Living Lore System

Kinship is intentionally built to be fairly flexible; you don't need to check with Support before including something new in a post, as long as it's generally in line with the established details. A lot of little details naturally come up while we're posting, and players are welcome (encouraged!) to add bits of lore that they find the most fun or exciting for their particular thread. These details can easily disappear when the thread they were created for draws to a close — the Living Lore System gives us a way to keep the good ones! It also gives players an easy way to share noteworthy things happening in their threads so that New Ognos can change and develop based on what our characters are actually doing.

Lore: What Exists?

Roleplay creates countless little details about New Ognos that may never need an entire Codex page. Maybe you invented a neighborhood restaurant because your characters needed somewhere to eat. Maybe you mentioned a local superstition, named a minor group of NPCs, established a holiday tradition, or wrote something about how people from a particular community usually behave. If you'd like that detail to become part of the shared setting, submit it in the Living Lore thread opened each month in the #monthly-events channel on Discord; at the end of the month, accepted additions will be added to the Lore Log for easy reference.

Lore contributions might include things like:

• Local customs and traditions.
• Holidays and celebrations.
• Foods, drinks, recipes, or regional specialties.
• Superstitions, sayings, slang, or etiquette.
• Minor businesses and establishments.
• Small NPC groups or organizations.
• Local landmarks or neighborhood details.
• Common practices among particular communities.
• Stories, rumors, folklore, or historical details.
• Plants, animals, resources, or other environmental details.
• Anything else that helps make New Ognos feel inhabited.

You do not need to fully develop an idea before submitting it, and submitting an idea does not obligate you to write a full lore entry or maintain it afterward. A Living Lore submission can be as simple as "I mentioned a little group called the Black Rats operating around Millwater Downs. I don't want to make a full organization for them, but I'd love for them to exist." or "I wrote that people in this town traditionally leave a lantern burning when someone from their household is traveling. Can we make that a local custom?" You can also suggest something that hasn't appeared in a thread yet, for example, "I think it would be fun if New Ognos had a Day of the Dead-style holiday."

Community Feedback

Players are encouraged to react to lore submissions. Reactions are an informal way to show interest and help Support see how an idea lands with the community.

• Use 💚 to indicate you like the idea exactly as-is. It can mean something like "I like this," "I'd use this," or "Make it canon!"
• Use 💛 to indicate you like the idea, but have questions. It can mean something like "I'd like to hear more," "I have a tweak or addition to suggest," or "I'm not sure I'd use this in my posts."
• Use ❤️ to indicate you have some reservations. It can mean something like "I'd rather this not become established lore," "This conflicts with how I've understood something," or simply "This one isn't for me."

These reactions are meant to be a quick, low-pressure way to share your thoughts and help Support get a feel for how an idea lands with the community. They aren't formal votes, and there's no number of hearts required for something to be accepted or rejected. If you have more to say, you're always welcome to reply with questions, suggestions, concerns, or ideas of your own! Please don't take a ❤️ or 💛 personally! Not every idea will work for every player or fit everyone's understanding of the setting, and that's useful feedback too.

Event Reports: What Happened?

A new Event Report thread will be opened each month in the #monthly-events channel on Discord, where players can report noteworthy happenings in their threads throughout the month. An Event does not need to be a major situation or something serious; if something happened that could become part of the background activity, gossip, news, or recent history of an area, you're welcome to share it!

Event contributions might include things like:

• Someone destroyed a public statue in the Scorched Desert.
• Two characters welcomed a child in Frostveil.
• A local NPC was murdered in Hollowdeep Caves.
• A character opened a new business.
• A fight broke out somewhere public.
• Several characters encountered an unusual creature near a settlement.
• A group began investigating local disappearances.
• Something noteworthy happened during a quest.
• A character did something heroic, criminal, generous, destructive, embarrassing, or otherwise noteworthy.

When sharing an Event, you can also indicate how you'd like other players to use it:

• 🟩 Open: Feel free to reference the Event or incorporate it into other roleplay.
• 🟨 Limited: General knowledge, gossip, or rumors are fine, but please don't invent additional details or directly involve characters in the plot without checking.
• 🟥 FYI: You're sharing something big that happened, but it isn't currently open for use in other plots.

Reporting an Event is always optional, and reports should be quick and easy: a sentence or two is plenty! You decide which parts of your roleplay, if any, you want to bring into the wider setting. Public Events may also catch the attention of New Ognos's leadership, giving leadership characters opportunities to acknowledge and respond to things happening within their territories with rewards or punishments, but reporting something does not guarantee or require an official response.