You've got so much to give over a weekend; RH Update Post

The Restless Heavens Public Document @ Google Docs  (I think there was a problem when I posted the link last week, but this should be good)

Stuff that has been updated: 

- Some of the kingdom capital city/palace names.

- The tiers of civil and military structure in a kingdom.  So many titles to root through O_O    Working out the Royal Family's place in the civil service system.   Also trying to figure out which point in the civil service/military chain they stop giving out immortality status.

- Establishing which three kingdoms are definitely in decline.  I'm thinking Tai, Han, and En.  Tai recently lost their queen of 500+ years, and their new kirin may have already been born on Mt. Hou.   Han and En are in decline, but I'm not sure how deep they are in it, or the states of government in those two kingdoms presently. 

- Hanjyuu information.  I decided that to help explain the bias against Hanjyuu, that Hanjyuu chars actually spend the first 2-3 years of their life in baby!animal form, and are plucked from the egg that way.  This would explain a high abandonment rate for Hanjyuu, since people might be way put off by a baby that doesn't even look human :<   But if there is a canon source that runs contrary to this...please let me know?  I haven't found anything yet.  

- Starting on Shusei, Akuniku, and Youma information.  It actually occurred to me the other night, while rewatching the Taiki arc with Angie, that they do mention youma who have the ability to turn human.  We could abuse the CRAP out of this in-game. 

-  Some misc. notes about the census, inheritence (Hint: THERE IS NO INHERITENCE), marriage, assignments of land.  

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Annnnnnnnnnnnnd we also have...

The Restless Heavens Character Sandbox @  Google Docs  (please comment if you would like to join this one!)

We have the Character Sandbox up, which is just a place to flesh out character ideas, but I want to make it clear that none of these characters are considered canon or accepted until the game's reviewing process starts.  Even my characters are going to be up for the review block!   So joining the Sandbox does not mean that you get an auto-accept for your char, and likewise, don't consider anything in the Sandbox set in stone yet.  But join it anyways for knock-around fun!  DO IT.

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Regarding the application process, there are two things I want to include in RH's that aren't standard for RPG applications:

1) An applicant must have either read the first novel of the Twelve Kingdom series, or watched the first anime arc (Shadow of the Moon, Sea of Shadows).   

2.  An applicant will be doing a writing sample for each character application they submit.  Writing samples must include dialogue, and be 500-1000 words long.

Now for #1, even my OH NO ELITIST GAME! radar is zinging off the hook.   The thing is, I do not want people to regard this game as LOL GENERIC FANTASY SETTING and start applying for characters without knowing how the world works.   To me, RH is an exploration in the same spirit of the novels - the characters within RH are struggling to figure out the mysteries of their own world and the laws that govern it, and to that end a player must have a taste of that spirit.  And really, if you are going to devote possibly years to this game, you really should devote six hours to the source material first.

I would not have considered #1 if there was not a free online translation of the first book available.  I also plan to actually mail my copy of the book to any person who is interested in reading it but cannot obtain/afford it (after Angie and my mom finish reading it)  ((uh I'm pretty sure my mom is not applying though)).   

For #2, I'm pretty certain about this rule.  In a person's application, I am most interested in seeing the character working in prose-form, so to me the writing sample is probably the most important part of these apps.  Now I'm only talking about 500-1000 words here for the writing sample, not pages.  Also in compensation, the actual application portion isn't going to be that big. 
  
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In sort of a lulzy thing, whenever I get to writing the RPG Rules and Posting Requirements, I'm going to refer to it as "The Way".   So if a player starts disregarding the requirements, we can go around saying "BOB IS STRAYING FROM THE WAY".    Maybe send him pictures of sick giraffes to guilt him back into action.  

I plan on posting an update once a week, every Thursday or Friday <3   PLEASE leave comments for questions, suggestions, and criticism, darlings!  Also, people who have recently started the first book, what do you think of it so far?