The Swollen Goat

#1: Be respectful, be excellent, be mature. If you dislike or have a personal issue with someone you are still expected to be respectful to them in public. Personal beef isn't justification to hurt someone, especially in a public setting. It is also an acceptable option to simply not directly engage with someone with which you have issue.

OOC Harassment will not be tolerated whether it's in public, in a continuity dream, or in private DMs. This includes disruptive antisocial behavior such as flooding someone's participation out of chat or changing the subject whenever they bring something up, or posting artwork to flood out their artwork. This also extends to bleeding your OOC feelings into your character's IC behavior to bully someone through RP: don't do it.

The Swollen Goat is not a venting or trauma dumping space. Complaining here and there about day to day frustrations as they're happening is fine, doing nothing but complaining about your personal life is not. Under no circumstances will posting about personal trauma be tolerated or accepted, and the offending posts will be removed and a warning provided. Spoiler tags do not indemnify against this. The Swollen Goat is intended to be a recreational hobby space for roleplay and light discussions of it and other interests around and adjacent to it, not a place to seek therapy, drag your significant other, or inform everyone of your personal catastrophes. It is a place for people to have fun, escape their stressors, and enjoy good company. If you are struggling we encourage you to reach out to friends or family in other spaces.

In the same vein manipulative and coercive behavior such as lovebombing, blackmailing, and catfishing will not be ignored or tolerated where identified. Do not pretend to be someone's friend to gain something out of them, do not pretend to be someone else, do not make a problem on purpose. Be honest, be earnest, be excellent.

#2: The Swollen Goat Discord and any in-client Furcadia dreams that may exist in its continuity are LGBT and BIPOC friendly, IC and OOC.

In the OOC side this obviously means respecting pronouns and not using slurs (even ironically), but it also means deeper and more respectful behavior such as not asking invasive questions, not reducing groups of people to a monolith, and not turning them into a fetish which does include not posting fetishizing artwork.

On the IC side this means not misgendering trans or non-binary characters as well as not "outing" their assigned at birth gender, and not using slurs (even ironically), but it also means that things such as sexual orientation, race, and gender identity are not grounds for your character to dislike another character, though just about any other reason is still valid. Many of our players fall under these and other umbrellas, and their real lives are already encumbered with struggles relating to them. Do not bring that into their hobby time. This extends to IC unfamiliarity with or ignorance of LGBT people: assume your character has an existing idea of them from somewhere in their background, do not make someone's trans or gay character explain their identity to you. Having a character that is questioning their identity for theirself is fine.

For non-white characters this means respectful depictions that are devoid of negative stereotypes, as well as not presenting the character as "exotic" for their origin or as a repository of wiki'd facts. This also means do not whitewash non-white characters, by which we mean do not insert white Europeans into other ethnic spaces via background or via claiming them to be "albino" with white European features.

#3: New players are always welcome to come ashore on Goat Ass Island, and we encourage our existing playerbase to be welcoming and inclusive as much as they're comfortable or have energy for. Having said that it is strongly encouraged that they review these rules in their entirety before posting a character profile, as we do look over each one that's added to the roster and we will ask for things to be edited or removed entirely for participation in our den of thieves and miscreants (though we will try to be nice about it). Ignorance is not an excuse.

#4: Do not post personally identifying information, do not post other people's personally identifying information. If you prefer to go by your first name that's perfectly fine, or if you want to talk abt a local event in or near your city that's also fine, but don't post your full name, address, phone number, or anything comparable in the server. We cannot control where it goes and what people may do with it.

#5: The Swollen Goat adheres to the Guidelines and ToS of Discord.

#6: Posting content in the Discord server is a privilege, not a right. Please follow the channel guidelines for what is and isn't appropriate in each one. As an overview NSFW content whether textual or visual should be posted exclusively in the #nsfw channel. Some innuendo outside of that is fine, being overtly horny is not. By extension do not make blatantly NSFW nicknames, or nicknames that would be something you'd have to say in NSFW. Please keep images and such posted in NSFW to your content such as character artwork or NSFW memes, do not post random porn, whether illustrated or of real people.

All artwork must be credited when posted, including creators of bases. Repeated failure to credit may result in suspension of art posting privileges. If you're posting artwork that isn't of your character but is just something you like, post it in the #images channel.

#7: Please be aware that the rules are subject to change over time based on the needs of the community and discussion among the moderation team. The server will be notified when a change is made. Our primary focus here is to cultivate a relaxed, enjoyable atmosphere for everyone present, and these rules are meant to facilitate this goal. As has been stated: ignorance is not an excuse for breaking them, and if you break them you will be held accountable for your actions. There are no exceptions, no single person is more important than the community and maintaining a positive atmosphere. If a mod approaches you to discuss an incident, please be courteous, we'll try to do the same.

To reiterate from the OOC rules: do not engage in in-character acts or attitudes of homophobia, transphobia, racism, etc. etc. It is not permissible in this setting, regardless of your reason. Similarly do not make characters explain their gender identity, sexual orientation, etc. etc. to yours.

To reiterate another point from the OOC rules: do not mix IC and OOC to bully, harass, manipulate, or otherwise be shitty to another player. If you have such an egregious issue with someone else in the group that you feel you can’t engage with them in public settings (which is a valid way to feel) then do not, we encourage you to find or start another scene.

Please keep in mind when playing in the Swollen Goat that in-character actions have in-character consequences: if your character tries to steal someone’s stuff or commit a murder the setting and its inhabitants are likely to respond. This is not to discourage underhanded thieving–underhanded thieving is baked into the setting!–but rather to serve as a reminder to consider your character’s actions before committing to them, as there may be consequences for making the wrong move. An individual player’s consent level will always be respected, but in that same vein if you’re unwilling to have consequences occur it’s best to discuss a risky or impactful action or idea for your character with a member of staff beforehand, or refrain from it entirely.

All player characters must look, act, and be described as over the age of 18. No exceptions, regardless of circumstances. NPC children or child-like characters may be used in the appropriate spaces such as aboard your ship, in your room, or around non-adult parts of town (including the Goat's bar) provided they aren't put into inappropriate situations (anything adjacent to NSFW, life-threatening or torturous violence). They absolutely cannot be around or in a brothel, period. The intent behind permitting them is to allow the option to add a layer to the RP of an adult character, where they might otherwise just be background dressing.

To reiterate: do not put these NPCs in or near adult situations or spaces, period. Do not use them as vehicles for edgy violence, period. If you want to say your character's kid loses a finger being a fool at the blacksmith, or gets violently kidnapped, do it off-screen. If you want to play the beset parent dragging your kid to the Goat while they get a drink, do not write about them seeing or experiencing something adult (getting a single thimble of beer is not adult). When engaging this privilege think about what you the writer would be comfortable having a kid around, not what would be the most sensational way to add drama or shock to a scene. If you still aren't sure, ask a mod first. If you don't and step over a line ignorance will not be an excuse.

This is a privilege and it is one that may be revoked for specific individuals or for the group at large. There are many players here who are parents and who have raised kids, and do not want to see even fictional shock content involving kids in their RP. It is also suggested you use it sparingly, rather than take little Timmy to town daily.

In order to keep scenes in the discord moving smoothly and to minimize dropoff in the midst of longer ones, we are observing a three character and scene per player rule for the time being. This means please do not have more than three player characters active at a time, and please do not insert yourself into more than three scenes in the Swollen Goat discord at a time. This is not an inflexible rule, and in circumstances of transplanting a long-established character from another setting, or having shown a sustainable interest in three active characters already active, exceptions can be made to this limit as while we want our players to pace themselves, we also don’t want to stifle them. The three scene per player rule will only have sparse, circumstantial exceptions typically reserved for large events to avoid denying anyone the opportunity to participate if they already have scenes going in other channels. This limit does not extend to NPCs, which you may be far more liberal with.

In terms of player character settings there is no hard canon for the world beyond the archipelago beyond whatever references are made as necessary. This means that so long as your character fits the period and setting, they can be from anywhere whether it’s Dragonlands, historical Earth, or a homebrew setting. This does not extend to “canon” settings, characters, or people, such as Thedas from the dragon age games, Aragorn from Lord of the Rings, or Calico Jack from real world Caribbean history. The exception to this is characters from the general expanse of the Forgotten Realms, as we don’t want to deny people their DnD characters. It should go without saying that characters from the far future and distant past are not compatible with The Swollen Goat, please keep to ideas and designs that fit the setting.

In that same vein the general aesthetic and feel of the setting is the Age of Sail mish-mashed with high fantasy, elements of steampunk/magitech, and a little bit of weird west for spice. Characters don’t have to particularly subscribe to one or even any of these themes in terms of design or behavior (feel free to play something noir-ish for example), but they shouldn’t clash with it by way of technology or setting of origin i.e. no modern weaponry, no coming from ancient Sparta, etc. etc. We’d generally prefer to have ideas for time travelers run by us first and be approved before they’re posted.

Please keep in mind when posting that this is a public space. Do not post sexually explicit roleplay in public channels, you are more than welcome to do that in your own server, DMs, or client, however you prefer. We also ask that such mindfulness be extended to violent content as well, and that lurid, gory details be minimized if not omitted. An example would be it’s fine to say your character takes someone’s head off with a sword, but we’d prefer the extensive description of the blood and viscera be reserved for private scenes, or at least scenes not in this server. You may provide a CW and spoiler tag for your posts as you see fit.