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Humans of River Twine Holt: The Ebea

2011-06-26T11:16:51Z

Crackle: /* Notable humans - Ebeans */

(Return to the [http://www.rivertwine.com River Twine Holt] website.)

''(article by Joan Milligan - posted 07/31/06, last revised 26/06/11)''

== HISTORY ==

The Ebean culture initially evolved on the peninsula of Ebea, an arid desert region with roughly Mediterranean conditions on the rocky coastline giving rise to a culture of rivaling and trading city states. What was once a powerful coalition rapidly expanding towards its eastern borders began to fail as inbreeding brought the aristocracy low, granting more power to the dissenting people. The last viable alliance between city-states dissolved about a hundred and fifty years ago.

Although much better organized and technologically advanced, their sorry current state left the Ebeans easy prey to the "barbaric" tribes living east of them just waiting to leave their barren deserts and descend upon the empire's riches. The Suftic tribes have been growing stronger and more unified for years, and their blow to old Ebea could have been its demise, if it weren't for the Sufts' disinterest in destruction for its own sake.

An honorable, intelligent people honed to survival under merciless conditions, the tribesmen conquered Ebea – and proceeded to melt right into it. They bred with its people birthing a generation of prodigies, Suftic toughness and brilliance tempered by Ebean refined culture. As the tribesmen adopted the Ebean gods and lifestyle, the empire's children were saved from degeneration by Suftic philosophy. Most importantly, Ebean parliaments, now forced to cooperate, came under the power of Suftic Matas, matriarchal absolute rulers, and a new, healthy system of a Mata and her small senate/government evolved gradually. The Suftic conquest of Ebea saved it in the nick of time.

All this happened less than two hundred years ago. The new empire has not yet had a chance to develop new problems. It revels in a golden age.

== CULTURE ==

== Appearence ==

The Ebeans have naturally smooth, dark skin, varying in shades from the coffee-and-cream of the empire's natives to the polished ebony of the Suftic tribes. The Sufts also brought with them the black hair and eye color, but that proved recessive against the burnished copper and deep brown of the city dwellers. The hair is thin and stiff – men cut it above their ears or shave it altogether, while women grow it long to their mid-backs then pin it up in elaborate styles.

The average male Ebean stands five feet six, the average female an inch or two shorter. They have toned and supple bodies, narrow shoulders and long legs, however standards of beauty demand men be muscular and straight as blades, and women curvy, soft and full. A skinny woman is considered ungainly and probably infertile; an overweight man is repulsive. Ebeans have very fine features, with strong cheekbones, full lips and almond-shaped eyes. Those of thicker Suftic blood have more body hair and distinctly high brows and square jaws.

With the Suftic conquest, ways were open to bring all types of dyes and fabrics once unknown into Ebea, and this change shows in the gaudy, bright fashions now popular throughout the empire. A hybrid has grown there as well – Ebean men have adopted the functional tribal outfits of the Sufts, while Suftic women wrap themselves in capes, silks skirts after the empire's fashion. An Ebean man wears a long shift, sleeveless, usually in white or pale blue or red, over that a long-sleeved vest dyed a rich shade decorated with many beads, and over that the long coat the Sufts call the tuyma, which is ankle-length and comes with a wide hood, wrapped at the top like a turban against the desert heat. Leather leggings, once ideal for long rides, have developed into a softer form for everyday use and joined, instead of riding boots, with Ebean sandals.

The women both enjoy and are expected to dress up, displaying both the riches of their men and their own revered status. The knee-length skirt with scores of ribbons trailing it is the trademark Ebean fashion article, often made in two layers so that the ribboned one can be comfortably removed indoors. Shirts have generous cleavages concealed by airy shawls, and very puffy sleeves that tighten again above the wrists, leaving the hands free to the woman's two most important tasks – cooking and writing. But the true fancy of the Ebean woman is in jewelry: anklets, medallions and hairpins.

== Families ==

It's important to understand that Ebeans recognize differences between men and women, not superiority in one or the other. Both traditionally and more powerfully due to Suftic influence, the Ebean man is the provider, not only to his family but to his entire society. The man is the arms and hands of the city-state and of the empire, who toils in the fields and with the livestock, plants and harvests and slaughters, and usually is a bit of a stranger is his own home. In that home, the woman rules, charged with raising her children, home-bound tasks like sewing and cooking – and with culture on all its aspects. Women are the politicians, engineers, writers, scholars and artisans of Ebea. The proverb goes: "Men's work feeds the talking women; women's talk drives working men."

Ebeans marry not in pairs, but in a 'kukota' or sibling group: a number of 'brothers' (all the male children of the parent group, who may have different pairs of parents) and an equal number of women from different families who are considered married to all the males. Marriages are arranged by the kukota when the children in question are very young: when an Ebean boy turns seven, his family will adopt a seven years old girl and raise her as their own, adopting another for each boy that reaches betrothal age. When the oldest pair reach legal majority, they marry; each new pair will marry into the kukota in turn, and the man will gain access to the older women in the group as wives while his brothers gain his agemate as an additional wife. Regardless of which of the male or female partners actually conceive and bear a child, that child considers the entire group as its 'parents' and all of the group's children as its 'siblings'. When the male children of the group grow up, they will again form a new group of their own. The parent and children kukotas usually live together in two separate wings of a house, with the household always headed by the oldest man and woman.

The Sufts, who have led a different lifestyle, marry in monogamic pairs. However, most of them have by now integrated into kukota-based Ebean families. Only in strongly Suftic-dominated areas, far from the heartland, can pair marriages still be found.

== Religious Belief ==

A thousand years ago, Ebean religion was animistic and totemic, revering any number of spirits. As thought and theology progressed, the concept became refined into a concept of a Platonic world of ideas. Some of the old religious practices remained as folklore, but most Ebeans no longer view the "spirits" in any anthropomorphic light, or even as sentient beings.

The Suftic tribes brought with them an array of divinities, a mythological jigsaw where no single story had only one version. At its most simplified, Suftic myth has four major gods, presiding over four pillars of human existence: hunting and foraging, breeding and child-rearing, warfare and defense, art and craftsmanship. These four gods are sexually ambiguous and are usually only addressed as their many various titles – the Hunter, the Mother, the Rider, the Smith and so on. All four are absolutely benevolent, the Sufts never believed their gods meant them harm or struck them down. That was the work of the devils, the greatest of which were Old Bastard Sun and the Howling Beast Sandstorm. The Sufts viewed most forces of nature as sentient, malevolent entities out to destroy them, held back by the hard work of them and their gods.

Suftic faith and Ebean theology made strange bedfellows. The latter did not so much change the former's structure as shift its focus. The four gods are still worshipped in private shrines especially in families of strong Suftic ancestry, but they mostly serve as the basis to a rich mythology. The concept of nature's demons, however, powerfully caught onto Ebean imagination, and the intangible Platonic ideals took on nefarious casts. Nature is full of demons bringing famine, frost, plague, infant death, storms, bad food, and so on, to mankind, who labors against them with the flimsy aid of civilization's gods. The Ebeans have no supernatural entity to appease, only to fight, and few to pray to. If there's anything they are not tolerant of in other cultures, it's "superstitions".

== Art and Design ==

The trademark Ebean craft, before and after the conquest, is glassblowing. Natural conditions make Ebea's sands perfect for making glass in all colors, and the empire's artisans have an amazing proficiency in the art. Glass is spun into vessels both for use and decoration, into beads, religious symbols, necklaces and bracelets, and any number of artifacts both for the art gallery and the household. An Ebean specialty is the glass image or miniature statue, usually portraying a mythological scene rich in color and detail.

Ebean visual art is usually abstract; their artists never developed a still life or landscape painting school, and portraits are rare as well. Paintings, most often frescos, focus on an aesthetic of color and geometry rather than portraying reality or myth. Sculpture has fallen mostly out of favor in recent times, and any material other than metal or glass has always been considered artistically inferior, anyway. Ebean jewelry has been powerfully influenced by its Suftic counterpart, and features mostly gold and copper in motifs of heavenly bodies and desert flowers. The most common precious stones in use in Ebea are the ruby and topaz.

The empire's natives focused more on philosophical debate and poetry in free verse before the conquest. Ebean poetry is mostly based upon puns, wordplay, sound-play, an internal meter and music. The Ebean poets strive towards ''biabat'', "sublime speech", in which both the sound of the words and their meaning would conjure exactly the same thoughts and images. They conceive of it as a sort of telepathy-through-language – similar to what Elves experience when sending.

The Sufts brought with them a new tradition – one of great mythological epics. Rather than writing poetry, Sufts memorize lengthy stories of their gods, heroes and ancestors, which the Ebeans put to writing and now greatly enjoy. Ebean written culture has been slowly but surely doing away with Suftic storytelling tradition since the conquest. What the Sufts did keep is their music – stormy dancing tunes played on many instruments, an ancient "hard rock", a sharp, shocking contrast to Ebean music, which was as delicate and precise as their poetry. Ebean instruments of choice are the lute and harp; the Suftic, the pipes and huge mutha, barrel drums. Fashion has only just begun to put the two styles together, and the results so far are… interesting.

== Science and Technology ==

Ebean thought and theory are highly advanced, and can give 500 BC Athens competition; Ebean practice, less so, best compared to Babylon at its height. The one thing the Sufts have been unable to contribute to at all has been technology. Ebean thinkers – for the most part women – have made exact astronomical calculations and measurements, are well-aware that the world is round and revolves around the sun, and know the length of the solar and lunar years, including a precise and useful calendar. Mathematics is a rich and highly developed field – analytical geometry is the latest rage in the empire. They have a primitive concept of atoms, and have been delving into a zoological and botanical classification system for some time, right now busily debating a very simplified theory of divinely-guided evolution.

But all this thought does not necessarily find its practical use in a land where thought and practice are very separate indeed. The Ebeans have yet to catch on to the fact that their strict gender separation hampers them a great deal in applying mathematics and engineering to everyday life – the transition from "women's talk" to "men's work" is a difficult one. As such, save for its system of wells and canals, Ebea had never truly taken on any remarkable feats of engineering. Construction techniques for houses are still rather primitive – most houses are built from clay, brick and white sandstone. Both the Ebeans and the Sufts are lacking at the forge, much prefer spears and bows to swords, and have no conception of a metal armor. Medicine, of all the sciences, is actually rather well-off, due to a weak taboo on examining dead bodies. The Ebean doctors angrily did away with Suftic practices of bleeding patients and drilling holes in bones to release demons living within, and spread instead the words of disinfection and a correct diet. Infant mortality is extremely low in the empire due to a real understanding of the mechanism of giving birth, and herbal contraceptives have been in regular use for hundreds of years to keep the population in check, instead.

The Ebean age of exploration and colonization, now at its height, is very swiftly perfecting maritime technologies. The compass is old news to the Sufts, in whose desert homeland there are magnetic rocks aplenty, but it was a shocking revolution to Ebean sailors, who are enamored with it enough to compose poems just in praise of this one invention. Ebea lacks proper wood to built truly durable ships – the ships of choice for the empire's sailors are clever little bireme galleys that travel in fleets of ten to fifteen, very often losing a ship on the way but no cargo or crew. It's an ironic turn that the Sufts, incredible navigators that they are, are genetically inclined to seasickness – the art of seaside navigation is still evolving for Ebea.

Education takes an important place in the lives of the empire's children. Young children are taught reading, writing, basic mathematics and a smattering of literature and history by their grandmothers, members of their family's oldest kukota. Children from all ends of society attend schools for three years between seven and ten, expanding their education; boys of richer families often complete six such years, and girls reach as many as eight years of schooling.

== Government and Economy ==

The empire and the tribes had very different and yet complementary systems of rule. Ebea has long been a coalition of city-states each ruled by a powerful family of aristocrats with unlimited power over the people. This power has been their undoing: eager to preserve the blood they saw as superior, they married within their own group of elevated families so often that the generation to face the Suftic invaders was rife with mental and physical problems.

Thankfully, as their rulers degenerated, the Ebean people found ways to adapt. In most city-states, a form of participatory democracy grew slowly that was open to all citizens over fifty. It was those huge "senates" that brought down the aristocrats, not the Suftic conquerors. The Ebeans were perfectly willing to accept Suftic authority by that time.

The Sufts were traditionally led by ''matas'', tribal mothers, councils of elderly women of which the oldest was senior. However, they quickly recognized that this system will not work on the level of a city, not to mention several cities. The system required some ironing out, but was at last established with minimal bloodshed.

In the Ebean city today, all citizens have a right to elect a "voting council" of sixty men and women over fifty years old, which function as a local senate. This council votes within itself and elevates two of its members – a city ''mata'', who can be either female or male (''maka''), and a ''ku-i-mata'' or empire's ''mata'' - always a woman - to represent them in the Council of Councils. This Council of Councils' seat is at Kariata, the Ebean capital, and it runs the empire as a powerful centralized ruling body. It is Kariata's own ''mata'' who is, in practice, the empress, although her right of veto is very much limited. Elections to the city's council take place every three years; elections to the Council of Councils, every five.

Taxes in Ebea are quite high, charged in currency with about 30% being sent to the capital. Ebea does not practice redistribution of resources: the money goes into a number of civil institutions such as public medical clinics, schools, "houses for the poor" and of course the maintaining of the wells and canals system, the cities themselves, the ports, and sanitation.

Ebean agriculture is quite advanced, making use of the plough and primitive seeding devices, animal power, and an efficient system of expertly dug wells and canals. Not many crops grow, but those that do are well-adapted to the climate and prosper: wheat and barley, grapes, olives, figs, dates, blood oranges, and the pride of the empire – pomegranates, the Ebean national fruit, some of which grow to be the size of a child's head. Goats and sheep are the livestock of choice, and oxen are prize animals. The Sufts brought two important new animals with them – horses, a fast, foul-tempered breed, and large, docile sheepdogs with coats the colors of the desert.

Except in times of drought, shortage was never an Ebean problem, and the empire had a fairly sufficient surplus to support the influx of the nomadic tribes. The shores of Ebea are rich and fertile, in contrast to the depth of the desert beyond the narrow strip in which the city-states are built. Yet Ebean economy is also dependent on the low mountains of that desert for a supply of metals – copper and iron highly abundant, gold is almost common, and gems come from the much deeper mines. The mountains also provide the colorful sands that go into Ebean glass art.

Ebean currency is made of copper and bronze and includes three basic units – the basic Tab (pure copper), the quarter-Tab (bronze) and the Ten-Tab (copper with a dusting of gold). A quarter-Tab is the price of a handsome clutch of grapes, and the price of a pair of healthy full-grown oxen – or a daughter for marriage – is about a hundred Ten-Tabs.

Despite a tradition of plenty, what really spurred on the Ebean golden age is the founding of colonies. Initially, worry about the growing population was what encouraged the first sailors out – now, Ebean economy is slowly becoming dependent on an influx of trade goods from any number of colonies in any number of neighboring lands. Spices, silks, ivory, exotic fruits (especially tomatoes), healing herbs and animal hides all flow into Ebea's ports regularly, and they have not been pricey for several decades now.

== Language ==

Suftic and Ebean are both dialects of a proto-language spoken by the first humans to arrive to the peninsula; they are not mutually comprehensible, but knowledge of one makes the other very easy to master. Ebean is much more commonly spoken today, as it is a much richer and versatile language.

Ebean is an agglutinative language, in which words are composed of distinguished morphemes rather than variants upon a root. It has a hard sound and staccato rhythm; like Japanese (and unlike Suftic, it should be noted). Ebean is characterized by a very precise approach to terminology, breaking down nouns to extremely exact descriptions, and is as such quite ideal for scientific and philosophical writing. While Ebean does not have different sociolects distinguishing social classes, as Suftic does, it does maintain a clear separation of pronouns regarding gender. The male words for "I", "me", "mine" are completely unlike the female words.

Suftic has no written alphabet; Ebean writing began on parchment and is written as a flowing script resembling Cham script.

A note on names: Ebean names should be "translated" as the elves' names are, and are mostly one word or two-word combinations derived from various plants, weather phenomena, precious metals and colors. Some select members of the colony are named Coriander, Saffron, Thunderchild, Silvercoil.

''An out-of-character note: Since we know better than to try and create a language here, and since your human mod is an ancient Mid-East nerd, we use Akkadian to represent Ebean. There are rather more convenient Akkadian dictionaries online than you'd expect.''

== Ebean colonization: ==

As foreign ties go, the Ebeans are perhaps the most benevolent colonialist empire that ever existed, for clear reasons. Once, the empire held the Suftic tribes in contempt; now that the Suftic conquest saved the empire, no Ebean will ever speak ill of another culture again.

The Ebeans treat the other human cultures they meet when building their colonies much as the Sufts treated them – moving in, integrating, teaching, sharing, and striving to establish a union that would be better than the sum of its parts. They don't always succeed, but they try their very hardest to never return hostility – only one colony to date ended up in a war, and the senate swiftly recalled the colonists all while still debating the empire's response.

"Ebea does not make war," the empire's children say. "There is enough of Ebea for everyone."

== The Ebean Colony ==

The colony on the land that the Ebeans call ''Eya-Lu-Ramat'', land of rich forests, is government-licensed, composed for the most part of expert workers and their families, come to harvest the unique tree sap. Since it is not the most prized resource, the colony is small – only about a fifty men and women, a dozen families made up of "half-kukotas", living in a small village the likes of which the Ebeans are already experienced in building and managing. The colony lives mostly off fields where they grow whatever Ebean crops that thrive in the unfamiliar climate, and off regular shipments from their motherland. They harvest the sap and sell it to the senate, which pays their venue in goods.

Family life in the colony is strictly regulated to make sure the population remains steady and that there are always enough working hands. The colony is not meant to be more than a trade outpost. Instead, the colonists live a rich communal life preserving and celebrating the traditions of the empire. The Ramat Colony is really a lot like an early kibbutz.

The colony is ruled by a senate-appointed mata, Coriander, and a senior engineer, who happens to be her husband, Thunderchild. Theirs is the final say, although a participatory democracy is practiced on most decisions. Coriander is an impressive woman with a host of personal problems she sets aside using her hard work, and while she isn't very loved by the colonists, her husband is, and together they command a great deal of respect.


== Ebean Exploration ==
[[Image:Thumb_hol_maps_ebean.jpg|frame|right|Ebean Exploration [http://www.rivertwine.com/artpageview.php?id=294 Full Size]]]

Ebeans are great explorers of the land, both by navigating riverways, and also sending out parties on foot. This is necessary to the colony's endeavor, as it is vital to identify the region's resources, as well as potential dangers; but, Ebeans also have a love of knowledge that leads them to want to get to know and to map the areas they colonize.

In reference to the map at right (see the [http://www.rivertwine.com/artpageview.php?id=294 Full Size] version), yellow dots show paths of exploration undertaken by Ebean settlers since their arrival and establishment of their colony in RTH 2471. Small red dots indicate the existence of the thornwall around the [http://www.rivertwine.com/artpageview.php?id=601 central Holt (Dentrees) area], that thus far has discouraged human exploring parties from coming any closer to the Holt itself. While the Ebeans do not travel the yellow-dot routes regularly (after the initial exploring/mapping trip), a party of human explorers might be found along any of those routes at any time up to the present. It is possible that, in the future, Ebean parties may explore further routes unmarked here.

Humans of River Twine Holt: The Burkno-Baha

2011-06-26T11:16:42Z

Crackle:

(Return to the [http://www.rivertwine.com River Twine Holt] website.)

''(article by Joan Milligan - posted 07/31/06, last revised 26/06/11)''

== HISTORY ==

Far away to the North and East, beyond the woods and river lands that the Elves know, the hills and forests belong to a human nation composed of many scattered clans – the Baha. These humans dwell still in the same lands where their ancestors began walking upright, living simple lives of hunting, gathering and warring among their clans as they have done for countless centuries – before the Fierce Ones came.

The Fierce Ones, as the Baha called the raider and slaver tribe that fell on them from the North, broke the nation apart, the clans unable to unite after being in conflict since the beginning of memory. The Baha clans were scattered. Most wandered south into the open hills, but one chose to stay in the woods and follow the sunset. Those are the Bukno-Baha – the Baha of the Sacred Tree. After long months of wandering, this small clan of humans, perhaps three hundred in total, set its home near the fertile river land, alongside unlikely neighbors.

== CULTURE ==

== Appearence ==

The Bukno-Baha are a very slight race of humans, men and women both standing an average of five feet three, slim, fine-boned, light and agile. They have milky-fair skin in sharp contrast to their deep black hair, which tends to be wavy and somewhat oily. Children of both sexes keep their hair cropped to flimsy fuzz until they undergo their rites of adulthood, at which point they start growing it long to their shoulders. Men braid their hair on the left side and women on the right; a woman will split her braid to two after having her first child and continue to add new braids for every new baby. Bukno-Baha have very round eyes in black, dark green or midnight-blue, and an elfin cast to their features, with small noses and thin lips. They appreciate androgynous beauty; both men and women are measured by the thickness of the hair, the roundness of the eyes and the set of the back and shoulders.

The clan has yet to find replacements for all the dyes they knew how to produce in their original homeland, and so their outfits are usually very plain except for what they get from the Ebean colony. They favor uneven cuts and layered clothing, attaching sheets of fabric rather than sewing a shirt or pants out of a single hide, looking for a variety of shades and textures. Men and women alike wear tight sleeveless shirts and long leggings, and favor all sorts of decoration. Women wear a lot of beads, usually made of bone, in long rows and patterns that look like an extension of the lines of their bodies – sometimes a whole beaded "skeleton", and always a circle over the womb. Men favor chokers and arm bands. Men paint their faces, and both sexes decorate their bare arms with patterns out of nature: animal hides, flowers and tree barks.

== Families ==

Bukno-Baha marry in pairs and keep strong extended family ties, especially between women. The girls of the Bukno-Baha choose their future husbands and initiate courtship and marriage, often setting up the men of their age group to be examined for health and strength or urging them to physical and mental contests. The initial marriage is a tentative thing and the couple still lives separately in their parents' households until the first child is born, at which point the marriage becomes final and cannot be broken, the man and woman are bound together for good, moving into their own wigwam. If no children are born, the union is naturally annulled after three years and both man and woman must find new partners.

The socially acceptable venue for those displeased with their marriage is same-sex relationships. It's not uncommon for an unhappily married man to disappear on long hunting trips with his "sweetest brother", or a woman to meet pseudo-secretly with her "sweetest sister" while her husband is away, so long as the children are still supported by both parents.

Despite that power of women, the Bukno-Baha are not a matriarchy. Only a man can be chief or shaman and only the men hunt and win the prestige of the hunt. The women are exempt from a number of ceremonies, and while outside and in public, a man who bows head before his woman is a man shamed. The woman's power is, by contrast, an absolute within her own wigwam, where she runs the family's affairs and can bludgeon her man verbally and physically to her heart's content – so long as she is submissive in public. "Every woman is a chief in her house" is the saying, "but no woman is ever chieftess."

== Religious Belief ==

The Bukno-Baha attribute creation to a single deity, Bo, featured in any number of stories and songs. Bo is actually a lot more like an experimenting child or a playful baby animal than a mighty god – he created the world through a series of games, childish messes, blunders and brilliant ideas that didn't turn out as expected. Bo can take any form, but his forms of choice were, while the Baha still lived in their old home, a boy with thick back fur all over his body, or sometimes a fisher cat. Now those cats are nowhere to be found, and instead, Bo's animal form is observed to be the pale-furred "spirit bears" of the woods, which astonish the Bukno-Baha. Accordingly, his boy-form's fur is now depicted as silver-white.

Bo does have a darker side – Yoro-Bo, the Thunderer, who strikes down those who break society's laws with nature's most capricious forces. Bo does not demand worship from the Bukno-Baha except that they tell stories about him; he is largely not interested in humans.

In Bukno-Baha myth, humans were created by accident when Bo tried to make a limestone statue of himself. Because he has no fixed form, he kept reshaping the statue, and the limestone chips became the Baha clans. Eventually he smashed the statue in frustration, and the Bukno-Baha hold that their clan was made from the statue fragments themselves. The image of Bo looking into a pool or river and being amazed by the inconsistency of his own form is a common one in Baha myth.

Bo is surrounded by a host of other deities with many names and natures, created accidentally in his various adventures, most of them concerned only with a particular feature of the world. A few major spirits include: Poyep the Hunter, who intercedes for humans with Bo and takes the souls of great hunters to be his hunting dogs; Bohi, the result of Bo’s one attempt to create himself a mate and equal, whom he turned human because he grew bored with her then set her spirit to suckles newly departed human souls; and Yon Aru, a busybody spirit in charge of reminding Bo to make the seasons change.

The figurehead of the Bukno-Baha's spiritual lives is the clan's shaman. Trained from early youth, the shaman uses psychoactive herbs, smoke and meditative dancing to enter a deep trance and then a state of glossolalia – speaking in tongues, in which he is believed to be speaking the language that Bo spoke to his spirit brood in the days before mankind. Equipped with this language, the shaman is empowered to bind, banish and bargain with spirits.

== Art and Design ==

The Bukno-Baha's arts of choice are storytelling and standup comedy. Because of their nomadic lifestyle, they rarely bothered with visual arts except talismans, small ritual carvings or the decoration of clothes; however, the ability to tell a good, especially funny story is greatly prized in the tribe. Most stories concern the distant, mythic past of the clan, or the various adventures of Bo and his minor godlings. Stories aren't simply told – they are acted out, sung and chanted, and sometimes reenacted with small puppets of wood and bone. Bo is never sculpted this way – he is always "played" by the storyteller's hand.

The Bukno-Baha call their standup comedy ''bayumop'', which literally translates "a dew of insults", with the implication being that said insults are supposed to freshen up those "washed" in them and disappear by the next morning. Around a fire one night, some member of the clan who has any qualm with any other will stand up, and start humorously telling the tale of his woes and conflicts, making fun of the character of all involved, including himself. If the ''bayumop'' is imaginative and funny, the audience will soon be in peals of laughter, and the offenders will risk no end of shame if they don't step up and apologize – or start their own show, detailing their side of the conflict. Eventually, whoever is wittier and funnier gets the better end of the deal. If the problem is resolved, the show is over, but if it persists, the clan will quote choice bits for weeks at end until peace is restored. A ''bayumop'' is an equal opportunity ritual – everyone, men, women and children, may raise their qualms against anyone, even the chief.

== Life Cycle and Rituals: ==

In the Bukno-Baha clan, children belong to an age group from they day they are born to the day they become adults. The first age group includes boys and girls up to the age of seven, who stay at home with their mothers. Then, one night, the older boys will storm through the village dressed in costumes and body paint, howling and screaming, and herd the younger boys out into the forest. The terrified children are warned that they are, right now, only prey, and then are handed their first bows, on which they will now learn to be predators. For the girls, the ritual is much simpler and gentler – when a girl enters the second age group, she gets to hold a baby for the first time, and is summarily introduced into the tasks of caring for her younger brothers and sisters.

The second age group includes children from the ages of seven up to twelve. This is when the boys are nicknamed "man-cubs" and focus all their might on learning to hunt, fish, forage and defend themselves. They sleep in their families' homes but spend all day together, learning and practicing. Between ten and twelve, the boys undergo another ritual of circumcision, nail clipping and shaving all their body hair – a symbolic shedding of skin. After that, and until their rite of passage at fourteen, they will live together in the ''ayom'', the boys' house, learn legends, herb lore and all about sex, and compete mightily for the growing girls who will come to pick husbands.

Girls will, at this stage, begin to learn to weave, gather, fletch arrows and chip tools – for them, this stage continues until menstruation. A girl's first course is marked with a great celebration among the clan's women. The men believe that the blood turns the women into powerful spirit-animals; they will cower in the wigwams, while the women dance through the camp rabid, naked and laughing, carrying the girl on their shoulders. That same night, the eldest woman will take the girl into her wigwam and teach her how to pick a husband and what to do to produce the healthiest, strongest child.

This is the girls' rite of passage – the boys' is much crueler. They are led out of the boys' house by a procession of hunters dressed as mythical monsters and animals. The women will wail, tear their hair and run to stroke and caress their sons and brothers as they normally would a loved one's dead body, but the boys may not react. They are dead now, and the animals are taking them to the forest to be devoured. The boys will walk all night through the worst conditions the forest has to offer, but they may not react, because they are dead. Only after dawn has risen and they are completely exhausted, are the boys allowed to draw their ritual knives and attempt to unmask the hunters – killing the animals and winning their way back from the underworld. The boys are now men and return to the clan to receive new names – but the boy who couldn't keep up in the journey or failed to cut any mask stays "dead", a pariah, until the next age group goes through the ritual.

== Science and Technology ==

The Bukno-Baha are a hunter-gatherer society just barely out of the Stone Age, practically at the Elves' technical level. Metals of all sorts are a very, very new concept to them, and their favored weapon in the hunt is the short bow and javelin. They are great masters of those weapons, however, and produce arrows that even elfin fletchers may envy.

Craft is an important thing to the Bukno-Baha women, who can win great prestige denied them in the hunt by making fine baskets, ropes, jewelry and tools. Those stone tools are primitive, but they work, including knives, scalpels, scrapping and knapping stones, exquisitely made needles, pins and combs of bone, and jugs made from river mud and burned in stone ovens. The jugs are a new invention in the tribe that mostly relied on water skins made from animal bladders, and not yet perfected.

Perhaps due to their (fortunate) natural resilience, the Bukno-Baha's medical practices are very primitive. They have, quite simply, yet to figure out that the problem, not the symptoms, should be treated. They have an array of herbs that ease fever and numb pain, but few that actually do anything against infection, and they swear by rationing the food a sick person is allowed, saying that the body is polluted enough.

== Government and Economy: ==

Technically, the clan is ruled by a chief, but in practice the chief is nothing without his Four Strong: the head of the hunters, the shaman, and the eldest man and woman in the clan. These four can dispute his decisions; even if he does not accept their opinions, if they have an agreement between them, they will quietly spread their own word through the clan and in most cases it is they, and not the chief, who will be obeyed.

Baha chieftainship is not hereditary - any chief can have a foolish son. When he gains his position, the chief is expected to select his heir from among the youths only just completing their rites of passage, and train him in the art of ruling from that day on. The shaman and head hunter do the same with their future replacements. Usually, only the shaman selects his apprentice without consulting the other Four Strong – if they do not approve of the chief's choice of heir, they are expected to present their own candidate to compete with him, and the chief may have to bow down to their decision.

The Bukno-Baha are hunters and gatherers who get all their food on their own. They manage their diet much like the Elves, sending out both hunting and foraging parties, living off whatever prey they can bring down or trap and whatever bounty the forests offer. Until their arrival West and their meeting with the Ebeans, the Bukno-Baha did not have a concept of agriculture, as they never stayed in one place for more than a season. They practice some trade in raw goods within their own clan, especially those craftsmen with some expertise, but at large it's a test of a child's adulthood that they can feed themselves and their families.

The Bukno-Baha domesticated a few animals – small wild dogs called ''moyuno'', more like foxes than wolves, the rare hunting hawk, and a species of omnivorous goats that don't as much travel with them as follow them around for the camp's leavings. They are skilled gatherers, but don't cultivate any plants, even medicinal.

== Language: ==

The Bukno-Baha have a simple language that is easy to learn in theory, but all but impossible to pronounce if you are not born into it. They have very fluid syllables, mixing "p" and "b", "r" and "l" and "v" and "f" seemingly freely. Bahato, does not have a written alphabet, and has so far proven too much for the Ebean letters to handle.

The Bukno-Baha's names are very often theophoric – making use of the name of a god, most often Bo, but not only. Male names will only end with "o" or a consonant, while female names will always end with any vowel except "o".

''An out-of-character note: Since we know better than to try and create a language here, we use Kongo to represent Bahato using online language resources.''

== The Bukno-Baha Village: ==

The Bukno-Baha live in their own section of the village, east of the Ebean section. They dwell in wigwam-like structures called ''saba'', round huts made of a light wooden framework with hides stretched over it, without any internal division organization. Extended families arrange their saba in a tight circle with a common firepit in the middle, where the women gather to cook and work together. There are two larger structures in the Baha village – a council hall and the boys’ house. The former would normally be just a larger saba, where the chief holds council with his Four Strong, mediates in particularly major conflicts between tribemates or prepare parties for raids and war. In the colony, it’s built of wood using Ebean techniques, and is thus quite large. The boys’ house is where boys between ten and fourteen, who have gone their second transition ritual but not yet their rite of passage to adulthood, live together – there are usually about ten of those, but the number varies. This is just a larger saba. There are no real streets in the Baha village, nor do they bother maintaining the land between saba circles – they just don’t see the point.

== Ebean/Baha Relations: ==

The Ebean colonists have arrived to the shores of the elves' homeland approximately forty years ago. They set up their colony, which grew slowly, surveyed the land but found it, so they thought, empty of other civilizations. Although children have already been born and grew to adulthood in the colony, it is still considered a small outpost in Ebean standards. The arrival of the Bukno-Baha from the East caught the settlers by surprise, but they were only happy to welcome them... with just a little bit of help from the elves of River Twine.

In the years that have passed since, a good welcome turned into a fast friendship between the peoples: agreements were drawn regarding land, resources and future trade, knowledge and resources are shared freely. The two groups coexist in easy harmony, avoiding any serious disputes so far – although both remain guarded about their native culture, and no mingling of blood has occurred yet.

2009-10-27T12:02:02Z

Crackle:

File:2009treasurehunt-second.jpg

2009-10-27T12:01:47Z

Crackle:

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2009-10-27T12:00:07Z

Crackle:

River Twine Contest & Game Awards

2009-10-27T11:58:07Z

Crackle:

The following are awards giving to winners of River Twine's art contest, fiction contests, and competition events.

Each contest is hosted with a theme, and 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prize award icons will be given to the winners chosen by vote on the message boards; when items are tied, multiple awards are given. Non-members are often invited to participate in the regular River Twine art & fic contests, with a "People's Choice" award voted upon by non-members at the ElfQuest.com Scroll of Many Colors site.

Competition events such as Treasure Hunts and Taal are held for members-only, and on average take place once a year.

The Quarterly Commenting contest began in January 2009, and the winner is selected at random from a pool of all comments placed by club members during a quarter.

== 2009 Summer Quarter Commenting Contest ==

''trophy pending''

== 2009 First Love Fiction Contest ==

''trophies pending''

== 2009 First Love Art Contest ==

[[Image:Rth-summerart09-first.jpg]] [[Image:Rth-summerart09-second.jpg]] [[Image:Rth-summerart09-third.jpg]]

== 2009 Taal Tourney ==

[[Image:2009taal_teamwork.png]] [[Image:2009taal_traveler.png]] [[Image:2009taal_roleplay.png]] [[Image:2009taal_champion.png]]

== 2009 Spring Quarter Commenting Contest ==

[[Image:2009spring_comments.png]]

== 2009 Life Cycles Fiction Contest ==

[[Image:rth-springfic09-first.jpg]] [[Image:rth-springfic09-second.jpg]] [[Image:rth-springfic09-third-amy.jpg]] [[Image:rth-springfic09-third-lyn.jpg]] [[Image:rth-springfic09-third-meg.jpg]]

== 2009 Seen It On The Telly AU Art Contest ==

[[Image:rth-springart09-first.jpg]] [[Image:rth-springart09-second.jpg]] [[Image:rth-springart09-third.jpg]]

== 2009 Winter Quarter Commenting Contest ==

[[Image:2009winter_comments.png]]

== 2009 A Thousand Words Fiction Contest ==

[[Image:rth-winterfic09-first.jpg]] [[Image:rth-winterfic09-second.jpg]] [[Image:rth-winterfic09-third.jpg]]

== 2009 A Thousand Words Art Contest ==

[[Image:rth-winterart09-first.jpg]] [[Image:rth-winterart09-first.jpg]]

== 2008 Reaction Shots Art Contest ==

''trophies pending''

== 2008 Blood of Chiefs Fiction Contest ==

[[Image:Rth-springfic08-award-first.jpg]] [[Image:Rth-springfic08-award-sec.jpg]]

== 2008 Myths, Legends & Fairy Tales Art Contest ==

[[Image:Rthspringart08award1ni2.jpg]] [[Image:Rthspringart08award2yj2.jpg]] [[Image:Rthspringart08award3jq7.jpg]] [[Image:Rthspringart08awardchoikn5.jpg]]

== 2008 Taal Tournament ==

[[Image:Taal2008_champion.png]]
[[Image:Taal2008_traveler.png]] [[Image:Taal2008_perseverence.png]] [[Image:Taal2008_roleplay.png]]

== 2007 Changes Fiction Contest ==

[[Image:2007changes_award1.jpg]] [[Image:2007changes_award2.jpg]] [[Image:2007changes_award3.jpg]] [[Image:2007changes_choice.jpg]]

== 2007 Treasure Hunt ==

[[Image:2007treasure_hunt_award1.gif]] [[Image:2007treasure_hunt_award2.gif]]
[[Image:2007treasure_hunt_award3.gif]]

== 2007 Summer Fun Art Contest ==

[[Image:2007summerfun_award1.jpg]] [[Image:2007summerfun_award2.jpg]]

== 2007 Games Elves Play Fiction Contest ==

[[Image:2007games_award1.jpg]] [[Image:2007games_award2b.jpg]] [[Image:2007games_award2a.jpg]]

[[Image:2007games_award3.jpg]] [[Image:2007games_award_choice.jpg]]

== 2007 Celebrating Our NPCs Art Contest ==

[[Image:2007npcs-award1a.jpg]] [[Image:2007npcs-award1b.jpg]]

[[Image:2007npcs_award2a.jpg]] [[Image:2007npcs_award2b.jpg]]
[[Image:2007npcs_award2c.jpg]]

[[Image:2007npcs_award3.jpg]] [[Image:2007npcs-award_choice.jpg]]

== 2007 Eclipse Fiction Contest ==

[[Image:2007eclipse_award1.jpg]] [[Image:2007_eclipse_award2.jpg]]

== 2006 Holiday Art Contest ==

[[Image:2006xmas_award1.jpg]] [[Image:2006xmas_award2.jpg]]

== 2006 You Ought To Be In Pictures Art Contest ==

[[Image:2006movie_award01.jpg]] [[Image:2006movie_award02.jpg]] [[Image:2006movie_award03.jpg]]

== 2006 Time Period Costume Art Contest ==

[[Image:2006timeperiod_award1.gif]] [[Image:2006timeperiod_award2.jpg]]
[[Image:2006timeperiod_award3.jpg]]

== 2006 Taal Tournament ==

[[Image:2006taal_champ.gif]] [[Image:2006taal_comeback.gif]]
[[Image:2006taal_traveler.gif]]

== Quarterly Commenting Contest ==

[[Image:comments_winter2009.png]]

File:Rth-summerart09-third.jpg

2009-10-27T11:57:53Z

Crackle:

File:Rth-summerart09-second.jpg

2009-10-27T11:57:33Z

Crackle:

File:Rth-summerart09-first.jpg

2009-10-27T11:56:10Z

Crackle:

Membership FAQ

2009-02-25T16:28:49Z

Crackle: /* Annual required CIS updates */

(Return to the [http://www.rivertwine.com River Twine Holt] website.)

== Glossary of Important Terms ==

* CIS: character information sheet
* IC: in-character
* MB: message board
* NPC: non-player character -- generally an adoptable waiting to be adopted.
* PC: persona character
* PM: Player-Member
* OOC: out-of-character
* RM: Reader-Member
* RP: role-playing
* RTH: River Twine Holt

== Import Club Email Addresses ==
* council@rivertwine.com
* help@rivertwine.com
* wiki@rivertwine.com
* stories@rivertwine.com
* artwork@rivertwine.com
* contests@rivertwine.com
* characters@rivertwine.com
* cisadmin@rivertwine.com
* joining@rivertwine.com

Additionally, all current members have email aliases determined by the persona they own and operate (i.e.: farscout@rivertwine.com, willow@rivertwine.com).

== Important Club Dates ==
* Winter Quarter: January 1 through March 31
* Spring Quarter: April 1 through June 30
* Summer Quarter: July 1 through Sept. 30
* Autumn Quarter: October 1 through December 31
* Annual CIS updates: required between June 1 and June 30.
* Annual Secret Santa holiday gift program: sign-up deadline in October; submissions due by December 23.
* Regular art trades and fic trades are opt-in, and run on a two-month cycle.

== OOC History of River Twine Holt ==

River Twine Holt was created in May of 2006 by former members of Rushwater Holt, who lamented the loss of the story- and art-based 'zine-style club. Hopes of reviving Rushwater turned to the opportunity of creating a new Holt, with new characters and a new traditional wolfrider setting. A chief was declared, a council of five members was selected to serve as the chief's advisers, a messageboard was set up, a webpage was crafted, and RTH was off to the races.

The Council's first trial by fire was to enforce the participation and communication agreements decided on by the group as a whole, which resulted the dismissal of the chief himself for lack of participation. The chief character became a council-supported NPC, to be run and approved by agreement of the council.

The primary focus during the first six months of the club was the creation of the existing cast of characters, including NPCs. Different members volunteered to oversee the development of different arenas of world building, including: flora (Amy), fauna (Cindy), human tribes (Joan), Preservers (Trena), tribal genealogy (Whitney), tribal history (Holly & Whitney), trolls (Heidi & Vicki), and wolves (Fey, Holly & Whitney). Ellen Million was responsible for the creation of the message boards and website, with input from Whitney's husband, Ron Swartzendruber.

== Some RTH Firsts ==

The first piece of art submitted was Vicki Stephanson's portrait of Evervale (June 2006); the first story submitted was "Ghosts" by Whitney Ware (June 2006). Our club's website went live in July 2006.

== How does the Council operate? ==

A Holt run by a single "chief" survives upon the dedication and motivation of a single member. A Holt operated by a board of directors can harness the shared dedication and motivation of multiple members, providing the entire organization with a safety net in terms of long-term survivability.

The first five members of the Council were selected in May 2006 by Chief Tommy Jeffers. There is currently no term limits policy for Council members; in practice, council members serve until they choose to resign, and new Council members are selected by vote of the existing Council from candidates who have volunteered for the duty. Members of the Council expect to be held accountable for club decisions by the membership, and Council members rely on club members to raise issues, concerns,and questions to the Council.

== What is expected of Council members? ==

The Council hopes to meet the following communication standards:

* Members who ask for Council feedback will receive an immediate response assuring them that their question has been received, and promising a timely response. Questions directed at the Council via the message boards will have a post made notifying members that the Council is taking up the item for discussion.

* The Council will attempt to resolve questions within a 5-day turnaround -- of course this is not always possible, but it's a goal we will strive to meet. When more than five days are necessary to bring a matter to a resolution, the Council will send the asking member a courtesy note to let them know the matter hasn't dropped into limbo.

* When issues are resolved, the individual who asked the question will receive a personal note from a Council member regarding the decision; likewise, when an issue is raised via the message boards, public notes will be left on mb threads indicating the Council's decision. Decisions made by the Council will be recorded in the Decisions Log thread, and when appropriated, added to the wikisite as well.

* If the Council makes a public promise, that promise must be kept! If there are delays regarding a self-imposed deadline, then recognition of those delays should be made publicly; council members who need help should ask for help to meet that deadline as soon as possible. Council members have the responsibility to help one another meet these public promises.

Additionally, Chief Windburn is currently under the ownership of the Council. For as long as the Council owns & operates this NPC, each Council member will be responsible for at least one submission of their choice per year for Windburn (this can include art or fic trades).

Council members who are team leaders of a specific team (such as character approvals team or story approvals team) are expected to be proactive and involved members of that team, shouldering a fair share of the team workload. Council members who are mods for specific discussion threads on the message boards are expected to cycle out old discussion threads to the general archives in a timely way, such as once every month for the heaviest traffic parts of the board.

== Past Council Members ==
* Trena Driessen (August 2006 to March 2007)
* Mary Jo Jeffers (August 2006 to April 2007)
* Ellen Million (April 2007 to December 2007)
* Leonie Jonk (August 2006 to January 2009)

== Current Council Members ==
* Heidi Henderson (August 2006 to present)
* Holly Hutchison (January 2008 to present)
* Leonie Jonk (August 2006 to present)
* Joan Milligan (August 2006 to present)
* Whitney Ware (March 2007 to present)
* Amy Chandler (February 2009 to present)

== Founding Members of River Twine Holt ==

The following members all joined within the first few weeks of the club and are responsible for the creation of the first player-character owned elves.

* Linda Aarts (Snowfall)
* Amy Chandler (Longshot)
* Trena Driessen (Whispersilk)
* Sarah Clawfoot (Suddendusk)
* Wendy Fowler (Nightstorm)
* Kim Gaeble (Kestrel)
* Gills (Windsong)
* Jaci Heinen (Foxtail)
* Heidi Henderson (Willow)
* Mary Jo Jeffers (Chicory)
* Tommy Jeffers (Chief Far Cry)
* Leonie Jonk (Dreamflight)
* Stacy Lucas (Moss)
* Fey McKercher (Rainpace)
* Joan Milligan (Crackle)
* Ellen Million (Greenweave)
* Cindy Pruitt (Quick Fang)
* Vicki Stephenson (Evervale)
* Rachel Vardys (Cloudfern)
* Whitney Ware (Farscout)
* Christina Westgate (Goldspice)
* Matt (Thornbow)

== What happens when a new member asks to join? ==

When new members join River Twine Holt, their request automatically goes to the River Twine Council. Reader-Memberships are generally approved immediately, unless the Council has just cause to deny the request. Player-Memberships, which involve the adoption of a character, are a more involved process. The Council immediately gives the prospective PM a friendly interview, both to ensure a new PM's happy transition into the club, and to make sure that the new PM is adopting a character they will prove compatible with. PMs who find they've adopted the wrong character will be welcome at any time to trade in their character for another available NPC. Again, the Council does reserve the right to deny PM requests or adoption requests, when the Council feels it has just cause to do so.

Once new members join, they are given a website account, a RTH alias email, and are asked to create a MB account. The website and the MB are two different systems, and members do have to apply for their account to the MB, whereas the website account is created automatically.

All members are required to join under their real identities; it's fine for members to participate under pseudonyms, but the Council needs to know a member's real name. Joining the club under false pretenses is grounds for immediate dismissal. Additionally, sockpuppeting a false membership is also grounds for immediate dismissal from the club.

== What will my participation requirements be when I first join? ==

Acknowledging that new members join while a quarter is in progress, the council has clarified what the expectations are for new member participation. New Player-Members must participate (meaning, submit art or writing) by the end of the first *full* quarter after they join. While we would of course like to see a new member begin participating as soon as possible, they may not have time to do so in the partial quarter in which they join. But, if a new member has not submitted anything by the end of the next (full) quarter, they will be deactivated. A new Reader-Member must post at least one comment on art or stories to the website by the end of the first *partial* quarter that they have joined.

If a new member joins very late in the quarter, or finds it difficult to meet the participation requirements, they are welcome to contact the Council before the quarterly deadline, and the Council would be glad to help.

== What are the differences between a Player-Member and a Reader-Member? ==

A Player-Member (PM) owns and operates a character at River Twine Holt. As such, they have increased quarterly participation requirements, and are required to update their character's CIS once a year during June. In return, they have full message board priviledges and website access.

A Reader-Member (RM) does not own or operate a character at River Twine Holt, and is required only to comment on art or stories on the website during the course of a quarter in order to retain their status as a Reader-Member. Reader-Members have full website access, partial access to the message boards (including some limitations on voting in certain types of polls), and the opportunity to be first in line to adopt characters when they become available. RMs are encouraged to create art or fic when they please, and to participate in the quarterly contests; they are expected to participate by all of the regular submission rules & regs, including obtaining permissions from PMs for the art or fic they create.

== What is RTH's policy for returning members? ==

Former members who wish to return to River Twine Holt are welcomed back with open arms. Returning members will be treated the same as any other new member -- they will be welcome to adopt any of the available characters. (Previously owned personas will not be removed from another member in order to be returned to a returning member.) All artwork and stories previously submitted will be relinked to a returning member. However, returning members are required to rejoin under their original name & identity.

Note: Sockpuppeting (operating an email account under false pretenses) will be grounds for immediate expulsion. '''Please remember: honesty is always the best policy!'''

== How does the art approval process work? ==

All art to the club is submitted to artwork@rivertwine.com. Artists are expected to have received approval for art featuring other members' characters before a piece is submitted. Once art is submitted, it is thumbnailed and uploaded into the website's database, where it is then linked to all appropriate gallery categories. The club's first Art Director was Trena Driessen; the current Art Director is Whitney Ware.

'''Value of "doll" art''': Doll art is always awarded at "sketch" level (.5). Doll art is only accepted for existing developed personas; doll art is not being accepted to represent ancestors, unless existing ancestor art for that individual already appears on the club website.

'''Recycled art''': We're happy to accept recycled art (art created originally for another club), so long as the artwork is art is equally representative of the RTH tribe or environment. Regardless of whether a showcase, sketch, or finished piece, will only earn a certain amount of points (.5). Recycled art cannot be applied toward the quarterly participation requirements. No more than eight pieces/four points of recycled art will be counted per quarter towards our seasonal participation awards.

'''Copying, References, and Plagiarism:''' Plagiarism of any form (tracing someone else’s artwork or claiming someone else’s writing for your own) is grounds for immediate cancellation of your membership. While drawing freehand from references is fine, tracing or mechanical copying of other artwork is not allowed (even if it is adapted). Art that is considered too much a copy of another existing artwork will not be posted (this determination will be made by the council, and it will be discussed with the artist). Plagiarism (trying to pass others' work off as your own, including close copies of others' work) is grounds for loss of membership.

== How does the story approval process work? ==

'''Review Process''': Members are expected to receive all necessary approvals for a story before it is submitted to the Story Approval Team for review; members are also expected to run a spell check on their submission, perform basic line editing for punctuation, grammar, and date the story for placement on the timeline. Stories are submitted to stories@rivertwine.com. Once submitted, stories are posted to the Story Review Team on the message boards, where members of the team review the story. The team goal is to return reviews within a seven day turnaround, when possible. Once the story reviews are made, then a single individual (called the "handler") compiles those comments into a single constructive review, which is returned to the member for revisions. Some stories may take more than one revision before they are cleared to be posted on the website, and some stories are cleared to be posted without any revision requests at all.

The Story Approval Team has a sometimes-tricky task of trying to balance the individual needs of the writer with overall club continuity. They keep an eye on the use of NPCs and ensure that NPCs remain consistent to character, try to ensure that group continuity remains consistent with the world of River Twine Holt, etc. The current Story Approval Team members are Heidi Henderson (Team Leader), Amy Chandler, Holly Hutchison, Joan Milligan, and Whitney Ware. Interested volunteers for the team should contact Heidi at willow@rivertwine.com.

Some storylines will by necessity require approval of the Council: any encounter with humans, any encounter with trolls, any encounter with wild magic. Additionally, any storyline which has a wide impact on the tribe (for example: an elf child goes missing for several days) should be consulted with the Council, to help determine what the Chief's response will be.

'''Value of Fic''': Stories are counted on the basis of 650 words = 1 page = 1 point.

'''Value of Poetry''': Poetry is generally considered to be worth .5 points. However, if a member believes their poem is longer than usual, a personal masterwork, or otherwise demonstrates more effort, they may request more points, to a maximum of 2. Final point distribution is decided by the story approval team.

''Token "No Elf Is An Island" Reminder'': In such a small and interwoven community like the River Twine tribe, no elf is an island and that events are rarely isolated to affecting only one character. There is no character of the tribe who does not have close relatives or close friends, and part of the fun (and the challenge!) of a club like River Twine is seeing how events and story threads weave unexpected from one author's work to the next. So never hesitate to ask yourself "How does the events in this story affect my elf?" and follow the ripples from their source!

== How does the character approvals process work? ==

All CISes (character information sheets) went through an approval process with the CIS Approval Team. Characters are expected to be written/drawn in a way that reflects what is in their CIS. Owners should continue to update the CIS with new information (such as new life developments, or things reflected in stories) Proposals for significant changes to a CIS, and thus to the character, should be submitted to the CIS Approval Team. In general, notable changes to a character will also require some in-character support such as a story or art submission, in order to "show" the rest of the club that character's development in a new direction. Additionally, owners may want to post to the MB whenever they update their character's CIS with things like hairstyle, costume, hobby, or weapon-mastery changes, so that other writers and artist will be sure to notice the update.

== Can I create a wanderer character? ==

While it is very likely that there are other tribes of elves existing on the world, the elves of River Twine Holt have never encountered other elves since Wolfsister and her band split from their band of High Ones and first-generation offspring, a little more than two thousand years ago. No "wandering elves" or "sole survivors of their destroyed tribe" elves can be introduced into the River Twine Holt.

In early 2006, the Council was asked to consider the introduction of tribe of sea elves and a tribe of gliders. At that time, the Council declined to pursue the development of any additional elf tribes, as doing so would prove a huge investment of time and creative energy, and distract members from the existing world-building that was still ongoing. This is a decision that can be revisited someday in the future, if a time comes when the Council finds that expanding the club's creative focus won't prove distracting from the existing tribe and characters.

== Can I play two elves at once? ==

No. Player-Members can only own one elf persona at a time. However -- all members are always welcome and encouraged to create art and fic about NPCs or about other member-owned characters; if you have ideas you wish to pursue about other characters, please approach that character's owner or (in the case of NPCs) the Council.

== Can I own and operate an ancestor character? ==

At this time, PMs can only own and operate one elf (living) persona at a time. Ancestor characters can be further developed by individual members, but creative control of all ancestors reverts to the club's Council. (Tip: if you're particularly enamored with an ancestor elf, be sure to write up a detailed CIS, as the CIS is what the Council uses to determine whether or not NPC usage is kept in-character!)

== Can I own a troll character, or one of the Ebea or Bukno-Baha humans? ==

Possibly. That's a bridge we haven't crossed yet, but may consider in the future.

== When I join and adopt a character, how much freedom do I have to alter that character to my liking? ==

Great question -- and one that takes a little consideration first. In many clubs, characters are temporary elements that cycle in and out as membership fluctuates. At River Twine Holt, the entire club is structured around a stable population of elves. New elves will be born and existing characters will die in the cycle of life in their fictional world, but characters won't disappear on command with changes in membership, and strange new elves won't just suddenly appear on the horizon. After the last of the existing elves of the tribe were created and approved in December of 2006, new members to the club are required to adopt existing NPCs. These characters come with established histories and established "looks" which may or may not completely appeal to their new owners.

The club's baseline for adopted characters is that a newly adopted character cannot be significantly altered from what's already "in print" -- by that, we mean approved in a character sheet or posted in existing art or fiction. Once a character fact goes into the club's continuity, that character fact needs to be respected and left unaltered. However, this still gives a perceptive new member some wriggle-room. Most of the elves in the tribe have been alive for decades, or even hundreds of years. That means there is a *lot* of opportunity for new stories to be told about those as-yet-unexplored life experiences. Likewise, new storylines can be developed to show a character's personality developing in new ways. And a character's physical appearance can always be altered -- within reason. Hair color and eye color won't change, but clothing can always be retailored (and again -- especially for characters who've been around for decades or centuries, there's always room to explore and detail a character's previous fashion history). Any really dramatic change in a character's appearance (new clothing, change in hairstyle, etc.) will require some in-character explanation... but that just means you've got great possibility for new storylines in your hands, and if as a new member you can't think of a why to explain a new fall fashion for your newly adopted character, then please post a note to the message boards and recruit a collaborator to tell that tale!

== What if I find I'm tired of my current character? ==

If that happens, you're welcome to trade in your existing elf in favor of one of the current NPCs. Or contact the Council and put your name on a waiting list, in order to get first dibs on adoption when babies get born, or current characters turn NPC.

== My elf’s wolf-friend is dead – how do I get another? ==

Although the wolves of the River Twine pack are significantly more long-lived than their natural cousins, they do have a lifespan of 25 to 30 years. Life for wolves is a dangerous thing, and wolves can die at any age from injury, starvation or illness. Most elves can expect to have *at least* four wolf-friends each century. In-play, this means that it won’t be unusual for characters to lose wolf-friends, and then have to forge new bonds.

The passing of a wolf-friend is an event due some respect, as is the experience of a new bonding. (And we hope you’ll memorialize both the loss and the new bond for your elf with fic or art!) Members who own characters with elderly wolves may also find themselves asked by the Council to have an old wolf pass on, in order to keep some balance in the pack.

To select a new wolf-friend for your elf, you have three choices:

a) select one of the currently available pups (pups are available on a first-come/first-serve basis)

b) select one of the available unbonded adult wolves described on the wolves section of the River Twine Wiki (note – when considering the adult wolf of your choice, consider why the mature wolf would be attracted to your elf as a bond-friend – many of these mature wolves are personalities in their own right, and a bond relationship is a two-way street!)

c) if there are no currently available pups, and none of the existing unbonded adults appeal to you, then put your name on a waiting list for the pick of next year’s litter!

Mature wolves will have some limited personality & physical description already determined for them, but members are free to create the personalities and descriptions for new pups, within the following guidelines:

* Pups can be bonded with at any point once they’ve physically begun to be weaned by the alpha female of the pack (pups are approximately six weeks of age at this point). Breeding season for the alpha male & female is normally late in the first month of the year; pups are born approximately 63 days later, early in the fourth month; pups would then be beginning to be weaned in mid-month of the fifth month. Additionally, wolves take at least a year to become full-grown; elf children might sneak rides on their wolf-bonds before a wolf is a full year of age, but this is frowned on, as it can cause damage to a wolf’s joints, causing future disability.

* We expect wolves to be “normal” looking: natural grey-wolf coloring is preferred with its natural range of color phasing allowed. Some allowance made for EQ-comics-style coloring (i.e. more solid coat colors). Please no wacky coloring/patterns. Albino wolves are extremely rare (no more than one at a time in the pack) and will be expected to have associated health issues: bonded albinos will always be omegas within the pack, and unless bonded as pups will be chased out of the pack at an early age.

* Wolves don't have the same range of eye colors as the elves. Eyes will be in a yellow/amber range, except for albino blue or pink. (While cubs, wolf eye colors will sometimes go through subtle color variations while the eyes change from the baby blue-grey color to adult gold.)

* You can submit drawn or painted artwork to represent your wolf. Otherwise, wolf photo portraits will be used to represent each wolf-friend. Please choose a snapshot from Monty Sloan's site (we have his permission to use his photos on our website as representational of our fictional pack). Please don't submit reference photos or art from anywhere else, without written permission of the photographer or artist. (If you have another reference pic you prefer, talk to one of our artists about creating a piece of art from it.)

* Throwback wolves are very rare, and will be limited to only two in-play within the pack at any time. (Our current throwbacks are Moss’s Weasel and Beetle’s Rooter.)

If at any time you intend to replace your character’s wolf-friend with a new one, email your wishes to the Council. (Understand that we do hope you’ll be creating fic or art to represent this important time of passage in your character’s life!) Additionally, every year in-play, the Council will look at the existing wolf pack and, taking into account the individual ages and temperaments of pack members, will shift the hierarchy accordingly. If you have any particular wishes for your character’s wolf-friend in term of increasing or deceasing their pack rank, please communicate this with the Council!

Additionally: once you determine you will replace an existing wolf-friend with a new one, you are asked to update your elf's CIS form with relevant information ASAP; please keep information regarding the old wolf under the "additional wolves" section of the CIS, for continuity purposes. We would also recommend posting a note to the message board regarding the new wolf friend, alerting other artists and authors to the date of the planned change.

== What happens when I decide I need to leave the club? ==

The continuity of River Twine Holt is built upon the existing characters, and all of the artwork and stories created in support of those characters. As a result, River Twine Holt refuses to ever "disappear" a character owned and operated by a departing member, and we are reluctant to remove from our archives and website any artwork or stories created in support of a character. Each departing member's requests will be handled on a case-by-case basis, and the Council will do it's best to juggle the individual's needs versus the continuity needs of the entire group. If you have specific requests or requires upon your departure, please discussion them with the Council, and we will work with you to find an end-result that best respects your needs, and the needs of the club as a whole.

As a matter of standard practice, the MB forum handles of departing members will be changed if the member had been operating under the name of a tribal character (i.e. Farscout, Greenweave, Longshot). Likewise, email accounts featuring the character's name (i.e. farscout@rivertwine.com) will be deactived until the character has been readopted by new ownership.

== What is the mentor program, and how does it work? ==

It always helps new members who join to have a friendly mentor who's willing to help answer questions and welcome a new member to the club. At River Twine Holt, mentors are volunteers who are ready and willing to to assist the Council by performing the following tasks when they've been assigned a new member:

* Mentors are asked to make early friendly contact with new members and give them a warm welcome to the club.
* Mentors are asked to help a new member "learn the ropes" as much as the new member needs. This means asking to answer any questions a new member has, and if necessary, direct the new member to the admin who can answer it.
* Mentors are asked to remain in close contact with a new member during their first few weeks in the club.
* Mentors should be aware that some new members will be "self starters" and some will need more mentoring than others. Mentors are asked to take some initiative in helping a new member get jump-started in the club -- this could include one or more of the following: offering to participate with a new member with their first collab, hosting a story-building RP for a new member, helping brainstorm with a new member regarding possible storylines, etc.

Any member who wishes to volunteer to be a mentor for River Twine Holt is welcome to volunteer by emailing cisadmin@rivertwine.com, or simply council@rivertwine.com.

== How do the Art and Fiction Contests work? ==

Fic or Art Contests are generally scheduled to run every three months, although the schedule can vary. Each contest will have a theme, and 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prize award icons will be given to the winners chosen by vote on the message boards; additional bonus prizes may be offered as well by contest sponsors. Participants can contribute as many entries as they desire; however, if there are multiple participants, each individual may only receive one award. Individual members are welcome to host their own private contests as well, with prior approval from the Council.

All contest art and fiction must feature River Twine Holt characters and the River Twine Holt setting (unless specifically stated otherwise in the contest description). All contest entries must receive member approvals where necessary; the Council will help non-member participants in obtaining any necessary approvals.

'''Public Participation in Fic or Art Contests''': Non-members will be invited at times to participate in the regularly scheduled River Twine art & fic contests. Non-members will be eligible for participation under the same rules as members, and will be granted prizes (1st, 2nd, and 3rd prize award icons, with winners chosen by public vote on the River Twine message boards. Participants can contribute as many entries as they desire; however, if there are multiple participants, each individual may only receive one award. Unless otherwise noted in the description for each contest, all contest art should be generally PG13 in rating.

Non-member contest participation does NOT equate membership to River Twine Holt. Non-member contest participants are entitled to receive all comments on their work and any awards won, but no other members-only benefits such as persona ownership or full access to the message boards. By participating, non-members agree to their work being displayed on the River Twine website; River Twine Holt guarantees the work being credited to its creator.

A contests@rivertwine.com account exists for members to submit their contest entries too.

== Message Board Etiquette ==

* All members are asked to create Message Board accounts using their character name. Character names are reserved for use by the ''current'' owner of a character.
* Message board access is limited to members-only.
* MB threads are NOT to be erased. All old threads are to be transferred into the appropriate archive, so they will be available for future reference.
* Threads asking for volunteers or concerning volunteer assignments should not be archived until those assignments/commitments are either turned in, or the member indicates they are unable or unwilling to complete their tasks.
* Signatures have been enabled at the boards, however, there will be restrictions on them. First, no graphics (i.e. banners) are allowed. Second, you get three lines of standard sized text or 500 characters, whichever comes first. It should include your real name (or whatever it is you are called as a person), and your elfname if it is not already your username. Violations will be edited by the forum mods.

== Annual required CIS updates ==

All CISs should be kept current, as characters grow and change as they are played. A mandatory CIS update period is held every June: members have between the 1st and the 30th to log into the website, review their character’s CIS, and update it accordingly. The webbase will automatically track all updates, and the council member who heads up our Character Approval Team will receive automatic notification from the system of all changes to a CIS. Failure to update the CIS during the mandatory time period will result in the member going on probation for the summer quarter (July-August-Septemer) even if they have fulfilled their participation requirements for the previous quarter. If by September the CIS has not been updated, the member will lose the character. While this may seem harsh, it is the Council's belief that up-to-date CISes are important for immersion and conduct in the club and show an ongoing interest in the character.

The minimum change required to fulfill the mandatory update requirement is the adjustment of the character's age (the addition of a year). Further changes that reflect character growth are of course welcome. Additionally, CISs can be updated throughout the year, as a member feels motivated to do so.

Suggestions to keep in mind when updating the CIS:
* changes in a character's relationships
* any change in status of wolf-friend
* any new possessions of note?
* any change in skills or hobbies worth note?
* take a moment to review the artwork and stories in which your character has participate in the past year. Anything there to inspire you to update in the CIS?

== What are the membership requirements again for keeping my RTH character? ==

All members must support their character through the submission of one piece of art or one or more written submissions (totaling 500 words or more) per annual quarter. Members who fail to participate for more than two quarters in a row may have their membership revoked. Submission requirements need not necessarily feature your own character to meeting this requirement: for example, an art trade picture you've created of another member's elf satisfies our quarterly submission requirement.

== What happens if I fail to meet my submission requirements for a quarter? ==

A member who fails to participate during a quarter gets put on probationary status. Probationary members can return to non-probationary status simply by participating during the successive quarter (and of course, by completing any fic or art commitments they may be overdue on, particularly art trade or fic trade commitments). Probationary members MUST meet the participation requirements for the second quarter; while it's appreciated if they can retroactively meet the missed participation requirements, this is not required (a probationary member is not in a hole they must dig themselves out of). However, if a probationary member fails to meet the participation requirements for the successive quarter, their membership is revoked and their character becomes an NPC. (Rest assured -- this decision never takes place without ample communication from the Council first.)

== Can I repost my RTH art or stories elsewhere? ==

Individual members have the right to repost their own art and stories as they see fit. We especially appreciate it when a plug is made for River Twine (we've got banners available), and/or if you mention the names of the owners who approved the use of their art/characters in your.

== How does the art trade/fic trade system work? ==

The Art Trade and Fic Trade program runs regularly throughout the year. In general, each time members are asked to sign up if they wish to participate. Participants are then given character assignments based on which other members are participating for that particular trade session, and are given a two-month deadline to create art or fic for character they've been assigned.

Art Trade: runs on a two-month schedule. Artists sign up to portray another artist’s character; in return, they’ll be receiving artwork featuring their character.

Fic Trade: runs on a two-month schedule. Writers sign up to write a story or poem featuring another writer’s character; in return, they’ll be receiving a story or poetry featuring their character.

George (Art/Fic) Trade: runs on a three-month schedule. Artist and writer members are paired off to trade their respective skills, featuring one another’s characters. Partnered members determine for themselves how independent or collaborative their respective efforts will be.

It's not unusual for artists or authors to find they need more time to finish an assignment; some overlapping assignments will be allowed, but once a member has there or more overdue assignments, they cannot participate in future art or fic trades (or Secret Santa assignments) until the overdue assignments have been completed.

All art or George trade artwork should be submitted to artwork@rivertwine.com; all fic trade stories should be submitted to stories@rivertwine.com. Character approvals for art & stories must be obtained (where necessary) before submission are made.

== I signed up for the art trade/fic trade, but failed to produce my trade by deadline. What happens to me now? ==

It's understood that when a member signs up for an art trade or fic trade, that they will make good on their commitment, especially since they are receiving someone else's efforts in trade. It's also understood that sometimes, finishing a project may take longer than expected. Members who are overdue on three or more trade commitments will be cut off from further participation until all of their overdue commitments have been completed.[/b]

== What if I've got a great idea about doing something differently? ==

Write to the Council and give them a detailed proposal of what it is you want to do! The world of River Twine Holt is a shared creative effort, and everyone is encouraged to make their own creative stamp.

== Where do I find the RP? ==

We understand that most ElfQuest clubs out there today are based on RP (role playing), either through message boards or by email. River Twine Holt is different: we're role playing the old school way, through the creation of stories and artwork. As a result, we do not have organized RP.

We do have a section on the message boards where individual members can host a public or private RP (some of our authors enjoy generating stories in this fashion). And of course, individual members are welcome to hold private email RPs with one another (again, another method of story writing that some of our authors enjoy). But by and large, our RP opportunities are very limited, and if you really want to RP, expect to host the opportunity for yourself through recruiting other members on the MB or via email.

Additionally, nothing that happens in an RP is included in club canon: it's not "real" until you turn it into a story or put it in art.

== What's the plan for the characters now in wrapstuff? Can I adopt one? ==

As of December 2008, adoption requests are being considered from members or prospective members who are interested in adopting characters currently in wrapstuff. Interested parties are requested to contact the Council at any time prior to these characters being made available for adoption, by writing to the Council at council@rivertwine.com. At the time the character is removed from wrapstuff, if there is more than one individual interested in adopting a particular character, the Council will further interview qualified adopters and make their decision based on a variety of factors, including member participation history and expressed character development plans.

The Council does not expect to see wrapstuff characters beginning to come out of their cocoons until early summer 2009 at the soonest; characters will be released from wrapstuff on a staggered schedule, and the Council retains the option of having one or more wrapstuff characters fail to survive the awakening-process. Adoption options are simply being discussed now in order to help members plan ahead for the Big Event(s)!

Members who are chosen to adopt a wrapstuff character must, by necessity, give up their existing character ownership.

== What is the Quarterly Commenting Contest, and how does it work? ==

RTH sponsors a quarterly contest to encourage all members leave comments on the art & stories posted to the website. Participants enter the contest by leaving meaningful comments on 50% or more of the art and fiction posted on the website during that quarter. Each qualifying participant is automatically entered into the contest, with a single winner drawn by random from that quarter's pool of participants. Winners will receive a gift of fic or art donated by a volunteering artist or writer, featuring the River Twine Holt character of the winner's choice.

Comments may be left on either newly posted art and fic, or on any older piece that a member has not yet commented on (editing previous comments does not qualify). Participating members may comment on their own work as well, if they want to share some insight regarding a submission! (Note: by definition, when the Council calls a comment "meaningful", we mean a comment that has more substance to it that "Oh, that's good, I like that!" or "Very pretty!" If you like something, please say why; additionally, positively worded constructive criticism is welcome as well, and often is more helpful to the recipient than delicious praise alone!)

Winners are selected by “raffle” style drawing from a pool of all comments made by participants who have met the criteria of leaving comments on 50% or more of the submissions posted that quarter; every comment a participating member leave is a raffle entry, so the more a member leaves, the greater a member's chances of winning! Additionally, members can win the contest more than once in a row, so long as they leave enough comments to qualify in successive quarters.

Membership Rules and Regulations

2009-02-25T16:27:10Z

Crackle: /* PERSONA UPDATES */

(Return to the [http://www.rivertwine.com River Twine Holt] website.)

Any questions about the rules? Contact the Council by emailing "council@rivertwine.com". (If you do not receive an acknowledgement of receipt of your email within a day, try emailing a council-member individually, or pinging a thread on the messageboard.)

The following rules and regulations are what all members, upon joining, have agreed to abide by:

== BASIC RULES & REGULATIONS ==

'''1. There are two types of membership to the River Twine Holt: Player-Members (PMs)''', who own and operate characters, and '''Reader-Members (RMs)''', who do not own characters but who have access to the website and the message boards, and who are encourage to participate in the creative life of the Holt.

'''1a. All PMs must support their character through the submission of one piece of art or one or more written submissions''' (totaling 500 words or more) '''per annual quarter.''' PMs who fail to participate for more than two quarters in a row may have their membership revoked.

'''1b. All RMs must log into the website on a regular basis to prove their ongoing interest in the club.''' '' RMs are required to make at least 1 website comment per quarter in order to retain their RM membership, with a 1-month probation period for inactivity.

'''2. Your writing & artwork MUST be your own original work!''' Plagiarism of any form (tracing someone else’s artwork or claiming someone else’s writing for your own) is grounds for immediate cancellation of your membership. While drawing freehand from references is fine, tracing or mechanical copying of other artwork is not allowed (even if it is adapted). Art that is considered too much a copy of another existing artwork will not be posted (this determination will be made by the council, and it will be discussed with the artist). Plagiarism (trying to pass others' work off as your own, including close copies of others' work) is grounds for loss of membership.

'''2a. We also request that all art & story submissions be directly related to River Twine Holt'''; we won’t print stories and artwork about characters living with another tribe, or about canon EQ personalities. (NOTE: recycled artwork and stories may be accepted -- consult with the Council of Five -- council@rivertwine.com).

'''3. Get permission from a persona's owner before using someone else's persona in a story or a piece of artwork.''' Approval is required for the use of all personas not your own, so be sure that your stories or art are approved by that other member before you submit them to River Twine Holt. Please see [[Submission Guidelines]] for what does and does not require approval; if you have any questions, please contact the Council of Five at the address listed above.

'''4. General site vs. adult site materials.''' In general, we have a PG-15 rating for our club, and members younger than 15 aren’t allowed to join. Any adult material must have a warning. Adult situations are fine if done appropriately. Nudity in art is acceptable if labeled. Sexual situations are fine if tastefully done. In short, porn or gore for gore’s own sake will not be tolerated. If you have questions or concerns, consult the Council of Five.

'''5. All members are required to join under their real identities;''' it's fine for members to participate under pseudonyms, but the Council needs to know a member's real name. Joining the club under false pretenses is grounds for immediate dismissal. Additionally, sockpuppeting a false membership is also grounds for immediate dismissal from the club.

'''QUESTIONS?''' All questions can be directed to either council@rivertwine.com or help@rivertwine.com.

== MESSAGE BOARD GUIDELINES ==

'''1. Board userids.''' We ask that members registering on the board for a reader account use their first name (or a sensible nickname that does not sound like an EQ character name) for a userid. Those registering for a regular (Player Member) account are asked to use the name of their character for their userid. Not only does this make a member easier to contact, but it also helps the board admins differentiate between legitimate accounts and spam accounts.

'''2. Be courteous.''' No flaming, name calling, insults, naggings or otherwise tormenting other members will be tolerated. Any issues that arise on the board need to be handled in a calm, adult manner. Board Moderators will remove/lock threads that contain abusive material. Members who flame / continue flame wars, will be removed from the group.

'''3. Post in the right board.''' Please make sure that what you are posting is placed in the right board. Each board is clearly marked. If you are uncertain please contact a board moderator, or a council member for help. If a post is placed in the wrong board, Board Moderators will move the thread into the appropriate board.

'''4. Members Only Board Access.''' The message boards are for members only. Do not share your password for non-members, or post for non-members on the board. Any non-members who wish to post something on the RTH board rooms must contact the Council of Five at council@rivertwine.com. Any posts made from/for non-members will be immediately removed, and the member who gave out their password/posted for the non-member will be removed from the group. The exception is when non-members have been welcomed to participate in publicly offered contests, and will be free to participate on the Contests forum on our message board.

'''4. Message Board concerns?''' If you are having any issues with other members on the board, or feel that you are being unfairly treated, please contact Council Member Heidi at willow@rivertwine.com.

== COMMENT/WEBSITE FEEDBACK GUIDELINES: ==

'''1. Be Courteous.''' Do not post hurtful or mean comments on stories or art. Critiques are fine, but do not simply say 'This Sucks!'. Any comment that is made of this nature will be removed and the member will be removed from the group.

'''2. Avoid Fluff Posts''' -- please try not to post 'fluff posts' to the website. These are posts that consist of less then one sentence. For example, "'Wow cool!" counts as a fluff post.

'''3. Feedback concerns?''' If you are having any issues comments, or feel that you are being abused or unfairly treated, please contact Joan at crackle@rivertwine.com.

== PARTICIPATION REQUIREMENTS ==

FOR PLAYER-MEMBERS: If a PM fails to support their character for a quarter, they will be given one warning and put on probation (probation period of one quarter). If a PM fails to meet the participation requirements for a second quarter, they will lose their membership, and their persona will become an NPC.

FOR READER-MEMBERS: If a RM fails to leave at least one comment on stories or artwork posted to the website during the course of a quarter, they will be given a warning and put on probation (probation period of one month). Note that participation on the message boards is not tracked, and is not applied toward this basic requirement! If a RM fails to comment during that probation period, they will lose their RM membership access to the club's website & message boards, and will be dropped off of any waiting list for character adoptions they may have been on.

NOTE: The Council doesn’t want to suspend memberships for lack of activity, and will do what it can to meet the needs of each member, but some consistent communication between an inactive member and the Council is required. If real life circumstances warrant it, the Council can waive this rule when appropriate and necessary, but the responsibility to remain in communication with the Council remains the responsibility of each individual member.

Player-Members who are removed due to inactivity may be refused future membership to River Twine Holt on a case by case basis. In general, however, River Twine welcomes back everyone who finds they can recommit to supporting a persona character in the club, or who is willing to sustain a Reader-Membership through regular website commenting. RMs can have their membership reactivated without delay; however, PMs who are removed due to inactivity are required to wait a quarter before submitting a request to rejoin, and may be refused future PM membership to River Twine Holt on a case by case basis.

Acknowledging that new members join while a quarter is in progress, the council has clarified what the expectations are for new PM participation. '''New PMs''' must participate (meaning, submit art or writing) by the end of the first '''full''' quarter after they join. While we would of course like to see a new PM begin participating as soon as possible, they may not have time to do so in the partial quarter in which they join. But, if a new PM has not submitted anything by the end of the next (full) quarter, they will be deactivated. (RMs need only comment on one piece of art or fiction on the website in order to sustain their membership, which makes this a much less demanding way to participate in the club.)

As stated above, PMs are expected to remain in consistent communication with the group and with the council. This is especially true regarding responding to other members who contact you to ask questions or for your permission for character-use. Members are expected to respond to others in a timely fashion -- unless they have posted to the AWOL thread on the MB, or notified the Council that they will be out of email contact for a period of time.

"Timely" is usually defined as no longer than a period of 2 weeks. In the case of approval of use of a character, the person asking for approval is expected to make several attempts to contact you, by all available means -- email and messageboard notification -- during that time; but at the end of 2 weeks from the date of the first attempt, approval will be considered to have been given by default.

If we receive a submission where it's indicated that approval defaulted because of non-response, or if we are alerted to non-response from a member for any other reason, the Council will begin to try to make contact with the PM by all available and known means (messageboard post; website comment; email to anyone; submission) for 2 more months. If at the end of 2 months, there has been no communication from a PM by any means to anyone in the group, and especially no response to the Council's attempts at contact, the Council may decide to deactivate the membership and make the character an NPC.

== SUBMISSIONS: ==

Submissions need not feature your own persona; artwork and stories about another Player-Member's character will earn credit toward support for a member’s own character. (On the flip side – approving the use of your character in another member’s story, or approving artwork, does not count toward your own annual requirement.) Stories should be submitted to stories@rivertwine.com; artwork should be submitted to artwork@rivertwine.com. You are required to collect all of the necessary permissions for your art or your stories, prior to submission.

== PERSONA UPDATES ==

All CISs should be kept current, as characters grow and change as they are played. A mandatory CIS update period is held every June: members have between the 1st and the 30th to log into the website, review their character’s CIS, and update it accordingly. The webbase will automatically track all updates, and the council member who heads up our Character Approval Team will receive automatic notification from the system of all changes to a CIS. Failure to update the CIS during the mandatory time period will result in the member going on probation for the summer quarter (July-August-Septemer) even if they have fulfilled their participation requirements for the previous quarter. If by September the CIS has not been updated, the member will lose the character. While this may seem harsh, it is the Council's belief that up-to-date CISes are important for immersion and conduct in the club and show an ongoing interest in the character.

The minimum change required to fulfill the mandatory update requirement is the adjustment of the character's age (the addition of a year). Further changes that reflect character growth are of course welcome. Additionally, CISs can be updated throughout the year, as a member feels motivated to do so..

If you have any questions, please contact Joan at crackle@rivertwine.com.

== REWARDS SYSTEM: ==

Because we believe that our members should be rewarded for contributing to River Twine Holt, the following rewards system is in place for all members:

Three awards will be given each season, in the categories of Art, Fiction, and Member.

Every quarter, the Council of Five will collectively decide which member should receive the Art and Fiction awards, based largely on who has earned the most points in that category during the quarter. The Member Award will go to a member who has actively participated throughout the quarter above and beyond the normal rate of activity. The Member Award is generally based upon the amount of points that a person receives in a quarter.

The awards will be given out 'seasonally' as follows:
• March 31: Winter Quarter (Jan-Feb-March)
• June 30: Spring Quarter (April-May-June)
• Sept. 30: Summer Quarter (July-Aug-Sept)
• Dec. 31: Autumn Quarter (Oct-Nov-Dec)

Once a member has received an Art, Fiction or Member award during the course of a year, that member cannot receive that same award again during that year.

The club’s administrative team, the Council of Five, keeps track of participation through a points system that works as described below. Points earned each quarter are tallied toward regular quarterly participation awards: (See “Rewards” in section bellow)

Additionally -- beginning in 2008, a new '''Chief's Choice Award''' was created. It is given to honor an exceptional effort in fiction, poetry or artwork. The Chief's Choice Award may be given out quarterly, but is not a mandatory award -- the Council will give it only in circumstances where the Council believes it very well deserved, but the regular artist, member, or general participation awards (which are largely points-based achievements) are not applicable.

== STORY POINTS: ==

Written submissions are counted on a point-per-page basis, with 650 words equaling one page; poetry is counted as 1/2 point per five lines (see "Poetry Points" below for exceptions); artwork may be worth from ½ point to 2 points in value, depending on the individual effort. See “Art Points” below.

When multiple authors have participated in a collaborative stories, the story itself is worth only as many points as there are pages. Those points will be divided equally among the authors involved, unless the authors jointly indicate otherwise.

== ART POINTS: ==

A single piece of art may take its creator as much time as an author takes to write a story. There is no true way to faithfully rate artwork in our point-per-page system, as each artist varies dramatically in style. The best we can accomplish is the following:
• Simple sketch = ½ point
• Finished piece (b&w or color) = 1 point
• Showcase effort = 2 points

A simple ''sketch'' is an unfinished piece of work or something that is clearly either incomplete or stated by the artist as being 'unfinished'. “Doll” art is always considered “sketch” value.

A ''finished piece'' can be in black or white or in color; the artist has clearly finished with it, if you feel that a piece that you have done should be considered finished, though others may not, please indicate this in your e-mail.

In a ''showcase effort'', the artwork is rich in detail beyond the central figure; the background is very well developed, or a full story is told within the frame of the picture. Showcase efforts need not be in color. (The difference between a showcase piece and a finished piece is simply the amount of 'other' elements that have gone into the piece itself.)

NOTE: The submitting artist should inform the Art Director what category the artist believes a piece falls under. You will assign your own points because none of us are qualified to rate another’s effort. What takes one person a few minutes, could take another a few days. Just try to be honest with how you feel about your work. The Council of Five reserves the right to alter points if the system is being abused. If the submitting artist does not inform the Art Director how they think their piece should be awarded points, the Art Director reserves the right to award points as she sees fit.

'''Recycled art policy:''' River Twine Holt will gladly accept recycled art (art first created by the artist for a purpose other than RTH), but RTH reserves the right of how (or if) to apply it toward historical NPCs. Recycled art is always counted as 1/2 participation points, and recycled art cannot be applied toward the quarterly participation requirements. No more than eight pieces/four points of recycled art will be counted per quarter towards our seasonal participation awards.

== POETRY POINTS: ==

Poetry is generally considered to be worth .5 points per 5 lines of the poem. However, if a member believes their poem is longer than usual, a personal masterwork, or otherwise demonstrates more effort, they may request more points to reflect the overall effort. Final point distribution is decided by the story approval team.

== OTHER FORMS OF PARTICIPATION: ==

While posting on the messageboard and leaving comments via the website is not a requirement, and does not count for the quarterly support that members owe to the group, steady participation in those areas does factor into the council's consideration of the quarterly Member Award (given to the "most active" member).

(Generally speaking, we prefer that people using the messageboard and comments system not leave "fluff" posts: posts consisting of very short non-substantial comments, such as simply 'wow cool' or 'yeah' or "you rock" or 'just what I was thinking'. Non-fluff posts give some direct feedback regarding the work, something that can be of use to the author or artists. For example, "Wow I really like this, the eyes are great, the hair is beautiful and you've done a wonderful job with the shading." is much more useful to the artist than saying "Wow, I like this."')

== LEAVING THE CLUB: ==

If at any time a member wishes to leave River Twine Holt, please contact the Council of Five at council@rivertwineholt.com to discuss your options.

'''Returning members.''' Members who wish to return to River Twine Holt are welcomed back with open arms. Returning members will be treated the same as any other new member -- they will be welcome to adopt any of the available characters. (Previously owned personas will not be removed from another member in order to be returned to a returning member.) All artwork and stories previously submitted will be relinked to a returning member. However, returning members are required to rejoin under their original name & identity. Sockpuppeting (operating an email account under false pretenses, or rejoining under false pretenses) will be grounds for immediate expulsion.