Expand your vocabulary and shock your friends!

Greetings, players of PlaneShift and forum dwellers. We bring to you a challenge in the form of a single word. Your task is to use this word in a sentence meaningful to the In-Character world of Yliakum.  Your sentence can be about your character, NPCs, Settings Lore, locations, etc. Do not make it about OOC matters such as players, GMs, or bugs.

If you wish, you may use the word in a small paragraph to help define the word. Others should be able to gather the meaning of the word from the context of your writing. In the example of 'plethora',

"There was a plethora of dwarves." -is not a good submission.

A Klyros stumbles out of Kada's, gasping for air. He looks around and exclaims, "The tavern is filled with a plethora of dwarves! You can't spit without hitting three of them." -is a good submission.

We will assign a new word every week. Have fun and be creative.

Past words of the week:
Plethora- an extreme excess.  Winner: Lolitra Purrty
Brumous - misty. Winner: Zorbels
Fremescence- building din, often (obscurely) used in describing the murmur of a crowd. Winner: Lolitra Purrty. Honorable mention to Prolix for use of the word in the game.
Evanescence- A fading or Vanishing. Winner: A group effort this time, for helping each other in the usage of the ward. Well done.
Guffaw- A deep and sometimes riotous laugh. Winner: Sorry, Prolix, but Lolitra wins once again.
Gregarious/Glyptic- Winner.............................. Prolix.

Word of the week:
C-Y-O
(choose your own)
Since the server is still down, we will be doing things a little differently this week. The rules are simple. You choose your own obscure word, make a sentence, then challenge others to beat your writing by using your word, plus one of their own. Here are the steps.

1: Look at the previous person's new word.
2: List your word in bold.
3: Write your sentence using their word, plus your own.
4: Wait for the next person to use the word you wrote in bold, plus their own.

Greetings. We are Weavers, and we are pleased to meet you.

As you may have noticed, and as this thread title states, there are three new child boards for you to use at your convenience. We placed them here so that you may organize your stories, RPs, or just plain having fun into un-jumbled and easily searchable categories.

If you wish to settle in for a good story, or find out more about a fellow character's background, you can browse through the Single Author Stories forum. If you wish, you can place your own story in there as well.

Looking for a place to roleplay on the forum during client updates, or have the wish to add to a multiple author story? Then Group Roleplays is calling your name.

For the poetic, whimsical, or just off the wall fun, have a gander in Poetry, Comedy, and other.

As you can see, these three child boards are rather bleak and empty right now, as they were just created. We have hopes that you will give them some life, and use them at your pleasure. We will also be slowly but surely transferring all of the many, many old threads from the main thread, and organizing them into their proper categories for future ease of searching.

Please note that you are not required to place your new threads in these forums. You can still place them in the main Storywriting forum for that "In the Spotlight" effect. However, please note that they will eventually be moved to the proper place. We have yet to determine how long we will leave Stories in the main forum before we move them. But, it would be very kind of you, and time saving for us, if you put them in the categorized forums for us.

We thank you for your time, your words, your stories, and bid you to keep those pens humming.

(in edit-- Much of this post is now null and void, but we choose to leave the original post untouched so as to show how this guild evolved. The first part about the history still holds true, but the ranks and such coming after are null as marked. New info and the continued history will be in a post further down starting with 'City Guard' as that is what the 'guild' shall be called now. thank you.)

In times of great need and strife, the official protectors of the people often turn to the people themselves for aid. This is the story of those people. This is the story of the Law. This is the Civil Patrol.

How it began:

As anyone who has walked the streets of Hydlaa can see, the guards of the city do not often leave the gates they protect. This is for good reason. Not so long ago, monsters found their way into the city to rampage and kill at will. It seems the guards had grown lax in their task of guarding the gates. While they were cavorting with the countless citizens who questioned them daily, the creatures made their way into the very midst’s of the people. Although they were killed in the end, the damage was done. The people lost their sense of being safe behind the walls.

After that incident, the guards held strong to their posts. No beast has be seen walking the streets of the city since that day. Or so the people thought. But a new beast was given birth. It was not a creature of the Labyrinths, however. it came from the people themselves. Without the guards walking the streets at night, some of the people began to become beasts themselves. Not in form, but in their hearts. Criminals. Murderers, thieves, and all low elements of humanity crawled out form the darkness in the soul. the people now know a new fear. A fear of themselves.

As most of the city guard remains out in the field, the lawlessness has run unabated. Look to the streets if you doubt this. The people now carry weapons where ever they tread foot. They carry them because of this fear. This has interrupted many of the trades and crafts. Even mining has suffered due to rumors of a killer that delights in the deaths of those that used to dig platinum. They handle their picks for platinum no more. Fear holds their hands.

Something had to be done. Something soon. So a writ was made. If the guards could not protect the people, then the people would have to protect themselves. But not with sword or ax. Not with magic nor glyph. The people would use the word of the Law. Volunteers came forth from the people. Any crime they saw would be put in one of their logbooks. Any description of the lawless would go in as well. Any name found out would be put to ink. Those on the List would not be challenged, nor fought. Nay, the Law would deal with them in its own way.

The people in this group decided on a name. They would be polite and civil on their patrols, as much as they could be. Therefore they found their name. Civil Patrol.

(in edit--) But, there was problems soon to be found in this new guild of the Law.... (contintued in another post)

The laws of the Civil Patrol are simple (and very vague yet at this point until we can learn what works well in game. See notes at the bottom of this post).

<null>Act civilly in public. Rudeness without cause will earn you a mark. (by all means this does not mean you should be polite.)

Do not disturb the peace. (Excessive fiighting and in-character shouting falls under this)

Criminal activities will have the full weight of the Law against them. Thieving, looting (robbing shops), murder, etc. (if you are identified and caught, that is.)

[ooc note: These rules are not, I repeat NOT to try to stop the above practices. We are an RP guild. Our purpose is to add another dimension of RP to the game. We are NOT here to police the players. They can do whatever they wish. Our purpose is to give the illusion of Law in the game.]

Ranks: As it is, there are only two ranks that can be given:

Deputy Watchman. This is someone who wished to be a temporary part of the guild for RP purposes. If you need some Law in your RP, this is a good option for you. The position is only yours for as long as you wish it. No fault will be given for leaving. But when in this position, you must follow guild rules.  If any Deputy is acting out of their intended role, we ask that they be reported in PMs here in the forum. We are accepting very few people at this time until the kinks are worked out of the system.

<null>Watchman. This is someone who wishes to become a more permanent part of the Civil patrol. It is invite though roleplay ONLY. We are not interested in becoming a massive guild. At this time, we are accepting no new members to this position until the Law is more firm.

<null>A third rank is Enforcer. We are not giving this rank out yet, due to its nature. This is a fighting rank. Players of this rank will be offered to events or festivals for the pre-mentioned illusion of the Law. They will force (in an RP manner) breakers of the peace to leave. This may require challenging, but hopefully not. Note: They will not kill, if they can help it. After taking the miscreant down to 1/4 life, they will back off and yield. This in not a true yield, but an RP way of letting the person RP being beaten by the Enforcer. Anyone who takes potions and tries to continue fighting in this context will be considered ooc and ignored. We are not a fighting guild, and do not aim to be, but in roleplay it is sometimes a necessary evil.


Punishment for breaking the Law: As this is an experimental guild, this part of the system is still in the works. As mentioned, there will be a 'List' of miscreants. Only names from roleplay will be added. We will ignore ooc 'noobs' and 'levelers'. What will be done with this list is in secret planning stages. (yes, that means we are not sure yet) There will be three ways to get your name off the list.

Fines: Fines will be assigned for crimes as deemed nessisary. (as it stands, there will be no fines yet. We wish to first gauge the reaction of the players on this subject. Any fines that will/may be collected would go into funds for events put on by other guilds, which we hope may hire the Civil Patrol to 'police' their event. Also, the funds may go for training and weapons of the few Enforcers we may have.

Public Service: This is the one that no one will want. It involves showing new players around, or answering questions for a certain time. Other ideas are in the works. (not enforced at this time)

Pointless tasks: This one...you REALLY won't want. Think NPC quests with no reward at the end. (may be enforced...if you are really bad. )

(Note: We know we can not enforce any of these. We have hopes that there may be a few good roleplayers left in the game that will go along with it. We are not trying to become a power in the realm. If you do not wish to be a part of this 'world' RP, then you do not have to be. We will ignore your crimes and character, but your name will still go on the list ((well, the do-not-disturb list)). If you do decide to join in the RP, your punishment will be waiting. Just find the nearest Civil Patrol and turn yourself in. For those of a darker nature that wish to 'stay' on the List, we will gladly RP along with that as well.)

This guild is an evolving guild. We will take what works and use it. We will also cast away what does not. It is going to take some amount of time to get it right. This thread will evolve along with it.

The final thought in this post is this: You can cast this guild aside, and let it vanish, or you can play along, and maybe give the game a little more -and much needed- depth and atmosphere.