Legends of Belariath

Animalistic Play

This is a response to the requests for characters to take on a greater degree of appearance of the race they represent, ie. cat people and fur etc. While we have always insisted that there is no direct correlation between appearance and any animal ancestors, this apparently needs stressing through legislation to avoid a future slide into bestial traits.

WHAT IT IS NOT

Animalistic behavior does not refer to an occasional purr of pleasure. Nor to an avian race being able to fly. It does not restrict a race such as wolven from being sexually aggressive. All such actions are considered normal. It does not inhibit a slave owner from using humiliation unless this is determined to be a deliberate attempt to circumvent this law.

WHAT IT IS

This list is not comprehensive and individual instances will be judged by any Ops present. The intent is not to spoil people having fun but to stop characters whose actions would lead to a perception that they are (or are closely related to) an animal who has managed to stand upright.

Walking about on all fours, cat people chasing mice and / or eating them, 'talking' in yips and growls while not understanding human speech, eating and drinking from a bowl placed on the floor, chasing a ball tied to a piece of thread, physical descriptions which go beyond the racial identifiers and into their animal counterparts (ie dog-dicks, paws that cannot hold items instead of possessing hands), grooming fur with the tongue, licking one's own genitals to clean them, etc.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN

An Op who witnesses such behavior will PM the player concerned and warn them to stop. This will be recorded on their character notes. In the absence of an Op, or if they are diverted, other players could mention it in OOC but are not encouraged to get into confrontations.

There will only be one warning. On a repeat of the activity, the Op will place logs in their forum and if there is general agreement, the character will be placed in quarantine for observation for 30 days (OOC - the character, not the player, will be suspended for 30 days with no further role-play allowed).

On a second repeat, again after consideration by the Ops forum and HC, the character may be considered incurable and a potential danger to other characters who may also become 'infected' by such an 'illness'. To avoid any such risks, the character may be destroyed with no option to rezz (OOC - the character may be deleted from the database).

A player who makes a habit of creating characters who act like this, or who re-creates a deleted character which continues the same behavior, will find themselves facing a sequence of lengthening full bans until they either stop or end up with a permanent ban for their disregard of the stated aims of game play.