A Muggle's Guide To Swish-and-flick

SnFopedia

"C'mon, follow me - any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"

Woo, fresh meat! Hello and welcome to Swish-and-Flick! Look through this page if you are new and need an introduction to the ways of our RPG. If you need some further assistance, or don't find your questions answered, you can contact the admins at any time.

WHAT IS ROLEPLAY?
Role-playing means to take on the role of character and portray it as if you were acting. In our forums, this is done through writing. At Swish-and-Flick we write in the third person, which means from the perspective of someone watching the event. For examples, have a scoot around the forums!

HOW TO JOIN!

• First, register an account with our forums with your character's first and last name, properly capitalized. You must be 13 years of age to complete this action.
• Next, you will need to create a character or audition for a character. Proceed to the The Sorting Hat board and fill out a biography for your character. You can find much more information about the character creation process on this board.
• Once an admin has read over your biography they will reply with questions, suggestions for edit, or with a note letting you know that your bio has been approved. If an admin asks you to change something, that is not a remark against your writing; usually we will only ask you to change something if you have contradicted yourself in the biography or if we need you to change it due to site rules. We're just proofreaders, really.
• When you are approved you can go to any of our in character boards, listed by location, and begin RPing. Or, you can go to the Plotting board to chat to other players about posts or plots you would like to be involved in. You can also set up a history for your character here, which is handy for fitting your character into the social networks around the wizarding world.

CANON CHARACTERS!
Here you will find a list of all of the canon characters on the board. To join a canon character you need to check it's availability on that list, and if no one is currently playing the character you can fill out the audition form located in that thread. The process is the same as that for an original character.

ABSENCES!
If you are going to be absent from the boards for a lengthy period of time (a week or more, say), consider posting a Vacation Notice! Not only will this let everyone on the board know that you won't be around, but it will also keep you from losing characters or privileges or having your account made inactive by mistake. If your absence goes on for a while, keep in contact with the admins to remain on the active members list!

ROLEPLAY ETIQUETTE!
This is just some handy information that will help you adjust to the way things work here at SnF.

Abbreviations and What They Mean

IC - in character, stuff pertaining to the character's world
OOC - out of character, stuff pertaining to the author's world
CTA - Contact the Admins
PD - Plot Discussions
G5, S4, H7 - The first letter - G, S, R, or H - stands for a character's house, and the second number is their year.
O - Other, or non-student character. Some may also use profession abbreviations.
DP, MoM, StM, etc - Profession abbreviations.


Unspoken Rules

When a thread has a name ((in parenthesis)) behind the title, that means it is reserved for someone. Ask permission before joining these threads, and don't be surprised if they say it's closed.

Even if it's not reserved, it's generally polite to ask to join an RP that is already well established. These posts may already have a full page of writing or more.

When you're posting on an In Character (IC) board be sure your Out Of Character comments (OOC) are marked in some way. Most of us on SnF use ((double parenthesis)) to denote out of character comments. I.e. ((Ron's so dumb, omg!)) Ron took this moment to demonstrate his piercing wit. "Buh?"

If you are applying for a student character in the middle of an ‘academic year’ on the boards (aka a 'season'), play as if your character has been here all along. Students will have been at Hogwarts since September (unless they have a very convincing reason for missing the start of the school year), and older characters should RP that they have been at Hogwarts since year 1. The plot board is a great place to set up history with other players so that you know what they have been doing for the years before you began RPing them.

When your character meets another character in a roleplay consider their relationship before acting as if they have never met, simply because you have never written it out. For instance if both characters are aurors or if they are in the same year at Hogwarts, they probably already know each other.

If you have a problem with anything at all, it is generally best to direct your complaint to the staff. The Private Message service is useful for private matters, and the cbox is there for anything else. We're here for you, man. Fo' sho'.

MAGICAL CREATURES!
For the purposes of RP here at SnF the following standardizations of Magical Creatures applies. ^__^

WEREWOLVES!
From Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Newt Scamander):

Werewolves at SNF
In addition to the standards set out above, werewolves here are afflicted for life once bitten. They cannot change into wolf form at will and may do so only at a full moon; Nor can they control their hunger or actions once in wolf form unless under the influence of the relevant potion. It should also be noted that werewolves do not look strictly like their fully canine counterparts; The main differences are small but when recognised prove invaluable. The snout on the werewolf for instance is slightly longer, the pupils of the eyes are a tad more dilated and the tail appears a little fuller with the fur more tufted. Also please note that we do not accept any other werecreatures. Just werewolves.

VAMPIRES!
From A Muggle’s Guide to the Wizarding World (Fionna Boyle):

Vampires at SNF
Vampires are classified by the Ministry of Magic as ‘non-wizard part-humans’, and their treatment is regulated by the Ministry. Because of their classification as 'beings' instead of 'beasts,' both merpeople and centaurs refused to be classified as beings themselves. Most known vampires assimilate peacefully into wizarding society, and it is against Ministry policy to actively attempt to eradicate them. Troublesome vampires are seen to by expert vampire hunters.

Vampires do not have to drink blood, and can eat any number of other things. When they do not, however, they become pale, gaunt, and weak, and they have a very difficult time not answering the call of their thirst. (See Gilderoy Lockhart and Sanguini.)

Vampires are strong, fast, and have incredible senses, but not to the extent of Twilight, Anne Rice, or similar. They are about double the average human, and do to their excellent reflexes and speed, make very difficult targets for vampire hunters. Vampires do not have superhuman attractiveness; they look like any other human, unless they have not had any blood.

Vampires who were once wizards retain some of their magical ability, such as sporadic defensive magical ability, and the ability to use wands. Wands are incredibly rebellious when used by vampires, however, and it is against the law of most modern wizarding countries. A wand will never choose a vampire once they have died, but they may still use it.

Vampires can procreate with humans, resulting in half-breed offspring. Vampires can only be created by a human being drained by a vampire, which makes deliberate turning inherently risky and uncommon. It is believed that introducing vampire blood through ingestion or intravenously will aid in a person coming 'back from the dead' as a vampire. Vampires do not retain any knowledge of being 'beyond the veil,' making it debatable whether they ever truly die. Vampire blood is highly sought after as a potion ingredient.

Vampires are repelled by garlic because of their keen sense of smell and because it makes blood taste disgusting! They do not show up in magical mirrors or photographs thanks to their being charmed to reveal vampires. Muggles sometimes come to own these charmed mirrors and therefore have heard the myth. It's also traditional for magical homes to have anti-vampire charms that force a vampire to wait until being invited into the home before entering.

They can be killed by a wooden stake to the heart, just like any creature can, but they are not repelled by crosses as people generally believe. Vampires cannot be killed by the killing curse; it is one of the reasons wizards are so terrified of them. They must be killed by more 'traditional' spells that do physical damage, such as fiendfyre.

VEELA!
Also part-human, Veela are creatures resembling beautiful women with classic features and long flowing hair. When angered, however, they become something distinctly less attractive. They exert over the male human population a kind of fascination which transcends in a trance, causing any human male under its spell to vie desperately for the Veela’s affections. Despite much argument, it has been deduced that in order for propagation of the species there must be a male version. Not much is known about the creature from a Potterverse point of view, but for the purposes of RP here at SNF the above standards apply.

CENTAURS!
From Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Newt Scamander):

From A Muggle’s Guide to the Wizarding World (Fionna Boyle):

Centaurs here at SNF
Centaurs here at SNF are largely as depicted above. Minor variations from these standards are acceptable, however we are not accepting centaurs from any herd other than the one in the Forbidden Forest.

GHOSTS!
Ghosts
Although no standard is available through Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, SNF allows member to play ghosts as full characters providing that there is a good reason for why that character would remain earth-bound as a ghost and relevant haunting spots are given for said character to inhabit.


MERPEOPLE!
From Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Newt Scamander):

Merpeople at SNF
We will be accepting mermaid characters in accordance with the above standards, if you are so inclined.

In order to apply for a Creature or Being, please fill out the normal appropriate Original Character Form and post it as normal.