1) Character background should
include, but not limited to:
- The names of your parents and siblings (See +help +family)
- Childhood. Where were you born? How were you raised? Are your parents still alive? If you are applying for a kit, less is needed here but there should be some background information.
- Personality traits. What does your character like to do? What is his or her function within the tribe? Typical occupations are hunter, tracker, healer, tanner, etc. There are other jobs that relate to these, any of which should be fine. Any special cases that wander far afield will require more background work and plausible factors to justify consideration.
2) Describe yourself fully. This
includes hair and eye color, general build, clothing, any special
accessories (such as weapons, adornments, etc.) It is possible
to be too verbose in your desc on a normal basis, but let yourself
write naturally here first. We will note spelling and grammar
problems and make notes for correction.
3) When you think you have your
char finished, +mail Kaer or Rahna. Be sure to include your IC
age and soulname, and make sure that your character is parked
in the OOC Room. Yes, Cat Elves have soulnames and Recognize (see
news Recognition). We won't divulge what it is, we just want to
make sure that there are no duplications. Your application will
be looked over and sent back with corrections/suggestions. Don't
be disappointed if you are not accepted automatically... every
character can always stand some fine-tuning.
If you haven't received a reply within a week, drop us a mail asking if we've looked everything over. We usually get applications processed much sooner than that, but there are always *THOSE* weeks here and there. Applications will be looked at in the order we receive them, so don't page Kaer online the day after you submitted an application. When in doubt, +mail questions. If you send a rude or impolite mail, it will only waste our time and yours. If you fail to read the information files thoroughly before applying or don't follow some or all of these guidelines, you will be asked to refile your application. For those who consistently fail to submit an application properly, you may be refused and asked to seek another tribe.
These are new changes to our tribal policy regarding new members. These are not intended to suppress creativity or step on anyone's fun. It was thought that perhaps these changes may help limit some of the problems that have cropped up in the tribe from the start of the Cat Elf experience.:
1) Read the Character Primer on
the Two Moons homepage. It's a great aid to successfully creating
a new elf that will work within the confines of Two Moons MUSH.
It is located at http://www.twomoons.org/primer/index.html.
I'll just touch on one particular point mentioned in the Primer...
for those who think to begin their backgrounds with great disaster
in either their immediate families or in their environment, please
take a second to reconsider. Putting stuff in like 'my parents
were killed by humans' or 'they just up and walked away one day,
leaving me to be raised by panthers' has been, quite frankly,
done to death. I know that it might sound cool, but what it actually
does is widen the gap between you and the rest of the tribe. Cat
Elves are not fanatical isolationists... living spread throughout
the jungle is a traditional way of protecting the entire tribe
from being discovered by any intruders that may enter the jungle.
2) Since the tribe is obviously
bigger ICly than a mere 26 members, the creation of NPCs as tribal
friends, lovemates, and even family members is allowed for the
purposes of +info and RP. However, please be careful in your usage
of this feature. Like having deceased members, NPC family members
have the tendency of distancing a character from the rest of the
tribe, which tends to stunt RP growth. Also, NPCs are rarely developed
as well as regular characters even though they have equal status
(or are supposed to have). If a player wishes to have his or her
NPCs participate in a TP through the use of judicious emits, what
are they going to say? What is your NPC's background, and is he/she
available to be family to another new tribal member, to further
cement the bond that our tribe enjoys? Remember, the more background
that you explore in your characters, PC or NPC, the better the
RP will be because you won't be hunting for an answer when a stranger
asks a simple question of your background.
-Kaer
