General Terms- IC - In Character
OOC - Out of Character
FC - Feature Character
OC - Original Character
PRP - Private Roleplay
ORP - Open Roleplay
LOG - Log of an IM Roleplay
SRP - Self Roleplay (ft. your own characters)
SOLO - Solo Roleplay (ft. only one character)
Forum Rules- Please post in the correct forum. Roleplays, journals, quests, and plot threads all have specific forums so make sure you post in the right one. Threads in the wrong forums may be moved or deleted without warning. Never post in the main forum unless you have permission from Meepfur to do so. The rogue lands are free, unclaimed rogue territories and are open to any characters. Pride/pack lands are usually restricted to members only so please ask permission before you post there.
Use the correct tags on all threads. If you are posting an 'Out of Character' thread, please place [OOC] at the front of your title. If you are posting an RP, please place [PRP] or [ORP] at the front of your title depending on if it is open or closed.
Use brackets for OOC chatter. If you absolutely must speak out of character in an RP, please use some type of bracket to note that it is separate from the rest of the roleplay.
We no longer have an owner's list. There are too many SoA for the shop to keep track of so we no longer keep an owner's list. Please save all of your images so that they don't get lost. Colorists try to keep the majority of their images but computer crashes do happen.
Do not direct link anything from this guild.
General Roleplay RulesShadows of Africa is a shop based on the native species of Africa, set during the early 1960s near the Great Rift Valley. All of the animals of the shop live in the wild and have little to no contact with the urbanized world of humans. Each animal should be roleplayed as living in their natural habitat, or as close to it as possible. We understand that not everyone is an animal expert so there is some leniency concerning the habits of the shop species.
In addition to the basic roleplay setting, we have a few rules and guidelines concerning roleplay that are important to know!
- Roleplaying is encouraged, but not required. However, you will not be able to breed your characters if you do not. You may set up journals for your characters if you wish. This is particularly helpful for keeping track of character's histories and roleplays. RP can be done in the guild or the main thread or on AIM/another messenger service. You are encouraged to have plots with your character/other characters, as long as you have the approval of those characters' owners.
Do not god-mod, twink, etc. This will not be tolerated. You cannot play as someone else's character unless you are given permission from his or her owner.
Expect IC actions to have IC consequences. If your character hurts another character in any way, do not expect for your character to be able to get away without harm - the owner has every right to retaliate. If you enter into an agreement to have your character blessed/cursed by a god, understand that this is binding and may not be reversed just because you decide you don't want to RP it anymore. Unless you have spoken to the owners of all characters involved, be prepared for people to respond in ways you may not have predicted.
These are animals. All of the pets in this shop are animals native to Africa. They are not from another continent, they are not aliens, and they are not magical fairy creatures. They can't communicate with humans, they can't wield swords, and they can't dance the macarena. They can communicate with other members of their species and members of other animal species. We allow them to have human emotions, thoughts and ideas but they are still animals. Please be realistic about the things you roleplay.
There are no human characters allowed. The pets in this shop are not meant to have any extensive contact with humans. They do not even live in a part of Africa that would give them contact with the urbanized world. Small amounts of contact with hunters or tourists are permitted but these should be treated as rare, once-in-a-lifetime occurrences. No one should be using human NPCs.
They live in the mid-20th century. This is not extremely important to the shop since not much will have changed about the wild between then and now. However, we do allow people to incorporate items that could be lost by a human explorer into roleplays. That being said, do not have your wild dog find an mp3 player, or your cheetah pick up a cellphone to carry back to her cubs for playtime.
Be aware of prides and packs. In SoA, your character can either be a rogue or a member of a pride or pack. Prides and packs own land, have their own rules, and each one gets their own cert for the members. If you're interested in joining or even interacting with one, please read all their rules and understand what is and isn't allowed.
You may only play one of the shop species if you have bought and own one. You may not create OCs as any regular or familiar species in the shop unless you have bought a character on these lines. The only free characters you can create and play are African animals that currently do not have lines within the shop (meaning we do not sell them as pets).
