Rules

Below are the Main 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.

1) The Final Nights uses the "World of Darkness" "Gothic Horror" setting as a backdrop. Players are expected to create character(s) that could plausibly exist in this setting.

• 1.1: This does not limit a player from making exceptional or rare character types. It prevents a character from "doing it all." The quintessential example being an ashtray.
• 1.2: Faction switching ("sect hopping") is prohibited. A character may choose to change their faction, or follow none at all. In the case they decide to, the player will open a ticket to have this change noted on their ckey. 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. (The Secret Role Is Clown)
• 1.4: Characters require realistic foundations of knowledge. Your characters do not have as an extensive lore understanding as you may have. A neonate vampire is incredibly unlikely to be aware of secrets spanning much longer than their own lives. A typical werewolf is not intimately familiar with every fera type, or ritual.
• 1.5: 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.
• 1.6: Players may not play characters that do not have mechanical support.

Examples include

- Unsupported supernatural types such as Imbued, Mummies, Exalted, fera that are not reflected mechanically

- unsupported kindred bloodlines (legacies of Laibon, bloodlines without discipline support)

Examples do NOT include

- bloodlines which can can be supported through admin intervention (disc changing)

- Werewolf factions without role support (Black Furies, Red Talons)

• 1.7: Leaders of factions are held to a higher roleplay expectation than a normal role. This includes werewolves with high "renown," as well as kindred of generations lower than 10.

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 are 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 1,000 year old vampire is expected to have more preoccupation with population density and technology.)

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

5) keep IC content IC, and OOC content in OOC. This means no speaking as yourself, through your character, or your characters acts, through ooc channels.

• 5.1: Revealing information about the current round in OOC, discord, the forum, or another platform (metacomming) is strictly prohibited. Wait until after the round end screen to discuss a round or file an out of game ticket.

6) Avoid antagonizing players and staff through the discord, forums, or in game communications(LOOC/OOC.) While expressing frustrations about IC events is ok, ganging up on players is not.

• 6.1: Using OOC insults IC is prohibited. Using IC insults and harassment for IC events is fine. Consistent IC harassment may be considered along side 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) The server has a persistence based perspective to rounds. This means that conflict, events, knowledge, and motivations may continue past the round they are produced in.

• 7.1: Events where a splats society collapses, (ex: The Masquerade/Veil are irrevocably broken, National Guard/Second Inquisition called enmasse, etc) are considered non-canon.
• 7.2: Positive events of previous rounds should be maintained, while inconsistencies and extreme disruptions should be dismissed.
• 7.3: This does not apply to repeated negative events. If the same character is repeatedly assaulting the same location, revealing the same information that makes them valid, or wreaking havoc round after round, this may be considered canon.
• 7.4: If every player involved in an event agrees, it may no longer be considered a canon event. Admin involvement is kept minimal in these situations.

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. The Final Nights is an 18+ community, and users will be banned if thought to have misrepresented their age to appear adult.

• 1.1: Spite suicide, self-destruction, or ghosting/disconnecting from a scene in a spiteful manner is not allowed.
• 1.2: During acts of mind control and blood-bonding, be sure to be communicative and set OOC boundaries.
• 1.3: Players who have repeatedly shown bad faith actions or evidence of not engaging in roleplay across multiple rounds will be subject to a quality control ban. Staff members must vote on these.
• 1.4 Splat threads are for organization and general discussion of the splat not the mocking OR harassment of players.

Returning from torpor/little death/afterlife

1) Do not use information attained while dead or as a previous life upon re-entering your characters body.

2) Characters from splats that are "alive" (living mortals, garou, etc) suffer amnesia when they die, and are revived by defibrillation. They cannot recall who killed them, or how.

• 2.1: Torpor, "Little Death," and other extraordinary means are excluded from this rule.

SSD/AFK player interactions

Note: SSD characters are players who are disconnected or AFK. It is possible for players to return to SSD 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 a 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 catatonic characters.

Escalation Clause

1) Escalation resulting in murder is only acceptable within reason. If your life is in danger, you may always reply with lethal force. In most cases, fights end when one party enters critical condition, or is otherwise incapacitated. Theft, break ins, destruction of property, being victim of a prank, and other inconveniences are not, without aggregating context, reasons to kill another player or force them into a life or death situation. You do not need to explicitly express intent to a player you intend to escalate against. Acts such as moving within melee range, drawing a weapon, speaking into a radio, or other means of manipulating a scene are considered minor escalations and a cue of additional escalation, heeded or otherwise.

• 1.1: What goes around comes around; reciprocal response as well as proportional escalation is expected against aggression.

2) If you appear hostile, expect to be treated as hostile. Contextual clues such as appearance, equipment, and other abstract qualities may be considered for escalation.

Some non exhaustive examples include:

- Police officers with rifles, inside of gang affiliated territory

- A Gaian werewolf leading protest in Wyrm territory

- A diablerist inside of a Camarilla (or Free State, depending) holding

3) Similarly, over escalation is prohibited. Over escalation is, briefly, going far beyond the required means to resolve an issue, or using violence inappropriately instead of words.

Some non exhaustive examples include:

- final deathing a vampire for a mild to moderate breach of domain

- beheading a BSD werewolf for taking harassing a player inside of Gaian territory (outside of a sept)

- hiding a crit body/corpse to prevent rescue, without reason

- shooting a suspect to death because you didn't have a taser, baton, or handcuffs on hand

4) During a blood hunt, the target of the hunt is considered to have been previously escalated against. The subject of the blood hunt may in turn freely escalate against any party they believe to have hostile intent.

• 4.1: Being the target of a blood hunt does not allow that player to freely kill any single person in their way.

Ghost Roles and "Antagonists"

1) Ghost roles such the antagonist 'Marauder,' and faction based roles (Archon, First Strike team) exist to move the round forward, and make things interesting and fun for players. If you complete your objectives, you may ahelp doe additional tasks, or an exit from the story.

• 1.1: Do not needlessly kill simply due to the fact that you are able to. Escalation rules are relaxed to facilitate an atmosphere of danger around these characters, abusing this position is a role bannable offense. Punishing players who brazenly attack, or interference in a negative manner with, a Camarilla enforcer or Endron QRT is always permitted.
• 1.2: Killing players outside of 1.1 must directly further your goal, and you cannot permanently remove that character from the round. For example, attacking a hound for a set of Millennial Tower keys, if your objective requires access to the Millennium Tower.

2) If you become an antagonist and do not wish to be one, ahelp so that we may set you up with another role and/or give your antagonist status to another player.

Admin 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.

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 clutters 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. Intentional lying in ahelps will result in a ban.

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

Faction Rules

1) Your characters faction is set when you create them. You may not change to a different faction before a ticket is made AND AS WELL the note is applied to your account. You are considered as previously escalated against by faction members you defect from the ROUND YOU DEFECT FROM THEM. All other rounds you may be targeted, but standard escalation applies.

• 1.1: A garou that declares themselves a Ronin is valid to all garou in the round they choose to do abandon the Nation. Any werewolf, including BSD, may become Ronin.
• 1.2: Defection from the Garou Nation to the Black Spiral Dancers will be heavily scrutinized, and curated. It will require an abundance of evidence showing roleplay quality. Defecting garou will have to spend one week as a Ronin before joining the BSD properly.

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. In game prompts should be ignored, and replaced with:

From the first sip from the first night, you shall idolize or hate from whom you've drank deep. From the second sip upon the second night, you shall likewise hold onto their words and seek to curry their favor. Upon the third night and third drink, you are utterly theirs. Acts of defiant will are possible, but they are fleeting.

Discipline Teaching

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

A cainite 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.

Disciplines are distinguished as follows:

Rare disciplines

• Quietus
• Vicissitude
• Temporis
• Protean
• Serpentis
• Dementation
• Daiminion
• Obtenebration
• Thaumaturgy
• Necromancy

Common disciplines

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

ERP

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 whom 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.