~ Character Guidelines ~

A small page for any forms potentially needed in the RP, as well as links to anything related to the RP that isn't already on this site.

The individual Deck tabs are at the top of the page, under 'The Decks'. The link to the Allegiances is here:
ALLEGIANCES

Here's an example of a few correct and completed templates:
Turnclub's sheet
Derechothroat's sheet
Ravenpip's sheet

BASICS

APPEARANCE:

Since this is a fictional world, cats can have fictional designs, having colors and patterns that cats wouldn't normally be able to have at any point in time. The sizes of cats just need to be in the realm of 'this is feasible', otherwise they'll be declined. The Decks themselves don't have any extremely special guide to how they should generally look, but there is one thing I ask of each Deck:

--The White Deck should have some warm color, and/or white in the design somewhere. They tend to have more flowy and whimsical appearances.

--The Red Deck should have some warm color, and/or black in the design somewhere. They're also one of the strongest Decks generally.

--The Black Deck should have some cool color, and/or black in the design somewhere. These guys can kinda look like anything.

--The Pale Deck should have some cool color, and/or white in the design somewhere. This Deck tends to be a little more frail looking.

All of these can include even just a few accent marks, or even the eye color. Otherwise, the design is basically free-reign. If you're not sure of realistic cat designs, or you don't have the ability to make art, getting real life pictures of cats works just as well as art does. Examples of cats in the Decks can be seen in this Pinterest board: https://www.pinterest.com/nightynitee/7t-cats-of-the-decks/

If you use pictures from real life in your cat's bio, PLEASE be sure to credit the photographer or try your best to find them, or the cat won't be accepted. I'd recommend looking at stock image sites if you're going to grab a photo, as it's easiest to find creditable images that way, rather than through something like Pinterest.

As for any extra accessories or items on your cat, anything is allowed as long as it is NOT somehow culturally appropriative. This includes bones as piercings or adorning your cat in some way (talons, claws, and teeth ARE allowed), tribal style paint anywhere on your cat (paint is fine as long as it doesn't resemble, yknow. the bad stuff), skull masks (if your cat just doesn't have a face due to whatever reason and that's just how they look, then it's fine, though be sensitive about it), feathers behind ears (elsewhere on the body is fine but like? flora is just better in general if you're gonna do that), and any other potentially culturally appropriative items. Feel free to ask questions if you're unsure of something, cuz otherwise, pretty much anything else is good to go. Hell, you could give your cat some cool human sunglasses. I did that.

NAMING:

Names can be nearly anything, from man-made items, fantastical words and adjectives, exotic animals and flora, and even scientific names. Prefixes can be based on a cat's appearance, their parents' hope or wish for the cat, early personality as a kitten, or a particularly pretty name. Suffixes can be the same, but they're also specifically later personality, a pretty sounding word, some sort of skill, or an indicator of an action they took in their childhood or as a pip.

--The White Deck tends to be very fanciful about their names, choosing graceful sounding things, or animals with a lot of beauty. They also like names based off birds.

--The Red Deck tends to choose names based on predators or disastrous things, as well as symbols that may fit with the cats. That usually goes for suffixes, unless the kitten seems to have an attachment to a specific thing early on.

--The Black Deck tends to not have a focus on any particular names, though they prefer having defining names rather than fanciful or pretty ones. Theirs are more skill or action based, when it comes to the suffixes.

--The Pale Deck tends to choose names related to life and death, whimsical and wishful in most cases. They typically tend to be longer and more abstract names than the other Decks might have, and prefer flower names.

As for choosing names and such, you need to make sure the prefix of your cat is NOT already taken. You can see all taken prefixes in the 'Unavailable Names' section of the Allegiances. Preferably don't have an entire name be a compound word (Blueberry, Snowbush, etc), but I'm not gonna be super restrictive about that.

BACKSTORY:

There are a few main things to keep in mind when writing your character's backstory.

There are 35 years of history on the Plains of Revelation for the Decks. That means, depending on how old your cat is, you'll need to know about major events that have happened in that large period of time. Make sure to check the timeline tab of the website to know what events happened when, and if something isn't listed, feel free to ask!
Angsty and edgy backstories ARE allowed, but you need to remember that the Decks can't be built off of tragedy on every corner and every cat in a family turning out to be evil and a murderer, or sickly and died somehow. Besides, if every story contains some tragedy to add a sense of uniqueness, then everything tragic becomes the norm and it's no longer as fun. Just keep that in mind while writing backstories! This may be horror inspired, but it ain't hopeless!
Account for player characters when making backstories! Don't assume things about others' characters, and don't think that the Deck is just full of NPCs who might've done things to your cat. You can always make NPCs, but, like, yknow. All that. Especially if your cat is assigned a mentor, don't write things that the mentor did when it's a player cat. Go and ask them about it instead. Same with Hands, Jokers, Leaders, all that.
Since I know this is a rule in some other places, you ARE allowed to have switching Decks as part of your cat's backstory. There's rules in place within the world for cats who change Decks, even those that might switch multiple times. It's actually very lenient about all that.
Cross-Deck relationships are also allowed in backstories, and your cat could be a mixture between two different ones since, again, it's allowed, and there's rules in place for it.
Basically, backstories are pretty easy to work with, and there's a lot of leniency and allowances within the Decks and how they work and accept cats. If there's ever any questions, just go ahead and ask if something's allowed or not!

RANKS:

When it comes to selecting your cat's rank, there's only a few things you need to be aware of.

Any cat can be a suit, as long as they're of age. The graduation age for any cat from being a pip to becoming a suit is 18 moons/months old.
Pips are open pretty much all the time, as long as there's an ample amount of suits in the Deck. It's preferable that there's always more suits than there are pips.
Faces, Jokers, Mirrors, Chips, and Special roles are all in a limited supply, but if you want to take any of those roles, please be sure to remain active, as we'll be forced to remove the role from you if you don't actively play the cat. Faces require a good amount of communication with the mods, as well as the fact that we need to trust you to be there when needed. Jokers should be relatively active, and if a Face is unavailable, we'll need you to be around if possible. There are enough Mirrors and Chips that you don't need to be 100% active all the time, but there are occasions when you'll need to be around, such as Mirror meetings and such. Special roles aren't as important as these high ranks (hence why you can have one special role and one high rank at the same time), but they should still be regarded as what they are: Limited and potentially valuable. Don't assign a cat to a special role if you don't think you could keep up with potential plot stuff. I'm going to be a little lax and a little strict about these things, so just keep that in mind when applying for a high or special rank. Oh, and don't forget that even without a high or special rank, your cat can still be incredibly important to the plot!
Hands and Victors don't have any limit, similar to suits. All Victors are elder cats, so keep that in mind when making one. Injuries do not disqualify a cat from being a suit, ever. Hands are like protectors of nurseries and generally help out around the camp. A pip can learn to be a Hand instead of being a suit, though they'll still know how to fight and hunt as normal--they'll just have more of a focus on protecting the nursery, handling kittens, as well as building things/maintaining the camp generally.
Kittens and pregnant Hands aren't AS allowed as someone's first cats, but if someone seriously wants to have one, I don't mind all that much. I get the appeal, it's fun, and plot can be built to make it work. Go ahead and do it if you really want to, as long as there's not already an overabundance of them!
They're only available for points, but it's still worth noting here: Outsiders, Living Dead, and Watchers need to be discussed with a mod before submitting any. Living Dead and Watchers are incredibly special roles so they're generally not going to be accepted, especially early on in the RP. Outsiders are more accepted, but again, in limited quantities.

Just remember all these little bits of information when making your cats, and everything should go just fine!

OTHER / UNUSUAL THINGS:

Here's a list of the other things + unusual things to keep in mind of while making cats in this world.

Elements: The elements are sorted by rarity, so it goes like Bolt > Dew > Nature > Bright > Flare > Hollow, with Bright, Flare, and Hollow requiring Points to be applied to your cat. They're the most rare elements, and therefore, much fewer cats would have them in comparison to the common elements. The more rare an element is, the harder it is to really master and control as well. If you have a cat with Bolt, they might be a pro at using it very early on, but a cat with Hollow might go their entire life without being able to fully control the element. Just keep that in mind when deciding how well your cat can use their elements! If you actually read through all the element information, OX cats are not likely to survive at all on the Deck and are only allowed in player cats on SPECIAL OCCASIONS. Elemental Vampires and Elemental Batteries are allowed to be characters, but in very limited amounts. Nulls are also allowed as characters, also in limited amounts.

Titles: Titles are something completely new, and can be read about in the 'Clan Lore' section of this website, under 'Essential Info'. As for actually following the rules of Titles, it's preferred that only senior suits, victors, high ranks, and special roles have Titles. Younger cats wouldn't get a Title unless under very specific circumstances, so keep that in mind when making a character. Even if the cat wouldn't receive a Title right away, you CAN request that they eventually get a specific one! It'll happen in RP, but a reservation for that CAN be made as soon as the cat is created. Otherwise, just remember what sorts of Titles might typically be given to cats from each Deck (which you can read about in 'The Decks' category of the website, and just looking at each of the Decks themselves there), and don't stray too far from what would be feasible for them. Of course, you can always just ask questions if you're uncertain of anything! And make sure to not use any Titles on the 'banned' list that you can find on the Allegiances spreadsheet.

Blursings: Blursed cats are rather rare in the Plain, and aren't often made. God-touched cats are the most common type of blursing, rather than blessings and curses themselves. God-Touched cats are the most allowed, though they're only allowed in small amounts in each Deck. Blursings are more rare, but still more available than other things, and require points to be added to a cat. Basically like, just remember it's supposed to be a pretty rare, or at least uncommon thing. Oh, and you need to discuss this with a mod in the first place anyway. Another note: Blursings can happen in-RP! They don't always just get 'assigned' to a cat, and instead, the way they get blursed could actually happen in writing!

Mutations: Mutations are in fact allowed! Things like two headed cats, two tails, polydactylism, Janus cats, etc. They're all allowed without any points required! Preferably I'd like to not have too many really extreme mutations on cats, but I don't care all that much. Just let us know what you're planning on doing before you do it!

Disabilities / Mental Disorders / Neurodivergency: All completely allowed, babey! Whatever it is, you can have it, just make sure to do your research on it if you don't have it yourself, and don't portray it in a negative or incorrect way. Scarring is included in this, your cat can be as scarred as you want. One thing to note though, is that physical+mental disabilities do NOT bar a cat from being a high rank or suit. They are still allowed to do anything a cat without any disabilities or disorders would be able to do.

Non-Felines: You ARE allowed to play non-feline characters in the server, but they require Points to be played/added, and cannot be your first submitted character. There will be a limited amount of these, since this IS a cat roleplay, and not a dog or rabbit one. There are some types of animals that could get added as a suit in a Deck, but they can ONLY be a suit/pip. Non-felines cannot be Mirrors, Jokers, Faces, Hands, or any Special role. Most other non-felines are limited to Outsiders only, but it all just depends honestly. Feel free to ask about it if you're planning on making one, or have interest in it!

This should be it for everything to remember about characters and how they function and stuff, and if there's any sort of questions, please feel free to ask! I'm not super picky about a lot of things, but if I do reject something you add to a character or say it's not allowed, please don't react badly either. There's a limit to things I'll accept and do, and I don't anyone pushing that boundary!

Now that you've gone through the guidelines, make sure to check the allegiances and see what ranks are open and what's not, and be sure to double check that everything about your planned character works within the rules of the world and RP. Ask questions if needed, but otherwise, go ahead and choose your Deck template form to fill out!