ANNOUNCEMENT #5

ANNOUNCEMENT

11. 13. 2022

Ongoing Site Plots!
This month, we are focusing on the overarching site plot of the Blights. One Blight is in Orlais, the other is in Ferelden.

The Blights
The Blights are going to be an on-going threat to the land of Thedas, just like in the games. However, we realize that’s a bit boring, and we’re spicing up how we handle these encounters. If there is not enough activity in these types of events, that area is lost to the Blight. This forces your characters to care, and hopefully helps you care about the Blights too!

The success of these encounters will be up to various variables, but primarily regarding participation. To successfully clear the Blight in these events, the opening post will tell you how many characters must participate to save the area. If participation is a failure, well, that area is lost to the Blight until further notice.


For the image, the “x” marked areas are closed, or completely Blighted.
The Anderfels: Completely Blighted
Nevarra: Completely overrun by spirits.
Tevinter: Closed to the public via a force field of magical means.

The areas of the map with arrows are listed below, and are part of the “Beward the Nevarran Overflow” sitewide, on-going plot:
Orlais: Most affected, as Nevarra is their neighbor.
Antivan/Rivain/Arlathan: Affected, but not heavily so, yet.
Ferelden: Spirits have gathered in Ferelden, and that presence is drawing the undead.
Free Marches: Minimally affected, only on landlocked masses.

The areas of the map with criss-crossed markings indicate where the Blights listed above are.
Ferelden: The Ferelden PQ+ is taking place in the Hinterlands. This means the following cities and villages are affected: Ostagar, Edgehall, Honnleath, and various smaller villages. This Blight has darkspawn and spirit/demon-inhabited undead.

Orlais: The Orlesian PQ+ is taking place in the Fields of Ghislain. This means the following cities and villages are affected: Montfort, Ghislain, Churneau and various other smaller villages. This Blight has darkspawn and spirit/demon-inhabited undead.

SITE CHANGES
You guys spoke, and we listened! If you're curious about some of the feedback that VH received after our poll, you can click here to go to that discord thread. We didn't get a ton of feedback, but we used what we heard and what we know we, as staffers, had issues doing.

We would just like to remind everyone about the accessibility add-on we have, the little yellow icon above the discord icon on pages. It's really handy if you have special needs in order to read, like dyslexia or colour blindness, stigmatism, etc. Below is a screenshot of mine, I have the spacing set to have more space between the letters which makes it easier for me to read, but there are a lot of things you can do with it.

[color=#e82a1f][/color]

If you see any coding bugs, please reach out to Ivy, Oraeguno, or Ashon and someone will fix that as quickly as possible.

PROFILE CHANGES
We have altered the profile to display new fields in the user CP. This allows for the character creation process to be more straightforward. But just what are those changes you ask?

Overall the changes aren't technically that massive, the difference is you guys fill out more of it before the app process. Anyone that's gone through the old app process probably remembers some of it the admins had to fill in and we had to copy/paste back and forth the foci. Now that's all done with drop-downs on your end. You can also now fill in skills yourself, and while sticking to five isn't a requirement, we ask that if your character has more than five you explain each one, how do they know this skill, etc.

You can find out more about the changes on the Levelling page and Classes page in the guidebook. Instead of having mastery POINTS, we now have mastery UPGRADES, so for example, beginner to competent would be one upgrade. Below you can see what it looks like filled out, and as you can see it's not that different, but will be easier on everyone.



[color=red]For existing characters, your levels will not change.[/color] Some characters joined during a joining promotion, so don't worry if it looks like your character is at the wrong level based on age. When filling in your profile choose the level your character is on now, not their age group. (There might be some overlap, so if your character is on a level lower than their age just reach out to staff and we can help even it out.)

When editing your profile, please make sure you start all of your foci mastery on novice. This will help you not to get confused when assigning your character their mastery upgrades.

Level 1 starts with 12 mastery upgrades
Level 2 starts with 15 mastery upgrades
Level 3 starts with 19 mastery upgrades
Level 4 starts with 24 mastery upgrades
Level 5 starts with 27 mastery upgrades

Please note: We are in the process of tweaking the level requirements to add more levels and to make them more achievable. We'll make another announcement once they're finished.

Another new addition to the profile is the possession, vessel, etc field. If you have a mage, write in what sort of spirit or demon is possessing them. If your character is a vessel write who they are a vessel for. If your character is neither of these things, simply put N/A.



ACTIVITY CHANGES
You can read up on our activity rules here. Below you can see our activity schedule, which we are adhering to. This means unless you have the hiatus role (only given out in instances where someone CANNOT post for some reason such as not having a computer, figuring out a place to live, etc.) you are required to get one post up with your character.

Remember, Primary characters need 2 posts every link-gathering month, and Secondary characters need 1 post.

November - December 3, 2022: Gather your links and post your posts. Link Here
December 2022: Check in, post which character's you're keeping to the AC thread.
January 1 2023 - February 1: Gather your links and post your posts.
February 2023: Check in, post which character's you're keeping in the AC thread.
March 1 2023 - April 1: Gather your links and post your posts.
April 2023: Check in, post which character's you're keeping in the AC thread.
May 1 2023 - June 1: Gather your links and post your posts.
June 2023: Check in, post which character's you're keeping in the AC thread.
July 1 2023 - August 1: Gather your links and post your posts.
August 2023: Check in, post which character's you're keeping in the AC thread.
September 1 2023 - October 1: Gather your links and post your posts.
October 2023: Check in, post which character's you're keeping in the AC thread.
November 1 2023 - December 1: Gather your links and post your posts.
December 2023: Check in, post which character's you're keeping in the AC thread.