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FAQ
WHAT KINDS OF CHARACTERS DO YOU ALLOW?
Yes. We allow:
We do not permit original characters from closed canons (like Game of Thrones or Sailor Moon), any version of real persons who have been alive within the last 100 years, and non-canonical AUs (like Frodo the magical girl).
Characters with a canon base must have enough canon for the applicant to write a cohesive personality for them without having to rely on headcanon. We do not allow duplicates of characters already in game, including reincarnated versions of the same character, nor do we allow challenge apps.
Traumatic events in backstories that are not dictated by canon will be under special scrutiny and depending on how they are handled may be cause for a revision.
If you want to mix and match different versions of a canon (say, Tolkien's Hobbit and PJ's Hobbit), please state which is your primary version and indicate in your application which parts you're taking from where. You may not mix versions of canon that contradict each other. Supplemental use is fine, cherrypicking is not.
Characters can be applied for from one month after the first international release date. For six months after the first international release date, they must have a spoiler warning on their application, an opt-in for spoilers on their info post, and may not receive spoilery echoes. Out of courtesy to your fellow players, we ask that you wait at least a week before you echo new content from an ongoing series.
ARE THERE ANY POWER CAPS?
Time-travel abilities may not be echoed back at this time. Everything else is fair game under the limitations laid out on the rules page.
The ability to access other planes (fae realms, spirit planes, hell...) can be regained and the method of access will stay exactly the same, but won't let the character access canon locations. Instead they will find a place on the Other Side that has loosely the same geography as the regular world: The ground floor of the realm is identical with the soil/sea level of the regular world, and permanent structures in the real world are represented by solid structures on the Other Side. The main difference is that there are no living beings on the Other Side - instead, colourful clouds move around where a living creature moves in the regular world, all in hues of green and blue except for Numbered, who appear in hues of red and yellow. If a character leaves the echo boundaries on the Other Side, they are knocked back to the location where they left the regular world.
The exact appearance of the Other Side differs between characters and resembles the plane/realm/etc that they would access in canon. But while all base characteristics of the canon plane will be present on the person's personal Other Side, anything interesting (if you're unsure if something counts as interesting, ask a mod) will have to be echoed separately. The different appearances are personal Perspective and characters with different Perspectives may still meet - they'll just perceive their surroundings completely differently. The only things independent of Perspective are separately echoed features of the Other Side or things brought into the Other Side from the regular world. Both are visible and can be interacted with by all people who have access to any Perspective of the Other Side.
Helena from Changeling: the Lost, who in canon would be able to access the Hedge, a giant maze of thorns, would still be able to open a way in the same way as she would open one into the Hedge, and would then find herself in a giant maze of thorns if she steps onto the Other Side. All permanent structures would be represented by either dwellings or especially tight coils of thorns, and the streets of Mossgate would be identical with paths through the Hedge. If she echoes a tree bearing goblin fruit, a fruit with special powers, the tree will also be visible to Firedrake from Dragon Rider, who in canon can access the Otherland and thus sees a kind of spirit world instead. So to him, that tree will look really foreign, but he can totally go and nom on some of its fruit. Him and Helena can also talk, fight or trade stickers on the Other Side.
Due to the Season Directives of Season Two, characters may now echo anything the player wishes with the exception of capped powers. Players are however requested to still make their character do their best to hide their echoes from the wider public.
WHAT KIND OF CHARACTER/CAST CAPS ARE THERE?
At this time, the following caps are in place:
WHAT IF I WANT TO APP A CHARACTER WHO IS DEEPLY LINKED WITH ANOTHER?
While you may always app such characters separately from one another, we do offer the option to app them as a unit. Such apps are called combo apps. Characters apped as such will only count as one towards the player's character limit and activity, although to prevent disappointment, any combo app must be requested with the form provided on the app page before the application can be submitted. This is for characters that are deeply intertwined to the point that if they are ever apart, it's a moment worth noting, including characters that are physically incapable of being apart and ones that are so often together that being apart would affect their personality drastically. There is no upper limit to the number of characters that can be in a combo app, aside from as common sense dictates. Examples of combo characters include Isaac and Miria from Baccano!, T.K. and Patamon from Digimon or Yugi and Yami Yugi from Yu-Gi-Oh!.
Combo apps are opt in, so characters suitable for a combo app could also be played individually. In these cases, they can be retroactively applied on request. If a character is added to an existing character slot by way of combo-app, the additional character must be requested with the combo-app request form. Once greenlit, an app (only!) for the additional character must then be provided.
Characters with semi-sentient pets like Sweden and Floweregg from Hetalia or Nanny Ogg and Greebo from Disworld can be handled either by combo-apping them or as the "human" character regaining the pet as one (or multiple) echoes, depending on if the player wishes to play the pet as sentient or not.
WHAT CAN AND CAN'T I DO WITH MY CHARACTER'S REINCARNATION?
A reincarnation does not have to be, and indeed should not be, a straight AU. We require three substantial differences based on the different circumstances that the preincarnation and reincarnation grew up and live in (compare the app form). That aside, they may be as similar to or as different from their preincarnation as the player wishes. SoE encourages playing with whens and ifs - if something about the new and the old version of the character clash, that offers all kinds of options for shenanigans when the character echoes the relevant bits. If you are unsure if something is possible or not, please contact the mods!
ICly, similarities between reincarnation and preincarnation are explained by the shard warping reality around itself to create a situation in which it can stay as true to itself as possible - making it so that the reincarnation's situation resembles that of the preincarnation. But the shards are only that - shards. They are much weaker than the reality of Earth around them, which blocks them from creating a full resemblance of the character's prior situation. Thus their reality warping will always be limited to aspects of a person's identity and life. It's up to the player how minor or major those aspects are.
There are very few limits to what characters' reincarnations can be, as long as you use common sense. It's fine to make them extremely rich, so long as you don't make them the richest man in the world, for example. Some characters will have IC advantages over others, but that's all they are. IC advantages.
Characters who are not human in canon can be handled in two ways: They can start out as human, or they can start out as the next similar living earth creature (an animal or a plant) and echo sentience (and, if necessary, the ability to following this have visceral experiences; for the sake of communicating with other characters, the echo of sentience may at the player's discretion include the ability to read and write) as their first echo (a My Little Pony character may start out as a regular pony, for example).
Characters must currently be living or long-term staying in Mossgate, England, the primary setting of the game. Characters may have international backgrounds and provisions have been made in the setting to accommodate as many such options as possible. We don't expect players to be perfectly accurate in their portrayal of life in Britain, but we do encourage players to engage with the setting and do research. If you have questions about if a certain background would be possible under English circumstances, feel free to contact Gil-mod.
Regarding locations, the rule of the thumb is that Mossgate, being a fairly large and internationally minded town, and Tarwich, being a bland suburban development village, are the most flexible and open. Folkton is the stereotypical countryside village: Intensely locally minded with a few big families whose presence in the village stretches back centuries. Few outsiders (British or foreign) stay for long, and those who do stay usually marry into one of those families. Moss Manor is a younger and less closed-off, but still very much a countryside village and international characters will find it harder to fit in.
Traumatic events in backstories that do not closely mirror an event that is dictated by canon will be under special scrutiny and depending on how they are handled may be cause for a revision.
WHAT IS YOUR 4TH-WALLING POLICY?
Fourthwalling is strictly forbidden in SoE. Characters may not have knowledge of or inform others that other characters are from a fictional world and what its particulars are.
CAN I BRING IN MY CHARACTER FROM [INSERT CANON POINT]/CAN I CANON UPDATE LATER?
Due to the nature of the game, canon points are irrelevant. All characters are brought into the game after the end of their existence (that includes any and all kinds of immortal characters). Players can however choose to not have the character echo back any memories/etc after a certain point.
As characters in SoE are reincarnated versions of their canon selves, all characters that are part of the same line of reincarnation (all DW!Doctors or all ATLA!Avatars) are considered various canon points of the same character. It is thus not possible for two of them to be in game at the same time, as that would constitute a duplicate character. For the sake of simplicity, we ask that players commit to one incarnation of their character (apply for Aang, not the Avatar); the character, however, can be "canon-updated" to a different incarnation at a later point while retaining all echoes and memories.
HOW DO I APP A CHARACTER WHO HAS BEEN IN GAME BEFORE, HOW DO I HIATUS OR DROP, AND WHAT HAPPENS IF A CHARACTER DIES?
Characters who are on hiatus can be put on autopilot. If you wish to properly hiatus them, they will lose all their gained echoes (items will vanish even if they have been gifted to another character), their access to the network, and all memories of everything related to the network, thoroughly enough that they won't have reason to assume that anything unusual happened in their past. At the end of the hiatus, all numbered abilities and echoes will suddenly come rushing back to the character.
Dropping functions like a hiatus, just that the loss is permanent. You may also drop a character by killing them, though that means that you cannot reapply for them later because in SoE, death is permanent.
The only way to get around death being permanent is echoing immortality or something functionally similar.
If you wish to apply for a character that has been played in SoE prior to that point and you either don't want to just reapply or are not the original player, you must create an entirely new AU with a new backstory, a different name, and so on. Reapplication functions like a long hiatus ICly.
WHERE CAN I FIND MORE INFORMATION THAT I NEED TO WRITE MY APPLICATION?
HOW DOES ACTIVITY CHECK WORK?
WHAT IS THE REFERENCE TIMEZONE FOR OOC CUT-OFF DATES?
The game runs on UTC. Currently, that primarily affects what comments can be used for AC.
WHAT ARE ECHOES AND HOW DO THEY WORK?
Echoes are "regains" - memories, items, abilities, physical and personality traits that the preincarnation, that is the original character, had and the reincarnation, that is the AU character, does not. They are triggered by canon reccurences - the character experiencing something for the first time that reminds them of what they then echo. Echoes can in theory be anything, but must be requested on the echo request page and approved before taking effect.
Items that belonged to more than one character in canon may only be echoed once. If more than one character who is currently in game could lay claim to the item, we ask players to resolve the matter by talking to one another.
Echoes are both integral to the plot and an important game mechanic. Their effects only exist within Mossgate and a few villages surrounding it. If a character leaves the echo limits, they will immediately revert back to their pre-game self, losing all items/physical changes/memories as well as memories of interactions with people that came about as a result of game plot. (During a later season, a way of circumventing this issue for a time will be introduced.)
A character's first echo corresponds with their network number showing up in their thoughts. This first echo can have occurred at any point of the character's life spent inside the echo boundary. Before the network went life, it just simply didn't do anything, and even after the network went life, it didn't do anything for many people - access to the network corresponds with the ability to get additional echoes (and begins with acceptance into the game. ICly, the reason why some character's numbers remain dormant for longer than those of others is currently unknown).
The full scoop on Echoes can be found here.
WHERE IS THE GAME SET?
The game is set on Earth. Most of the gameplay will take place in the Mossgate Echo Boundary, England. The only readily apparent differences between SoE-Earth and our Earth are that a part of Romney Marsh in the south of England has been replaced with fictional geography, and that the timeline diverges in December 2019. The general election brought a coalition of Lib-Dems, SNP, Alliance and Greens into power. Lib-Dems got the majority in England and Wales, SNP won Scotland by a landslide, and the Greens captured a couple of seats as well. The new Prime Minister is Nicola Sturgeon. The first thing the new government did was to repeal the invocation of Article 50. Thus, the UK is back in the EU and things will start to heal. The new government has also pledged to strengthen the NHS by restoring funding and staffing.
As Season 2 brings with it that the world outside of Mossgate is stuck in a timeloop of 2019, Corona is not happening at least for now.
The fictional town of Mossgate is located at the southeastern coast of England, between Brighton and Dover, at the mouth of the river Moss. It boasts a direct high-speed service to London that takes a bit over an hour to reach London St Pancras, a university, a harbour with ferries to the continent, and all amenities and facilities that can be expected from a larger coastal town within commuting distance of London.
The Mossgate Echo Boundary has a radius of six English miles around the mouth of the Moss River and includes all of Mossgate Council (Mossgate and the nearby villages Folkton, Tarwich and Moss Manor), an RAF base, sea forts out in the sea, and a good deal of countryside.
More information on Mossgate and its surroundings can be found here and information about British stuff can be found here.
CAN MY CHARACTER LEAVE THE ECHO BOUNDARY?
Technically, yes. There is nothing physically preventing any character from hopping on the next train or bus out of town. However, in gameplay terms a couple of things are likely to keep them there. First and foremost, their ordinary life is still there. They'd be abandoning their home, job and family. Secondly, during the first and second season, travelling too far from the city will cause the traveller to temporarily lose all their Echoes and any Echo related memories, meaning that if the decision to leave was related to the game's plot they will promptly forget why they are so distant from the city and probably just come back home anyway.
A character can of course be commuting out of the echo boundary for work, but as the loss and return of echoes puts the more strain on a person's mental state the more often it happens, most characters tend to try and find a job within the echo boundaries after a short while.
WHAT IS THE NETWORK AND HOW DOES IT WORK?
When a character receives their first Echo they become unable to forget a long string of numbers. This number is used to connect to a network that only the Numbered can perceive and that doesn't seem to exist in any physical form. Almost anything can be used to establish a connection, so long as the number can be applied to it. A piece of paper, phone, computer, reflective surface, etc.
The full scoop on the Network can be found here.
IS THERE A PLOT?
Yes.
The game will be structured in seasons, the number and length of which depends on factors such as how the plot and the interest of the players develops. A season is the term here for a period in which the game's setting remains relatively stable. Once the player characters achieve (or fail) certain goals or certain plot points are completed, the game will move into its next season and the setting will change. Each season has its own set of directives to keep the setting stable.
The directive for Season One was that characters may not reveal the existence of the numbered to the public. There may be close calls, there may be reveals to individuals like parents or spouses, but there may be absolutely no effort to make the public aware of the Numbered's existence.
The directive for Season Two is that characters should still attempt to hide their existence from the public; they may, however, fail to do so at the players' discretion. Should such a fail occur, the player is requested to inform the mods of it so consequences can be put into motion.
There is no confirmed ending to the game; it will end whenever the conflict that lies at the crux of the game is resolved, one way or the other.
Events will run often, but chaotically. They will not occur at regular intervals to fit a routine. They will be no self resolving events. They will all require player involvement to end and may overlap with each other.
WHAT PLOT-RELATED THINGS COULD MY CHARACTER HAVE NOTICED BEFORE JOINING THE GAME?
Game events that were unusual and people would have noticed include:
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Yes. We allow:
- Canon characters, as long as they have enough canon information to write a cohesive application.
- Original characters, both from entirely original worlds and from worlds that were designed specifically for the creation of OCs, like tabletop settings or mmorpgs.
- Malleable protagonists.
- Canon AUs (AUs provided by the canon source).
- CRAUs (transplants from other DWRP games).
- Fictional versions of historical real persons who have been dead for at least 100 years.
- If in doubt, ask.
We do not permit original characters from closed canons (like Game of Thrones or Sailor Moon), any version of real persons who have been alive within the last 100 years, and non-canonical AUs (like Frodo the magical girl).
Characters with a canon base must have enough canon for the applicant to write a cohesive personality for them without having to rely on headcanon. We do not allow duplicates of characters already in game, including reincarnated versions of the same character, nor do we allow challenge apps.
Traumatic events in backstories that are not dictated by canon will be under special scrutiny and depending on how they are handled may be cause for a revision.
If you want to mix and match different versions of a canon (say, Tolkien's Hobbit and PJ's Hobbit), please state which is your primary version and indicate in your application which parts you're taking from where. You may not mix versions of canon that contradict each other. Supplemental use is fine, cherrypicking is not.
Characters can be applied for from one month after the first international release date. For six months after the first international release date, they must have a spoiler warning on their application, an opt-in for spoilers on their info post, and may not receive spoilery echoes. Out of courtesy to your fellow players, we ask that you wait at least a week before you echo new content from an ongoing series.
ARE THERE ANY POWER CAPS?
Time-travel abilities may not be echoed back at this time. Everything else is fair game under the limitations laid out on the rules page.
The ability to access other planes (fae realms, spirit planes, hell...) can be regained and the method of access will stay exactly the same, but won't let the character access canon locations. Instead they will find a place on the Other Side that has loosely the same geography as the regular world: The ground floor of the realm is identical with the soil/sea level of the regular world, and permanent structures in the real world are represented by solid structures on the Other Side. The main difference is that there are no living beings on the Other Side - instead, colourful clouds move around where a living creature moves in the regular world, all in hues of green and blue except for Numbered, who appear in hues of red and yellow. If a character leaves the echo boundaries on the Other Side, they are knocked back to the location where they left the regular world.
The exact appearance of the Other Side differs between characters and resembles the plane/realm/etc that they would access in canon. But while all base characteristics of the canon plane will be present on the person's personal Other Side, anything interesting (if you're unsure if something counts as interesting, ask a mod) will have to be echoed separately. The different appearances are personal Perspective and characters with different Perspectives may still meet - they'll just perceive their surroundings completely differently. The only things independent of Perspective are separately echoed features of the Other Side or things brought into the Other Side from the regular world. Both are visible and can be interacted with by all people who have access to any Perspective of the Other Side.
Helena from Changeling: the Lost, who in canon would be able to access the Hedge, a giant maze of thorns, would still be able to open a way in the same way as she would open one into the Hedge, and would then find herself in a giant maze of thorns if she steps onto the Other Side. All permanent structures would be represented by either dwellings or especially tight coils of thorns, and the streets of Mossgate would be identical with paths through the Hedge. If she echoes a tree bearing goblin fruit, a fruit with special powers, the tree will also be visible to Firedrake from Dragon Rider, who in canon can access the Otherland and thus sees a kind of spirit world instead. So to him, that tree will look really foreign, but he can totally go and nom on some of its fruit. Him and Helena can also talk, fight or trade stickers on the Other Side.
Due to the Season Directives of Season Two, characters may now echo anything the player wishes with the exception of capped powers. Players are however requested to still make their character do their best to hide their echoes from the wider public.
WHAT KIND OF CHARACTER/CAST CAPS ARE THERE?
At this time, the following caps are in place:
- The same player may play no more than one character per canon. It may be acceptable to play two characters from different parts of the same umbrella canon with mod approval. Please contact a head mod for this.
Examples of umbrella canons include: Pokemon, Tolkien's Legendarium and works based on it, World of Darkness, Persona, Sherlock Holmes and works based on it, Final Fantasy, and Doctor Who. - The same player may fill no more than three character slots in total (this may actually exceed three characters, due to combo apps).
WHAT IF I WANT TO APP A CHARACTER WHO IS DEEPLY LINKED WITH ANOTHER?
While you may always app such characters separately from one another, we do offer the option to app them as a unit. Such apps are called combo apps. Characters apped as such will only count as one towards the player's character limit and activity, although to prevent disappointment, any combo app must be requested with the form provided on the app page before the application can be submitted. This is for characters that are deeply intertwined to the point that if they are ever apart, it's a moment worth noting, including characters that are physically incapable of being apart and ones that are so often together that being apart would affect their personality drastically. There is no upper limit to the number of characters that can be in a combo app, aside from as common sense dictates. Examples of combo characters include Isaac and Miria from Baccano!, T.K. and Patamon from Digimon or Yugi and Yami Yugi from Yu-Gi-Oh!.
Combo apps are opt in, so characters suitable for a combo app could also be played individually. In these cases, they can be retroactively applied on request. If a character is added to an existing character slot by way of combo-app, the additional character must be requested with the combo-app request form. Once greenlit, an app (only!) for the additional character must then be provided.
Characters with semi-sentient pets like Sweden and Floweregg from Hetalia or Nanny Ogg and Greebo from Disworld can be handled either by combo-apping them or as the "human" character regaining the pet as one (or multiple) echoes, depending on if the player wishes to play the pet as sentient or not.
WHAT CAN AND CAN'T I DO WITH MY CHARACTER'S REINCARNATION?
A reincarnation does not have to be, and indeed should not be, a straight AU. We require three substantial differences based on the different circumstances that the preincarnation and reincarnation grew up and live in (compare the app form). That aside, they may be as similar to or as different from their preincarnation as the player wishes. SoE encourages playing with whens and ifs - if something about the new and the old version of the character clash, that offers all kinds of options for shenanigans when the character echoes the relevant bits. If you are unsure if something is possible or not, please contact the mods!
ICly, similarities between reincarnation and preincarnation are explained by the shard warping reality around itself to create a situation in which it can stay as true to itself as possible - making it so that the reincarnation's situation resembles that of the preincarnation. But the shards are only that - shards. They are much weaker than the reality of Earth around them, which blocks them from creating a full resemblance of the character's prior situation. Thus their reality warping will always be limited to aspects of a person's identity and life. It's up to the player how minor or major those aspects are.
There are very few limits to what characters' reincarnations can be, as long as you use common sense. It's fine to make them extremely rich, so long as you don't make them the richest man in the world, for example. Some characters will have IC advantages over others, but that's all they are. IC advantages.
Characters who are not human in canon can be handled in two ways: They can start out as human, or they can start out as the next similar living earth creature (an animal or a plant) and echo sentience (and, if necessary, the ability to following this have visceral experiences; for the sake of communicating with other characters, the echo of sentience may at the player's discretion include the ability to read and write) as their first echo (a My Little Pony character may start out as a regular pony, for example).
Characters must currently be living or long-term staying in Mossgate, England, the primary setting of the game. Characters may have international backgrounds and provisions have been made in the setting to accommodate as many such options as possible. We don't expect players to be perfectly accurate in their portrayal of life in Britain, but we do encourage players to engage with the setting and do research. If you have questions about if a certain background would be possible under English circumstances, feel free to contact Gil-mod.
Regarding locations, the rule of the thumb is that Mossgate, being a fairly large and internationally minded town, and Tarwich, being a bland suburban development village, are the most flexible and open. Folkton is the stereotypical countryside village: Intensely locally minded with a few big families whose presence in the village stretches back centuries. Few outsiders (British or foreign) stay for long, and those who do stay usually marry into one of those families. Moss Manor is a younger and less closed-off, but still very much a countryside village and international characters will find it harder to fit in.
Traumatic events in backstories that do not closely mirror an event that is dictated by canon will be under special scrutiny and depending on how they are handled may be cause for a revision.
WHAT IS YOUR 4TH-WALLING POLICY?
Fourthwalling is strictly forbidden in SoE. Characters may not have knowledge of or inform others that other characters are from a fictional world and what its particulars are.
- Fourthwalling encompasses all canons that characters could be apped from.
So while characters may be aware of the Obama comics or Marjane Sartrapi's Persepolis, the character from which cannot be apped to SoE under the "no real persons that have been alive in the last 100 years" rule, they may not be aware of the Lord of the Rings, the MCU or Pride & Prejudice. This is also true for Franchises: Due to the Pokemon Franchise having appable characters and the title being a namedrop, PokemonGo does not exist in SoE's world - instead there is a game with the same mechanics named CapsmonGo. - This rule does not touch anything that characters could not be apped from, as the world of SoE is supposed to be as close to our world as it can be without raining on other people's fun.
For example ABBA, Hell's Kitchen, or Cards Against Humanity exist under the exact same name with the exact same circumstances. The same is true for all historical, pop-culture, and other real-life names and events. If you can't app from it, it's fair game to know of it. - This knowledge encompasses both echoes and reincarnation knowledge.
For example Sheldon from Big Bang Theory would not be allowed to echo his expansive nerd knowledge, and his reincarnation would not be able to find any fictional media that actually exist in our world. - That said, many fictional media do exist in SoE's world, and they may even resemble ones that exist in our world - they just need to be distinct enough that nobody can go "oh look, Lucy, your memories totally mean that you're Leia Organa!" So there could be a Series called Star Wars with a different plot and differently named characters (which is the case!), or there could be a show called Star Fight where a woman called Becky has adventures that are just different enough from Leia's to not make the connection.
- While characters may be aware of myths, they may not be aware of their specific adaptations. There is some grey area here, but generally you can assume that religious texts and products of oral storytelling count as myths while author literature (including older literature like Dante's Inferno or Shakespeare's plays) do not.
For example: A character might know that there is a Norse god called Loki, but not be aware of MCU-Loki. They might be aware that Shakespeare wrote many plays and is a major figure in British literature, but if they talk about a play specifically you'll have to make something up. - Characters from 4th-wall breaking canons may remember that their own original world was arguably fictional, but they may not echo any knowledge about other worlds. If more than one character from such a canon is in game, please discuss going this route with the other players from your canon before echoing anything.
For example Russia from Hetalia might echo having eaten a punchline, or characters from Demon Diary might remember having posed for the "camera".
CAN I BRING IN MY CHARACTER FROM [INSERT CANON POINT]/CAN I CANON UPDATE LATER?
Due to the nature of the game, canon points are irrelevant. All characters are brought into the game after the end of their existence (that includes any and all kinds of immortal characters). Players can however choose to not have the character echo back any memories/etc after a certain point.
As characters in SoE are reincarnated versions of their canon selves, all characters that are part of the same line of reincarnation (all DW!Doctors or all ATLA!Avatars) are considered various canon points of the same character. It is thus not possible for two of them to be in game at the same time, as that would constitute a duplicate character. For the sake of simplicity, we ask that players commit to one incarnation of their character (apply for Aang, not the Avatar); the character, however, can be "canon-updated" to a different incarnation at a later point while retaining all echoes and memories.
HOW DO I APP A CHARACTER WHO HAS BEEN IN GAME BEFORE, HOW DO I HIATUS OR DROP, AND WHAT HAPPENS IF A CHARACTER DIES?
Characters who are on hiatus can be put on autopilot. If you wish to properly hiatus them, they will lose all their gained echoes (items will vanish even if they have been gifted to another character), their access to the network, and all memories of everything related to the network, thoroughly enough that they won't have reason to assume that anything unusual happened in their past. At the end of the hiatus, all numbered abilities and echoes will suddenly come rushing back to the character.
Dropping functions like a hiatus, just that the loss is permanent. You may also drop a character by killing them, though that means that you cannot reapply for them later because in SoE, death is permanent.
The only way to get around death being permanent is echoing immortality or something functionally similar.
If you wish to apply for a character that has been played in SoE prior to that point and you either don't want to just reapply or are not the original player, you must create an entirely new AU with a new backstory, a different name, and so on. Reapplication functions like a long hiatus ICly.
WHERE CAN I FIND MORE INFORMATION THAT I NEED TO WRITE MY APPLICATION?
- More information about what we're looking for in an application can be found in the Guide to the Application, where you'll also find sample apps, or the application page itself.
- More information about how to write your AU you can find on the Life in Britain page, which includes information on the educational system and childcare, adoption/fostering, employment, healthcare, firearm regulations, LGBTQ+ rights, pets, shopping, religion/ethnicity, and much more. You might also wish to check out details about the location of the game and such miscellaneous things as sports, ghosts, village rivalries, the local LGTQ+ scene, and more.
- To better understand how your character and their reincarnated AU relate, you may check out the Setting explained and the Echoes explained pages.
- If you can't find an answer on any of those pages, you're of course also free to ask in the comments on the FAQ or message a mod on plurk, discord or through PM. Please do not message the mod plurk.
HOW DOES ACTIVITY CHECK WORK?
- There is a Check-In at the beginning of every month. To stay in game, players simply have to respond to the Check-In within 15 days of it going up.
- Activity gains you points. Points enable a core mechanic of the game: Echoes (see below). Two threads of a certain length (or one thread of a certain length with a new character) buy you an Echo Token, which can be exchanged for an echo. Or use triple that amount of threads to buy a Double Echo Token, which allows your character to regain two things with just one trigger. More information about ETs and DETs can be found over here.
WHAT IS THE REFERENCE TIMEZONE FOR OOC CUT-OFF DATES?
The game runs on UTC. Currently, that primarily affects what comments can be used for AC.
WHAT ARE ECHOES AND HOW DO THEY WORK?
Echoes are "regains" - memories, items, abilities, physical and personality traits that the preincarnation, that is the original character, had and the reincarnation, that is the AU character, does not. They are triggered by canon reccurences - the character experiencing something for the first time that reminds them of what they then echo. Echoes can in theory be anything, but must be requested on the echo request page and approved before taking effect.
Items that belonged to more than one character in canon may only be echoed once. If more than one character who is currently in game could lay claim to the item, we ask players to resolve the matter by talking to one another.
Echoes are both integral to the plot and an important game mechanic. Their effects only exist within Mossgate and a few villages surrounding it. If a character leaves the echo limits, they will immediately revert back to their pre-game self, losing all items/physical changes/memories as well as memories of interactions with people that came about as a result of game plot. (During a later season, a way of circumventing this issue for a time will be introduced.)
A character's first echo corresponds with their network number showing up in their thoughts. This first echo can have occurred at any point of the character's life spent inside the echo boundary. Before the network went life, it just simply didn't do anything, and even after the network went life, it didn't do anything for many people - access to the network corresponds with the ability to get additional echoes (and begins with acceptance into the game. ICly, the reason why some character's numbers remain dormant for longer than those of others is currently unknown).
The full scoop on Echoes can be found here.
WHERE IS THE GAME SET?
The game is set on Earth. Most of the gameplay will take place in the Mossgate Echo Boundary, England. The only readily apparent differences between SoE-Earth and our Earth are that a part of Romney Marsh in the south of England has been replaced with fictional geography, and that the timeline diverges in December 2019. The general election brought a coalition of Lib-Dems, SNP, Alliance and Greens into power. Lib-Dems got the majority in England and Wales, SNP won Scotland by a landslide, and the Greens captured a couple of seats as well. The new Prime Minister is Nicola Sturgeon. The first thing the new government did was to repeal the invocation of Article 50. Thus, the UK is back in the EU and things will start to heal. The new government has also pledged to strengthen the NHS by restoring funding and staffing.
As Season 2 brings with it that the world outside of Mossgate is stuck in a timeloop of 2019, Corona is not happening at least for now.
The fictional town of Mossgate is located at the southeastern coast of England, between Brighton and Dover, at the mouth of the river Moss. It boasts a direct high-speed service to London that takes a bit over an hour to reach London St Pancras, a university, a harbour with ferries to the continent, and all amenities and facilities that can be expected from a larger coastal town within commuting distance of London.
The Mossgate Echo Boundary has a radius of six English miles around the mouth of the Moss River and includes all of Mossgate Council (Mossgate and the nearby villages Folkton, Tarwich and Moss Manor), an RAF base, sea forts out in the sea, and a good deal of countryside.
More information on Mossgate and its surroundings can be found here and information about British stuff can be found here.
CAN MY CHARACTER LEAVE THE ECHO BOUNDARY?
Technically, yes. There is nothing physically preventing any character from hopping on the next train or bus out of town. However, in gameplay terms a couple of things are likely to keep them there. First and foremost, their ordinary life is still there. They'd be abandoning their home, job and family. Secondly, during the first and second season, travelling too far from the city will cause the traveller to temporarily lose all their Echoes and any Echo related memories, meaning that if the decision to leave was related to the game's plot they will promptly forget why they are so distant from the city and probably just come back home anyway.
A character can of course be commuting out of the echo boundary for work, but as the loss and return of echoes puts the more strain on a person's mental state the more often it happens, most characters tend to try and find a job within the echo boundaries after a short while.
WHAT IS THE NETWORK AND HOW DOES IT WORK?
When a character receives their first Echo they become unable to forget a long string of numbers. This number is used to connect to a network that only the Numbered can perceive and that doesn't seem to exist in any physical form. Almost anything can be used to establish a connection, so long as the number can be applied to it. A piece of paper, phone, computer, reflective surface, etc.
The full scoop on the Network can be found here.
IS THERE A PLOT?
Yes.
The game will be structured in seasons, the number and length of which depends on factors such as how the plot and the interest of the players develops. A season is the term here for a period in which the game's setting remains relatively stable. Once the player characters achieve (or fail) certain goals or certain plot points are completed, the game will move into its next season and the setting will change. Each season has its own set of directives to keep the setting stable.
The directive for Season One was that characters may not reveal the existence of the numbered to the public. There may be close calls, there may be reveals to individuals like parents or spouses, but there may be absolutely no effort to make the public aware of the Numbered's existence.
The directive for Season Two is that characters should still attempt to hide their existence from the public; they may, however, fail to do so at the players' discretion. Should such a fail occur, the player is requested to inform the mods of it so consequences can be put into motion.
There is no confirmed ending to the game; it will end whenever the conflict that lies at the crux of the game is resolved, one way or the other.
Events will run often, but chaotically. They will not occur at regular intervals to fit a routine. They will be no self resolving events. They will all require player involvement to end and may overlap with each other.
WHAT PLOT-RELATED THINGS COULD MY CHARACTER HAVE NOTICED BEFORE JOINING THE GAME?
Game events that were unusual and people would have noticed include:
- At the end of June 2018, there were Northern Lights over Mossgate - both at the wrong time of the year and too far south.
- Someone placed a giant cake in the path of the 2018 Pride parade.
- At the end of September 2018, a WW2 bomb had to be safely detonated near the town museum at the end of the High Street, which damaged the museum. The museum has since been renovated and reopened with an additional room.
- Halloween 2018 brought real skeletons sitting on top of all graves, scary apples, and trees thickly covered in cobwebs to every part of the echo boundary.
- Bonfire Night 2018's bonfire on the Greens was abruptly cancelled and police presence significantly heightened in the area for a little while. Witnesses for some kind of "police incident" were sought, but nothing specific ever reached the public's ears.
- On Remembrance Day 2018, red and white poppies flowered everywhere and bluebirds swarmed around the white cliffs.
- Over Christmas 2018 brought an unprecedented snow chaos normally only encountered on postcards. On Christmas morning, every resident of Mossgate Council found a stocking with coal in it hanging from their fireplace or oven door.
- In February 2019, two very unusual sorts of disasters hit Mossgate: At the beginning of the month there was an earthquake in the area and towards the end a tsunami hit Mossgate and Tarwich.
- On mother's day 2019 everyone in the echo boundary got congratulated on having a mother.
- On Easter 2019 all bunnies and chicken in the echo boundary were swapped.
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Sorry about the confusion, I hope this is the answer you were looking for! If not, feel free to ask again |D
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