• For members with a leadership character: pride page checks will now be done on a biweekly basis by Admins (as opposed to weekly), in tandem with the pride history checks. This is to reduce stress and hopefully streamline the process a bit more.
• We've added some new petal values to the Guidebook, so check them out! These includes petal rewards for completing larger threads (cough the war cough), minor maiming another character, and completing a thread with 10+ posts.
• A new mutation has been added: thick tail! Also sometimes referred to as a "leopard tail", this mutation has been added into our Tier 4 mutations and will cost 300 petals to add to your character's design. This can not be added to characters that have already been accepted.
• Members of the afterlife (Spectres, Idols, and Guardians) are now able to claim a title for themselves at the time of death. This will be in the form of "Soul of [blank]", and will occupy the rank field on their profiles. This will also be added to their blurb on the afterlife page and the form that is submitted when re-grouping them. If you have a member of the afterlife currently, please reach out to an Admin to get their title added!
• Pride histories will now match the revamped pride pages! Check out OH for an example - we will be adjusting the rest over the next couple of days, and will connect with pride leaders about the new coding.
• Snow Leopard Hybrids are now allowed! They will follow the normal hybrid rules and will receive global spotting by default.
• Minor maims will now only be 4 rounds long. This only applies to fights started after this announcement.
• The usergroup images on the Dusk skin set have been given a face lift! In other words, the images in the sidebar that display the status of an account (OOC/Staff/rogue/pride/etc.). The Ancient skin sets are coded differently, which is why you will not see these changes reflected on there.

Following an open call for applications last month, we are very excited to welcome some fresh faces to the Staff team!

Please join us in welcoming @Ferus ★, @Anyu, and @wallflower ★ to the Staff Team, and @Yumpy to the Assistant Staff Team!

All of our new staff members have been trained, but it still may take them some time to get into the swing of things. We ask that you show patience towards our new Staff members during this time - we promise that it will be well worth it!

The ground shakes and the thunder claps so loudly that it seems to shake your bones. All the while, the waters rage, the winds howl, and, everywhere you look, the weather seems to be growing more and more tumultuous. For the month of July, Nature's Wrath will be wreaking havoc — learn more here about this month’s BWP!

Take a peek at the prizes being offered for those that get involved - you won’t wanna miss this one. Also, join us in saying a huge thank you to the BWP Team for making this possible, and for facilitating this throughout the month of July! Show them some love!

Do you have some gifts laying around that you are not jiving with or that you know you won't use? Now is the time to toss them back into the pot and see if you can get something shiny and new! We will be running a Christmas in July event to help recycle some prizes, and redistribute them throughout the community.

Check out all the information that you need to know here!

We recently held a contest to introduce a new trade onto Amaryllis, and we received so many amazing submissions! It was difficult for the Staff team to decide what to add, but after discussing, we settled on the following:

Beatnik : a character who focuses on easy-living and relies on the support of others.
Erudite : a character who prioritizes the use of their mind, strategy, and the sharing of knowledge over strength.

Beatnik ended up being a combination of the Beatnik and Freeloader submissions, whereas Erudite ended up being a combination of the Tactician and Pedagogue submissions. We plan on keeping the other trade submissions on-hand in case we are ever able to add more trades in the future, and want to again thank everyone who took the time to flesh out their ideas and contribute! We will be reaching out to the winners in the coming days.

In order to make these trades the most useful they can be to the community, we will be moving into another stage of the contest where we will be accepting additional input for trade task and perk ideas. We have already gathered some from the original submissions and begun the internal drafting, but would like to open things up so that we can take in all of the ideas the the community may have.

Submissions will stay open for two weeks, and can be submitted here. The trades will go live on August 1st, at the latest, and may be released sooner if plausible.

Thank you to everyone who made suggestions for new IC Awards and for everyone who voted! The Sr. Staff team consolidated everything we received, including the community votes, and have narrowed down the first batch that we intend to roll out:

• Climb the Ladder: Hold at least one rank in every tier (unranked, low, occupational, medium, high, leader)
• Warmonger: Participate in 3+ wars/raids
• Huntsman: Lead 20+ hunts
• Patriarch/Matriarch: Be a founder of a family that sees two generations born on-site
• Bad Luck: Been a member of 3 prides that have randomly disbanded while you lived there
• Alchemist: Experiment with herbs and poisons in 7+ completed threads
• Guru: Successfully mentor 5+ students
• Cheater: Have a romantic affair outside of the agreements of your mateship

There are some additional ideas that we are holding onto, but are excited to get these into play and hope that you are too! The icons are still in the works - once they are done, these IC awards will be live and you will be able to claim them them!

If your character has achieved these awards on-site at any point prior to this announcement, you will be able to claim these IC awards once they are live.

In the hopes of adding a little more balance to our pride ranks system, we are introducing a few small changes and tweaks to the current set-up.

• Lead Scout has been adjusted to include the Assassin trade. Lead Advisor will include the new Erudite trade, once implemented.
• We have added a Lead Storyteller rank, which will encompass Bards, Nursemaids, and (once implemented) Beatniks. Their perk will be "Double the amount of claimable BWP-related exp for all pride-mates present in a thread (once per pride member per BWP)"
• We have added a Prisoner rank. Please note that pride leaders are in charge of setting up their rules for prisoners in their pride laws, and that we are not introducing a formal OOC mechanic for prisoners at this time.
• The Lead Fighter perk has been adjusted to: "+1 hit rolls when fighting on your pride territory or an allied pride’s territory"
• The Lead Scout perk has been adjusted to: "+1 luck to pride-mates when fighting on their pride territory (must be present prior to the start of the fight)"

After receiving some suggestions and noticing some areas that could be improved in terms of trade perks and their use, we are also making a few adjustments:

• Pathfinder Master Perk: +1 luck to pride-mates during raids and wars (must be present prior to the start of the fight)
• Pathfinder Sub-Master Perk: Auto-escape a fight (excluding death matches) by using the terrain to your advantage once per 4 OOC months

In addition, perks relating to the revival or healing of characters have been adjusted slightly to make them more streamlined and consistent. More specifically, we have introduced a timeframe for when the revival roll must be posted for Clerics and Medics, and have lengthened the timeline for the Medic sub-master perk.

• Cleric Master Perk: 50% chance to revive the dead once per IC year (roll must be posted within 1 OOC week of death)
• Medic Master Perk: 50% chance of saving a dying (DMed) character once per IC year (roll must be posted within 1 OOC week of death)
• Medic Sub-Master Perk: Ability to heal and reverse a maim once per IC year (thread must be made within 1 OOC week of fight results)

If you haven't seen it already, there is a new tab on the trades page of the Guidebook outlining how to use trade perks, perform the associated rolls, etc. Please refer here for more information!

Previously, if a pride received a strike when the primary leader is away on absence (and there are secondary leaders present), the secondary leaders had 24 hours to fix the error(s). If the error(s) were not fixed by the secondary leaders within this timeframe, the pride would automatically disband.

This will be changing in order to provide more fairness to the primary leader of the pride.

Moving forward, if a strike is received when the primary leader is away on absence, the secondary leaders will still have 24 hours to fix the mistakes. If the secondary leaders do not fix them within the 24 hours, the secondary leaders will be immediately demoted and unable to return to a leadership position for 1 OOC month. The primary leader will be given 2 days upon their return to fix the errors themselves in order to remove the strike. If, after that point, the issues have still not been fixed, then the pride would disband. If the pride already has a strike for the same thing, the leader will be given the same 2 days to get it fixed to avoid a disband. If, after that point, the issues have still not been fixed, then the pride will disband.

We understand that fights are often stressful and, at times, there can be a lot of limbo that comes from waiting for a reply. We are a site that encourages communication between other members, and strongly believe that talking things through is a big part of productive problem-solving. At the same time, we also know that reaching out can be extremely challenging, intimidating, or outside of our comfort zones. We strive to find a balance, for everyone, and so we want to give some more clarity on how fight defaults work and hopefully provide guidance on how members of our community can handle them.

If you are in need of extra time for a fight, or you are open to giving someone else extra time, start by reaching out to them. Note that if extra time is being given for a pride challenge, please alert Sr. Staff prior to the timer being up so that we are also aware! If both parties agree to the extra time, that's great and you can continue on as agreed! If one party doesn't agree to an extension or doesn't respond, then a default should be requested in Fight Updates.

We understand that posting a default request can feel daunting, but it is part of the rules of the site. We never want anyone to feel pressured into anything when it comes to a fight, so please be honest with yourself about what you are (and are not) okay with, and to reach out to a Sr. Staff member or open a ticket if you ever need advice, help, or feel unsure.

— The Staff Team