GENERAL: Rules & Lore Guidelines

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Rules & Lore Guidelines

The lore submission rules and guide exists in order to help you understand the basics of what Story is looking for in a lore piece. This thread is where we will go into detail on various aspects of a lore submission that you should keep in mind when writing LotC lore. If you something here or in the other criteria pages confuses you, please contact a story member or post on our FAQ, found here.

 

Starting Tips

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• All functional or mechanical lore should be clearly written, especially if it’s meant for moderating purposes (such as the case of magic guides) and if it’s to be used in combat roleplay. Things such as the origins or background of a magic can understandably be written to be more flavorful, and flavor is never a bad thing in writing, but it shouldn’t be put above explaining what needs to be explained in the easiest terms. Remember: not everyone on LotC is a native English speaker, and even those who are may not be at as high a reading level as you are. We also will see some of this lore in combat, where tensions can get high in /looc and there will be arguments and lore skimming. Clarity and precision is very important to help your fellow players read and understand your lore without them having to pull up dictionary.com to translate.
• Going for shorter lore when possible can also be very helpful, since that leads to less skimming and more people reading through and understanding your lore in its entirety. If you need to be descriptive, go for it, but avoid using purple prose. This is a type of description that is too flowery/over the top that it disrupts the rest of the piece by drawing too much attention to the text.
• Most submissions have a required format, not following it will get your lore denied.
• Any magic and racial submissions will not be implemented after being accepted. Instead, you will be required to also write up a guide before implementation can occur. This is to ensure that upon implementation, everyone can understand how the magic/racial piece should be RP’d and give people a good reference. Requirements for the guide will be described in a section below.
• Taking inspiration from outside mediums is fine, but make sure you aren’t just copy and pasting something and then tweaking it to fit LotC. A piece should be thoroughly LotC’ified so that everything from its origins to its playstyle is something that fits LotC and its canon.
• Submissions that are racially locked or locked behind a certain family/clan (e.g. if your lore states that you need to be a certain race or in a specific clan in order to use it) are prohibited. The only exception to this are pieces that are racial additions (e.g. if you wrote an addition to dwarven physiology)
• Try to avoid writing submissions that lock a player into one distinct morality. Someone shouldn’t have to be a “good” person in order to play a “holy” oriented character, similar to how Tahariae isn’t necessarily a “good” Aengul.

 

General Formatting

Lore submissions do not solely exist to tell a pretty story/look great narrative-wise. Other games like Dark Souls or games with journal entries as their lore can do that since they aren't a roleplaying server. It's in the same vein as the argument on "triple A games have less detailed magic systems than us, why do we need to go in-depth?". They have the magic coded into the game, which is why the lore for their magic can be vague. That code already calculates damage, range, and other factors for the player. As a roleplay server we need to have stuff more fleshed out because at the end of the day players are meant to use it in-game through emotes and make RP/stories out of it, with no plugin backing or things that automate the magic for them. This is why the narrative/story should be at the beginning, so you can be as creative as you want there without it getting in the way of describing the mechanics of an ability or other such things.

 

The information portion of the lore piece however is meant to make you flesh things out and figure out all of the ways the lore can be used. Despite the nature of how it is done, it is still allowing for us to get the information we need in a clear, laid out manner. The days of lore reviewers having to try and dissect an ability from fluff will be over with this formatting. At the end of the day the formatting is all there for a reason. Whether it's to help lore reviewers review it or to make sure someone roleplaying said lore has access to something that clearly details how to do it, there's nothing that isn't necessary there. For pieces that transcend one format and use multiple, hybrid formatting has been created (more on that below).

 

Each section should be cleanly labeled using the terms from the formatting. For example with abilities, you should have something that ends up like this:

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Ability – Spectral Fireball

 

Description – You are able to conjure a ball of fire from your deity’s realm. With training, you will be able to manipulate it around and throw it at your opponents. The size and speed depends on how proficient the mage is. Et cetera

 

Mechanics – It takes 3 emotes to summon forth a full fireball. 1 emote to start channeling your deific power, 1 to start bringing the fire over, 1 to fully form the fireball. Et cetera

 

Specific Red Lines – The fireball can not travel further than 10 blocks before fading from existence. Et cetera

 

If you have multiple things under one section, such as multiple paragraphs or acts in the backstory, you do not need to keep labeling each section as “Backstory” and can just have the one “Backstory” title at the beginning of it. Adding these labels/following the formatting may seem tedious, but it is very beneficial in the long run as it makes things easier to review. This also makes it way easier for the wiki team to port over your lore into the wiki. They will be able to skim through the piece and find each label and then port the contents of the label into the specific section of the wiki formatting during page creation. Story thanks you in advance for making the process easier on them.

 

Hybrid Formatting

Hybrid formatting can be used if you believe the submission you are making goes beyond its current formatting, either due to it mixing submission types (e.g. magic + creatures) or because it is unique in the way it functions. There is no specific formatting for this, as it is a case by case basis that is dependent on the lore being written. IF YOU BELIEVE YOU NEED TO USE HYBRID FORMATTING, CONTACT A STORY MANAGER.

 

Hub Pages

If your lore has multiple submission types or multiple subtypes and you feel it is too long to fit on one lore thread, you can use a hub page + multiple submissions. A hub page is essentially this, a summary page that contains links to all of the relevant lore pieces under your lore. For example, let’s say your lore has 3 magic subtypes and 2 CA creatures tied to it. You feel that the lore is rather lengthy and would rather chop it up into multiple submissions, say one magic submission and two separate submissions for the CAs. The hub page would have links to all of that + summaries for each one.

 

In order to create a less messy archive, these pieces will then be moved to a separate subforum while the hub page is used as the main thread in the lore section upon acceptance. 

Lore Guidelines

This section will cover various aspects of a lore submission and what you should keep in mind when writing it.

 

Purpose (OOC)

Every lore piece should have a clear purpose that helps impact LotC in a positive manner. The purpose of a magic or creature should help spread that lore’s RP and should not be something that mimics another lore’s too closely.

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Each and every lore piece should be written with the intention of being used. Writing lore for the sake of writing is nice, but contributes to an increasing bloat that we’ve tried to cut down on over time. Before fleshing out your lore, you should figure out how it’s going to impact the server and what it’ll provide RP-wise for people. A magic or creature should have a purpose that spreads that lore’s RP around, while also not being a copy of other existing pieces.

 

Obviously not all lore pieces can contribute to RP directly, which is to be expected for pieces that revolve around worldbuilding instead. For example, establishing a concrete history between two Aengudaemons via a historical lore piece is not going to directly create RP. Instead, it sets up the potential for future lore that involves both of those Aengudaemons, whether it be event lore or some magic lore.

 

Themes

A fair chunk of lore (magic/CA creatures/aengudaemons/et cetera) have a theme. Translocation is all about portals/voidal pockets/storing things, druids revolve around nature, and Tahariae is all about purity. These themes are clear after reading the lore and set the lore in place for a direction that the piece is taking. This applies to future additions as well. When designing your lore, think about the theme and how it will impact future lore pieces that relate to your lore as they will be looked at to either uphold the theme or branch off of it in a way that makes sense.

 

If you have a theme where you specialize in fire magic to combat evil, and then you make an addition trying to get physical buffs and other things with the excuse “it helps us combat evil”, it won’t fly. That lore has a specific theme and tossing in generic spells will water that theme down.

 

Playstyles

Playable lore all needs to have a playstyle that helps give the piece depth. If your CA race is powerful, it needs to have some aspects to it that separate it from descendants beyond a reskin. Things like mental defects or a different mindset to a wildly foreign physique should be considered. We will not allow races or creatures that are essentially just a descendant race with super powers.

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For this ruleset/guide, playstyle refers to how the lore is played. This really only applies to playable lore pieces, such as racial, aengudaemonic lore, and to a lesser extent, magic lore. When you are designing a piece of lore that falls into these categories, you should account for how it is played.

 

For example, if you are designing a race of undead abominations, you should think about how to distinguish them from an existing descendant race. The undead abominations should have a distinct manner of being played that separates them from other races and makes them stand out on their own. If your design makes it more akin to a descendant, such as a human, with powers or a reskin, you should consider editing the lore to include things that cause them to be different. Adding in mental changes/a different mindset to your creature is a start. If your creature has a totally different mindset from a human or elf that is written out for the player to understand, it can help the chances of giving your creature a more solid playstyle.

 

Redundancy

A lore piece that is proposed should not mirror an existing one too heavily. It is fine to have something similar, so long as there are also a variety of differences. This may vary depending on the lore submission type, which you can read about below.

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Redundancy refers to lore that has aspects of it that make it akin to existing lore pieces, and thus takes away from the unique nature of the lore. Many people seem to tunnel vision when thinking about this and solely focus on the appearance/aesthetic of the lore they are writing. This is a mistake, as while appearance/aesthetic is important, it is not as important as avoiding a redundant purpose or a redundant playstyle.

An example of this would be a creature piece that focused on having a more unique appearance/aesthetic rather than remembering to focus on playstyle/purpose. As there is no driving purpose behind the creature that caused it to create unique RP and the playstyle was neglected, that piece will typically come out as a reskinning of a descendant race.

 

Magic Lore

Magic has a wide array of lore that has its own uniqueness, but also comes with its own problems. Even if you have a unique aesthetic, it’s redundant if the results of the abilities are the same as another magic. For example, if you had a magic where you could curse people by playing music in various ways, that wouldn’t be unique. Yes, the music casting part might be compared to the rest of LotC’s lore, but the end result is a character getting cursed which is a niche filled by a number of other existing magics.

 

As such, you should remember to focus on what your magic is accomplishing. Going off the previous example, if you had a musical cursing magic, it would be fine so long as the curses were unique or had a good enough twist on them that made the curses stand out on their own when compared to other curse magics.

 

Racial/Creature Lore

As mentioned at the beginning of the section we covered an example of a redundant creature. While having a unique appearing creature/race is a step in having your lore stand apart from existing pieces, it won’t do any good if you just leave it at that. Having a solid playstyle and purpose that is different from existing pieces, on top of a differing appearance, should have you set when it comes to racial/creature lore and avoiding redundancy.

 

Deific Lore

Due to the nature of these submissions, it’s rather easy to tell if a submission is redundant or not. Most deities will be aengudaemons or their patrons (e.g. Spirits), in which case they should each have a distinct title/purpose. Just because the title (e.g. Daemon of X or Aengul of Y) is unique does not mean that the piece itself is. The mindset of the deity and methodology behind how it carries out its goals also matters.

 

World Lore

• Location - If you are designing a location that is outside of the existing map (e.g. Aeldin), you should ensure that it is different from existing places. This does not mean you have to come up with crazy geography or things of that nature to stand out, but there should be something different there. This could be a unique indigenous species or an existing race that has a rich culture not found elsewhere in the world that you wish to port over to the main map.

• Historical - Redundancy doesn’t apply here as much as it does in other sections, but your piece should try and be unique nonetheless.

• Indexes - Any submission going into the index should take other accepted pieces into consideration. We don’t need two herbs that do the same thing just with a slightly different aesthetic.

• Invention - Having aesthetically different inventions is fine, but try to steer clear from making an invention that’s only aesthetically different. For example, writing lore for a new kind of ballista that does the same exact damage and functions the same, but uses different ammo, is something that could be potentially redundant

 

Versatility

Something that can be considered good world lore is something that isn’t very niche (typically) and can be used in different ways. This gives the piece more ways for it to create RP and more ways for it to make sure it doesn’t fall into obscurity.

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There are a few different examples of how versatility can help a piece. For example, we have had a number of metal pieces that serve one minor purpose that separate them from standard ferrum/iron. Most of these are virtually unused and could be removed without it causing any harm. A way this could have been prevented is if the piece was more versatile. Rather than having 1 trait to the metal, it could have had multiple uses. It could have a certain trait when smithed, but when it’s in its unrefined state, it could be used for x, and maybe when it’s mixed with y, it produces z.

 

Rewrites/Amendment

Rewrites should only be done when there are major flaws that need to be fixed or you wish to take the lore in a new direction that still fits with the general theme. Amendments can be done more frequently to help catch things that may have been missed in the initial submission or to fix minor problems that crop up while the lore is being utilized..

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There are a few situations when a rewrite/amendment might be needed for lore. The first is a member of Story is notified/notices problems being caused in-game that result from problems within a lore piece. When this occurs, Story will create a list of what needs to be fixed before reaching out to the playerbase that uses the lore to go over it with them. From there it will be a case by case basis on how the lore is fixed. In some instances, Story may simply make alterations to the lore if it is a minor issue that has been voted on. For more complex issues, it may be left to the playerbase to figure out how they want to fix it.

 

If you believe a lore piece needs amending and it is urgent as problems are being made, you may approach a story member with an explanation for why that is so. A quick vote can be done to ensure that the amendment is dealt with as soon as possible. If you wish to make amendments and it is not urgent, you may submit them a regular lore submission. Formatting is less important here, so long as you explain the changes you wish to make.

 

Just note that there are a few things to bear in mind when approaching this if you are doing the rewrite/amendment:

• Just because you are rewriting the piece does not mean you get to dictate what occurs to everyone else that uses the lore piece. If the lore piece in question is used by a playerbase, you will need to account for their opinion as well. Should a rewrite be done that a majority of the playerbase dislikes for valid reasons, the rewrite will likely not be accepted until the concerns are addressed.

• If the rewrite is deemed unnecessary or is changing things that don’t need to be changed for no real reason, it might not be accepted.

• If the rewrite is disliked by the playerbase, but it fixes key issues that the lore has, the playerbase may be overruled.