you're logged into should be able to see those posts. We strongly encourage that everyone stalker pin their family's community journal so you get an email when a new post goes up.
Infomodding and Secrecy. So while we specifically set up family communities so that everyone has the option to do things in secret, that isn't required. There are no rules as far as you can't talk about X or Y in public. It's a mechanic for you to have fun with. We will definitely be hiding a lot of shit from you until we decide it's the most fun to act on it, so it makes sense that players might want to have secret arrangements of their own that is totally cool. But your locked posts are yours, so if you want to let people in to watch, talk about that in plurk, or unlock them after the fact, it's totally up to you.
HOWEVER, this game DOES require players to be good and considerate at not acting on ICly on knowledge they obtained OOCly! The game is specifically designed so that OOCly, you shouldn't be competing. Whether your family performs well or poorly in Seasons and such, you will be given something to play with. Our intention is for losing to be just as OOCly enjoyable as winning. So there shouldn't be a conflict of interest here. But just to underscore it: Please pay attention to what information your character has and act only on that. If OOCly you know what is required of the Season but ICly your character hasn't learned that? Don't pretend as if they just somehow magically guessed.
This isn't something we are going to be watching people for. As in most cases it's all honor system, but please always keep the spirit of the game in mind as you play!
More Secrets As mentioned above, deception and subterfuge are going to be a big part of the game- as are mechanics that are not explicitly laid out on info pages. You may at any time get a tap from the mods to let you know about special circumstances, and generally these circumstances will not be public knowledge. Therefore, the mods will not be confirming or denying anything that is not public knowledge.
There is no central community. Instead, each family has their own community! Each family has moderator powers over that community and as such can create open or locked posts. Families can have locked just to themselves to play things out privately, or to make locked posts and invite other families for covert allegiances! However, you can also leave posts unlocked so that anyone can drop by.
Just because you are posting in your community doesn't mean that the post has to ICly take place in your territory. I.E. Borja can make a post in the Borja comm that they are visiting Ching Shih.
There are no mingles. None!! This isn't to say that every post must be 'managed', but it does mean that there are no 'everywhere' 'anytime' posts. If you want to play, make a post! It doesn't have to be designed for everyone and their mother to want to tag it. If you want to just have one thread with one person and there isn't currently a post in that setting/timeframe, make a post. We are trying to ween our players of the idea that all posts need to be for everyone, and also need to have at least 500 comments. This game is going to have a much tighter continuity than most and part of getting everyone into the mindset of that is posting is okay and you don't need mingles to RP.
Posting Format/Speed. Please add who/what/where/when info to each post. Per NO MINGLES please be at least somewhat specific on this. I.E. 'in Uruk's manor' is fine, 'anywhere in Uruk's Territory' is not.
For now speed will continue to be more or less 3 ooc days to 1 ic day, with posters able to forward or back date as needed.
The Network. The Pearl Network will show all unlocked posts any of the six family comms. It will not show individual player entries. It's strictly to be a resource for people to see what posts are open for play. HOWEVER, Dreamwidth won't show locked posts on someone else's reading page, even if the account you're logged into should be able to see those posts. We strongly encourage that everyone stalker pin their family's community journal so you get an email when a new post goes up.
Infomodding and Secrecy. So while we specifically set up family communities so that everyone has the option to do things in secret, that isn't required. There are no rules as far as you can't talk about X or Y in public. It's a mechanic for you to have fun with. We will definitely be hiding a lot of shit from you until we decide it's the most fun to act on it, so it makes sense that players might want to have secret arrangements of their own that is totally cool. But your locked posts are yours, so if you want to let people in to watch, talk about that in plurk, or unlock them after the fact, it's totally up to you.
HOWEVER, this game DOES require players to be good and considerate at not acting on ICly on knowledge they obtained OOCly! The game is specifically designed so that OOCly, you shouldn't be competing. Whether your family performs well or poorly in Seasons and such, you will be given something to play with. Our intention is for losing to be just as OOCly enjoyable as winning. So there shouldn't be a conflict of interest here. But just to underscore it: Please pay attention to what information your character has and act only on that. If OOCly you know what is required of the Season but ICly your character hasn't learned that? Don't pretend as if they just somehow magically guessed.
This isn't something we are going to be watching people for. As in most cases it's all honor system, but please always keep the spirit of the game in mind as you play!
More Secrets As mentioned above, deception and subterfuge are going to be a big part of the game- as are mechanics that are not explicitly laid out on info pages. You may at any time get a tap from the mods to let you know about special circumstances, and generally these circumstances will not be public knowledge. Therefore, the mods will not be confirming or denying anything that is not public knowledge.
Getting Started
Sep. 23rd, 2014 12:33 pmSo you've been accepted and want to get playing! What should you do first?
- Bookmark the Pearl Network
- Subscribe to all of the family journals!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
aristophanesfamily | axumfamily | borjafamily | chingshihfamily | ichibeifamily | urukfamily You can get a family member or mod to accept you if you're in a hurry. - We also suggest stalker pinning your house's journal so you get emails when a new post is added. Locked posts will not appear on the Network .
- Follow
pearliest on plurk
- Join
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
pearliless, the OOC Comm! - Visit the Pearl AC/Info Tracker to make sure you are familiar with how it works and that your information is correct.
- Revisit the Innate Memories page to make sure you remember what all your character knows when they arrive!
- You may also want to review the World information if you need a refresher on what the world looks like.
- There is also a Profile Template if you want to use it!
- New arrivals will float up out of the ball pit.
Mechanics 101
Sep. 22nd, 2014 10:14 amPearl has a number of fairly simplistic mechanics that you are expected to keep track of yourself, but they do design how you play the game.
Houses and Elements:
Every house has an element, but these are more or less flavor. So for example you can have your characters abilities be colored with use of their element in whatever way you want, we aren't going to dictate that. But there aren't really any rules here other than the lightning house can't have water elemental spells.
Roles
-Roles are essentially simplistic RPG classes, only instead of fighting monsters you have to play the role you are given. Each class has a handful of things they should do, and things they should not. When they play their role they increase the overall status of their House and help keep themselves mentally stable, when they do things they should not, they decrease their house's status and threaten their own mental stability.
-Each class also has specific abilities. While ability is determined by class, how powerful they are at/how many times they can use it is determined by what power level they are currently at, which is determined by feeding.
-You don't need to remember what every role does. ICLy your characters only know their own role and abilities, and trying to remember it all will probably be overwhelming and impede your RP experience. It's perfectly fine to only know what you learn ICly.
Feeding
-There is no conventional food in the game, nor do characters have any understanding of it. Each character instead 'feeds' off of something that they get from another person; bodily fluids, lies, misery, violence.
-It is more or less up to you how much your character has to eat to be satisfied. The purpose of these feeding types is to give players a reason to interact in interesting ways, and so making someone cry and licking up just a single tear will net you an AC thread. But if you WANT your character to hunger for a pint of blood or need more and more misery to satiate their hunger, go for it. Some people are just big eaters.
-There is nothing to ICly tell your family or other families what your character feeds on, so they can lie about/hide this information
-Feeding is tied into AC, feeding must be played out (if not fully finished, at least started, you can't handwave feeding ever). You must have 2 feeding threads a month to pass AC. This will also ensure that your character does not die or go berserk due to starvation.
-Characters inherently are at level 0 in terms of power, which defines how often they can use their class based abilities. For every 2 additional feeding threads you have per month, the power level goes up by 1, to a maximum of three. So:
2 Feedings: Level 1
4 Feedings: Level 2
6 Feedings: Level 3
-Power levels restart at the beginning of each month, so if you get in your sixth feeding on the 25th of October you only get to use your level 3 powers until the end of the month.
Seasons
Once an OOC month, on the 1st, the Season will change, and will last until the 23rd. This will be marked by the weather in Pearl changing dramatically, and then remaining the same for the duration of the Season. Whenever the Season changes, this means the Church has received information on a new role for everyone to perform, usually in the form of an objective for all members of all houses to meet. The houses will need to do what they can (trade, spy, interrogate) to learn what the role of the Season is.
The Season ends on, OOCly, the 24rd of the month. The weather will stop to mark this. During this time teams will receive the results of the Season and will have until the next Season begins to play with whatever those turn out to be.
Participation in Seasons will increase your house's standing as it counts as 'playing your role'. Houses that do the best will obtain certain bonuses and their territory will be in better shape. Houses that do poorly will find their territory degrades. Success in Seasons in known ICly as being integral to winning so everyone should be motivated to be involved.
BUT WHAT ABOUT...???
There are all kinds of things that aren't spelled out on these pages. Because, frankly, there is already a lot of shit spelled out on these pages. IF YOU DON'T KNOW HOW SOMETHING WILL WORK, please feel free to give it an IC try. Your mods may be prepared for that contingency, or they may not. Either way, we will do our best to keep the results interesting!
Houses and Elements:
Every house has an element, but these are more or less flavor. So for example you can have your characters abilities be colored with use of their element in whatever way you want, we aren't going to dictate that. But there aren't really any rules here other than the lightning house can't have water elemental spells.
Roles
-Roles are essentially simplistic RPG classes, only instead of fighting monsters you have to play the role you are given. Each class has a handful of things they should do, and things they should not. When they play their role they increase the overall status of their House and help keep themselves mentally stable, when they do things they should not, they decrease their house's status and threaten their own mental stability.
-Each class also has specific abilities. While ability is determined by class, how powerful they are at/how many times they can use it is determined by what power level they are currently at, which is determined by feeding.
-You don't need to remember what every role does. ICLy your characters only know their own role and abilities, and trying to remember it all will probably be overwhelming and impede your RP experience. It's perfectly fine to only know what you learn ICly.
Feeding
-There is no conventional food in the game, nor do characters have any understanding of it. Each character instead 'feeds' off of something that they get from another person; bodily fluids, lies, misery, violence.
- Bodily Fluids: If it's fluid an the body generates it, it will count. Sweat, tears, saliva, blood, come, and piss are all equally free game. Characters who choose bodily fluids can not be a Courtesan
- Lies: Successfully lying to other characters. If the lie is 'discovered' (or the truth is told) this will redact the feeding. Characters who feed on lies can't be the Pierrot class
- Violence: Straight up abuse and brutality! The more violent the more filling and tasty. Characters who feed on violence cannot be the Champion class.
- Misery: Other people's misery, of course. Making other characters sad is sooo tasty. They have to actually cause, or at least amplify the misery in some way. Being passively around unhappy people won't do it. Characters who feed on misery cannot be the Governess class.
-It is more or less up to you how much your character has to eat to be satisfied. The purpose of these feeding types is to give players a reason to interact in interesting ways, and so making someone cry and licking up just a single tear will net you an AC thread. But if you WANT your character to hunger for a pint of blood or need more and more misery to satiate their hunger, go for it. Some people are just big eaters.
-There is nothing to ICly tell your family or other families what your character feeds on, so they can lie about/hide this information
-Feeding is tied into AC, feeding must be played out (if not fully finished, at least started, you can't handwave feeding ever). You must have 2 feeding threads a month to pass AC. This will also ensure that your character does not die or go berserk due to starvation.
-Characters inherently are at level 0 in terms of power, which defines how often they can use their class based abilities. For every 2 additional feeding threads you have per month, the power level goes up by 1, to a maximum of three. So:
2 Feedings: Level 1
4 Feedings: Level 2
6 Feedings: Level 3
-Power levels restart at the beginning of each month, so if you get in your sixth feeding on the 25th of October you only get to use your level 3 powers until the end of the month.
Seasons
Once an OOC month, on the 1st, the Season will change, and will last until the 23rd. This will be marked by the weather in Pearl changing dramatically, and then remaining the same for the duration of the Season. Whenever the Season changes, this means the Church has received information on a new role for everyone to perform, usually in the form of an objective for all members of all houses to meet. The houses will need to do what they can (trade, spy, interrogate) to learn what the role of the Season is.
The Season ends on, OOCly, the 24rd of the month. The weather will stop to mark this. During this time teams will receive the results of the Season and will have until the next Season begins to play with whatever those turn out to be.
Participation in Seasons will increase your house's standing as it counts as 'playing your role'. Houses that do the best will obtain certain bonuses and their territory will be in better shape. Houses that do poorly will find their territory degrades. Success in Seasons in known ICly as being integral to winning so everyone should be motivated to be involved.
BUT WHAT ABOUT...???
There are all kinds of things that aren't spelled out on these pages. Because, frankly, there is already a lot of shit spelled out on these pages. IF YOU DON'T KNOW HOW SOMETHING WILL WORK, please feel free to give it an IC try. Your mods may be prepared for that contingency, or they may not. Either way, we will do our best to keep the results interesting!
Feeding 101
Sep. 10th, 2014 08:30 pmIn Pearl, the activity requirements are that your character do something fundamental to their survival in the world: eat. At least twice an OOC month they must 'feed' on another person. But this can get a bit complicated so let's go over ALL THINGS FEEDING.
( Meals/Satisfaction/Hunger )
( Meals/Leveling )
( Activity Check/Handwaving )
( Failing AC/Starvation )
( Meals/Satisfaction/Hunger )( Meals/Leveling )( Activity Check/Handwaving )( Failing AC/Starvation )We won't call it a FAQ because in truth these have been asked maybe once BUT, answers to random shit we have been asked about the game below. You may also comment to this post to ask questions which will be answered and then added to this post.
( Answers! )
( Answers! )Each character has a role which they must perform to help their family, and will allow them specific role based abilities. Upon application you tell the mods your top three choices for role and we tell you what you will be playing.
Each house MUST have a Prime and can only have one, but after that it's possible to double up on roles or lack others.
Universal Roles
These roles are part of the overall world and apply to all characters, regardless of their family.
-No making trades with other Houses (unless a Governess is handling the negotiation)
-No giving freely of yourself or your House to the detriment of yourself/house and benefit of another house (Unless you're a martyr)
-Basically no prioritizing another house above your own
( Prime )
( Champion )
( Courtesan )
( Pierrot )
( Governess )
( Martyr )
( Edificer )
( Storier )
( Berserker )
Each house MUST have a Prime and can only have one, but after that it's possible to double up on roles or lack others.
Universal Roles
These roles are part of the overall world and apply to all characters, regardless of their family.
-No making trades with other Houses (unless a Governess is handling the negotiation)
-No giving freely of yourself or your House to the detriment of yourself/house and benefit of another house (Unless you're a martyr)
-Basically no prioritizing another house above your own
( Prime )( Champion )( Courtesan )( Pierrot )( Governess )( Martyr )( Edificer )( Storier )( Berserker )World and Houses
Sep. 1st, 2014 12:38 am
The 'world' of Pearl contains seven territories, six of equal size belonging to each house and the Pearl at the center. Within each territory there is a home base for the team (large dot) and a location where resources appear regularly (small dot). Each territory has a distinct motif, generally both in theme with the family's social class and mostly colored in the family's palette. At the borderline between two territories they dramatically shift from one house's look to another, making it obvious when you're crossing into new territory.
About 95% of the buildings in a family's territory cannot actually be entered. They are just adding flavor to the world, not function. Doors are locked, windows seem oddly two dimensional. If you don't know where a family's home/resources are located, it can be hard to pick out from amid the numerous fake buildings.
YOU MAY NOTICE THAT THERE IS NOT A LOT OF DETAIL ON THIS PAGE that's because there's all kinds of tedious details on every other god damn page of this journal! We figure that after a bit of playing, the teams themselves can fill in these details. How is your base laid out? What do those city streets look like? We will accept all kinds of player-made descriptions/blueprints/concept pictures you stole off of Tumblr, and put them all onto their own pages in good time. For now, please enjoy these color palettes and bare-bones descriptions.
( The Pearl )( The Uruk Family )( The Borja Family )( The Ching Shih Family )( The Axum Family )( The Ichibei Family )( The Aristophanes Family )Uniforms
For each family uniforms the primary color of any uniform should be the first color in their palette (the team color, if you will). However they can use the accent colors as much as little as they like. There shouldn't be any armor, but clothing for various weather situations is fine. Each character begins with two outfits, after that the will need to negotiate with/steal from the Aristophanes to get more clothing.
Uniform styles should generally resemble what is traditional for the theme of the house, so pirates should look swashbuckling, the mafia gets suits, merchants are in feathered layers and bone bird's masks, etc etc.
Applications
Aug. 30th, 2014 10:32 amThis game is invite only. Now that we have our first batch of applicants you can get an invite by asking a current player in the game to vouch for you. That player shoots us an email (pearlmods@gmail.com) and we yea or nay based on that.
For people we already know well this is pretty much symbolic, but this way everyone who is friends with someone in the game has an avenue to inquire about entering the game, and for people who we don't know or don't know well we can discuss it with someone we do!
- Now, since you got approval to join this game before submitting this app, this means we know you can RP your character! As such this app is less 'can you get accepted' and more 'what do we do with you'.
- For this reason, the app is REALLY SHORT. Please stay within the word limits as for real we don't want to read huge paragraphs of info.
- IF for any reason we feel like we still need more info after the application, we'll just email you back to ask, so don't worry about it.
- IF your app has REALLY SPECIAL CONCERNS like you aren't sure how your character who is a ghost/AI/300 foot tall robot would work in this setting, please just add that to the app along with your suggested solution and we'll discuss it with you.
REMINDER types of characters allowed:
Fictional canons yes
OCs yes
No dups
AU only in extreme need, talk to mods
FATE CHARACTERS only one iteration of a character can be apped but they can be from whichever of the 6k fate canons you want.
EMAIL your application to pearlmods@gmail.com.
Subject should read:
App: (Player Name) | (Canon) | (Character)
Application
Name:
Timezone/Playtimes:
Character Name:
Canon:
Character's Narrative Place In The Story: (200 words or less)
Why Are You Apping This Character: (200 words or less)
Innate Memory/Memory Loss Effects: Thought exercise! Just to make sure you've considered how the context of the game is going to alter your character, 200 words or less on how you think your character is going to be different in or deal with their situation initially.
Anything Else You Think We Should Know About This Character: (200 words or less)
Top Three Houses and Why:
Any Houses You Will Refuse To Be In:
Hunger: What do you want your character to hunger for (Or do you want us to pick?)
Role: What role do you want for this character and why? If you are hoping to app a Prime you must give us a second option in case your character isn't chosen for that limited role.
Name:
Timezone/Playtimes:
Character Name:
Canon:
Character's Narrative Place In The Story: (200 words or less)
Why Are You Apping This Character: (200 words or less)
Innate Memory/Memory Loss Effects: Thought exercise! Just to make sure you've considered how the context of the game is going to alter your character, 200 words or less on how you think your character is going to be different in or deal with their situation initially.
Anything Else You Think We Should Know About This Character: (200 words or less)
Top Three Houses and Why:
Any Houses You Will Refuse To Be In:
Hunger: What do you want your character to hunger for (Or do you want us to pick?)
Role: What role do you want for this character and why? If you are hoping to app a Prime you must give us a second option in case your character isn't chosen for that limited role.
Here is a Gdoc you can copy and paste
Innate Memories
Aug. 24th, 2014 11:22 amInnate Memories
All characters, though lacking in memories of themselves and their past experiences in Pearl, have innate memories that should serve to stave off much confusion, alarm, or need for repetitive instructions. They all inherently grasp the mechanics of the world, and they don't know of any other worlds. So essentially it's normal to be part of a house that is generally involved in hostilities with other houses. Of course everyone hungers for something different, but nothing is weird about drinking blood or feeding off of lying to others. Etc etc. The character may still hate the world they are in, as it is an awful place! But there shouldn't be a sense that this isn't the world they are used to.
For easy reference, bullets!:
| Innate Knowledge | NOT Innate Knowledge |
|
|
This is information that applies to ALL characters. You will also be getting additional innate knowledge that pertains to your house and your character upon acceptance of your application.
Important Note: Please remember that lying is a large part of the game and do your best to avoid info modding!
Premise
1 - Characters exist in this world with some amount of innate memory.
2 - Six houses must feed (on each other) and play their roles to best support themselves and to impress the Mother of Pearl and be admitted to paradise.
3 - This has been going on for a while, but you've got a good feeling about this year!
4 - Probably at some point, shit is going to get weird.
More Specifically
1 - App OCs or characters from published canons.
2 - All characters have no special abilities beyond what their role grants them, this means no being a black belt and no being a super genius.
2.5 - Depowering works more or less however you want. I. E. Edward Elric could either not have his automail at all, or he can HAVE his automail but it won't be any more strong or damage resistant than a regular arm.
GOSH WHAT'S UP WITH THIS? DOESN'T THAT MEAN YOU ARE BASICALLY PLAYING AN OC/AU AT THAT RATE?????? Yes, yes it does.
3 - Players may of course drop at any time, but cannot reapp the character as they dropped them. All reapped characters start brand new, with no memory of their previous time here, and probably not on the same family. Your mods, however, will be super chill about hiatuses so don't even freak out.
3.5 - You can kill your characters, but death = drop. In other words, if you choose to reapp them you will do so without memories of their previous time and no guarantee of getting the same family.
4 - All characters hunger for one of four things that they can only get from other people: lying (to others), bodily fluids, misery, violence. Satisfying their hunger grants them power (also counts as AC).
5 - Everyone has an RPG-esque role within their house, performing the actions of their role/not going against it helps their house rank up in the hopes of being admitted into paradise.
6 - All characters have innate memories to avoid a lot of boring 'what's going on here/why don't I know who I am' every time someone arrives and to encourage more active engagement in the world.
6 - Missing concepts - this world is all your characters know. Things that don't pertain to it isn't something they would understand. What is justice? What is a kitchen and why would you scramble whatever eggs are in them? What do you mean food isn't sex/blood/violence/misery/lies?? They feel comfortable in their knowledge of the world they live in, and don't know about things that aren't a part of that world.
7 - Events will occur twice a month and last for half the month. There will be no 'games' that require being at your computer at a scheduled time and staying for x number of hours.
1 - Characters exist in this world with some amount of innate memory.
2 - Six houses must feed (on each other) and play their roles to best support themselves and to impress the Mother of Pearl and be admitted to paradise.
3 - This has been going on for a while, but you've got a good feeling about this year!
4 - Probably at some point, shit is going to get weird.
More Specifically
1 - App OCs or characters from published canons.
2 - All characters have no special abilities beyond what their role grants them, this means no being a black belt and no being a super genius.
2.5 - Depowering works more or less however you want. I. E. Edward Elric could either not have his automail at all, or he can HAVE his automail but it won't be any more strong or damage resistant than a regular arm.
GOSH WHAT'S UP WITH THIS? DOESN'T THAT MEAN YOU ARE BASICALLY PLAYING AN OC/AU AT THAT RATE?????? Yes, yes it does.
3 - Players may of course drop at any time, but cannot reapp the character as they dropped them. All reapped characters start brand new, with no memory of their previous time here, and probably not on the same family. Your mods, however, will be super chill about hiatuses so don't even freak out.
3.5 - You can kill your characters, but death = drop. In other words, if you choose to reapp them you will do so without memories of their previous time and no guarantee of getting the same family.
4 - All characters hunger for one of four things that they can only get from other people: lying (to others), bodily fluids, misery, violence. Satisfying their hunger grants them power (also counts as AC).
5 - Everyone has an RPG-esque role within their house, performing the actions of their role/not going against it helps their house rank up in the hopes of being admitted into paradise.
6 - All characters have innate memories to avoid a lot of boring 'what's going on here/why don't I know who I am' every time someone arrives and to encourage more active engagement in the world.
6 - Missing concepts - this world is all your characters know. Things that don't pertain to it isn't something they would understand. What is justice? What is a kitchen and why would you scramble whatever eggs are in them? What do you mean food isn't sex/blood/violence/misery/lies?? They feel comfortable in their knowledge of the world they live in, and don't know about things that aren't a part of that world.
7 - Events will occur twice a month and last for half the month. There will be no 'games' that require being at your computer at a scheduled time and staying for x number of hours.
What to Expect
Aug. 22nd, 2014 06:35 pmFOR REAL THOUGH IF YOU ONLY READ ONE POST IN THIS TL;DR ASS MOD JOURNAL MAKE IT THIS ONE
So, Lady and Aviy are running a thing, and you should probably understand what that means before you decide you wanna be a part of it. This post is meant to explain a bit about what is going to be different in this campaign compared to other games on Dreamwidth. We want you to know what to expect, and what we will expect from you. You should think of this as less a rules page and more a "do I even want to be here."
We say "campaign" because we expect to play out the totality of the setting in 6-8 months. Hey, if towards the end of that, someone comes to us with a fresh mod team and a legit plan to extend the premise? Go to. But we aren't planning for that.
Shit's going to be fucked up. There will DEFINITELY be torture, mind fucks, physical, mental, and emotional violence. Bad things will happen to your characters that you can not control.
We will warn for Bad Shit in terms of content, but we will not warn you what shit and when. For us, a big part of the fun of A Bad Game is being out of control as to what sorts of awful things happen to characters. We do not want our own fun besmirched by getting advanced spoilers as to what will happen, and we intend to extend the same courtesy to our players. Of course, we aren't going to be entirely inflexible- if you need an exception to something we can be talked to, but if that conceptually sounds like a bad time to you, then a basic premise of this campaign sounds like a bad time to you.
There will be a lot of tabletop elements in here! Each character will have what essentially amounts to a race, a class and an allegiance. While (just like real tabletop!) we hardly expect you to memorize everything about every class/race/faction, you will be expected to understand yours and see the part they play in the greater game mechanics.
You've gotta be here to do the thing. We have put a lot of effort into the planning (and hopefully execution!) of this. Therefore we ask that players only join who really are interested in engaging with what we have made. Trying to circumvent/change rules will make that a lot harder on us, please don't make us make you play in the actual RP you apped in to. Hey, if you are not sure but you want to give it a try then we will love to have you, but please understand everything that was written here already.
This is all kind of experimental! We are trying out a lot of shit here that hasn't been done in any RP we've been in. Therefore you understand that at times we will fuck things up and need to change them. But you also understand that we can't always react quickly, or can react poorly, or incorrectly, and you'll give us some slack for it.
If all of that sounds good, then lets get to the people-eating!
So, Lady and Aviy are running a thing, and you should probably understand what that means before you decide you wanna be a part of it. This post is meant to explain a bit about what is going to be different in this campaign compared to other games on Dreamwidth. We want you to know what to expect, and what we will expect from you. You should think of this as less a rules page and more a "do I even want to be here."
We say "campaign" because we expect to play out the totality of the setting in 6-8 months. Hey, if towards the end of that, someone comes to us with a fresh mod team and a legit plan to extend the premise? Go to. But we aren't planning for that.
Shit's going to be fucked up. There will DEFINITELY be torture, mind fucks, physical, mental, and emotional violence. Bad things will happen to your characters that you can not control.
We will warn for Bad Shit in terms of content, but we will not warn you what shit and when. For us, a big part of the fun of A Bad Game is being out of control as to what sorts of awful things happen to characters. We do not want our own fun besmirched by getting advanced spoilers as to what will happen, and we intend to extend the same courtesy to our players. Of course, we aren't going to be entirely inflexible- if you need an exception to something we can be talked to, but if that conceptually sounds like a bad time to you, then a basic premise of this campaign sounds like a bad time to you.
There will be a lot of tabletop elements in here! Each character will have what essentially amounts to a race, a class and an allegiance. While (just like real tabletop!) we hardly expect you to memorize everything about every class/race/faction, you will be expected to understand yours and see the part they play in the greater game mechanics.
You've gotta be here to do the thing. We have put a lot of effort into the planning (and hopefully execution!) of this. Therefore we ask that players only join who really are interested in engaging with what we have made. Trying to circumvent/change rules will make that a lot harder on us, please don't make us make you play in the actual RP you apped in to. Hey, if you are not sure but you want to give it a try then we will love to have you, but please understand everything that was written here already.
This is all kind of experimental! We are trying out a lot of shit here that hasn't been done in any RP we've been in. Therefore you understand that at times we will fuck things up and need to change them. But you also understand that we can't always react quickly, or can react poorly, or incorrectly, and you'll give us some slack for it.
If all of that sounds good, then lets get to the people-eating!
RULE 1: YOU ARE DOWN WITH ALL THIS SHIT
RULE 2: (which would be rule 1, but for real please read the What To Expect page) Don't be a dick, converse oocly with other people about things to avoid dickish behavior. Try not to assume dickishness in others, and if dickery is suspects, give mods a heads up but understand that they may not intervene just yet.
RULE 3: AC is two feeding threads every month, if you are failing AC you MUST contact the mods (pearlmods at gmail dot com!!!) to inform us so we can work something out before hand. Even if all you do is send us an email that says "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa 8(". Anyone who fails AC without opening a dialog with the mods will be idled on the turn of the month, and your character will not be retrievable. h o l y s h i t
RULE 4: You may drop at any time, but dropped characters cannot be reapped just as they were. All characters enter this game 'fresh' without previous memories.
RULE 5: Respective to rules 3/4 we are going to be really, really chill about hiatuses unless you're fucking up your team mates in which case we will make you all talk to each other like adults.
RULE 6: IN GENERAL we care more about the spirit of the rule than the letter of the rule. This goes for class powers, AC, team loyalty ERRYTHING. We reserve the right to tweak the rules/talk to players/IN GENERAL NEGOTIATE LIKE ADULTS. Just like we'd like you to do.
RULE 2: (which would be rule 1, but for real please read the What To Expect page) Don't be a dick, converse oocly with other people about things to avoid dickish behavior. Try not to assume dickishness in others, and if dickery is suspects, give mods a heads up but understand that they may not intervene just yet.
RULE 3: AC is two feeding threads every month, if you are failing AC you MUST contact the mods (pearlmods at gmail dot com!!!) to inform us so we can work something out before hand. Even if all you do is send us an email that says "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa 8(". Anyone who fails AC without opening a dialog with the mods will be idled on the turn of the month, and your character will not be retrievable. h o l y s h i t
RULE 4: You may drop at any time, but dropped characters cannot be reapped just as they were. All characters enter this game 'fresh' without previous memories.
RULE 5: Respective to rules 3/4 we are going to be really, really chill about hiatuses unless you're fucking up your team mates in which case we will make you all talk to each other like adults.
RULE 6: IN GENERAL we care more about the spirit of the rule than the letter of the rule. This goes for class powers, AC, team loyalty ERRYTHING. We reserve the right to tweak the rules/talk to players/IN GENERAL NEGOTIATE LIKE ADULTS. Just like we'd like you to do.
