ROMANCE & KITS.
Romance Guidelines
How to start a relationship
So, you're interested in having your character start a relationship and potentially have a litter in the future? Let's get you on the right path by introducing you to some basic SOTC etiquette surrounding romantic relationships!
First, check the age guide below to see if the cats you are interested in pairing up all adhere to those guidelines! All good? Great! Now it's time to talk with the cat's players and establish what everyone is looking for!
Table of Contents
Age Guide
If you have any questions at all, please don't hesitate to reach out to staff!
Please note, that these age ranges don't line up with the ones on the Character Creation page. These are their own age ranges to suit the purposes of the romance guidelines. Please check Character Creation if you are looking for skill ranges for your age group.
There is a chart below to help calculate!
Kitten/Young cat — 0 - 14 moons: No relationships may start in this age range, but the build up to a relationship within their age group can be hinted at! No mentions of being mates/starting families may be mentioned in these moons.
Adolescents — 15 - 19 moons: Relationships can begin to blossom at this age, but only with cats of their own age group! Relationships at this stage are often considered 'puppy love' and don't last particularly long. Some flirting may happen, but it is rare for cats at this age to even consider settling down anytime soon. Thoughts of family can come up if they are considering a relationship with cats within their age group (older apprentices). They are nearly adults at this stage in their life, so discussions with their peers about these views are allowed. Absolutely no relationships may start if one cat is currently an apprentice and another is a warrior, even if they are a moon apart!
Young Adult — 20 - 29 moons: This is when cats may start considering and trying for kittens officially! At this age, cats may begin seeking slightly more serious relationships among Clanmates within 6 moons in age or cats as many as 12 moons older than them if the cat in question is from another Clan or if their apprenticeship period overlapped with the younger cat's. While not every pairing will become serious, this is typically when a cat finds their first love!
Intra-Clan
A young adult — 20 - 29
May start a relationship so long as they would have been apprentices alongside each other at some point.
30+
May start a relationship within 24 moons of age.
This is because Clanmates treat each other as a platonic family; being in a relationship with someone who was at one point an adult, while the other was not, is not okay
Adult — 30 - 60 moons: Most cats are beginning to settle down. Perhaps they’ve even found their forever mate? At 30 moons, cats may enter relationships with Clanmates within 12 moons of age. Also, starting at 30 moons of age and onward, cats may have a 24 moon age gap in their relationships if the cats are in different Clans or if one cat joined the Clan when both cats wanting to court were already adults (20 moons or older). The reasoning for this is because Clanmates treat each other as platonic family, and being in a relationship with someone who was at one point an adult while the other was not is not okay.
Middle aged — 61 - 100 moons: Provided they’re interested in romance, cats at this age are typically seriously looking to settle down permanently. May date among themselves or 12-24 moons above/below where applicable, based on rules established at ages 30-60 moons.
Senior — 101 - 150 moons: May date among themselves or 12-24 moons above/below where applicable, based on rules established at ages 30-60 moons.
Elder — 151+ moons: At this point, this cat has seen many seasons of life. The moons fly by, making keeping track of exact numbers difficult. They may date within this age range, as well as up to 24 moons below where applicable, based on rules established at ages 30-60 moons.
Cross- Clan
A young adult — 20 - 29
May start a relationship within 12 moons of age, 20 or older.
30+
May start a relationship within 24 moons of age.
Cross-Clan Relationships
THUNDERCLAN
Considering she's secretly in one herself, Fangstar has a very positive view of cross-Clan relationships. All a cross-Clan couple needs to do to keep her favor is to plan things out. Telling her in advance (so she can discreetly cover for them) is a plus, but she understands if cats want to keep it private. To her, love is a force that cannot be stopped by borders, so why should the Clans even try? In fact, if everyone cares about someone in another Clan, won't they be more reluctant to go to battle? Cross-Clan connections seem like the perfect solution to her, and a step towards the more peaceful world she dreams of.
She also wants the Clans to remove their stigma/ban on cross-Clan relationships, not just because it hurts her, but because she's seen the impact it's had on her cross-Clan child. Fangstar knows many cats would blame HER for the anguish her child felt after learning their true parentage, but she knows cross-Clan parents aren’t the ones to blame for this. It is the world that needs to change, not their love.
RIVERCLAN
WINDCLAN
SHADOWCLAN
Her thoughts about crossclan relationships are… complicated. As she was involved in one for a very brief amount of time, Canterburystar sees the both negatives and positives of loving someone at a distance. She believes that love is love; the border shouldn’t determine whether a couple ought to be condemned or not. No, instead, it’s whether the couple starts to seriously consider a litter.
To have two parents in two different clans is a fate that Canterburystar has, regrettably, put her children in. She’s ashamed of the fact that her children were forced to live two lives and ultimately find a struggle in their identity as a Shadowclanner. Anyone who goes into a relationship and forces children to deal with the consequences are condemned. She believes that those who put their children through the same pain her children once were in are to be punished to a near severe degree.
Depending on the leader and council, each Clan has differing views on Cross-Clan relationships. However, it should be assumed that no Clan will openly accept Cross-Clan relationships in the same light as inner Clan ones since it is forbidden in the Clan's code. As with any breaking of the code, if you intend to have a Cross-Clan relationship, please reach out to your staff and open a dialog! That way, we don't have random relationship drama popping up and our leaders scrambling to figure out what to do with little forewarning!
A deciding factor when it comes to staff approval is the current amount of Cross-Clan relationships you currently have. Make sure you and your RP partner are ready to list them out when opening a thread with the staff teams!
When opening a conversation with staff, filling out this template will help the conversation run more efficiently!
**Characters Involved:**
**Members Involved:**
> *please list out any other CrossClan involvement you have, via family or romance!*
**Clans Involved:**
**What type of thread is this?:** *Romance, Family, Interloping, Fight, etc..*
**Summary of request:**
LEAVING A SCENT
Relationships that are romantic or may lead to kittens across the border are forbidden by the code. If your thread has romance as a focus, you will need to roll sneaking to see if their scent was left at the border!
If your characters are having a sleepover, they will have disadvantage on their Sneaking roll, meaning that they have to roll 2 times and take the lower result.
If a sneaking roll is failed, not only do you leave a scent on the border, but you also return to camp smelling of your cross-Clan love interest!
What is a failed roll?
Any sneaking roll that doesn't state it's a "combo" is considered a failed roll. This would mean 0-10 is a fail, 11+ is a success.
I failed a sneaking roll!
When you leave behind a scent, you must leave a note at the end of your thread, in the #daily-fourtrees channel & in your Clan's current events channel. Ex: "Bluedancer left a scent by the WindClan border!"
Cross-Clan Litters
Cross-clan litters are a very serious situation, as it breaks the warrior code. Depending on your council's stance on that part of the code and the other factors surrounding the litter, things may go over smoothly, or your cat may be in serious trouble.
Having a litter with a cat from another clan may come with IRP punishments, which could make both parents seeing their kits difficult. Please keep this in mind when considering it!
❥ In order to have a cross-Clan litter, please reach out to staff of both Clans to open up a thread! Having cross-Clan kits is a serious, long-lasting plotline that has a risk of being found out, so your Clan's staff have potential to deny this request!
When requesting a cross-Clan litter, here are some things to keep in mind:
❥ What Clan will your kits being going to? Will you split the litter?
❥ How involved will both parents be in the kits' lives?
❥ Will this litter be kept a secret? If so, how?
Please note that meeting your kittens as a parent in another Clan is not always going to be easy or possible. This is a risk that is taken when having a cross-Clan relationship. Please plan accordingly and be respectful to your staff who are adhering to realistic IRP scenarios.
Visiting kits
❥ Please ask your staff before creating a thread like this! So we can be made aware/let you know if there's any possible confliction that will complicate this from happening.
There are multiple ways for parents to meet their newly born children across the border. The first being the same-Clan parent bringing the kits with them to the border, kits sneaking out, or interloping into another Clan's territory.
Parent supervised
❥ If this is a secret meeting, all cats involved must roll sneaking at a disadvantage! Kittens leaving camp is something Clans will notice and inquire about; this roll is to simulate your cat lying to those asking where you are going, or to simulate how conspicuous their leaving camp is.
❥ If the rolls are failed: Please discuss with your staff team how to go about the situation. It is possible your cat may gain a concerned clanmate following them. This may change plans of meeting the out-of-Clan partner, or forge some interesting plots where your clanmates might lie for your cat. This may have serious consequences, so please keep this in mind!
❥ Upon the meeting thread ending: all cats involved roll sneaking at disadvantage to simulate how well you get the scent of the cross-Clan parent off the kits and yourself. If failed, you must leave a note at the end of your thread, the fourtrees-daily channel & your Clan's current events channel. Ex; "Bluedancer left a scent by the WindClan border .. there's a trace of another cat."
Kits sneaking out
❥ Any kit under 3 moons cannot leave camp even with a parent's permission. They will be noticed and caught by the leader, the deputy, a campminder, or a permamonarch.
❥ If older and leaving camp without permission, you will have to follow the rules above for the "Parent supervised" section.
Interloping
❥ This is not something that can be done spur-of-the-moment: it must be discussed well in advance with both staff teams involved. Interloping into a Clan's territory is breaking the code and is taken extremely seriously! This is something that would have lasting effects and serious consequences for every cat involved, based on the clan leaders' stance on cross-Clan relationships and cats crossing borders.
How do litters work?
Once you've completed the requirements for a litter, you will fill out the form found in our #litter-requests channel! From here, staff will check that everything is in order, and then confirm that your litter request has been accepted & inform you when your litter will be born.
Behind the scenes, staff will use our generator to roll your litter & fill out an art base to showcase what your kits will look like. Once the number of kittens is rolled, we will also let the healers in your Clan know, so you can roleplay figuring out how many kittens your character will be expecting!
Our litter rolls are based on real-life cat genetics. You are not required to know anything about genetics, a staff member can work with the parents to figure out what they need to be rolled as! Coat type, coat color/pattern, and eye color are determined this way.
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The roll will also determine the size, health, and starting skills of each kitten. It will also give you a short sentence about the kitten’s behavior as a baby to help inspire the creation of their personality!
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Kittens have a possibility of being rolled with certain congenital differences or disabilities. There are also rare chances for interesting conditions such as chimerism, four ears, or ocular albinism!
You'll have a week to choose players for your kits after they're revealed to you
Kits and apprentices are unable to be created as OCs, unless created through the donation* process. This means they are solely played through adoption!
*In order to gain special rewards in the server, we set up a tier system, where you are able to donate to one of our supported charities in order to get things like: skill boosts, more OC slots, & permission to create younger cats, or purebreeds.
The typical way of kit adoption is waiting for a litter to be born in your Clan and applying for a kit. On occasion, young cats will be "dropped" by a player and put back on the adopts board, you can also apply there!
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Once you've adopted a young cat, you can only have one kit per Clan. (Ex; one in your main Clan, one in your dual Clan )
How to play a kit!
Rules!
General
❥ All characters involved in creating a litter must be the minimum of 20 moons.
❥ There is a 6 month IRL cooldown between litters for each specific cat involved, whether biological parent, adoptive parent or surrogate. Each cat may have three litters in their lifetime, not counting backstory litters. The cooldown begins on the day of birth.
❥ Should you remove a parent character from your character line up before their 6 month cooldown is complete, you as a member will assume the rest of the cooldown and will not be able to submit another request until those 6 months are up— regardless of whether or not your removed character’s kits are apprenticed.
❥ If you already have a character who has had kits during the course of the RP, either that parent character must complete 3 threads with each kit (2 if the litter has 4 or more kits) or you have to wait out the 6-month cooldown before you may submit another litter request with any* character.
* This excludes the character who had a recent litter; they must wait out their 6-month cooldown either way!
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NOTE: These threads do not have to be completed during kithood. (Births, apprentice ceremonies, and otherwise mandatory Clan-wide events will not count towards those 3 threads. A thread is 3 posts per character.
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As long as all other requirements are met, a player may have an in-Clan litter without meeting the reqs for their cross-Clan kits. !! They must make the required posts with their cross-Clan litter before any of their other characters can have a cross-Clan litter again !!
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Kit requirements have the potential of being waived if it's out of the hands of the parent player, ex: kit players are inactive, outside forces, etc. This will have to be requested to staff!
❥ You may only have 1 character with a litter in the nursery at any given time.
❥ Same-sex couples or couples otherwise unable to produce biological kits may find an existing cat for a surrogate parent. Otherwise, it will be assumed that a surrogate was found who resembles a cat in the couple they are surrogating for.
❥ All cats playing a parental / guardian role in the kit's lives take on the cooldown and also the temporary role model blessing!
Kit Threads / Adoption
Kit threads must fulfill the following requirements:
💕 Planned litters must complete 6 kit threads. If the cat(s) in question have had a rolled litter before, another will only require 4 threads instead of 6. These cannot then be reused for future litter requests.
❥ One of the focuses of the thread must be Kits or Romance, which will count as one of the 2 thread focuses (so you can have this and one skill as the focus).
❥ The thread must contain either at least 2 of the future parents to the litter, or a monarch character. Monarch characters include: cats currently raising litters in the nursery, permamonarchs, and cats who have raised litters both IRP and in backstory before. Threads can be mixed between those among parents and those with just monarchs, but parents will still need to all be in at least the required number of threads each.
❥ Monarch characters participating in these threads may later use these threads for a litter of their own as well, so long as the content of the thread in some way includes themselves planning to have one.
❥ Threads can be split between the participants of polyamorous relationships. Though they may be split as desired, each involved cat must have the required number of threads they were involved in.
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E.g. For a guaranteed litter request, you can have Cat A and B in 3 threads together, Cat B and C in 3 threads together, and Cats A, B, and C all in 3 threads together.
❥ Each character must post a minimum of three times. This does not apply to cats whose presence is not required (not one of the parents nor a monarch).
Secret Litters
❥ Everyone has the option to hide their litter requests from the public, in order to make the kitting/pregnancy a surprise.
❥ In order to submit a secret litter, you will have to decide if you want the entire server's staff, your clan staff, or your clan's leads to know. Upon deciding, you can reach out to the staff and request a secret litter. The staff member should work with you to set it up & they will roll it privately to ensure everything remains behind more closed doors.
Flings
❤️🔥 Flings must complete 2 kit threads.
These cannot then be reused for future litter requests.
❥ Follows the same guidelines and cooldowns for rolling planned litters.
❥ Fill out Fling Request Form found in #litter-requests, then a member of staff will roll a 1d3 or 1d6 in #litter-requests.
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If a 1 is rolled, a litter is to be expected!
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An in-Clan fling has a higher chance of success: 1/3, or roughly 33%.
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An out-of-Clan fling has a lower change of success: 1/6, or roughly a 16% chance!
❥To retry, 2 more romance threads must be completed and a 2 week cooldown must be waited out.
❥ NOTE: Planned litters will always take precedent over fling litters, especially when a lack of available mentors and players occurs. We will always do our best as staff to keep kits and apprentices rotating, but the timing of litters might have to be staggered to ensure everyone gets a chance at starting a family.
Solo Litter
💗Solo litters must complete 6 kit threads. If the cat in question has had a rolled litter before, another will only require 4 threads instead of 6. These cannot then be reused for future litter requests.
❥ Complete 6 kit focus threads with a monarch.
❥ Fill out the litter form as normal, but without genetic information. Unless..
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You have surrogacy or specific genes in mind. Instead of roleplaying a pregnancy and kit count thread, you can ask healers directly for the number and will meet your kits at the end of the 2 week period. Surrogates do not gain the Role Model blessing, nor a kit cooldown unless they take on a guardianship/parental role in the kits' lives! Please specify when posting the litter form!
❥ All other rules regarding kits apply! If anything needs to be clarified please don't hesitate to ask staff!
Kitting
❥ Monarchs are pregnant for 2 real-life weeks before the kits are born.
If requested, parents of the litter can ask for more time after those 2 weeks have passed, with the purpose of creating/commissioning art for the litter, or for any specific roleplay needs. Instead of being born normally at the 2-week mark, they may be born later on.
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During this time, the character may visit a healer to see how many kits there are. Pregnant cats should refrain from strenuous activities and leaving camp alone. Hunting and patrolling is still allowed, but sparring and climbing are not good ideas. When it is time for the kits to be born, one of the parents should make a roleplay post announcing that the birth has taken place. Once this is done, a staff member will post with the results of the litter roll.
❥ The parents then have a week to adopt out the kits by whatever means they wish.
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Players of the parents may not adopt a kit, to prevent situations of players roleplaying with themselves. We recommend giving some time for everyone who is interested to apply, as kit adopts tend to be very popular.
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Once you've adopted a young cat, you can only have one kit per Clan. (I.e. One in your main Clan, one in your dual Clan)
❥ A week after their birth, the kits will be aged up to one moon and will be playable by their adopters!
Some good questions to ask
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How will the relationship start? Slow burn, love at first sight, friends to lovers, rivals to lovers?
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Will they be polyamorous? Poly relationships all have to be agreed upon by all players!
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Do they want kits / would they consider kits?
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Are there other kits involved that would be gaining a new parent?
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Do they want this to be a forever romance, a fling, a relationship that lasts for a while, then ends?
Is it Cross-Clan?
Once all is confirmed that romance will be in the air for these kitties, please reach out in your Clan-specific staff requests and ping your leader to let them know! Your leader can't be everywhere at once. Help them keep up with the goings on of their clanmates by filling them in, since this is a code-breaking scenario!
To read more about Cross-Clan relationships
KITTENS & LITTERS
Whether you're adopting, having a litter with a mate (or two!), becoming a single parent or even finding yourself with surprise kittens .. bringing new cats into the world requires some rules and guidelines you need to follow first!
Litter rules can be different per Clan, typically following different queues or restrictions depending on the Clan's current amount of kits and willing players to match!
RiverClan-specific rules!
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RiverClan works with a queue system in order to prevent a kit overflow. Litters must be submitted to the litter form upon thread completion and wait for staff approval. Wait times fluctuate based on member availability and current kit numbers.
ShadowClan-specific rules!
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If a member has had a litter before, those kits must be at least twelve moons in order to submit a new form.
ThunderClan-specific rules!
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There must be at least a week between the starts of all used Romance/Kit threads.
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ThunderClan works with a queue system in order to prevent a kit overflow; cross-Clan kits headed to TC will be handled with that system, which TC staff has the guidelines for.