CHARACTER GUIDE
Everything you need to know about character creation, character slots and life events in SOTC.
Character Slots & OC Tokens
Donations & Rewards
Tier 1 ($3.49 total)
A tier 1 donation will allow one level boost to a skill of your choice on any character!
Donations in SOTC are an optional system, where all proceeds are given directly to one of our supported charities!
Things like disability, genetics, and personailty traits will never be put behind a paywall. The rewards system simply allows you to bypass a few of our rules and gain additional character slots without waiting.
The organizations we list will always be vetted to the furthest extent possible to ensure our members are safe and their donations are going to quality causes.
You can read more about the donation process in server!
Creating your character!
The basics
★ Naming
SOTC is set in Europe. Keeping this in mind, fauna and flora-themed names would have to abide by location. Oftentimes, exceptions can be made for non-clanborn cats. If unsure, make sure to discuss appropriate naming with your staff!
★ Ages
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Ages work differnently than in the books! 100 moons would not be considered an elderly cat.
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Kit and Apprentice characters (below 18 moons) cannot be created normally unless applying for an in-roleplay litter or using a donation slot.
Skill key
Kits (0 - 5) must have all beginner Skill except 1 based your Clan, and 1 randomly rolled by Staff.
Apprentices (6-17) can have 1 Beginner, 4 Rookie, & 2 Decent Skills
Beginner (18 - 30 moons) can have 3 Decent, 3 Average, & 1 Great Skills
Proficient (31 - 60 moons) can have 4 Average, 2 Great, & 1 Excellent Skills
Experienced (61+ moons) can have 3 Great, 3 Excellent, & 1 Mastered Skills
🐣 Kits! Aged 0-5 moons.
Kits are born with all their skills at beginner, except for one based on their Clan and another that is randomly rolled at birth.
ThunderClan kittens will be born with climbing at rookie, RiverClan kits have rookie swimming, ShadowClan rookie sneaking, and WindClan cats have rookie tracking.
Roleplaying Kits - Milestones!
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Newborn kittens: Their eyes and ears closed. Their eyes open around a quarter to a half moon and are always blue.
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1 moon: They can walk and play relatively confidently. They can talk a little in short phrases. Their hearing and eyesight are mostly developed.
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2 moons: They will be fully or nearly fully weaned. Their adult eye color will have come in. They can speak or sign in short sentences, and can start absorbing clan rules and stories.
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3-5 moons: They have more control over their bodies, and will start playing more sophisticated “training games” such as practicing hunting on leaves or bugs. As they grow older, they will require less supervision around camp. If the environment is safe, they may even be permitted on short, parent-sanctioned excursions out of camp.
Kittens are restricted to camp channels unless under supervision of parents/guardians. If your kit character intends to sneak out you must get permission from their parent/guardian and also your Clan's staff.
🧵 Kits in the nursery are granted an extra thread slot strictly for family bonding. This extra thread follows into their apprenticeship but with different rules.
★ Design & Accessories
Character Design
SOTC is a genetically-accurate server, meaning we don't allow any sparkle cats to be created (unrealistic designs, such as bright greens/purples/blues), but we do allow them to have artistic liberty, stretching what can and cannot be done in real life is allowed as long as they can still somehow fit within our genetics system.
Does this mean you need to have genetic knowledge? No! There is a channel in our server: #genetics where you will be able to ask for help. It is also not required to know your character's genetics, this will only be needed if your character has a litter.
We also have an array of genetic emojis and a genetic document that will help you out visually!
If your character is not a Tier 4 donation, their height range should be 6" - 14" at the shoulder.
Cats with dwarfism are able to be created (so long as they are played respectfully to the little person community, and their health complications are kept in mind.) Their height range is 6-9" at the shoulder, but not all cats in this height range have dwarfism.
Taller characters can only be made if they are purebred, a hybrid, or a wildcat. All of which can only be created VIA donation.
Cats can have physical disabilities if - and only if - the player is able to play the cat in a respectful way. If it is found a player is playing their disabled character in a disrespectful way staff will intervene, and may result in a warning depending on the situation. Some examples of disability are: folded ears, cerebellar hypoplasia, missing limbs, ocular albinism, deafness, blindness, etc.
Accessories
Each clan has its own rules regarding accessories, but generally a cat should not have any items that could not feasibly be found in the wild. The kind of items available vary per clan due to territory, and queries regarding accessories should be directed to Clan-specific staff.
The server-restricted accessories are:
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Bone accessories in the nose or ears.
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Septum piercings.
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Feathers on the head (behind the ears specifically as that is the most common but head in general is off the table.)
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Eagle feathers
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Accessories with explicit religious symbols.
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Neck rings.
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Gauged ears.
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Fur dye/paint that is placed over the mouth in the shape of a pawprint. (Also please be mindful and do your research when using paw stains/paint on the face of your character! If you are unsure about something you have in mind feel free to ask!)
★ Character Origin, Backstory and Personality.
Origins
Your character’s background is one of the most important pieces of starting to know who they are. When you’re opening up the character application, you’re listed with a multitude of different options. Allow me to go over those options in-depth!
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Clanborn.
This one’s pretty self-explanatory. Your character was born into one of the four clans! You do not need permission to make your character clanborn unless the clan you’d like them to be born from is different from the clan they're currently in.
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Kittypet.
Your character was born a pet to humans!
Note: having a kittypet origin requires some extra attention to our history! In Leafbare Year 2 of the server, any surrounding twolegs abandoned the area due to natural disaster. You can check the history sheet to see if your cat is old enough to have belonged to one of those twolegs. If not, you may have to work around that! Ex: long-distance travel to the clans/abandoned.
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Loner.
Your character was born outside the clans without being in a specified group!
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Streets.
Your character was born in the bustle of a twoleg-populated area. The streets are known for being a tough upbringing for a cat.
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Graveyard.
Your character was born in the nearby twoleg graveyard! The Graveyard origins have unique lore to them! There’s a collection of graveyard-born cats in ThunderClan who have preserved their culture. If you’d like to make a graveyard cat, you can read up on them once you join the server!
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Wildcats.
Wildcats can only be created VIA our server rewards, you can see more information on this in our #server-boost-rewards channel. [At the time of writing this, they are closed.]
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Farmland.
Your character was born on a farm!
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Other
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Foundling
Your character was found as a kit/apprentice in Clan territory, where they were later brought in and raised.
None of the specified origins fit with what you have in mind.
Backstory
As a long-standing server, SOTC has a pretty extensive amount of in-server events that have happened. You’re not required to include every event, or any event into your character’s backstory if you’re not interested. However, if you’d like to know what your character may have lived through, you can check through your Clan's timeline and ask your staff team any questions you might have regarding it!
Another resource that may be useful is our content restriction doc!
This will outline some of what content we do not allow in the character's backstories. Keep in mind this is a 15+ server! Heavy topics are allowed in moderation. If you're ever uncertain if what you've written is too dark for the server, reach out to your Clan's staff or discuss further in your character's sheet review thread.
Personality
While you're allowed to have morally grey or more "villanous" characters, SOTC disallows cats to be created with the sole purpose to cause harm. Traits like "manipulative" or "narcissistic" wouldn't be allowed when submitting your character.
It is okay for cats to have traits or symptoms of some disorders/neurodivergencies, but please do not label them with a diagnosis IRP, as the Healers would not know those words. We do not allow the medication of mentally ill cats by Healer or otherwise. While you may have representation of disorders that you personally do not have within your characters, it must be respectful. We suggest that you do research into the disorder you're thinking of before committing to it, and your clan's staff will check in with you upon submission to ask about how it will be portrayed. If it is found a player is playing their mentally ill/neurodivergent character in a disrespectful way staff will intervene, and may result in a warning depending on the situation.
★ Character Sheets / Biography
Full Biographies!
After you submit your character, using the character application, a staff member will check through your submission to ensure their name, traits, description & stats all work within our rules. Once they're accepted, they'll be announced in your Clan's OOC channel. After this, a thread will be opened with you off of your Clan's #full-bios channel. Here, your Clan's staff team will be in direct contact with you to guide you through your character's information sheet.
Full bios are required for each character. All of a players characters must be on the same sheet. To find links to the sheet template, please check the pins in your Clan's #full-bios channel.
📘 The Google Docs version will require you to manually update your EXP each time as there is no coding added to this sheet.
📗 The Google Sheets version has code added and an EXP log section. The code can be difficult to understand at first, but we have guides provided in-server!
You will have 2 weeks from the time your character is accepted to complete the required sections of your character sheet! If you have not completed your sheet within the timeframe, you will not be able to RP as that character until their required information completed and approved by the staff member assisting you. Though you may still post in the "daily" channel of your Clan until they are completed.
The template provided is optional! You're able to create your own sheet, so long as it has all the required sections:
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Name, Age, Gender/pronouns. Make sure this lines up with the information on the allegiances.
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Clan and Clan rank
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An image, whether drawn or a photo of a real cat.
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Please do not use drawn art you do not have permission to use; free to use photos are also preferred.
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Picrews are completely acceptable and if you need a link to any, we have many pinned in our #art-chat, as well as many links to free-to-use cat art bases to make your own designs.
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An EXP tracker of some sort. Staff is not responsible for keeping up with player's EXP.
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Personality as shown on the allegiances and a slightly more detailed explanation of how this personality will be written.
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Background, at least three sentences per age bracket they line up with. (Kit, Apprentices, Young warrior, Warrior, Senior warrior, Elder)
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Please be sure to add all relevant information, and make sure it lines up with what we allow in server.
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If the character is directly related to others be sure that any history is also discussed with the player of the connected characters.
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Blessings if applicable. Most new characters will not have blessings unless they are an HR.
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Height, please be sure to adhere to our height limitations per player.
CHARACTER SLOTS
Character slots - Character slots are the total amount of characters you're able to play, whether this be OCs or Adopts.
Gaining new slots . .
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Everytime you complete two activity checks (ACs) you will gain another character slot!
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Additionally, you can gain more through donation. You can read more about our donation process in the Donation & Rewards section below!
🍼 Kit slots & Dual Clanning!
If you adopt a kit from a "rolled litter", this will not take up one of your character slots, as they come with their own! This Kit slot remains with the character forever.
Once you've completed 12 ACs in the server, you have the option to join a second Clan. The amount of characters you're able to play in your second Clan will be half the amount of your total slots.
EX; I have 8 character slots in total
In my second Clan I would have 4 of my 8 slots. (We round UP in case of uneven numbers)
Slots Sheet
You can check the amount of characters slots/OC tokens you currently have, here. One you join SOTC you'll be automatically added to the tracking sheet!
OC TOKENS & ADOPTS
OC tokens - OC tokens are how many Original Characters you're able to create in server! In order to make an OC you will need a free character slot & OC token.
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You will gain a new OC token every 6 ACs in server!
Adopts - Adopts are characters that members can apply to play. They're either created off of someone's OC or put out by staff teams.
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Each OC can have up to 3 adoptables made for them. These adoptables must be related in some way to the OC. Ex: Familial, a friend from outside the clans, or a previous mentor.
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If you are creating an adopt off of your OC, this adopt can only exist in the same Clan as your OC, unless the adopt is an outsider.
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If you have any questions when creating an adoptable, ping your clan’s Staff in your clan staff requests channel.
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Fill out the character application as you did for your OC, adding ADOPT- before your username.
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To claim an Adoptable, chat with their creator in your clan ooc to learn about the character you want to adopt. Ask the person who made the character if you can adopt them!
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Once you have both confirmed you are adopting said character, go to the #staff-requests channel and ping your clan mods informing them of the cat you are adopting!
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You cannot adopt your own adoptable.
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If you plan on dropping an adoptable you must reach out to the adopt holder first and let them know!