The Rules
Knowing
the Ropes
of Valdemar's Intrigue
Questions, comments, or suggestions? Need creative help, ideas, or coaching? Email Melissa at valdemar_intrigue@yahoo.com!
Please read this entire page thoroughly and carefully; by joining the group, you are confirming that you are liable for and will comply with all of the following:
I hereby in joining
Valdemar's Intrigue renounce my right to sue or file a small claims court case against
Mercedes Lackey in regards to the fiction I write. I acknowledge the sovereign copyrights that Mercedes Lackey maintains and only wish to use her world as a
setting for my own imaginative writing; she may use any ideas I hereby present in Valdemar's
Intrigue and I will not seek any reparations, nor will I claim she 'stole' my ideas; I realize that sometimes the same ideas occur to different people without any theft taking place; also, I will not take credit for or claim ownership of Velgarth and or any of its entails. In an attempt to respect Ms. Lackey's rights, I will refrain from use of any of her original characters.
I understand this is a non-profit club and site. It is maintained and kept solely upon voluntary conditions; no fees nor dues are taken from the members for financial or business purposes. We do not in any way take responsibility for creating the Heralds of Valdemar series, and do not claim that this site is offial. This is a personal, non-commercial site.
I realize this forum is not supervised or recognized by the author, the publisher, etc.; it is privately operated. I and I alone am responsible for any material I am subject to here within, and I realize that by reading the fiction I may encounter themes of a violent or sexual nature (though gruesome, grostesque, and explicit writing is strongly discouraged). All moderation occurs after the writing has been posted.
I understand that the purpose of this web based forum is soley to make the exchanging and contructive building upon of privately written fiction easier among friends. It was created to make it easier for its members to interact and share a common interest in a way non-detrimental to Velgarth or Mercedes Lackey's works and copyrights.
And as always on the internet, I will practice discretion in revealing anything that might allow someone to find where I live. I realize that unfortunately, there are lots of sick people out there and there's no way to be able to identify them, and there is no way to be sure of the validity of any members of this or any other group.
This forum was created for our enjoyment, but alas business comes before pleasure! In order to make interactions easier, please abide by the following guidlines:
How do you start?
| 1 |
Once you've joined, post the following describing your character: Name |
| 2 | Add yourself to the contact
list database and the
who's who database! Use the contact lists to arrange collaborations with other characters (via email). |
| 3 | Jump in - be creative, and have fun! |
Creating a Character
| 1 | You may use the names of Ms. Lackey’s characters,
the use of the characters themselves is not allowed. In addition, this is a strict definition group - so no vampires or other things not mentioned in the books. |
| 2 | Due to overwhelming demand, only one Herald character per person is permitted - sorry! |
| 3 | Please
use discretion in creating double-position characters (i.e.- a Healer-Bard,
Hawkbrother-Herald, etc.). I understand it's hard to pick between
all your favorites, but it is just ridiculous and unfair when someone
decides to be a mix of everything. As a general rule of thumb, Mary Sue's are boring and unforgivably annoying... So if your character is beautiful and sweet and immensely gifted and altogether perfect... go back to the drawing bored. Now. |
| 4 | The more Gifts your character has, the weaker each one is
- this goes at an exponential rate (sorry, no Vanyels). If your character
has too many, you will be notified that some must be removed. This is to make
the game more realistic and fair. Three gifts max - preferably less. Only one powerful gift.
Email for permission to have an Adept ranking Mage; include your reasons for wanting such, and why a less powerful ranking isn't feasible. Please try to remember that as is repeatedly stated in the books, it's skill that matters - not the power. Furthermore, as stated in the Owl books, Companions never choose those with Healing or Bardic gifts because Valdemar's need for Healers and Bards is so great. Your character does not have to have Gifts. |
| 5 |
You are not allowed to use any deity for your own purposes. (ex. -
a deity protecting your character from harm, a deity constantly telling your character things, etc.)
Visions are permitted so long as they do not violate these rules and give your character an unfair advantage. |
| 6 | If you wish to kill or seriously injure someone else’s character, you must have the owner of that character’s permission. Arrangements for this should be done over email so anything done in the role playing game is a surprise. |
| 7 | If a post has content not suitable for all potential readers, rate it in the subject box (i.e. PG-13). Please try to keep language to a level that the books use. |
Merit System
| 1 | Upon entrance, everyone is a Trainee or apprentice unless you ask otherwise. Exceptions will be made upon request. |
| 2 | To rise in rank and earn your colors you must have
been reasonably active in the club for at least 2 months, your character must be of reasonable age to recieve full rank (18 or over), and you must have at least 3 credits worth of classes. The class system is run by our IRL Dean, Annika, so you can email her at herald_kethry@yahoo.com for more info! This is the outline she wrote for your benefit:
Requirements for a credit: 1. Have your character attend the class. 2. Participate actively (and interestingly) in the class. 3. Have the teacher of the class write the person keeping track of everything (aka me) and tell me who got credits. Does this mean that you'll have to be creative in your posts? Yes. Who will teach the classes? The people who have already been raised. What should be discussed in a class? Depends on the topic of the class. Like, for example, Seraphina taught a class discussing the significance of the ballad 'Sun and Shadow', well, you know what that was about. There are history classes, ethics, manners, religons, whatever anyone is interested in teaching. It would be preferred to keep as closely to the books as possible, but preferaly not to pull from any specific book, because there are people who haven't read every book, and so we don't want any spoilers. Someone can even teach math, if they feel so inclined. See the calendar for classes being offered; if you are interested in teaching a class with an NPC or your own characters, email Annika! The classes take place in a "limited timewarp", meaning the actual class being written about may have taken place before, after, or during the other storylines taking place - posting will continue linearly as usual, but classes will be 'outside' the timeline so to speak. |
| 3 | Email me (valdemar_intrigue@yahoo.com) for your "test" (don't sweat - associating the word "test" with it is actually a joke...). |
| 4 | After passing the test (which you most assuredly will), you may redeem your ability to rise whenever you please. |
| 5 | You can then go on
Circuit or be assigned a place of work.
On Circuit you can create your own adventures and such, but please use logic (i.e., if there are no wars in the RPG at the time, don't have adventures while fighting a war - duh!). Feel free to collaborate and go on Circuit with a friend - take that road trip you've always dreamed of (if only in your mind...). |
| 6 | After having done a Circuit, you can become an "instructor" or "teacher" if you wish. You may also run your own House of Healing (Healers), run a shop, etc. |
| 7 | If you have outstanding participation in the game, you may be
rewarded (yes, I dote on my goodie-goodies!).
You may choose your reward - within reason. |
In the Club
| 1 | Please keep idle
chatter in posts to a minimum; if you want to talk with someone
individually or off topic, email them. You can do this easily by clicking the email
address next to their name, or when you click the reply button, you can choose their personal address to reply to rather than posting in the forum.
Keep in mind that everyone in the club has to keep up with posts! Please limit yourself to two "unlimited in character" posts and a third supplementary post of 200 words or less in the course of 24 hours. |
| 2 | When responding to a message, please cut away the parts of the original that do not pertain to your response. |
| 3 | Change the subject line where applicable. If you leave a segment of the message you are replying to in your own message when you post, please make sure it is marked in a way so you can distinguish what you wrote from what the other person wrote. |
| 4 | Harassment will not
be tolerated. Be nice, think before you hit send. A great rule of Net Etiquette is if you're upset, wait 24 hours before responding. In addition, we have a zero spam tolerance. In short, show courtesy to fellow members, or you will be dealt with! |
| 5 | A certain level of quality is expected of posts in the club. Please try to proofread and spell check your writing before posting. This group is supposed to be a haven for honing and developing writing skills; try not to use those boring one-liners. |
| 6 | Please don't steal this club's plotline, characters, or other peoples ideas etc. for your own malevolent purposes - that's just not nice! You are all just as creative as anyone else, and can create your own, just as good or better. |
| 7 | Please, take it easy on the assassination attempts people... Granted, the Collegium folks definitely face a lot of danger in their lives, but that's out on Circuits and on the borders and things. In the books Haven is generally a relatively safe place, especially within the walls, and assassination attempts (as I understand) are not an every day thing... Try to find the spices of real life - have fun, but be sensible! Find ways to make the oridinary interesting and regular - and the unordinary... well, a little more unordinary!. |
| 8 | Contact me if you need to! That's what I'm here for! |
The other information...
|
The club plotline takes place near the end of the Winds trilogy - when Valdemar is at war with Hardorn and the mage storms are beginning. In addition, we've added a 'Citizen's Council' cult that is being funded by outside sources (i.e. the Eastern Empire) to try to cause rebellion from within Valdemar. |
| You can learn more about our Macro Plotline (the greater scheme of things) here at the Archives, whereas the Micro Plotline (everyday stuff) can be read about on our Timeline, thanks to our Chronicler Laura! |
| This is a "strict definition" club, meaning we try to follow the books as close as we can - what does that mean? Well, it means no dragons, vampires, and other things not talked about in the books. We try to keep things kosher with the books. |
| A lot of people ask
me if this is an active club - well, look
for yourself! Valdemar's Intrigue was born in July of 2000. Though
the club has had its dips (mainly when the site was "lost" for
a while when yahoo Clubs and Groups were merging), we've always come
back, stronger than ever! We've come back so strong that we've actually
had to make posting rules, so everyone can keep up with the reading! If you're still worried about it - invite your friends to join the fantasy! |
| We welcome even
those fantasy RPG lovers not acquainted with Mercedes Lackey and the
land of Velgarth - if you want to play the game, I promise you no one
will be left behind! I've included descriptions of the positions on the
various Collegium pages, and you can get further help in jumping into the game by emailing any of the mods. Still need filling in? Fear not! Songrunner's page is one of the most useful reference guides you'll find - included are all the lists you could possibly want or need, including mercenary units, proverbs, the creatures of Velgarth, mage schools, religions, and many more! Songlight's Ekele is a great place to visit for a Velgarth history crash course! Shadowblade effectively delves into the 'whats' and 'whys' of various cultures. Ambersong's Vale gives you nice little teasers about all the books. |
| This is a Yahoo Groups based game. You have an option to either use the group like a message forum, where you go there to read and post, or you can select the option to receive all the posts via email and reply via email. I recommend the former to keep from flooding your mailbox! |
| Who do you need to know?
I'm Melissa, starstorm_03 & valdemar_intrigue@yahoo.com, the Founder of Valdemar's Intrigue, as well as webmistress of all the sites and story-master of the 'Macro Themes' meant to pull all our fiction together. I'm more than happy to answer any questions you might have, and I guess I'm the 'final authority' on things in this humble realm. Feel free to add me to your buddy list! Laura, nightstar992000, is our chronicler. She updates the timeline every week or so with descriptions of what is going on in all the different threads with all the different characters. This is so when you join, or when you are away and miss a lot of posts, you can easily catch up and know what is going on without taking the time to read all the posts if you don't want to. Check out the timeline here! Annika, herald_kethry, in addition to helping Laura out with the timeline, is our school master. She's in charge of managing the micro themes that help us pull together our posts in day-to-day writing - namely, she sets up the 'classes' for the group! If you want your character to take some classes, teach some classes, or you don't have any idea what I'm talking about, email her and she'll get you started! |
Questions, comments, or suggestions? Email me at valdemar_intrigue@yahoo.com!
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