Valar
on DaoC
Charter and Code
1.
The Valar Guild: a consistent reality in the virtual world
The Valar Guild was established on October 4, 1997, and is a worldwide
interactive community of Tolkien fans, students and scholars. Membership
has been steady around 150 members. We have our web site at http://www.valarguild.org,
with an interactive Tolkien Encyclopedia. Many of our members come together
to play online games, where we advocate mutual friendship, camaraderie
and honourable behaviour. Originally founded as a B.net community - specifically
Diablo 1/2/LoD - the Valar Guild has been spreading over many online games.
On
January 11, 2003, the Valar Guild has been established in the world of
Dark Age Of Camelot, on the server Percival, in the realm of Hibernia.
Our Guild Home is in Kilcullen, Fullerton 9 and adjacent houses.
2. Valar in the world of DaoC
In the world of Hibernia on Percival we want to be exemplary. We advocate
altruism and courteousness and chivalry.
We strive to live and act with honor at all times. Our way is the path
of light in the sense of the literature of J.R.R. Tolkien. We seek to
help each other and our fellow Hibernians whenever and wherever possible.
Immature behaviour and rude language are unacceptable. Like the good inhabitants
of Middle-Earth we bow and make compliments when we meet both friends
and strangers.
We are respectful to others, both within and outside the Guild. We seek
that others may never be offended by our actions or words spoken.
3. Role-playing guidelines
Valar
advocate role-playing in the world of Hibernia/Percival. It is required
that the Mythic guidelines to role-playing are known and followed.
Thus we ask of members that they stay “in character” as much
as possible:
1. Try not to do or say anything which undermines the reality of your
character in the world of Hibernia. For instance: “my dwarf on Nimue
has better stats than this char”. (yuck!)
2. Avoid the laziness of internet slang. “Lol” is not very
interesting. <chuckles softly> <grins mischievously> <smiles
faintly> <roaring laughter> are so much more distinguishing expressions.
Other examples: Rather not “have to log”, but for instance:
“otherworldly affairs are calling me away”, rather not: “bugged,
have to reboot”, but for instance: “I have to visit the Void
to recompose my performance”. Try to be inventive and creative.
Try to enjoy role-playing as a challenge. Use /emotes to do something
interesting or funny to make more of the game than just bashing mobs and
enemies.
3. We have a list of nice quenya expressions to be used in role-play by
those who want to.
4. Avoid boring discussions about game technicalities (“specs”,
“stats”, item properties, etc.)
These
guidelines are to be followed:
- In Guild chat in a casual way: occasional out of character speech is
allowable between friends, respect the individual preference of your fellow
Guild members though.
- In Group chat in a consistent way: occasional out of character speech
must be limited to real necessity, and must be designated by either <ooc>
or double brackets, for instance: ((my cat just jumped on my keyboard)).
We follow these ways even and also when the other group members do not.
- In all public channels (Main Chat, Frontier Chat, Broadcast and especially
Alliance Chat) out-of-character speech and behaviour by Valar members
are not acceptable.
Out of character speech is generally best kept limited to private /send.
But know and respect the preferences of the person you are /sending to.
If you /send out of character and are answered in-character, change to
in-character immediately.
2. How we invite new members.
New members we will only invite for good reasons. We will invite players:
1. who strike us as honourable and with whom we have had a good time hunting
together.
2. who have read the Lord of the Rings.
Players who meet these two requirements can be invited into the Guild
starting at GR 9 (Yessi, “the beginning”).
Our Guild has the tradition that “full” membership starts
after passing 4 out of 5 simple questions ("entree test") to
ascertain that members have at any time read The Lord of The Rings. After
having spent some time with us as Yessi, a new member will be expected
to participate in the entree test. Or – on the other hand - we might
have come to the conclusion that Valar is not the most suitable Guild
for that Yessi, in which case the person will be asked to leave.
After passing the entree test member characters are promoted to GR 6 or
higher, and will be asked to choose one of the Tolkien names that are
available to new members (see our names page, http://httpd.chello.nl/d.berkhout/
for further reference). Under this name they will also be a member of
the motherguild. Some of us still follow the old tradition of letting
their character names be ending with a v, but this is no longer required.
3. Meetings and organization.
Meetings will be held weekly in Guild chat, Sunday 3:30 PM ES(D)T. Place
of gathering is the Guild house in Kilcullen, Fullerton 9, Housing Lot
# 3700. Attendance of these meeting is voluntary, but officer ranks are
expected to attend if possible.
All members are expected to read the Valar DaoC Message Board, so that
they know what is going on in the Guild.
In Valar the elder and rich have more obligations than the young and poor.
Only the relatively well-to-do are expected to donate to the Guild Fund.
Donators have no special rights regarding Guild trade services. Young
members enjoy free trade services. Trade services are at cost for elder
Guild members, but why not show your appreciation for our crafters if
you can, especially when you make use of their skills regularly.
Guild ranks are distinguished as:
9. Yessi, recently invited members
6. Nessi, member characters younger than 20 and <400 tradeskill.
5. Luini, member characters older than 19 (or >400 tradeskill)
4. Tulci, rank of merit, exemplary member characters of 45 or elder, or
very high tradeskill
3. Culuini: rank of distinction, member has consistently been of great
merit to the Valarguild
2. Carni: active officers, fulfilling organising roles in the Guild
1. Lossi: active officer(s), supporting and organising, able and willing
to be vice-guildmaster
0. Nossecano: guildmaster(s)
