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[swevenmods]

F.A.Q.

Okay, so what's going on here?

You've been kidnapped to an alternate dimension and dropped on a roadside in the lovely city of Sweven, Montana! No one's quite sure how it happens, but people will show up overnight unconscious and on the side of a road, within a five mile radius of Northwestern Hospital. And there's no way back, at least not yet, though people are working on trying to figure out a way for the non-natives to get back to their homeworlds. Everything about the arrival and the status of the world is explained at the hospital by a representative of Nilisom Technologies. But that's not all!

Each Migrant, as they're called, gains a tattoo when they arrive which distinguishes them from the general public. Each tattoo design is different, (it's up to the player what it is, but it should be significant to the character) and it's always on the left wrist, about the size of a quarter and is always circled by a certain swirly design. In addition to a tattoo, characters receive a power upon entering the city.

Woah, wait. We get superpowers?

Yep! You do. What kind of power a character gets is completely up to the player. There's a few restrictions, though: it can't be too godmody and it has to have something to do with sleeping and/or dreaming. This means it could be anything from dreamwalking to a healing factor that heals all wounds while the character is asleep, to generating sandwiches that appear on a bedside table every time a character has a nightmare. However, all powers that are gained upon entrance to this parallel Earth have to be awakened to be used. They're not something your character can discover on day one. For the powers to awaken, you character has to go through the Dreaming at least once.

What if we already have powers, what happens to those?

All biological powers stay the same. Anything having to do with magic, or anything that's been granted to a character by magic/a higher power/some obscure Egyptian god will still function the same, but characters will probably notice that it feels a little off. There's a reason for this, but it's one that will be revealed as the plot moves along, so I can't say anymore than that unless you've got a specific question about how it differs.

Okay, what is the Dreaming?

The Dreaming is an event that happens at least once a month, maybe more than once depending on the month and how big the game gets. During the Dreaming, a handful of characters that are determined OOCly by a random generator are all brought onto a dreamscape together. From there they visit each other's dreams. Not every character involved in the Dreaming has to have one of their dreams visited, but they do have to visit at least one other person's dream. Sometimes, the Dreaming will be different and characters will visit dream that doesn’t belong to any of them, but something else entirely. The more characters Dream and the more practiced they get with navigating others' dreams, the more they'll be able to discover about the waking world and what it is that brought them to this Earth.

What's Nilisom Technologies?

Nilisom Technologies is the leading company in consumer technologies — think Apple. They develop things like computers, mp3 players, cell phones, TV recording... but they also work on things like touch-screen technology, holograms, and the like. They've got some of the best minds in the computer industry and recently opened an transportation division. They work with some of the best engineering minds to try and figure out how to get the Migrants back to their homeworlds. They try to offer jobs to every able-to-work Migrant that comes through, whether it be working in a warehouse or working with the engineers to find a way home. In addition to that, the president and founder of the company, Arman Daniels, owns the hotel that people get to stay in for their first two weeks in Sweven, and helps with the low-income housing buildings geared towards Migrants.

Why are they helping the Migrants?

On paper, they do it for the government grants they get for taking care of the Migrants and finding a way to send them home. The teleportation technology that could be derived from the device that would send everyone back has the ability to revolutionize transportation for not only the general consumer, but for the military as well. In reality? The government grants are a part of it, but there's a big PR aspect to it, too. A lot of the native population isn't very fond of these strange people invading their city and country, but there's a lot of them that think this company helping them is great, which creates a nice polarity when it comes to opinions of the public. Mr. Daniels also seems to be very interested in the Migrants and learning everything he can from them as well, so there's a bit of a personal bent to it as well.

Okay, so out we can get jobs there. Do we have to do that?

Nope! You can get a job wherever you like. You can work at McDonalds, or you can try and build your own company, or you could even try and get into Hollywood if that really strikes your fancy. Sky's the limit, we the mods just ask that you be somewhat realistic when it comes to things like starting a small business and how much time that takes. And if you do decide to work for Nilisom, there's nothing that says you have to have the company's best interests at heart. Just be aware that too much sabotage could get you fired.

What about the hotel, do we have to stay there? Can we stay there longer than two weeks?

You definitely don’t have to stay there if you don’t want to! Characters can stay wherever they want in the city, provided it’s not something obviously illegal that they would get arrested for. But, yes, you can only stay in the hotel for two weeks. There are low-income housing buildings specifically built for Migrants throughout the city that they can look at. They’ll have to pay rent and so on, but things like jobs and rent can very easily be handwaved if that’s somehting you’d rather not play around with. There’s more on the hotel and the housing buildings here.

What’s the communicator look like? What all can it do?

It’s essentially an iPhone, except manufactured by Nilisom Technologies. It acts as a smart phone you can download apps for and you can store videos and music on it, same as an iPhone. It also comes complete with an app called EmmComm, short for Migrant Communications, which is the network all network posts get posted to. Network posts can be text, voice, or video, and replies can be any of those as well. Posts on the network can be encrypted if your character is technologically savvy, and they can be hacked by other technologically savvy characters so long as there is OOC permission from all parties involved. In addition to that, the comms act as phones, so there can be private phone-to-phone conversation off-network. These messages can be text messages, phone calls, or video calls.

So what's this about a blackness coming around that was mentioned in the premise and the profile?

No one’s sure what it is. It started showing up once every few years, but as time went on it’s been showing up more and more. Now? People have said they see it at least twice a year. It looks different for every person, too. Some say it’s a black mist. Others say it’s a terrible monster. Still others say it’s a man with incredibly pale skin covered in a black shroud. While people can’t agree on what it looks like, everyone does know that once you see the blackness, bad things happen.

Sounds creepy. Is there anything we can do to fight it if it comes around?

That depends entirely on what the blackness brings with it. If it brings sickness or drought? No, you can’t fight it. If it brings with it Lovecraftian horrors? Yeah, you can let loose and try to stop it. But, if you just happen to see it one day? No. In fact, most people are lucky if they can catch more than a glimpse of it out of the corner of their eye, so hunting it down and fighting it would be difficult.

I want to do a plot, can I?

Yes! A thousand times yes!! While the game does have a plot to it, and there is a direction we want it to go in so there can be an endgame, player plots are really going to help keep things interesting! Occasionally there will be mod-run plots outside of the blackness visiting and running the Dreaming every month, but we really want to see the player-base get involved and help shape the way things are going to go. Just make sure you put together a plan for it and drop a comment on the plotting post so the mods can put it on the plot calendar.

Can I smash the city/kill a bunch of people for a plot?

Yes, but you need mod approval first. Anything that will harm buildings, or anything that ends in PC death or more than ten NPC deaths need to be run by the mods. Otherwise, feel free to have your villain character whack off a few NPCs. We don’t want to put restrictions on what’s IC for the bad guys to do — just remember that IC actions equal IC consequences. If your character decides to off a bunch of people, they can expect to be put in jail at some point.

What happens if someone dies in-game?

If a player character is killed in game, they don’t come back. They get stuck as a ghost. They won’t be able to eat, sleep, or dream, and, no. Ghosts cannot posses people. They are intangible, though. They’re also only viewable to other player characters and NPC children who believe in ghosts. What does this mean for them getting home? Well, they’ll just have to wait and see.

Alright, stepping OOC for a bit. What kind of characters can I app?

Sweven is a pan-fandom RP, so any fictional character is appable. Books, movies, TV shows, comics, webcomics, video games, anime, manga… You could app Mayhem from the Allstate commercials if you could fill out the app well enough to pass muster. We don’t allow real people, so Stephen Colbert is someone that you couldn’t play, nor is George Washington.

Alternate universe versions of characters are allowed, provided there isn’t already an AU in game. We’re limiting the number of duplicates of a character to one for the moment, so there’s the possibility for one canon versoin and one AU version. If it’s a fan-made AU, please be thorough in your app in discussing the AU. We’re also allowing the import of a character from another game with all their in-game CR and memories, but this would qualify them as an AU.

At the current point in time, original characters aren’t allowed, but this may be revisited in the future.

What happens to non-human characters?

If your character is humanoid (flesh and blood, two arms, two legs, walks on two feet) they stay the same. If they aren’t humanoid, they get turned human when they get pulled into Sweven. So some aliens and trolls stay aliens and trolls. Transformers and ponies get turned human. Androids with humanoid appearances can stay androids if their player can justify them having the ability to dream in their app. And then we’ll see if robots really do dream of electric sheep.

Can I canon bump my character?

Yep! To be bumped, you're going to have to get approved over at the plot post.

How do reserves and apps work?

Reserves and apps work on a cycle. Reserves will be open one week, apps the next. Reserves are held until the end of the app week. So if reserves are open from the 1st to the 7th of the month, your reserve will be held until the fourteenth when the following app cycle ends. You can get an extension for your reserve, just ask for one on the reserve page before they get cleared for the new cycle. All apps from one cycle will be processed before the next one starts.

Do I need to reserve before I app?

No, but it is reccommended! Apps for characters that have been reserved will be given priority when we have a lot of apps in the queue, and if there’s an app challenge, we’ll read the one with the reserve first.

Someone else reserved a character, can I still apply for them?

Indeed, you can! This is called an app challenge. The reserve gets priority in that we’ll read that app first, but each app will be judged on its content, not whether it has a reserve attached to it. So a reserve doesn’t necessarily mean an acceptance.

Can I link to threads for the samples in my app?

If you're applying for a character for the first time, no! There are a few reasons for this, most of which have to do with Head Mod's dislike of linked samples and wanting people to use the setting in at least their network sample. If you're applying for a character you've dropped at some point, you can link to logs and threads you've done in game for your samples.

Dreamwidth needs invite codes to create an account and I don't have one! What do I do?

There’s a few things you can do! There’s dw_codesharing if you would like to try and find one on your own, otherwise feel free to PM the mod account or drop us a line here and we’ll find one for you. Even if you’re not sure you’re going to go through with apping, we’d be more than happy to find you an invite code so you can create an account.

So you'll give me one or find one for me, even if I'm not sure I'm going to app?

Of course! Invite codes are the biggest barrier towards getting new people who may not know people with invite codes into the game, and we want to make that as small of a barrier as we possibly can. We don’t want to become an insular community that’s not welcoming to new people. Plus, it makes it easier for you to do things like voicetesting, and it means you’ll be able to submit your app with that journal if you do go through with apping.

My app was declined! Now what?

You can feel free to tweak your application and apply again. We do ask that you wait until one app round passes until you resubmit your app, however.

I need to go on hiatus! What do?

Check out the hiatus post! If you don’t comment there, we’re going to have a hard time keeping track of your hiatus and when it comes time for activity check, that’s going to be difficult. And there are some rules regarding hiatuses. The longest amount of time you can hiatus is a month, to prevent character squatting. Also, you need to be on hiatus for ten days or more out of the month to be exempt from activity check.

I dropped a character before/failed activity check, but now I want to re-app them, can I?

Yes, you can, provided no one else is playing them. Their memories don’t have to be reset, that’s up to you as a player. And unless you were already playing them as an AU character they won’t be marked AU for keeping game memories. The exception to that is if you played them as OU before, someone apped them as OU between the time you dropped and the time you want to re-app them. Then you can apply for them as an AU character with memories from a previous game.

If there’s anything we missed, or anything else you’re curious about, drop us a line here and we’ll get to your question ASAP!