Rules

Below are the Server and Community Rules of The Final Nights.

Core Rules

0) Take these rules as they are intended to be, and not how they are written literally.

• 0.1: Rule skirting, lawyering, and/or being a dick for the sake of ruining other's experiences can become a bannable offense.
• 0.2: The Final Nights is an 18+ community. Users suspected of having misrepresented their age will be blacklisted, without the possibility of appeal. This status may be shared with other communities.

1) The Final Nights is a HRP community that uses the "World of Darkness (V20)" setting as a backdrop. Players are expected to create character(s) that could plausibly exist in this world. Characters should have a limited knowledge/experience base, and not 'know it all' or have 'done it all.' This applies especially for cross-splat knowledge. Excessive lore dumps of any kind is considered poor roleplay form, and is subject to staff action.

• 1.1: This does not limit a player from making exceptional or rare character types, but respect should be given to the motivations and reasoning behind an exceptional character concept. It is important to consider how such a character concept may fit into the shared narrative.
• 1.2: Unauthorized faction switching ("sect hopping") is prohibited. A character may choose to change their faction, or abandon theirs. In the case they decide to, the player will open a ticket with the lore team for approval. See "Faction rules."
• 1.3 If a player needs to leave the round prematurely, they should utilize a matrix found at the edges of the map to remove their character and open the slot back up. This is required for any leadership role and “1/1” roles.
• 1.4: Knowledge of existence or weaknesses of particular splats is not a justification to acquire these means, on their own. A hound is likely to have vampire fighting implements, a janitor is not, even if they work for vampires.
• 1.5: Players may not play characters that do not have mechanical support. This specifically means that Exalted, Demon, Mage, Mummy, and Changeling splats are forbidden. Vampire, Werewolf, Hunter, Wraith, and any Dark Ages content that is otherwise attached to an allowed splat is permitted.

Examples include

- Unsupported supernatural types such as Imbued, Mummies, Exalted, fera that are not reflected mechanically (Ajaba, Apis, Kitsune, etc) including their Kinfolk

- Unsupported kindred bloodlines (bloodlines without discipline support)

Examples do NOT include

- Bloodlines which can can be supported through admin intervention, but are not their own choice yet (Subject to lore team approval on a per basis)

- Werewolf tribes that can be supported through roleplay efforts, but are not their own choice (Siberakh, for example)

• 1.6: Leaders of factions are held to a higher roleplay expectation than a normal role. This also applies to werewolves with high "renown," as well as kindred of generations lower than 10, or age older than 200.
• 1.7: Roleplay of childlike in mental capacity or physical appearance, as well as pregnancy based narratives are forbidden.

2) Malicious acts like griefing, metagaming, typebaiting, banbaiting, powergaming, and exploiting can become bannable offenses if occurring regularly or if the case is severe enough.

• 2.1: Multikeying, cheating through exploitation, ban evasion, blatant attempt to grief, and RDM are all permanently bannable offenses.
• 2.2: If multiple users are playing from the same connection, inform staff. Otherwise it may be presumed to be multikey.

3) Hate Speech is strictly forbidden. Using any platform affiliated with TFN (discord, server, forum, etc) to threaten a group of people or propagate racial and otherwise prejudiced slurs or stereotypes is a bannable offense. We take this seriously and want to create a server that is welcoming to all people. This includes variations or misspellings of slurs.

• 3.1: The personal horror nature of this setting is a springboard to explore tense, emotional, and mature topics. This rule considers the context of each case. The onus is on each player to follow the spirit of rule, especially while roleplaying characters with biases or prejudices. (Ex: A Black Fury is expected to focus on uplifting women. A 500 year old Kindred is expected to have more preoccupation with urbanization and technology.)
• 3.2: The Final Nights, as an inclusive space, has a policy against the use of reclaimed slurs, to prevent offense from members of those groups who are not favorable to the reclamation. The exception to this rule is the reclaimed slur Queer.

4) Discrimination towards in universe splats (factions, groups, supernatural origin, clans, and tribes) is acceptable in moderation. Attacking them for existing, or otherwise preventing their engagement in the round without appropriate escalation is not.

5) keep IC content IC, and OOC content in OOC. Use LOOC and OOC when you wish to communicate to other players as yourself, and only use your characters speech to reflect in character speech.

• 5.1: Revealing information about the current round in OOC, discord, the forum, or another platform (metacomming) is strictly prohibited. The exception to this is to make a ticket either in round using ahelps or on the discord using the ticketbot.

6) Avoid antagonizing players and staff through discord, forums, or in-game communications(LOOC/OOC.) While expressing frustrations about IC events is ok, ganging up on players is not. Flaming others is considered abuse and is subject to a higher escalation in punishments.

• 6.1: Consistent IC harassment may be considered alongside OOC harassment as a continuation.
• 6.2: Taunting or mocking other players for their roleplay, or berating players OOC for roleplay opportunities, is not allowed.

7) Rounds on TFN have persistence. Conflicts, events, knowledge, motivations, and escalation may continue past the round they are produced in. Prior round escalation is not justification to violate Player Conduct rules, or Escalation rules.

• 7.1: Events where a splat’s society collapses, (ex: The Masquerade/Veil are irrevocably broken, National Guard/Hunter Orgs called en-masse, faction wipes from player faction raids, etc) are considered non-canon.
• 7.2: If the same character is repeatedly assaulting the same location, revealing the same information that exposes them to escalation, or wreaking havoc round after round, this may be considered canon regardless of that players preference.
• 7.3: Inconsistencies of events should be smoothed out among the players involved, to reach a mutually understood canon. Canon Arbitration tickets may be opened to allow staff to mediate these issues as they come up.

Player Conduct

1) Treat others with respect and decency. We want to cultivate a community of players, similar to a tabletop group. Do not act in bad faith, attempt to invalidate their roleplay, or spitefully provide them with sub-par roleplay due to personal grievances.

• 1.1: During acts of mind control or blood bonding, be sure to be communicative in LOOC to set expectations and boundaries.
• 1.2 Players that show a pattern of bad faith or neglecting roleplay are subject to escalated action, up to and including a quality control ban. QC bans are applied exclusively by Head Staff.

2) The Final Nights is a community that focuses on human interactions first. Out of respect for the many artists in our community and elsewhere, the posting and/or usage of AI generated content is not permitted. This covers both images and videos posted in the discord, using AI headshots for your characters in-game, AI-generated or 'assisted' code, roleplay emotes, and character backstories (especially those submitted in tickets).

If we discover or suspect usage of AI across our platforms, we will ask that the offending content be removed. Continued use of AI generated content after repeated removal requests may result in administrative action up to and including a quality control ban.

Returning from torpor/little death/afterlife

1) Do not use information attained while dead or as a previous life upon returning to the round. You may not return as the same character in the same round after that character has been killed, and you use the respawn verb.

2) Characters from splats that are "alive" (Mortal humans, Garou, etc) suffer amnesia upon death. They are unable to recall who killed them, or how once revived. The circumstances leading up to the death may be recalled. Characters from splats who are undead (Kindred, etc) are excluded from this rule, and recall everything until they are in torpor.

SSD/AFK player interactions

Note: AFK characters are players who are disconnected or timed out. It is possible for players to return to AFK bodies. Players become catatonic when they take a ghost spawner role or commit suicide. Players are NOT able to return to these bodies without admin intervention.

1) Do your best not to interact negatively with SSD/AFK players. Moving them to safety is acceptable, but killing, looting, or otherwise griefing them while they are away is not.

• 1.1: If the player is in the middle of being detained by another party, that party may continue to detain/search the player.
• 1.2: Ahelping about an SSD/AFK player may grant an exception to this rule.
• 1.3: Rule 1 does not apply to characters with the catatonic examine text.

Escalation Clause

1) In-game conflict is expected to follow some natural course of escalation, with responses to hostile actions being met proportionately. We expect players to behave in a way that respects the narrative and spirit of collaborative fiction while still doing what makes the most sense within the roleplay. There is no set checklist for 'proper' escalation, but your actions should have a decent rationale and be proportional to the inciting deed. Examples of hostile actions can be both narrative (e.g. insults, scheming against another character, taunting or goading another character) or mechanical (attacking, using disciplines, stealing, breaking and entering).

Some examples of appropriate escalation can include:

• A kindred confronting, then attacking a diablerist when they are alone
• A kindred defending their domain from intruders or frenzying and attacking someone that insults or disrespects them or their domain.
• A garou acting against characters acting in clear service of the Wyrm
• Police officers firing on a dangerous or hostile suspect
• A hunter attacking someone who has shown clear evidence of being supernatural
• Hounds (and other kindred, in more dire circumstances) taking action against a vampire that has violated the traditions

Some examples of inappropriate escalation can include:

• A character going to individual lengths to totally wipe out law enforcement to cover up a crime or breach of secrecy
• A faction attempting to overtly purge an enemy faction over a lower stakes conflict between two individuals.

Ghost Roles

1) Ghost roles such as faction flavored ERT(Emergency Response Team)s, latejoin hunters, etc exist to drive conflict and create narratives, as well as make things interesting for players. If given objectives and you finish them, you may ahelp for additional tasks, or for an exit from the story. If you become a ghost role and do not wish to be one, ahelp so we may give you another role or give the position to another player.

• 1.1: Escalation rules are relaxed for flavored ERTs to facilitate an atmosphere of danger around these characters. Abusing this context for RDM is a role bannable offense.

Staff Interactions

0) Our staff is composed entirely of volunteers who work to make The Final Nights a welcoming community to all players. While it’s okay to express frustration with admin interactions, doing so in a way that is aggressive or harassing will result in a mute or a ban. If you harass staff, expect consequences to come as a result of your actions or your issue to be discarded.

• 0.1: Do not send unsolicited DMs to staff. If you need to contact staff, use discord or the forums and the appropriate location. Unsolicited DMs from players may be freely ignored.

1) Ahelp as soon as possible. Waiting may increase investigation time, and in some circumstances, make it impossible. We cannot know what we do not see. The admin team exists to help. Ahelping can bring things we may have missed to our attention.

2) Provide as many details as possible. Generally, your ahelp should include the name of the offending character and a brief description of what happened. This makes it easier for us to figure out an issue. Poorly articulated tickets may be discarded by staff for resubmission. Bad ahelp example - this guy ran up and killed me Good ahelp example - I was walking around Pacific Heights and without escalation, an unknown character killed me with a gun.

3) Players are encouraged to ahelp problems they have in-round. However, misusing ahelps (e.g. complaining about round or asking to be revived) is not acceptable. If your ticket is rejected or marked IC and you wish to have it reviewed, file a staff report. Additional tickets regarding the same issue will be ignored. Misusing ahelps clutter tickets, and repeatedly doing so may result in notes or a ban.

4) Do not lie or misrepresent claims in ahelps. They can always be shown as lies through logs, investigations, and deduction. If you are unsure how an event transpired, elaborate as such. You are encouraged to save chat logs and review them. Intentionally lying in ahelps will result in a ban.

5) Respond to admin PMs as soon as possible, to show you aren't neglecting them. A simple "one minute" is sufficient.

Faction Rules

1) Your character's faction is set when you create them. You may change a character's faction by opening a general inquiry ticket on discord, and having the change noted on your account. This is so the entire staff team is aware, and the time it happened is noted.

• 1.1: You should generally not loot faction areas of their items, if your character would not logically have access to them, or feel comfortable in committing the acts. Within Kindred society, the transgressions of trespass and theft are quite severe, and have significant consequences.
• 1.2: You may not knowingly break into or steal from faction bases or clan havens without a member of said faction or clan online. Not being able to determine this fact does not nullify this requirement. Named faction weapons or items may be acquired though combat(or other means) with their bearer.

2) Primogens are appointed roles of great trust, and are not treated as canonically 'always having been primogen'. In the uncertain power vacuum of San Francisco, the role of primogen is often changed. Those who wear the badge are taking on the clan's diplomatic responsibilities as well as the responsibility of keeping the shared domain safe. Appointed primogen who abuse this temporary power may become unpopular enough to no longer be capable of taking the role. If you are found to be repeatedly dethroned, dismissed, or killed for your actions as primogen, a job ban may apply to reflect the IC consequences of your actions. Alternatively, attempting to assert an authority as a previous primogen or ‘rp check’ the current round's primogen is discouraged without a strong IC rationale.

• 2.1: Domains belong to clan leadership as a whole, not a single person or role. In the same way, NPCs and items in these domains belong to the clan within reason. Clan domains, with very few exceptions, contain the entire structure that a primogen's office is attached to (including the immediate area outside). For Anarchs, this means all floors of the bar. For Toreador, this means all floors of the club, and so on. The actual structure in question is collectively owned by clan leadership, not a single person; i.e. the ownership doesn't change every night or swap to the newest primogen.

List of Factions:

• Camarilla Authorities (to include the Primogen Council and Tremere Chantry)
• Anarchs
• Giovanni Family
• Sabbat
• San Francisco Police Department
• The United States Federal Government (including Executive Agencies such as the FBI)
• The Sept of the Western Eye (The Garou Nation)
• The Hive of the Poisoned Shore (The Combined forces of the Wyrm, excluding most employees and associates of Magadon, Incorporated)
• The Followers of Set
• The Society of Leopold

Under no circumstances may any Black Spiral Dancer become a member of the Garou Nation.

Splat Specific Rules

Blood Oath

1) The Blood Oath (or blood bond) is a feature that has no persistent mechanical support yet, but is very popular for story arcs. This progressive process of dependency requires feeding the 'thrall' vitae from the 'regnant' multiple times, on multiple nights. Childer of kindred start with one level of blood bond to their sire, if they are not already under its effects. Cross round persistence of the Blood Oath is only permitted when both parties OOCly consent to it, with the exception being a newly sired vampire.

Discipline Teaching

Kindred have the ability to share their blood disciplines between one another. Discipline teaching should not be reciprocal trades, and have the following additional restrictions: Kindred character sheets may have two additional disciplines for a limit of 5 disciplines total. Caitiff are also limited by this rule.

Trusted Whitelist player character sheets are entirely immune from this restriction. They are however under much higher scrutiny regarding the disciplines they possess on a character.

A kindred character may have one additional "rare discipline" and a "common" one, or two additional common ones. If a character has two rare disciplines, any remaining disciplines should be common.

Any Discipline teaching must be roleplayed out, and is subject to Lore Team, and Admin scrutiny. This is regardless of whitelist, trusted, or any privileged status either participant may have. Common disciplines that have been taught may raise their stat one dot per lesson, and Rare disciplines four to five lessons per dot.

Disciplines are distinguished as follows:

Rare disciplines

• Quietus
• Vicissitude
• Temporis
• Serpentis
• Dementation
• Daimonion
• Obtenebration
• Thaumaturgy
• Necromancy
• Valeren
• Obeah
• Melpominee
• Protean

Common disciplines

• Auspex
• Celerity
• Presence
• Dominate
• Fortitude
• Potence
• Animalism
• Obfuscate

Delirium

1) Delirium is the instinctive fear that effects human beings who see Fera in their war forms, with the exception of kinfolk, ghouls, and vampires. Due to the lack of mechanical backup at this time, Delirium may be roleplayed in most ways dependent on the willpower of the character, including very rare high willpower reactions. Good faith will be assumed unless a pattern of behavior shows otherwise in these cases.

ERP

1) Erotic Roleplay (ERP) is allowed on The Final Nights. All ERP scenes must be roleplayed through subtler anti ghost. Every player has the affirmative responsibility to communicate and respect preferences while ERPing. There are no safeguards for ERP, and they may be interrupted at any time.

• 1.1: Non-consensual scenes should never be exposed to any player without affirmative OOC consent, including any bystanders, witnesses, or involved third parties.
• 1.2: Important roles, including leadership roles, are held to a higher scrutiny. They should not be spending a majority of the round engaging in erotic scenes.
• 1.3: All ERP must be between characters who are adults, with matching physical maturity, and absolutely under no circumstances is any form of ERP involving an analog for any real animals (dogs, lupus form wolves, bats, etc) allowed. Failure to observe this policy will result in an immediate and unappealable permanent ban.

Canon Arbitration

Canon Arbitration tickets or "CATs" are forms for players to include members of a story arc and staff together to arbitrate a solution. These should not be done lightly or spitefully, and good faith is expected from all parties, even in the heat of disagreement.

To open a CAT, use the ticketbot button here (https://discord.com/channels/1343630476497391646/1343775209328607354/1396595516929736907) here. When opening it, list all the players involved in the situation. Once the ticket is made, elaborate on the IC justifications as well as the action you wish to take (Faction removal, demotion in status, etc).

Once all the involved parties are in the ticket by the staff member handling the ticket, the situation should be discussed between the players and the staff handling the ticket. The staff member will make the ultimate decision to advance the plot or not. If they choose to, the decision is binding and can involve restricting or deleting character sheets. If they choose not to, a lesser development may proceed, or whatever decision is made by the parties involved goes forward.

Staff will be making determinations based on the context of the situation to keep the theme of a Gothic Horror, World of Darkness setting. After a plot is allowed to move forward, it may be immediately played out.

Use of the Canon Arbitration system should NOT be for typical deaths, conflicts, or issues covered by Core Rules 7.2 or 7.3, and is made for when issues become irreconcilable. IE: CA tickets are to settle canonical disagreements between groups or players that have otherwise been unable to be solved in good faith. Outright character death, in most cases, will be a unanimous decision.