Welcome to The Black Mountain Pack!
Here you'll find all the information you'll need about TBMP,check back regularly (members) to see if there are any updates!
The time period the roleplay takes place in is in the time before humans even came to America. The place is in the Rocky Mountains of what would be Colorado.
The Current Season is Early Autumn
Alphas currently allow others to breed. Gestation periods will be 1 real life month after conception.
ATTENTION: I've noticed there are several pretty unrealistically colored and designed wolves in the pack. Remember, people, try to keep your colors natural or as close to natural as possible. I know I am guilty of this (White Ash and his oranges oo;), but I too am going to start filtering out those colors in his future generations. I suggest those of you who have unaturally colored wolves do the same when/if they breed. This rule applies to patterns as well. No stripes or swirls or anything. Patches of color are okay, though. The same goes for names, if your character was born in and lived in the area around TBMP and TSRC lands or in a habitat like it, you're not likely to find things such as typhoons, hurricanes, or anything like that. These are inland wolves and they don't know of such occurances. This is only acceptable if your character has migrated from someplace that has those. From now on FireStorm and I will be more strict about this.
New updates/rules/etc will be in bold.
Ranks/Members:
Alphas: Ebon Star, Aspen (No positions open)
Male Beta: Cold Flame (No positions open)
Female Beta: Wildflower (No positions open)
Heir:
Delta: Cold Mountain (Position Closed)
Soldiers: Saeros, Howlite, Silent Paw, Dark Willow, Cold Flame, Bright Fang, Skullbane, Willow (open)
Hunters: Storm Raven, Red Falcon, Silver Leaf, Running Wind, Saeros, Skullbane (open)
Spirituals: Silver Eagle, Wind Feather (Position closed)
Healers: Shining SkyBird, Broken Light, Stone Fur (open)
Legends: Dusk Owl (open)
Elders: Sage Ghost, Fire Wind, Pine Raven (open)
Fliers: Kerridwen, Gold Sparrow, Chaser of the Moon, Grey Ash (open)
Eye of the Forest: Black Paw -deceased- (Position permanently closed)
Messenger (Equal to our previous Eye of the Forest): Yanya (Closed)
Puppysitters: Blaze (open)
Omegas: Streak, Canyon, Moth Wing, Little Doe, Snake Skin (open)
Pups: (Position always open)
Rank Descriptions:
Alphas: Leaders of the Pack.
Beta: Second in Command.
Heir: The pup chosen to take over the pack after the current Alphas resign/pass on. Though he/she is below the Betas, they are still able to give them small orders (nothing like, 'Kill that wolf' or anything, just small things for example 'Lead this hunting party' and what not). As they get more responsible and closer to Alphaship they slowly begin to be considered more dominant over the Betas, though they truly won't be until they are true Alphas.
Delta: Leads and trains the Soldiers. Also acts as a policeman and 'sheriff' over the soldiers in policing.
Soldiers: Those who defend the pack when at war. Soldiers can also have a second job. They also act as 'policemen' of the pack, enforcing peace within the pack.
Hunters: Hunt for the pack and bring back food.
Spirituals: Take care of those passing into the spirit world, watch for good and bad signs, assess them, and suggest the best thing to the Alpha/s.
Healers: Heal the wounded and sick,also pierce the body (explained below).
Legends: a.k.a. storytellers/legend holders.
Elders: The very elderly of the pack (usually that have fufilled their duties to the pack unless they were recently accepted in.). Elders are to be respected by ALL.
Fliers: a.k.a. scouts.
Eye of the Forest: The Pack's rabbit friend,scouts the area outside of pack territory. No one may have this position.
Puppysitters: Pupsits the little ones while their parents are away/busy. Also, if the mother has passed and there are no other nursing females, a female pupsitter will produce milk for the motherless pups (it is possible, it happens). Also, the pups will be mostly raised by the pupsitters if they have a very busy father (female pupsitters recommended for this, they need a mother figure).
Omegas: Lowest rank,are usually pushed around by higher ranks.
Pups: The little ones of the pack, of course.
The way you can tell a BMP member is by the feathers that are pierced into their right ears. A particular feather tells what rank the members are. Alphas have two feathers.
Feather Types and their Ranking:
Alphas: Two Bald Eagle feathers
Beta: Golden Eagle
Heir: One Bald Eagle feather
Delta: Redtail Hawk
Soldiers: Turkey Vulture
Hunters: Crow
Spiritual: Any yellow bird feather
Healers: Two feathers. Cardinal (male), to show rank, and dove as a white flag that they do not fight.
Legends: Blue Jay
Elders: Oriole
Fliers: Robin
Eye of the Forest: none
Puppysitters: The bright green feather from the Painted Bunting
Omegas: Quail
Pups: None
There is also a strict name policy in the pack for the Alpha bloodlines. The parents who name the pups must name them after what they see around them,when the pups are grown they must leave the pack for one night and dream themselves a new name. If they return to the pack with their new name then they are an adult,if not then they must wait another year before trying again. If they return to the pack and lie about thier name,then the Spirits of the Forest will take their lives. There can be no two same names within the pack either. Newcomers and non-Alpha-borns do not have to do a Dreaming. However they can if they want, it would put them in higher regard with the Spirits.
Grown pups who are not Alpha bloodline and do not want to Dream a new name skip the Dreaming process and get their feathers straight away.
Pack Rules:
1. Respect higher ranking members
2. Always call the Alphas & Beta by their whole name (no shortcuts,like just Sage or just Ghost for Sage Ghost)
3. No one may eat before the Alphas, Betas, expecting and nursing mothers and pups
4. Pups and expecting mothers get choice portions
5. Never question the authority of higher ranking members
6. Only Alphas and Betas may mark the territory. If the land is expanded enough,the Alphas may allow the Delta to do this as well.
7. Only the Alphas may lift their legs while marking territory and relieving themselves,even the Alpha female. All other members must squat (yes even the males). It is disrespectful to the Alphas and if they catch you doing this you better have that leg down before they reach you.
8. Lone pups that get accepted into the pack get to choose out of any of the members who will take care of them. They may also choose not to pick anybody and to care for themselves.
9. If a physical fight should ensue between two characters then either Sage Ghost, Deepening Shadows, or one of the Betas must be summoned (assuming there are witnesses to the fight). They will not interfere with the fight, but will allow the characters to battle out their problem until a winner emerges. They will step in only if it appears that it will turn deadly. Ranks can not be attained through fights, if your character wants a rank it must be requested to the Alpha. However, fights that were started just to provoke the other's character and do purposely fight for no reason will be demoted and if it continues, banished.
10. If your character murders a packmember and gets caught, your character will in turn be killed by either the Alphas or by someone that the Alpha/s choose. Permission is needed for one packmember to murder another, and if given then the player of the murderer automatically agrees to having that character killed back.
11. Torture is prohibited and punishable by the same acts the one who harms the other has done. This goes for the killing of a murderer (stated above), prisoners from war, etc. *Example: Wolf 1, for no reason, tears off the ears of another packmember. Punishment for Wolf 1 is getting his ears torn off.
12. Forgotten to mention above, only Alphas and Betas may accept members into the pack though this should be a given.
Guidelines:
1. Wolves accepted into the pack can go through the overnight name ceremony to get their natural, forest name. This will put them in higher regards with the Spirits of the Forest but you don't have to do this if you don't want to. Alpha bloodlines and those chosen to be the mate of an Alpha must do this if they haven't already.
2. A diversity of personalities from different members is highly welcomed,in fact recommended. (it makes the roleplay more interesting and realistic compared to everyone having the same or near to the same personality, perhaps make your character devious, or arrogant, maybe a troublemaker or even a major flirt)
3. The BMP is not exactly a 'good' pack, so don't be surprised when your goody-good character is accepted but is ordered around and looked down upon. To survive in this pack you must be tough, but respectful.
4. Stated below in the Beliefs part,it is said that living wolves may pray to their deceased family for guidance. If one of those family members was an actual roleplayed character that was played by someone else,then that person must be informed that their character had been asked for guidance so they may read your post and know what was asked. It is then up to them if they are to have their character answer your character's prayer or not. If not,do not bug them about that prayer any longer!
5. Anyone who doesn't want their character to fight in battles or to be attacked in battles will wear a white feather along with their ranking feather. The white feather acts like a white flag.
6. Spirituals cannot be trained. They are blessed with Sight by Black Wolf himself while still in the womb. This Sight comes through Spirit Dreams (dreams Spirituals have as a way to speak to the higher powers and ancestors), as all Spirituals have. Once the power to speak to the Spirit World is recognized, the pup will be trained by someone who is already a Spiritual to learn how to interpret these dreams and to interpret good and bad signs, etc.
Roleplay Rules:
1. No Powerplay whatsoever.
2. Keep the colors of your character realistic. However you can vary your patterns slightly into non-realism, just don't overdo it.
3. Most posts should be at least 5 sentences long.
4. Try not to leave anybody behind in an rp,try to take turns posting. However if this person has not posted in a maximum of one week then you are free to continue without him/her. It is especially annoying to be left behind or out of the very roleplay you started.
5. No heavy cursing,it is unintelligent and disrespectful. If you are found to be cursing abundantly in a BMP rp,you will be sharply and painfully reprimed by the Alphas and Beta.
6. No explicit sexual content whatsoever.
7. NO THESAURUS HUMPING! NO 'pons or 'ers or made up words for body parts. A tail is a tail and is going to be called so, not a banner! A head is not crania, for one the cranium is the skull (aka BONE) and secondly crania is plural, as in more than one. There will be no audits or radars or any of that stupid crap for ears etc etc. Use words like 'the','a', and 'an'. This is my pack and I absolutely DO NOT tolerate thesaurus humpers! Nonono! Doing such does NOT make you an elite rper! It just makes everything confusing and just plain stupid! If you're going to be in TBMP, rp CORRECTLY! Don't know how? Read a book >>.
8. You cannot ask for rank Delta or higher, these must be either trained for or earned.
9. Enjoy your stay at The Black Mountain Pack!
10. Do not roleplay two different characters in two different areas within one thread. Example: Wolf 1 smiles and greets Wolf 2 in the forest. (space) Wolf 3 plays tag with Wolf 4 in the mountains (end). This makes things very confusing.
Here you'll discover the beliefs and entities of The Black Mountain Pack.
Head entity: Black Wolf
In short, Black Wolf is believed to be the first wolf ever, created from the great thunderclouds in the sky. He created wolves from clouds, like himself, and led them from the great mountains of the skies (where he lives) to the earth where he taught them how to live on land and work together. Black Wolf has no predecessors.
The Black Mountain Pack believes that when one dies,he returns to the Mountain in the Sky and may return to the earth as someone else. If someone doesn't get a proper 'wolven funeral',then it is believed that the soul rests uneasy and stays on the earth to haunt vengence. A proper BMP funeral is where the deceased is carried (not dragged) to the Graveyard Cave by either family or a Spiritual where it is left,it is believed that there is where the Spirit of Life will guide the soul of the passed to the Mountain in the Sky. Then afterwards no one is to speak the name of the deceased for one whole day or the spirit may return to the earth to seek that individual and/or his family and haunt them.
TBMP also believes that when a wolf passes,his soul is reflected in the stars above,that the stars are the passed wolf's soul as it lives in the Mountain in the Sky and so are sometimes called Ancestral Stars. If a wolf finds family members amongst the stars, he may pray to that family member for guidance and if his prayer is heard and granted,it will come to him in his dreams.
Witches: Witches are Spirituals gone bad. They use their ability to benefit themselves only and usually become power-hungry. They won't let anybody get in their way, and if someone's causing them too much trouble they more often than not curse that wolf..usually to death. They also work with bad spirits to get the most out of what they want (though the bad spirits tend to manipulate the witch and turn on him).
Signs of bad things to come: comets, green shades in the sunset/rise, late falling leaves in autumn, and pups born with a lock of fur curling against another lock like two waves crashing together.
Signs of good things to come: blue moon, empty spider web that is untouched and perfect, a single white flower in the fields, and a pure white deer.
There are also Head Gods of other species, such as hooved animals (Head God, Thunder Hoof) and rodents (Head God, Big Rabbit). The Head Gods act as a counsel and work together, there is no one great god above them all. The Secondaries are the Spirits of the Forest, who work for the Head Gods, you can find information on all the Gods and Secondaries on a different page called The Black Mountain Pack Entities. This page is still unfinished.
Here you'll find an adoption center where you can adopt pups to play that have been born into the pack. Any pups that haven't been adopted by the time they're born will be still-born (born dead).
Adoption Center:
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Name: Bright Bird
Parents: Wind Feather (mother) and Falling Snow (father. Tall Pines Pack wolf.)
Birth Date: Not set
Here's where we'll remember those who have passed. Those who were Alphas or were respected greatly will be in italics, to be recognized.
Graveyard
Blue Star
Red Rock
Green Cloud
Soft Fur
Low River
Deer Trail
Black Paw
Bright Lark
Half Cloud
Grey Hawk
Small Tree (Sage Ghost's mother)
Soft Whispers
Blesser
White Ash
Deepening Shadows
Night Owl
Red Squirrel
Allies
The Tall Pines Pack
Enemies
At Peace with The Swift River Clan
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