Summary: Ah, either your name is Vicky, or you have met Laura. Scary, isn't it?

Summary: Oops. Sorry. NPC means "non-player character," as opposed to PC, "player character." NPCs are minor characters, like extras on t.v., who are used simply to move along a plot or allow a bit more character interaction. NPCs are rarely played. Examples of NPCs would be the random frazzled apprentice Healer who brings your character bandages, or your character's dear mother who occassionally shows up bearing cookies. NPCs do not require BoD approval, unless you want to make them PCs.

Summary: First check our guidelines on complaint procedures on the site and ensure you have grounds to complain, and that you understand the implications. Then send an email to the BoD through the Ask the BoD page.

Summary: The best way is to put in a new question at Ask the BoD as this will get to us more reliabley. If you are having wizzy problems then you can also contact us at DarkFort-owner@yahoogroups.co.uk email address. Informally we are also on OOC, and we are usually amenable to chatting, but please remember we are volunteers and we respond better to civil inquiries than rants. And don't be offended if we say we are busy right now!

Summary: Write a post with "Attn: whoever" in the subject line AND put yourself in an RP position that allows the requested ranker to find you. There is no point standing in the wilderness and calling for one of them, unless you are inventive in the way you contact them!

Summary: The Major Evil plots are designed to allow everyone to participate. There will be warning of roughly what is pending, and often encouragement to create Temporarily Active NPCs such as villains. Places and opportunities are provided, where possible, to let people jump in.
Never fear, there is a place for everyone somewhere!

Summary: Find a thread and as long as it is not jumping on peoples' toes . . . get in there and get involved!

Summary: Damned if we know!

Okay, Fuzzy Time basically means that a whole load of threads can be running at once. It can get confusing but it allows you to get going into different threads. For example, you can be simultaneously running a thread with your character washing his Dragon in the Weyr lake at noon, and another thread with him watching the stars with his weyrmate at midnight. You just have to watch you are not literally in two places at once.

People jump around a little with this, but if there are major events happening people tend to time what they are doing by its relation to the event until it gets nailed down in a Timeline.

Summary: You have a couple of options when it comes to getting your character Searched.
1) Write it as if you have been dropped at the Candidate Masters office by an unamed Searchrider. The Searchrider will have given your character opportunity to gather belongings and say goodbye to parents if that is applicable, and will have given the character a Search Token. This is a disc with the emblem of their weyr on one side and the Searchrider pairs details engraved on the other side. The Candidate Master or Assistant will take it from there and tell your character what to do.

2. Essentially the best way to get Searched and RP it is to either ask on OOC for one of the official Arolos Searchriders to come and Search you, or contact the BoD and have the BoD Searchrider do it. They will then escort you to the Candidate Masters Office and things will progress much the same as the other option described.

Easy huh? No problem!

Summary: Well Arolos and Fort have an interactive Timeline now. What does this mean? It means that players will be able to add their own significant events to the Timeline and keep it updated and decided where to fix them in Fuzzy Time. This can be very important with regard to things like risings and pregnancy and it goes without saying, Clutches and Hatchings.

The format of the date has been arrange like so;
8.8.1.1
This would mean 8th Pass, 8th Turn, 1st Month, 1st day (in that order)

When a writer selects a time to enter their event they will get to select all of these options. They can then decide when would be best to place their event and nail down Fuzzy Time and the line will have to be checked and looked over by a BoD to be "Approved" and then lo! It will appear in the official Timeline.

And that's all there is to it!

Summary: We aim for a turnaround time of no more than two days on submitted characters. During especially busy times, it may take up to a week. If it's been a week and you still haven't heard from us, feel free to poke us. Please do not play an unapproved character unless it is an NPC.

Summary: Give people 24 hours at least. We have this timezone thing going on where people need sleep. Shocking really, I mean, they should be sitting there at the computer awaiting your post! No, really, a day or so before reposting, and then as much time as you feel it needs before kicking.

You can ask the other people involved to try and get it done quickly off list However, we do suggest that you repost the mail (with "REPOST" in the subject line) and alert the person on OOC first. What you do off-list is not something we can monitor or really have anything to say about. If necessary copy the mail to their address as well to ensure they get it.

Summary: These are two very important terms you'll see used here and in other roleplaying games.

Summary: Only if they are yours or NPCs, or you have permission from the writers, and you are prepared to accept the consequences ICly. We have had murders at the Weyr but so far justice has prevailed!

Summary: Yup.

Authors: (this would be you)
Personas: (player characters-- ones you have full sheets for)
NPCs: ("extras")
Mentioned: (other peoples' characters mentioned in your post. see below for rules on this)
Location: ("by the starstones," "on patrol over Ruatha," "in R'ider's weyr")
Relative Date: ("two days after the Hatching," "during the storm")
Summary: (brief summary of post)

Summary: Yes and no. We do not guarantee Impression on the first or second try, for the simple reason that we hatch an average of twenty-something eggs every few months, and we often have over a hundred Candidates for those few eggs (for More on that see the Hatching FAQ). Additionally, our hatchlings come with character sheets of their own, and we try to match Candidates to dragons the way that dragons would choose a good match themselves. There have been many times when we've very much wanted to Impress a particular character but not had a hatchling that was compatible with him or her. However, if you are persistent, active, and not a constant headache for the BoD or other players, you can be sure that you'll Impress at least one Candidate after a clutch or two. The best advice is really to write them. We try to make Candidacy an interesting experience in and of itself, so that all your fun doesn't hinge on Impressing. A lot of players request that their Candidates not Impress the first time they're eligible, so that the writer can get a better grasp on the character and have fun as a Candidate.

Summary: Yup. We were officially approved on October 15th, 2002. All the Weyrs and Holds of the Northern Continent except Benden Weyr and Ruatha Hold are available for play. (Which is good, because we plan to play all of them some day.)

Summary: No, nor a female bronzerider nor male goldrider. Women may ride golds, blues, and greens. Men may ride bronzes, browns, blues, and greens. Sexuality is not taken into account. Despite female brownriders being once again allowed in fandom, it is well-established in our timeline that there are no female brownriders. The BoD is going to review this position in the future, but currently we are not accepting them.

Summary: We're currently near the start of the 8th Pass. This is the Pass before the Second Long Interval, the one Lessa travels back across to retrieve the Oldtimers. However, this is not the world Lessa travels to. Mardra will never been Weyrwoman of Fort, and the Question Song will never be written. Here are some principle differences between our world and that world:

Summary: That what your characters do in the game will have repercussions for them, positive or negative. If your greenrider wants to scream at his Wingleader like a banshee, we won't stop you, and we won't punish you. However, your character will be in a world of trouble in the game.

Summary: If you can't find the answer to your question then please contact the
BOD.

Summary: Are you getting an authentication error that looks a bit like this?

You have not logged in correctly for userid abc_123_thisisnotme. Please Logoff before returning to the Members Area.

In Internet Explorer

In FireFox

Summary: The psychokinesis of Skies of Pern, the betweening of Whers of Dragon Kin and the whole 'ghost dragon' thing of Beyond Between are NOT part of Arolos Canon.

At the moment the BoD judge they would have too much of a disruptive impact on the established storyline to include now. If you submit a persona with these in it, canon or not, they will be rejected.
Sorry about that!

Summary: What BoD Look For At Hatchings (And What They Don't!)

Article: Before and after every Hatching there tends to be a bombardment of questions to the BoD about what they're looking for in Impression. While the BoD can certainly understand curiosity in the matter, Hatching tends to be exhausting enough for them without having to answers 50 questioners at once. Thus, we're providing this easy guide to lay it all out for you.

1. We look for activity. This is not to say we don't consider quality, but we have to be realistic. Arolos is a high volume Weyr. Regardless of whether your two posts a month are beautifully and wonderfully crafted, they aren't going to give much of a contribution to a Weyrling class. We're not asking for hundreds and hundreds of posts- an average of a couple a day would generally be fine - but we are looking for enough to show us you exist.

2. Quality *is* also important. Do people spell-check, or do they repeatedly have to be stopped from substituting numbers for letters when they write? Do they use punctuation and capital letters? Do they do little courtesys like trim their posts, or do they leave half a digest in there every time they reply? More importantly, if they're spoken to about any of these things, do they do their best to correct them? Again, we're not looking for perfection. You're writing in a game, not trying to pass an English exam. Typos will happen, sometimes people will genuinely forget to trim, and not everyone understands the apostrophe rule.We understand all of this. However, we would be lying if we said we *didn't* look for evidence that people were trying and improving if they have problems, rather than expecting people who write with them to just cope.


3. Plotting. Proactive people, rather than reactive ones, are marked and watched carefully where plots are concerned, because we know how valuable they can be to a Weyr. People who think out plots that involve both themselves and other people, use the BoD question facility on the site to ask if they can do them, are willing to work with the BoD to work out plotholes, and then take the plot from planning to completion without getting bored and giving up on it will be treated like the rare diamonds they are. It's not a guaranteed route to Impression (nothing is) but people who seem genuinely keen to work through things like that *are* likely to be helped and encouraged.

4. Other characters. Now, for the most part there are only two things that can affect your character where other characters are concerned. If you have a permanent gold in the Arolos timeline (This at present includes Arolos Weyr and Dark Fort Weyr.) you may not have another. This is due to a "not putting all our eggs in one basket" policy. If you suddenly had to leave due to Real Life, one gold is a headache to replace. Two would be another. The second case is that if you already have a Weyrling who has not yet graduated, you may have slightly less chance of Impressing until that one has graduated. This will not apply in every case, and is simply to stop every Weyrling class being filled with the same writers.

The only other times when other characters would affect your characters is in regard to activity. Rank is fairly easily available at Arolos. There are requests every few months for volunteers for Wingleaders and Seconds, every player is allowed one Searchrider, and AWLMs and ACMs are freely available. None of these would affect your chances of Impressing, say, a gold. *However*, if you had several ranking characters already and didn't play any of them, that would certainly come under consideration if we were thinking about giving you further rank. Similarly, if you had Impressed before and
stopped playing your Weyrling shortly afterwards, this would be taken into consideration if we were wanting to Impress you again, especially if you had done so repeatedly. If you've a habit of playing actively and enthusiastically a month before Hatchings but never at any other time, this would also be noted. None of these things carry an automatic disqualification, but they *will* be considered. After all, we want our new dragons *played*, not left to gather dust.

5. Attitude and manners. This is a big one with us, and it isn't just applicable to Hatchings. Good manners will get you a lot of things at Arolos that bad manners won't.

Think about how you behave. Being active is good (as post one says) but so is allowing other people to have a real life. If you continually bug someone for their next reply in a thread when it hasn't been more than a few hours since the last... that's bad manners. On the other hand, if you repeatedly leave people hanging for days in threads where they *need* your character in order for their own to progress, that's also bad manners. However, there's more to it than this. If you deliberately try to see how much you can get past the BoD just for the fun of it - yep, that's *very* bad manners. This is a two hundred person game. The BoD have a lot of work to do, and they need to be able to place a certain amount of trust in members to behave without worrying about what they'll get up to. If you intentionally submit characters with things you *know* the BoD won't allow (accidents are one thing, deliberate is quite another), if you powerplay new members because you suspect they won't complain and the BoD won't notice, if you start or participate in OOC arguments - no, the BoD won't love you madly for the
extra work you cause. Do you really expect us to?


Please also consider your behaviour before and after Hatchings. Hatchings *are* a lot of work. There's a lot of plotting, a lot of writing, a lot of spell-and-grammar checking and a lot of decisions that need to go into those babies, and they result in BoD who are (more than usually) busy and tired. Think a little about what you're doing. This is *not* the time to message a BoD and try to convince them what a good gold/bronzerider you'll be. I can say with completely honesty that no-one in a Hatching chat has ever said "Oh, but we should Impress Jimbob to a bronze because his writer told me how happy she would be if we did!" We know doing it would make you happy. We also know giving it to the person over there would make *them* happy. We've got decisions to make, and unfortunately, not everyone can win. Try not to make it any harder for us than it already is.

Along similar lines, *anything* which involves you messaging every BoD in turn and asking them something should generally be a bad idea. Yes, we know when you have. BoD rules state that messenger conversations involving BoD work *must* be shared, in case we give out inconsistent information, or in case a BoD should suddenly go insane and insult a member for some reason. There's a nice form on the site. It submits a message to all the BoD at once. When they get it, the BoD can discuss the answer and then answer it all at once when they have time. If you need to get the answer to a Hatching question, use it. It saves us time and stops us wanting to smother you with a pillow for wasting our time.

If you *do* question an individual BoD on policy and get an answer... then don't argue. You asked a question, that's the answer, and no _one_ BoD has the power to change it. If you think it should be changed... there's that handy web form again that will contact *all* the BoD and ensure it gets discussed. See how useful that is?

6. Impression preferences. There's a reason we ask you to give us these before a Hatching. It's because we listen to them. And because we *do*, it's up to you to consider carefully what you want and what you want to do.

Golds, bronzes, and even browns are harder to get in Arolos Hatchings. It's a simple case of number distribution. If you have a character you *only* want to Impress one of these colours, that may take a few Hatchings. If you want gold especially, that may take a lot of Hatchings.

If, therefore, you really and desperately want to Impress *now* at this *coming* Hatching, don't limit your options so much.On the other hand, if you really really *want* those colours and wouldn't play your character if they got another, don't add green and blue to make yourself look good and then sulk if we give you one. We're not mindreaders. Unless you give us this information truthfully, we won't know it. And yes, if you do something like that, we will remember it next Hatching. That's coming under Bad Manners again.

If you have a character you *only* want to Impress bronze, brown or gold, but *also* desperately want to Impress as soon as possible, then the best solution generally is to play two Candidates, and have one of them open for Impressing blue and/or green as well.

7. Hatching paragraphs. Again, be kind. Think of the BoD. We have to read a lot of these. Reading the same paragraph 200 times is enough to make you want to go drown yourself, really it is.

We don't want you to sell yourself in these paragraphs. Nor do we want you to tell us your Candidate is nervous about Hatching. All of the other Candidates are also nervous, and we'd really like to be able to distinguish one or two of them from the crowd.

We write dragons with quirks. Some of them are early morning creatures, some want to doze throughout the day. Some of them are bright, some of them are slow. Some like music, some are tone-deaf, some are happy, some are grumpy. They aren't identical, and so when we have our Hatching chats we try to match them up. If you want us to match them to *your* Candidate, be kind enough to help us out a little! Give us your characters oddities, the things that make them different from everyone else. This is *important* - important enough that it has in the past been the difference between which of two Candidates Impressed bronze. We don't know your character. We don't have time to read all your posts. Unless you help us out, we've no chance.

8. How long as the Candidate been around? Theoretically, you can have a Candidate approved the day before the Hatching letters go out and still have a chance at Impressing. Realistically though, we want Candidates who people have had time to get to know. It's not unknown for people to Impress with a Candidate only a month or so old -we've even had fairly new people Impress bronze - but in order to do that you need to be fairly impressive in other areas.

9. And finally, a special note on golds. Golds - and especially gold eggs - are rare at Arolos, and tend to be highly sought after. One of the reasons we've heard people give for this is that "having gold will make sure everyone knows your character".

Unfortunately, people who say things like this have missed the whole point of what BoD are looking for. The whole Weyr should already know your character, even without that shiny thing. And *that* is what BoD are looking for.

All of this, which you've read about above, applies if you're looking for gold (or bronze for that matter.) You need to be active. You need to plot. You need to convince us - with your writing, not by telling us - that if you get this gold you'll continue using your character as more than something to show off in your sigline. You need to be prepared to wait - and, hard as it is, you need to do so patiently because repeatedly hearing how disappointed you are you didn't get one is more likely to turn the BoD homicidal than get you a gold. You need to have a consistently good OOC attitude, without tantrums, sulks or nagging.

Sound hard? It is. Hardest of all, you need to accept that you may do all of this and still not Impress gold because there was someone else who was doing them too. Choosing a new goldrider is never easy for BoD. There is always a lot of very good competition to choose from. Being picked doesn't always mean that there is something wrong with you, just that someone else happened to be that bit better or even that the project personality of the dragon does not match your characters' own. Don't fix your heart on Impressing gold, because if you do the odds are unfortunately that you will be disappointed. Play hard because it's fun, because you enjoy yourself and you love Arolos, and that way *if* you get a gold it will be a pleasant surprise. If not, then it won't be too much of a disappointment.

Summary: You mean you've got this far and don't know what the Whizzy Thing is? *gasp*
You mean it's not obvious?

Well actually, thinking about it, it isn't obvious. The Whizzy Thing is a lot easier to say and remember than PHP/MYSQL based Character Creation Database.

Basically the Whizzy Thing is where you enter in your persona sheet for the BoD to approve, and once approved it goes onto the website through the miracles of modern technology. And even more stunning, it then links to many different pages, by name, by Wing, or by Craft or by character type and innumerable other options.
As we said when Mandy, the Webby Wonder showed it to us - My word, isn't it a whizzy thing!
And it's been the Whizzy Thing ever since.
And the rest is history :-)

Summary: Not necessarily. If the characters are in a public place then they have to take their chances! If people really don't want company the post will normally be complete or take place in private. Please read and try and judge whether it would be like barging in on a private conversation, or simply walking up to someone in public. When in doubt, ask privately. Most people are more than happy to let others in on the fun, unless they have something specific planned.

Summary: Well lets see ... as long as your dragon is over 9 months old (and we're talking about in the game here, not that you have to play them for nine months), it boils down to whenever you want! On average, green dragons rise around 12 months but if the rider were older (more mature), 9 months is the earliest. Some greens even wait until 18 months!

Males are also able to chase from 9 months on, depending on the riders maturity. Although many chases are lost to more experience dragons, the practice will do them good ^_^

For greens rising, we would suggest issuing a warning on OOC so people know and not doing it when other big plots are afoot in case it gets lost. Otherwise, it's all up to you.

You write the set up post of your dragon blooding (or not), giving the interested parties a chance to muster, then you post your dragon taking flight. Try to let everyone get their reactions in before posting again, letting the chasers try and impress you with their um ... prowess. Writing prowess!

The writer of the rising dragon decides the winner and either informs the winner in an OOC note or by private mail. For the losers, there are often 'moths' waiting to help relieve the tension (Moths are girls or guys who enjoy the after effects of flightlust).

Care should be taken not to assume forced play of another character, the bustle of the pack and any force play that
could occur there (powerplaying). For example, Xith flew at Yith and knocked him out of position to take the lead of the pack.

Any questions or questionable situations, contact the BoD.

Easy huh?

Summary: Usually at the end of the 8th month of Weyrling training - however if the rider is young when they Impress they may well stay in the Barracks until they are considered mature enough to cope.

Summary: If the character had relationship with someone PRIOR to Impression, he or she may apply to the Weyrlingmaster for permission to resume the relationship when the Weyrling dragon is a minimum of 4 months old. The Weyrlingmaster will consult with the Weyrwoman to judge the maturity of dragon and human before rendering a verdict. The request may be refused. Once a Weyrling pair has taken its first approved trip between, usually at 10 months of age, the general restriction is lifted. Count yourself lucky . . . it used to be until the dragons were graduated!

Summary: You can contact us whenever you want to. If you have a problem for whatever reason catch one of us on mail or IM - we will probably ask you to send an email to the main address however. We try to deal with issues off list if it at all possible so if you have any concerns contact us. Likewise, if you are feeling lost, need help getting into a plot, would like to do a plot but aren't sure about it..have a question about anything, just ask. We can't help if we don't know you need help, and we would much rather hear about concerns when they happen and have a chance to deal with them then than later.

Summary: With a little bit of negotiation. Attempts are made to incorporate both, or someone will write his or herself out. It's pretty much like real life, when two people jump in on a conversation at once.

Summary: Dragonflight, Dragonquest, and The White Dragon are generally good books for an introduction to Pern. However, they have very little to do with Pern of our time. The world of Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern and Nerilka's Story is much more useful, and Dragonseye / Red Star Rising gives a good look at Impression and Weyrling hood.
Skies of Pern is NOTM applicable.

Summary: No. Please do it to our faces and nicely. Constructive criticism is welcomed, destructive criticism will get you 5 minutes alone with Lauren and her Shiny Knives or Laura with this rather unpleasant coathanger. We are human (well, at least 75% of us) and if we are not aware there is a problem then we can't deal with it

All references to worlds and characters based on Anne McCaffrey's fiction are copyright© Anne McCaffrey 1967,2005, all rights reserved, and used by permission of the author.

The Dragonriders of Pern® is registered U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, by Anne McCaffrey, used here with permission. Use or reproduction without a license is strictly prohibited.