The Mourning Star - A Pan-Fandom RPG

Below is a directory to all relevant information for the game.

THE MAIN COMMS:
mourningstar_rpg - Network Community
mourningstar_logs - Log Community
mourningstar_ooc - OOC Community
mourningstar_spam - Redemption Road Trip: Spam and Meme Community

BEFORE YOU APPLY:
Premise and Frequently Asked Questions
Rules
Taken Characters
Reserves
Application Rules
Applications

AFTER YOU ARE ACCEPTED:
Warden and Inmate Pairings
Duties and Cabin Assignments
Ship Description
The Merit System and Keys
Hiatus/Drop
Player Contact (Members Only)


MOD CONTACT:
Head Mod: Rei
E-mail: jacqui.larson84 at gmail dot com
Plurk: impuretale

1. You must be 18 or over to play here. No exceptions.

2. Everyone is your castmate. It's easy to jumble up characters from the same canon because they already have history and know things about each other, but you're all on the same boat. Mix it up. For Guardians, it's about forming professional ties with colleagues or, in some cases, bonding with Wards as people, without a file to guide them. For Wards, it's sometimes about building relationships (both good and bad) with people that have no bias or context from which to immediately judge you. It takes a village, so be part of one.

3. Be decent to each other. This should not need explaining. It is very hard to play in a community if people are being jerks.

4. Please try to address conflicts with players among yourselves before bringing it to the mods. If it is better that you avoid each other in-game, that is fine.

5. Major adult situations such as excessive violence, sex, torture, etc, should be locked to the community and contain easy-to-find warnings.

6. Play the premise. This place is about redemption arcs and how they can sometimes work and even fail. Your character does not have to be good at their job or make consistent progress, but they do have to be working their program. Port adventures, for the most part, should be plotted and geared toward addressing an issue a Ward has or testing them in some other way. These go toward activity merits, which can earn certain in-game bonuses such as returned powers, keepsakes from home, weapons, etc.

7. Maintain consistent communication with your fellow players. It is very hard to plot with somebody you can't talk to regularly. Make friends! Or at the very least, become passing acquaintances among one another. It is easier to stay on top of events, and players who get along OOCly tend to have an easier time plotting with each other, too!

8. Meet activity requirements to stay in the game. Two personal posts (with most comments replied to), tags on personal posts adding up to at least 8 comments each, logs or replies to logs (with at least 6 comments) are all you need. Any combination of two of those. Exceptions for new players and hiatuses lasting two weeks or more.

9. Shit happens. Sometimes updates don't go up on time. Sometimes people lose their internet for weeks, or go studying abroad, get sick, what have you. We as mods understand and if you let us know, we'll work with you when it comes to activity or other similar issues.

10. If you're in a thread, try to tag back at least once a day. This is recommended as a courtesy to your playmates. As the game moves in real time, it becomes difficult, even cumbersome, to try and keep up with writing an event when weeks pass and much of it is spent waiting for very few replies. Barring extenuating circumstances (and please let your threadmates know), this is the minimum amount of effort we're expecting in terms of commitment.


Questions can be referred to a mod email or by commenting on this post. 

As a courtesy, when you need to go on hiatus, or even drop a character, posting here gives the mods a chance to keep track of it and update their lists accordingly. If your castmates miss the memo in the OOC community, though, they can check here, too, and have a little peace of mind.

To post a hiatus, add a comment with HIATUS in the subject heading and the following information:

Name: Characters Affected: Expected Return Date:

Please remember that to be exempt from activity checks, you must have been on hiatus for two or more weeks that month.

To drop your character, add a comment DROP in the subject heading with the following information:

Name: Character(s) Dropped:

This section covers two parts of the game: The Merit System, as well as information about the mysterious Keys that Wardens can use to fetch new Inmates to the ship.

The Merit System is how your characters can get perks for playing the Premise. Every month, through a special post in the OOC comm, you can submit links to relevant activity that has shown how your Warden has guided an Inmate (or made things worse for them) or how your Inmate has grown as a person (or has started to backslide) through your plotting during regular events, floods, and ports. The mods will review these and award points.

( The Merit System, in Detail )


The Keys are special objects given by the Captain, usually to Wardens, in order to go and fetch an Inmate. These fit into any door with a lock, and they transport the holder to the world in question, usually to offer a potential Inmate their second chance BEFORE they can be killed. If they accept (or they are killed before they CAN accept), the Warden must use the key on another lock to take them back to the ship. This can be on another door or on other relevant objects -- for example, if the Inmate has manacles on them. A dead body once returned to the ship is no longer dead. The Key vanishes once they have returned to the ship. This is their most basic function. However, the Keys CAN be used for other things. However, it comes with a price.

( Keys, in Detail )

What characters are applicable at this game? That's fairly indepth, so we decided we'd put this on a separate page. Please consider all rules before you write your application.

1. Characters must be 14 or older. Guardian characters under the age of 18 will be reviewed on a case by case basis. They need to be old enough to be legally responsible for someone else in most countries. While a young Guardian might be effective with a young Ward, there is no guarantee there will always be one or the other available, so we have to keep potential power imbalances in mind.

2. Nonhuman characters are acceptable, but the ship is built to accommodate humanoid forms that do not vary greatly from average to slightly above average humanoid sizes. For some alien characters, this is a small inconvenience, but for others that are perhaps gargantuan in size, this is a problem. If the character does not have a humanoid form or said form is too big to be accommodated by the facilities, then they will become human. Non human/humanoids that are changed may maintain an unusual secondary characteristic, such as unusual eyes -- something that won't be too hard to leave off of icons or add in. All characters are responsible for concealing unusual characteristics in port, where necessary. Guardians will usually receive prior warning through their items whether greater caution will be necessary.

3. Historical fiction is iffy. While some fictional depictions of historical characters are acceptable, none that were alive in 1900 or later will be accepted, and some controversial candidates from even before that may be denied. No Hitler. No Jeffrey Dahmer. No Alan Turing. When Devil in the White City finally becomes a movie, no H.H. Holmes.

4. A canon must be at least a month past its release before characters can be apped from it. That includes sequels, supplemental releases like books and comics (if canon compliant), and premieres of new episodes. This also applies to canon updates for characters already present in the game. If you play a character from X fandom, and a new episode airs, you can't canon update to that point until a month later. This is so that other players are less spoiled on movies/books/series if they're just a little slower to catch up than others. It should also give players ample time to analyze and re-analyze new information before incorporating it into their characters.

5. No new applications will be approved during ports, floods, or breaches. We want you to be able to start playing right away, and if we're in the middle of an event that has everyone away from the ship or not behaving normally, the whole system goes ass over teakettle.

6. As this is a spinoff game of the Last Voyages, retired characters from there may be applied here, with or without their previous history (but if you did not play their previous history, that is not an option for you).

7. On that note, when someone apps then drops a character, and a new player picks up the same character, they get a clean slate. The already-established history is not part of their portrayal. We tried allowing people to pick up where others left off before. It went terribly. We're not doing that again.

8. Mirrorverse AUs are also acceptable, but these will be completely separate from their canon counterparts, meaning both can exist in the same space. For more information on these characters, the setting they come from, and how it will affect your application, see the first comment at the bottom of this page.

9. Full-fledged original characters (OCs) are not applicable at this time, but this may change in the future. This includes malleable protagonists like the Dragonborn, Commander Shepherd, or the main playable characters from Fable.

10. Please do not post applications for characters you see in the application section without a verdict. There are no challenge apps here. Do not post applications for characters in the reserve list until after their reservation expires. Expiration dates for reserves that would normally fall during an event will be expanded to reflect that.

11. All Wards lose their powers. They only regain them during special events and when they have earned them back, either by their Guardian's request or through the Merit system.

Here you can reserve a character for application. Once you place a reserve, you have two weeks to post an application. There is one exception to this rule, however: We do not look at applications during ports or floods or other major events, because we want new characters to come in when the ship is running as normal. This means that if an event begins right before your reserve expires, you have until the event ends to get it done.

Current Reserves:

Peridot | Steven Universe (Oct. 15)
Allison Young | Terminator (Oct. 15)

To place a reservation, leave a comment with the information in the box below:

Name: Character Name: Fandom: Ward/Guardian:

You have two weeks from our reply to you to complete your application!