Anne McCaffrey's Rules (aka a Pern Roleplayer's Bible):
 
 

ONLY the above colors may be impressed.  There are no 'sport' dragons allowed!  Ruth was our special baby, not an oddity that will be repeated any time soon.  Also note that homosexual and bisexual characters make life a whole lot more interesting and a lot more fun.  (Hey, support slash!)  We encourage players to consider all sorts of people when molding a character, be it appearance, preferences, or pets.

Poor greens, rankless!  Anyway, that's a well known little table, but we're putting it there for the sake of decency.  Remember that there can and will be exceptions to the rank rules in places~ Special cases, of course.  Role-play well.

Now, again, we are not allowed to roleplay in any of the Northern weyrs or holds (Benden, Fort, Ruatha, etc) or make references to characters created by Anne McCaffrey.  This is not a particularly tough rule to follow- simply have your riders be from the southern continent- your characters can originate from another hold or weyr, but no roleplay will go on there.  Also, I know it's strict, but not EVERY candidate can be the youngest daughter of the Lord of such-and-such hold.  Remember to be careful when picking family for your character.

Also, please remember that dragon names must end in 'th'.  Firelizard and character names should not.  Avoid any names similar to character/dragon/flit names in the book- Anne McCaffrey wants her work to remain original despite the growing fanbase both online and off.  That means no 'Noreta' and no 'R'gyl' and such- and also, no names that are 'Earthy' in origin.  No B'ob the dragonrider, no Allison the Weyrwoman- puns are funny, but hey, can you keep a straight face when roleplaying B'tox and his golden male Fannyth, and purple firelizard?   F'rog?  F'art?  B'rat?  G'thic?  A'lyoop!  G'loop? Ah, it's fun, but not serious enough.  ^^;  Oh, right, that brings another point- when male characters impress, they shorten their name with an honorary contraction.  Remember this when creating a character- names like 'Vyxvz' can't be shortened.  What?  V'xvz?  Gimme a break, lemme buy a vowel!  Weyrfolk name their children with the possibility of Impression in mind.  You should too~!

There is NO religion on Pern.  No exceptions.  Nada.

Likewise, no ships are coming to Pern.  No aliens, no crossovers with any other books or shows or anime (no anime names!), no incredible levels of technology should be present.  No dragons will be floating off into space and bumping into an X-wing or anything like that.  ^_^;

Also, no magic!  No telepathy in situations other than dragon/rider and a MILD dragon/firelizard.   No ESP, special  powers, magical girls, that sort of thing.  It's Pern, and the Pernese are human!  Cool humans, but human.
 

Tanora Weyr Rules:

Please keep posts to a minimum of five lines in order to keep the flow of the role play going.  No two or even single line posts will do, they take up space and clutter mailboxes.

Please put your message above the actual one you are replying too- but try to include the message right before yours at the bottom of the post, so that those who've missed a message or two will know what's going on.

(new rules, 5.28.01)
Be polite to other members at all times.

Do not roleplay with characters that don't belong to you.

If you want to post a message that will affect a large number of people, you must get it approved by the BOD.  Send a message to us with your idea and we will tell you yes, go ahead, no, or maybe ask you to wait until another large thread has finished.  We will also, more than likely, want to check the post before you send it out to make sure there are no mistakes that might counteract something else in the weyr  This is important!  Don't post anything large - hunts, gathers, goldflights, etc, without explicit permission.

If you make a mistake and violate one of the rules on this page, you will get a warning - a nice e-mail asking you not to do it again.  If something else happens, depending on the severity of the problem, you will be temporarily suspended from action on the mailing list, likely for about a week.  This is a last-ditch effort, and will not happen if you have one too many flits or something like that - only for major issues.
(/new)
 

Tanora Weyr Communications:

Dragonspeak:  {{I'm hungry.}}
People-speaking-to-dragons:  [[Let's go to the hunting grounds, then!]]

Roleplay is a third person game- do not write with 'I' or in present tense (It isn't 'I am running to the lower caverns!'  It MUST be 'B'tox is running to the lower caverns- "Fannyth is rising!" he shouts and dances about on his toes').  Third person is your friend.  (The rider shook his head and frowned- "How can your dragon rise?!  Fannyth is a golden male?!")
 

Time for more personal rules!  Most of these are simple.

Flits~

Firelizards.  You can have a fair.  More than five is rather silly, though, don't you think?  Imagine feeding them in the morning!  Bronze and golds will be given as rewards, in a ration of about one gold flit for every fifteen or so members.  Green flits will rise, but unless you have a special circumstance, they will not provide eggs for passing out.  Bronze firelizards are more common than golds, if you e-mail Tomo and Maya and you are an active member, there's a goooooood chance you'll get one.

When a character dies, their flit goes too.  No swappin' your high colored flits to other characters.

Flights~

Greens rise.  Golds rise.  Males don't!  Don't get confused!  If you have a female dragon/firelizard, it must rise!  This means you need to roleplay a flight, be it green or gold, and if you do have a gold, you are responsible for the clutch, however all gold flights of any kind must be approved!  This is so we won't have dozens of flights in one day.  Greenriders can rise on their own, but try to space them out - don't rise if someone else is roleplaying that at the same time.  LIKEWISE!  You cannot rise every other week.  Ouch.  Once a month is fine - sort of fitting, really.

Also!  If a flight is going on, try to get a persona involved in it.  Even if it's just a one night stand, don't leave a player with nobody to roleplay a flight with!
 

Impressions~

Impression is when the candidates hot-foot it to the sands and pick their lifemates.  If you don't know that- well....why the heck are you here?  Traditional garb is required (A white robe with a belt and thinly soled slippers) for the Hatching, and a feast is always afterwords.   Dragons tend to pop out, introduce themselves, and demand lots of food.  It's not hard to get the hang of.  ^-^;  Impression here is done in a more simple manner - the goldrider will name the dragons, choose who gets what, and write the post.  This makes Impression really exciting, because everything is a surprise.  This is the only time someone else will roleplay your character.  After the initial impression, you do the work.

Another note on Impressions is yes, gold fever is contagious.  Everyone wants a chance at a queen, but not everyone can have one.  Please remember that female candidates get either green or gold- your chances at gold are slim, often the impressions are decided before the hatching, and the gold will go to a person by the roleplayer and not necessarily the candidate.  If you do get a green, please don't forget about that character!  We don't want a lot of NPC (Non-player character) greenriders floating around.  Think about this before you create five female candidates in hope of one of them impressing.

Characters~

Make as many as you want.  We don't mind.  Just play them all!  You are likely to only have one high ranking character, but if you are well suited to it, you may have more.  Nobody will get to have four bronzes, two golds and a Master or two, but the ranks will be fairly distributed.
 

Other ranks~

There are many, many places to be filled on Pern.  If you want a Craft Master or Lord Holder, talk to the BoD and we'll hook you up with something.
 

Posting requirements~

Weyrleaders-  Twice a week per ranking character
Gold and Bronzeriders- once a week and a half, preferably more per ranking character.
Wingleaders/Wingseconds/ranking presonas (Candidate master, weyrling master, etc.)- once every two weeks.
Brown/Blue/Green riders, Journeymen- Whenever.  Try to be active!  Ranks go to the active members.
Lord Holders/Mastercraftsmen-  Once every two weeks per active characters
Candidates-  Your choice- activity determines Impression, though.

Posting~

This mailing list is not your chance to see how many people you can get mad at you for spam mailing them. Nobody appreciates it.  Do not send forwards of any type to the group.  This includes plugs for your own weyr, unless you're mentioning it in another message as OOC.  If you want to plug your weyr, tell us, and we'll put it on our links page.

(new rule, 5.28.01)

Dating Posts~

Recently Tanora has begun a system of dating posts, beginning the first of June, 2002 a date will be required in each and every post.  This will let people's characters participate in more than one thread at once, as long as they are on different dates, and also makes conflicts easy to avoid.  Dating a message is easy, just put 'month(_)day(_)' for whenever your post is occuring in the heading, as demonstarted below.  We roleplay with twelve months per year, just like out of character dates (though Pern does not have month names) so - June fifth  would be put in a post 'm6d5' - month six, day five, June fifth.

You don't have to make the date in the post the actual day you post it.  Generally you can post for any day of the month we are currently in, but nothing further than that.  If it's May, don't post a message for next November, or one for last Febuary.
(/new)

Every! Post!  Must!  Have!  The!  Following!  Information!  At!  The!  Top!  We!  STRESS!  THIS!

Name:  (Personas involved)
Topic:  (What's happening?)
Author:  (Your name here)
Date:  (The date the post occurs)
Notes:  (Anything OOC, explanations, pleas for co-posting go here.)

Put this on every message at the top, before your actual post.  It's helpful.  ^_^;