A Guide to the Board

Our board can be frustrating sometimes. It hides things. You can't find this, that, or the other thing. Some things are simple enough to figure out, others are little tricks that we've picked up. I'm trying to make a bit of a guide to all the various aspects of the board, so that you aren’t left wondering what or where the heck everything is – especially when we start talking about the stalker list, tag threads, and the fuzzy cake in the closet. Some you may find very helpful for when you’re starting out and want to get in contact with us.

If there’s something specific you want to read, rather than go through every bit of it, click the appropriate links below.

1. C-box, Personal Messages, and Chat Room
2. Online Users, Active Topics List, and Tag Threads
3. Languages and Color Coding
4. *Signatures, Images, URL Links, and Color Coding (Again)
5. Avatars, Profile Information, and Personal Photos
6. Miscellaneous Board Settings
7. Posting, Replying To, and Editing Threads
8. Time and Location
9. Who Are We?

*Despite the fact this is all done in a signature context, the coding applies everywhere.

1. C-box, Personal Messages, and Chat Room

C-box: Otherwise known as the Chatbox.

This is located at the bottom of the pages of the board. You can post a line or so basically instantaneously in it. Good for just making quick comments not worth a full Personal Message or coming into chat. Smilies are pretty standard. Our usual favourite is the :nuts: smiley.

To refresh the c-box without refreshing the entire page, there's a "Refresh" option to the top and right of the area where you type. Press that, it'll only refresh the c-box. This allows you to see when people reply.

Now and then it gets fussy, and you'll need to refresh the page - the coding is a bit odd like the rest of us.

Personal Messages: PMs, Inbox, Messages, etc.

This is where you can send Personal Messages to other members. This one's right up near the top of the board, and can be found whether you're on the main page or not. You can compose or receive messages here - just remember there's a maximum to how many you can store.

Look for: "Logged in as: ??? ( Log Out ) My Controls • Inbox (?) • View New Posts • My Assistant". Clicking "Inbox" will take you to that area. There's a varying number of options on the left hand side - including "Compose New Message" and "-- Sent items". Sent items only saves the messages if you select that option when writing a PM. It takes up space in your storage space, though.

Chat Room: A live chatroom in which we lurk.

This is the chatroom that you can talk with all of us in. While it's finicky at times, we're oddly fond of it. Right above the C-box are the words "Drop a Line or Chat Live!" Chat live is a link that should open our chatroom up in a separate window. It's Java, so make sure to have that enabled. Come talk. Even if we aren't showing up as online in the forum, there's quite often one, two, or more of us lurking in there while we do other things.

For those of you using Firefox, we warn you to use Internet Explorer or something similar instead - Chat and FF don't seem to like each other. The link, should you wish to use that for the purposes of having an Internet Explorer page just for chat, is http://client11.addonchat.com/sc.php?id=290542


• Chatdance: Otherwise known as *dance* *chatdance* or other various phrases. This is our slang for 'the dance which we do for no purpose except to keep the chat from kicking us out'. The chatroom likes to kick you out after 30 minutes of no activity - give or take twenty-five minutes depending on its mood and how much it likes you.
  
  
• Emotes: Typing *dances* is emoting a dance for yourself. Typing '/me dances' will cause the chat to do a properly formatted emote.
  
  
• Button Bar: There is a tool bar. With buttons. From left to right: Smiley means emoticon list. Music notes are for the audio-emoticons (odd ones... whip, slap and meow). A magnifying glass with + means increase font size (your screen only). A magnifying glass with - means decrease font size (again, your screen only). The 'blank window' clears all chat on the screen - beware! The next one is a clock - it turns the timestamps next to everyone's words on and off (automatically on). Speaker next to it is sound toggle on/off (automatically on - click off to get rid of creepy lady welcoming you). To the right of the speaker is the button that either floats or docks the screen - don't bother clicking it. The question mark links you to a mostly useless help page for the chatroom addon (we have the free version, their stuff doesn't work). And the final one exits the chatroom (much to our dismay, it's easy to click instead of the text typing area). Whew - need to catch my breath after all that.
  
  
• Button Bar Moves!: Yes. It moves. It also undocks. Ultimately, a pain. Just grab the little dots either on the far left or top of it and drag it around until it's in place if you move it. If it undocks, you can just click the close button (the x in the corner).
  
  
• Private IMs: Private Instant Messages: You can see a list of people in the right hand column. Double click a name to bring up another window - for private instant messaging. The Admins are quite fond of this. Thus why they'll start laughing and you don't know why.
  
  
• Options: Right clicking the main screen, where all the text show up, brings up options, such as turning off emoticons. Some of us like this. Primarily because typing 'lol' without anything attached to it such as 'lol.' makes an annoying smiley face. Beware - lol-smileys tend to have terrible fates befall them. You can also set it to give you a popup whenever there's a new message in the chat room - good for if you need to minimize the window.
  
  
• Fuzzy cake: There is a fuzzy cake in the chatroom closet. You have been warned.

2. Online Users, Active Topics List, and Tag Threads

Online Users List: User List, Stalker List, etc.

Fondly referred to as the "Stalker List" by many of us, because we can watch where other people on the forum are clicking, posting, etc. It shows any new activity within fifteen minutes - so if a person starts to post, and it takes more than fifteen minutes, they'll disappear from the list because they're not clicking to any new pages on the board.

The stalker list can be located at the bottom of the main board index/main page in the "Board Statistics" area. There's a small scale version of the stalker list there, showing who's doing stuff, but not where or how long they've been there. You can find the words "Show detailed list by: Last Click, Member Name" underneath the names of people currently online. Clicking the "Last Click" option will take you to the stalker list.

Active Topics List: Daily Threads, Active Threads, and so forth.

The various names given to it all mean the same thing - threads updated within the last twenty-four hours. The use of this is that it saves looking for all the new threads for the day, or even the hour, by going through each forum. Obviously only useful if you've been in within twenty-four hours, though.

The Active Topics List can be found down near the stalker list. Right above the "Board Statistics" area, and underneath the "Archive" forum, you can see "The moderating team | Today's active topics | Overall top 10 posters". Clicking "Today's active topics" will take you to the daily topics.

Tag Threads: “These are your threads!”

What are the Tag threads? The Tag threads are threads we Admins make for each one of you, and try to keep up to date with all the threads you're currently playing in or have been 'tagged' to come play in. They're sorted into four categories: Classes, Plot, Intro and Other. This is so that you can determine what the most important threads to post in are - let's you focus on the three important categories before you go on to the 'random' threads. At this time, there's also "Blackmoon Festival", which is a special occasion with multiple threads running. It, like "Other" is less important than Classes, Plot, or Introduction threads.

These Tag threads can be accessed one of two ways. The first, is go to the main board index (the main page). Look at the "Board Discussion" forum description - locate your name (or nickname), and click. Mine, for example, would be "Dery". Takes me right to my Tag thread. The second way is to go into the "Board Discussion" forum, then into the "Tag!" sub-forum, where you can locate your Tag thread.

Obviously we can't always keep on top of this, but we try to update it regularly. Also, once you're an established member, you're given moderator privileges for the Tag sub-forum. This is only to edit posts there - and it's supposed to only be to edit your posts. The format is supposed to stay the same, the 'edited by' needs to stay there, and other than that we try to give you free rein.

3. Languages and Color Coding

Languages: We have them.

Our board’s general view on things is that each country has its own language – Valdemaren, Iftellian, Hardonan, Karsite, Ruvian, etc. – and of course that the Kaled’a’in, Tayledras and Shin’a’in have theirs as well. You can actually find our current list of languages, various phrases and words (mostly Tayledras and Shin’a’in), and so forth in the ‘Languages’ thread. You can see up at the top of the board (no matter what page you're on) the "References" column, coming after "First Step!" and "Other Information" columns. Under it, there's a 'Languages' link.

Color Coding: It’s all about the languages!

You may hear us refer to this, saying "You forgot to code your language" or say to you "You need to color code languages that aren't Valdemaren." This was something that a smart person devised when we had a real pain of a time telling what wasn't Valdemaren and what was (side effect of having so many non-Valdemaren characters!).

In the previously mentioned ‘Languages’ thread, we have the color codes for each language. We expect people to color code anything that isn't spoken in Valdemaren as shown in that thread! If you were to want to write something in Karsite, for example, it should look like this:

“I’m speaking in Karsite.”

The coding for this is:

4. Signatures, Images, URL Links, and Color Coding (Again)


Signatures: Signatures for the bottom of your posts.

"Oh Dery!" You say. "How can I make an uber-cool signature like yours?!" Well, you're likely not saying that. But I can tell you how to make one for yourself - link to characters, color it, and so forth. We'd rather you didn't have images directly showing in your signature, because it slows page loading down, but if you want them anyway, just make sure to go back and edit old posts so that only one of them per page shows your images. Thanks! Now, to get to where you put your signature, scroll up to the top of the page like you did for your PMs. That’s this one: “Logged in as: ??? ( Log Out ) My Controls • Inbox (?) • View New Posts • My Assistant". Next to the 'Inbox' selection is "My Controls". Click it. Once in there, look down that side bar until you find "Edit Signature". This is where you can work on it - and even see how it looks whenever you update it. Remember - make sure to click "Update My Signature" when you're done, or you'll need to restart.

• Color: Pretty basic. Same as on the forums in threads. You put

In this thread, you can find a list of colors that this board supports, and their codes. In the second post, we have the colors set out for the Collegia for signatures. The color teal (same as for their language) has become popular for the Tayledras in the signatures, orange is a given for the Karsites (priests, Firecats, etc.), and I've been using 'chocolate' for my Shin'a'in. The Blackmoon characters are usually some combination of their personal colors. These are, however, guidelines - you're not obliged to follow them.

An example:

creates this Bardic Trainee Jaime Smith.

• Links: Once again, same coding as for the forums.

So, go to either the "Listed By Owner" or the categorized forum with the character you want, and add the link in. Using Jaime as an example again, I go to the "Listed by Owner" forum, find "Deryni's Characters", go in, and pick Jaime. I copy the link from her thread, go back to my signature in process. Then, I do this:

which creates Bardic Trainee Jaime Smith

Adding links to images of Reference pictures (such as you'll see in other people's signatures, not mine, I'm lazy and don't bother) is the same process. Put the URL into the proper code, make sure it links to the pictures, and there you go. Photobucket, by the way, is a good place to upload pictures since there's no limit to how many you can have, if you like to do that sort of thing.

• Images: This is something to be careful with. We'd rather there weren't giant pictures, or lots of small ones that take forever to load - and also take note of the rules where they apply to signatures. But when adding a picture anywhere, the coding is

where you add the link to the picture in. Putting

will get an actual picture of my old avatar, for example. This:
(Posted Image)
Try to make sure your images, unless it's on a profile, aren't much if any larger than that, or we'll be asking you to make it smaller. We prefer just putting links to them. On profiles, for reference pictures, we allow for larger, but keep it reasonable. Some of our computers are slow. 350 pixels being the largest dimension for a reference picture in a profile should be sufficient.

• All Together: So, making a signature, especially one with more than one character. Putting the colors and links together. I'm not putting images in this, but I'll link to that falcon again. So, a signature with a Shin'a'in, a Karsite sunpriest, A Herald, and a Bardic Trainee, with links and colors for each along with a link to the NPC list and a link to 'reference pictures' will be coded like this.

Here's the result:

Kal'enedral Javaid, Sun Priest Roshan {Jadarsin}, Herald Temari {Edan}, Bard-Trainee Jaime Smith

List of Non-Player Characters | Reference Pictures

At the end of all of this, don’t forget to press “Update my Signature” or all your hard work will have been in vain.

5. Avatars, Profile Information, and Personal Photos

Avatars: An image or animation ‘avatar’ picture.

There are the spiffy images that appear above your name to the left of every topic you start or reply to – where it shows that you posted your comment. The access to this area is up near the top like your PMs were (see Section 1 if you missed this part). Look for "Logged in as: ??? ( Log Out ) My Controls • Inbox (?) • View New Posts • My Assistant". Clicking "My Controls" will take you to a very familiar area. There are a number of options on the left hand side – including the inbox. We’re not worried about that anymore. Get comfortable with coming to this area, however, we’re about to spend a fair bit of time here.

Instead, go down to “Edit Avatar Settings” under “Personal Profile”. The first thing you should see is that the site is enforcing our ‘small is good’ rule to the extreme. 120 x 120 pixels, it says, and if you upload from your computer, no more than 25 KB, and only .gif .jpeg .jpg .png or .bmp files. And it’ll enforce it. If you upload a picture, or link to one, it’ll scale it down to the proper size, and if it’s too ‘large’ a file, it’ll probably give you an obnoxious ‘ha ha error’ type message. Keep in mind that 120x120 is small, so an image that might look good at a large size may not be so interesting after Invisionfree scales it.

Looking it over, you’ll see that there’s Pre-Installed Avatars that you can choose from (honestly, no one uses them, you’d probably be the first), or two ways to put your own creation up. The first is entering a URL in. This is pretty straight forward – get an image online, find the proper URL for it, and copy-paste to here. Once again, I recommend uploading your picture to an online site such as Photobucket or something similar, but this is more a matter of personal preferences than anything since there is the second option.

Note: it’s typically considered rude to link just to images on people’s sites since it’s hard on bandwidth and doesn’t get them anything. Not always, but now and then it causes a bit of a headache. For mine, it’s just a link to the page for my image (http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj309/Lyrebyrd/Forums/Image1.png) that I copy-pasted into the URL section.

Below the URL linking is the option to upload it from your computer directly to the site. Clicking browse will give open up your standard ‘locate/open file’ window. Don’t forget – 25 KB, and only .gif .jpeg .jpg .png or .bmp files. And it’ll be shrunk. You’ve been warned.

Remember! It doesn’t save unless you click “Update Avatar” at the bottom! And if you click “Remove Avatar”, well, it does what it says.

Profile Information: Personal and impersonal information that other members can see.

Remember how I told you to get comfortable with the Personal Profile category? This is why. We’re back to it now. Up near the top of the board, same as in the PMs and Avatar explanations, and once again, you’re looking for "Logged in as: ??? ( Log Out ) My Controls • Inbox (?) • View New Posts • My Assistant". And again, click “My Controls”. Remember this? Scroll down the left hand column, and locate “Edit Profile info” under the “Personal Profile” category. If you twitched over the fact that the ‘I’ in ‘info’ wasn’t capitalized and should have been, you’re as bad as I am and should try to control your rampant obsession over grammar and spelling errors.

Once you’re into edit your profile area (I refuse to type that title again) you’ll see a small collection of places to put stuff in. The “Custom member title” has a default, I believe, synonymous with your number of posts, but a few people like to put their own. Steph and I are among the latter (she’s Mastermind, I’m Arbitrator). This particular little thing shows up right underneath your name and avatar (if you have one). Keeping it at one to three words long will usually make sure it doesn’t start taking more than a ‘line’, but have fun with it if you like.

Also in here is your Date of Birth chooser. We try to run a PG-13 board, although in reality, almost all of us are into our twenties – Brilana is currently our oldest, and Aeris is our current youngest. There’s nothing particularly scandalous on Arrows that should bother anyone that’s actually read Misty’s books – and if you haven’t read them, why would you be here? While there’s no obligation for you to put your birthdate, just remember that if you’re under 13, we’re going to be very upset if we find out - and you shouldn't even be here for us to be getting upset! All the birthdate alters is that it shows us when your birthday comes around, so it’s better not to put anything if you don’t want us knowing, because if you lie, you’ll get birthday congratulations on whatever random day you chose.

There’s a few options here to have homepages, various IMs, etc. etc. I don’t think many of us provide them, and members can’t e-mail each other either, for that matter. “Your Location” and “Your Interests” are about all that’s left. Both show up when someone clicks your name to see your Member Profile. “Your Location” has a maximum length of 128 characters. “Your Interests” can be 1000 – which can be more than you’d think… To save any changes you’ve made, make certain to click “Amend my profile” at the bottom of this section.

Change Personal Photo: A useless button.

While looking at your signature, avatar, and profile info, you might’ve noticed the "Change Personal Photo". Clicking it will give you nothing to do and a politely worded message saying you’re not allowed.

6. Miscellaneous Board Settings

Board Settings: Random useful bits of stuff regarding technical aspects of Arrows.

If you’ve read all my other posts, you’re probably sick of this. I know I am. So, up to our old friend "Logged in as: ??? ( Log Out ) My Controls • Inbox (?) • View New Posts • My Assistant". Click “My Controls”. Side-bar on the left, scroll down to the “Options” category.


• E-mail Settings: Very straightforward little thing, this. It’s a series of ‘yes/no’ checkboxes. Do you want people to see your e-mail? Well, even if we let them, they can’t, but you can always click it so that they can’t. Updates from the board administrator – make sure you can get them. We don’t send them often, so when Steph does send them out, it’s usually important. Get copies of the posts you’re subscribed to – sure, if you like that sort of thing. Get an e-mail if someone PMs you – drove me bonkers after the first hundred, so I’ve got it clicked off, but you may want to keep it on if you aren’t trading PMs on a regular basis. Enabling ‘Email Notification’ is handy if you want to keep track of the topics you’re involved in, and a number of members have it. All done – nice and easy.
  
  Remember to save your changes. You sick of reading that line yet?
  
  
• Board Settings: Various settings in here, the most useful of which is the time zone selection! This is how you make sure that the time zone is right for you, and that when you post in a thread at 6:00 PM, it’s 6:00 PM that your computer screen shows it as having been posted. Not, say, 12:00 AM. I’ll make the assumption that explaining time zones will be taken as patronizing, rather than helpful. Daylight Savings Time checkbox is for that rotten time-changing thing that happens twice yearly.
  
  You also get the choice of showing or hiding all member signatures (although with our rules, they tend not to be obnoxious), seeing images in posts (I recommend you keep it on if you want to see any reference photos, smilies, or the occasional thread-related images, but turn it off if your PC has issues with images), seeing other people’s avatars (again, useful for slow PCs), popup notification about PMs (see my comment about e-mail notifications), Fast Reply (heck if I know what it is, it needs cookies and not the yummy type), and you can change the number of posts in each topic page and the number of topics on each forum page.
  
  Make sure to press “Change my Account Options” (another twitch worthy one there for the obsessive types among us) if you want it all to be permanent.
  
  
• Skin and Languages: We have one skin and one language here. Arrows and English. Move along, nothing to see here.
  
  
• Change Email Address: If I need to explain what this is and its purpose, we may have a bit of a problem.
  
  
• Change Password: Much like changing the email address.

7. Posting, Replying To, and Editing Threads

Threads: Both the technical term for continuous forum discussions, or (in a more casual manner) the different roleplay topics going on at any given time.

Before posting a RP thread, it’s important to remember one of our rules that we do start giving warnings on. Everyone has days where their posts are short, or they can’t think of something. We understand, we have them. But don’t forget that under ‘2. Be mature’ we say that posts shorter than a paragraph aren’t really acceptable. We’re trying to improve writing and give other posters something to work with, after all! Don’t worry if it happens once or twice, but don’t make a habit of it.

We’ll use Herald’s Collegium as our location for the rest of the examples in here.

Posting a Thread: Posting a thread, starting a new topic, beginning a new RP section. It’s one and the same.

Pick the forum you want to post in. Since we’re using the Herald’s Collegium, you’d scroll down to the Collegia category, pick the Herald’s Collegium forum. Then you press the ‘New Topic’ button that’s either on the right over top all the loose posts (not in a sub-forum such as the Herald’s Dormitories) or on the right underneath them. We don’t generally use the ‘New Poll’ button, so pay it no real mind. After clicking ‘New Topic’, you’re at the posting page.


• Topic Title: The first place you can type is ‘Topic Title’. Every thread must have a title. And I’ll make a couple different notes on the titles. First, it’s a title, please remember capitalization rules for them. Second, we tend to (in regular conversations) shorten titles down to one or two words, so it’s always a good idea to pick out a title that will have something distinctive about it for simple reference.
  
  For example: ‘In The Library’ was a thread started in the Herald’s Library by wind_luver. At that time, it was a) the only thread with ‘Library’ in its name and b) the only thread going on in any of the libraries. Thus, whenever someone posted there, they’d tell the others ‘posted in Library’ or ‘tag for Library’. It doesn’t always work out this way, but it’s a common occurance.
  
  
• Topic Description: Underneath the ‘Topic Title’ is ‘Topic Description’. That will be covered in the Time and Location section.
  
  
• Code Buttons: A bunch of formatting options – just ignore them, generally. You’ll learn the BBCode pretty quick, you only really need the basics. The way the ‘auto’ format options work is a bit tedious. And, under that…
  
  
• Enter Your Post: The main body of your post. This is where the actual roleplay happens. You type up what you want to show as your character – third person, by the way, and make sure to actually mention the character’s name in it so as to make sure there’s no confusion – and that’s what everyone will see. Warning! Sometimes internet crashes, browsers freeze, back buttons are pressed, or the board acts up. A number of us are in the habit of typing our posts in a word processing document first, just in case. Just a friendly tip. Also, for ease of reading, double space for the paragraph breaks – and make sure to have some. Big blocks of text are difficult to read. Feel free to look over a couple threads to see how we generally do it.
  
  
• Post Options: Three parts, courtesy of checkboxes. You can choose to turn emoticons off in your post. I recommend it, but not everyone does it. You can turn your signature off, which we don’t usually do. Last is ‘enable e-mail notification of replies’. A few of our members use this to make sure they know when people reply.
  
  
• Post Icons: These would appear in front of the title of your thread. Don’t use them, please.
  
  
• Final Step: Two buttons – Post New Topic and Preview Post. If you click the second one, you can see what your post will look like, and can then scroll down from that page and press post – sometimes it shows your post being centered, but your post will be aligned to the left as it was originally written. Or, you can skip that step, and just hit Post New Topic. Congratulations, you have a post.

Replying to Threads: This is just a variation on what you did before – but simpler.

Go to the last page of the thread you’re interested in, and at either the very top of the thread or the very bottom on the right, you’ll see a button “Add Reply”. Clicking this will bring up a posting section much like when beginning a thread, although scrolling down will show the previous posts below the section that you write your own text. Follow the same method as when posting a new thread, the only real difference in the process is that ‘Add Reply’ is the replacement for ‘Post New Topic’ button.

Editing a Post: Made an error in your post that you need to correct? Simple enough.

To edit a post you’ve already made, first go to that post. In the upper right hand corner, there is a small ‘edit post’ button. Upon clicking that, it opens up the posting page, but this time it has all the text you previously included. The process is much the same as the previous times, with ‘submit modified post’ replacing the ‘Post New Topic’ button.

8. Time and Location

Time: This covers both the time of day, the day and month, the chapter, and the year, all of which must be kept in mind when starting a thread.

• Year: Arrows began play in September of 1403 AF (After Founding), which was some 35 years after the mage storms.
  
  
• Chapter: Our time frame is split up into chapters. A chapter is a period (typically) of two months within which threads may be played out. To see how the year is divided up, scroll to the top of the board and click “Yearly Calendar”. To see the current chapter calendar (a more detailed two month calendar), click “Chapter Calendar”. While sometimes a thread will be ‘back-dated’ to a time before the current chapter in play, and while sometimes a thread may continue to be played out even after the chapter is closed, this is not the norm, and except in unusual situation, all threads must be within this time period. Therefore, when Chapter One was being played out, players could only start threads in September and October of 1403.
  
  
• Month and Day: When posting a thread, there is a text section called ‘topic description’. In this, you put the month, then day, of the thread. For example, “2/13” would be February 13th. It is highly advised you reference the Chapter Calendar when doing this, and to keep in mind the class and chore schedules, just in case your character might be busy.
  
  
• Time of Day: Also placed in the ‘topic description’ section when posting a thread, this is where you say if it’s morning, lunch, pre-supper, dawn, midnight, etc. Fairly straightforward. As with the dates, make sure that it’s not overlapping with anything your character should be at. Common formatting, following the example under Month and Day, is “Topic Description: 2/13 (After Breakfast)”. Other variations on that same method apply.
  
• Classes and Chores: While these aren’t exactly about the time for threads, they both possess the exception to the standard formatting rule. Both schedules can be found in the Important Information forum. Classes extend for longer than one day, and follow a Day One and Day Two format, with Day One being classes One to Four on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and with Day Two being classes Five to Eight on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. This means that a class thread will generally be marked with the day they start, the word ‘extended’, and then the class number. For example, Culture and Religion I has the topic description “3/9 – Extended (Class Seven)” which means it started March 9th, will go on until the determined end, and is during Class Seven. The Daily Class Schedule shows the times that the classes involve.
  
  Chores, however, are also an exception. Some chores have specific times (serving lunch will always be the first lunch bell, for example). Some, like helping in the Companion Stables or doing laundry have no set time. Any chore with no specific time is in the candlemark and half-candlemark free after lunch. This is simply referred to as Chore Period.

Location: This applies to two things. One, the forum or sub-forum you’re posting a topic in. Two, some times when it’s appropriate to include a more detailed location it in the description. In the case of the forums, it’s simply a matter of picking out one that is appropriate. If you start a thread about riding your Companion, it most likely belongs in Companion’s Field forum, not, for example, the Bardic dormitories sub-forum in the Bardic Collegium forum. If you’re visiting a teacher in their office, you look in the ‘Teachers’ Offices’ and pick out the sub-forum for the appropriate teacher. It’s really a matter of common sense for that.

In some areas, it’s occasionally important to add the location to the Topic Description. If your character is in the Bardic dormitories, you’ll need to include whether they’re on the girl or boy side. If you’re lounging in the sunroom of the Heraldic Collegium, you should make a note of that. This is simply to avoid confusion, and to specify what section of a possibly large area your character is in.

9. Who Are We?

Admins:

Stephamarie is a writer, reader, gamer, student, wife, rocker, drummer, violinist, costume designer, giggle-cake, and fan of all that she thinks is awesome. Including herself - she is modest. Stephamarie is the original creator and one of two Admins of this board. She plots all the awful things that will happen to your characters. She is friendly, always open to answering questions and helping with ideas. Stephamarie has two cats and a husband who likes to type "funny" things into chat when she walks away from the computer. Stephamarie will never have enough characters - never. Is also known as Steph and The Awesome.

Deryni (the resident D or Dery) just finished making this entire guide and is chilling before making a blurb.


Members:

Aeris is the ‘youngling’ of the group. She loves reading...and writing, and drawing...and of course roleplaying. She has been reading Misty Lackey since she was nine. Though, she also likes just about any fantasy, including Tamora Pierce, Stephanie Meyer, J.K. Rowling, and Tolkien. Elves are awesome. She also enjoys Avatar the Last Airbender. She lives in South Carolina in the States. She’d also like to be a veterinarian and own horses one day. She is also trying to write a book, but that’s messy. Aeris has several insane characters, and some not so insane characters. She promises they won't hurt you, and neither will she. She loves animals, and talking to people online...just not in person.

Argali (owner of the dubious nickname Arg) is still new.

Brilana (or Bri) is the old-timer of the group. A long time RP'er and Admin/Moderator for more than one of said RP's (though not this one). She is just a slight bit odd and more than a slight bit weird, and always willing to RP with anyone who asks, though she is prone to occasional unexpected vanishing acts. But she posts like a fiend when online and is known to make long posting sprees to make up for lost time. She is also susceptible to being cajoled into creating ever more NPC's that she tries desperately to keep up with. And she likes the chat room ‘lol’ smiley. :) Because of this blurb, Brilana is one of the reasons there is the Arrows Confessional.

Bryar (best known as Evi or Ev) is currently at the mercy of life.

Carla is a professional web developer and seamstress, and has delusions of being an author. She is an avid roleplayer, frequently juggling multiple RP boards, three LARPs, and up to six tabletop campaigns a week. She tends to disappear without notice, and makes up for it by spending nearly the whole day on the boards when she is around. She is also apparently responsible for the fuzzy cake (how, she's not sure). From Deryni’s point of view she seems to turn blurbs into confessions, and thus is the other reason for the Arrows Confessional.

Ethuiliel (you can really just call her Ethi) is our resident lurker. She is almost always in chat when she is in her room, even when she is too tired to post. She can occasionally be impatient about posts, but she tries to be reasonable, and tries not to pester too much. Outside of Arrows, she is a college student, who is hoping to be a writer and/or a publisher, because she loves books that much. All books, but especially fantasy books. Mercedes Lackey is her consistently favorite author, and Lord of the Rings is her consistently favorite book.

Hamel (or Mel) is currently AWOL.

Hanakojenn (also known as Hana or ‘ko) is currently a grad student studying Environmental Engineering. She attends school and lives in California with her boyfriend and two rabbits. She is an on and off gamer, having enjoyed various forms of roleplay since early high school, but she becomes easily distracted by things such as homework and other activities. Hana used to read a lot, but now has trouble finding the motivation...so it’s been a while since she read her Mercedes Lackey (please be patient). Outside of school and research, Hana volunteers with the House Rabbit Society, plays board games, and practices her cello. Hana is otherwise a ‘newb’, and is known to procrastinate real life by hanging out in the Arrows chat-room.

Knightrunner (Knight or KR) hasn’t made a blurb yet.

Rowana (our dear Row) got sick and may be some time coming back.

Wind_luver (simply Wind, or the Real Wind) wrote a blurb that was obnoxiously long and needs to be shortened.


Time Zones:

Pacific / GMT – 8: Hanakojenn, Carla
Arizona: Argali
Central / GMT – 6: Ethuiliel, Bryar
Eastern / GMT – 5: Stephamarie, Deryni, Brilana, Aeris
GMT: Wind_luver