Newbies Guide to Zenith Island

[Mausbär♡]

a Newbies Guide to Zenith Island

I. Navigating the Forum.

   Oh my god i've only done small roleplays 1x1 or on one single thread, what is all of this!

Whoa, relax! Take a breath and look around. We use proboards, and all the main 'sections' are known as categories. You know what a category is because it has the same picture as the header.(Picture at the top of the website) This category is 'General Information'! Now the things under the category title are known as boards, this is where you make your threads for the site. Right under 'General Information' is 'Handbook'. This is one of the few boards under the category, there can be multiple boards under one category, and normally they're organized in a theme. (Example; Clans, Character Relations, Advertisement, etc.)

So, as an example; You're looking to make a cat, you find the category 'Character Selection' by scrolling through the home page and finding the little category headers. Then you find the board 'Character creation', there will be sub-boards, but you can ignore them if you want.(a board inside a board, to help organization) Bam! You just navigated through the forum.

II. Important Places to Check at the Start.

   Well, let's make a character then, you just showed me specifically where to go!

Actually! You should go read the histories of the clans, tribe, and Tempus depending on what you're wanting to make a character for. It's important to know these things. All the needed information you need is under the category 'General Information', I suggest you go through and read through all the information, or at least most of it. Here are a few good links, though you should dig around to see if there is something else you might want to read up on.

Rules | History | Taken Names | Tutela's [Tempus Related]

III. The Site Shop.

   What's this little bar on the right bottom corner of my screen? Has a pig... chart... Money?

The shop here on ZI is filled with all sorts of goodies you can buy with berries, which is an in forum currency! We do have limitations to what you can create in a character, but those limitations can be bought at a price. An example would be a cis gender male calico, as it's a very rare thing. There are many other items, so you really should read around to make sure a trait of your character isn't a buyable limitation. Never hesitate to ask a staff member!

To get to the shop you go to the bottom right hand corner of your screen and a little bar is there with five little icons. The pig is the bank where you can deposit and withdraw money. The money is donations, basically if you win a contest on here your berries will be placed there for you to pick up. Next to the money is the actual shop, click on that and it'll bring you to the page. HERE is a quick link to the shop though.

IV. Character Creation.

   Okay, I know how to find boards, I read all the important information, and I looked at the shop, NOW can I make my character?

Yes you may now make your beloved furry friend! I will not make you wait any longer. For a character that is not a high rank you go to the 'Character Section' category, and then the 'Character Creation' board. Clicking onto there you will see a 'create thread', but before you do that look down at the already existing threads. You might see other members pending characters, but at the bottom is the character sheet template. You MUST use this, and not any other, this is to help us be organized and make sure none of the information is missing. HERE is a quick link to the character sheet.

Click onto the character sheet thread and scroll to the very bottom, you'll see a long list of coding, just copy it. Once you copy it back out into the 'Character Creation' board and make a new thread. Paste the coding you had just copied from the character template. It'll come out as random coding that you may or may not understand. To get the template just click the 'BBcode' you see at the bottom of your box when you're creating the thread, then back to 'Preview' it should fix the coding. Then, fill it all in.

You may NOT play your character IC until a staff member as approved of it first. If approved it will be moved to the 'Accepted Characters' with a comment from staff that your cat was accepted. When accepted you may play the cat IC. Though, if it's not accepted you'll get a reply to your thread with 'Pending' and various reasons why your applications was not accepted. Be polite and make the proper changes, you keep doing this until your cat is accepted.

V. High Rank Auditions.

   I wanted to try out for a higher rank, but... I don't know how.

The way high ranks work on ZI and many other forums is that you must put in an application, it's not a first come first serve rule. Auditions for high ranks are open for specific amounts of times, and at this time anyone can post their character in that position. You may also apply to multiple different high ranks with various cats, though the max high ranks you can have is two.

You get to the high ranks applications by going to the 'Character Section' category. Then to the board 'Character Creation', and at the top is another board called 'High Rank Auditions', then in there we have more boards! The boards are labeled by the high ranks. So, if you want to be apply for a medicine cat or medicus you go to that board. Inside of these boards are threads with the applications, read through them and do as they state,you reply right onto the thread, you do not make a new thread. HERE is a quick link to the High Rank Auditions.

VI. Plotters and Trackers.

   What're these things, add them to my vocabulary!

A plotter is a place where you take your characters and create plots. Though most people use templates from other sites, but you of course don't have to. Most plotters include friends, enemies, and lovers, and how they'd interact with specific characters in those relationships or how/why someone would be that characters friend/enemy/lover. Though, you can do them however you feel like, be creative!

A tracker is a place where you track all your roleplays. People again use templates mostly for these, but you don't need to! I will post some template sites you can go on to find plotters/trackers, seeing them might help you understand as well.

Site 1 | Site 2 | Site 3

VII. Adoption Center.

   Uh, what? Is this for kits or apprentices to be adopted?

Nope! These are for your main characters NPC family, friends, etc! Let's say you have an apprentice character who has two sisters, they're NPC as you won't play them, but you want to give someone else the chance to play one of them as their own character, then you make a thread here. On the thread you can do a full on application, and yes you must use the sites, and fill in every little detail. Or, you can give some creative flow for the person adopting your NPC and give basic looks, personality, etc, and let them make an application.

If you're adopting the character of someone else you must post a character sheet thread in the 'Character Creation' board and wait for it to be accepted by staff.

VIII. Kitten Litters

   I want my character to have kittens, what are the rules around this?

Meo has created a beautiful guide to how to create and request kitten litters and how it all works. So please check THIS thread for all the information about Kitten Litters.

MADE BY ★MEULK OF GS