Have fun! Seriously, it's a game, if you're not having fun there's no point!
No porn, no godmodding, no powerplaying.
No using OOC information ICly.
If you haven't read a Pern book ever, and don't have someone helping you, you can't join, with the exception if you have played at another Pern roleplay and think you have a good grasp of it all.
Read the history and the information.
You need a sample for your first character (has to be at least set in Pern) and for auditions.
Make plots! Ambitious plots, delicious plots, evil plots, insane plots - anything you can think of, go for it. If it's struck down, it'll be for a reason, and almost anything can be altered to work. C'mon, have a nice manipulative small color rider who has a queenrider under his thumb and runs things from the shadows, a weyrling with a crush on a high ranking rider who has no idea they exist, a mutant continuously trying to befriend a mutant-hater, an ambitious rider who thinks they could do a much better job with the Weyr - and would try anything to get there. Plot away!
Character Rules
Only three human characters per player. Another humanoid but non-human character can also be joined (or more than one if a human spot is not taken up as well). Only one female overall. Exceptions would be through prizes and contests - and an exception is made if you have a sterile female character who stays sterile.
Only one mutant per player - exceptions through prizes and contests.
No more than one set of twins per player (since the first character rule can be extended through certain events)
Only one character per player should have a rare non-harmful genetic disorder (two colors in the eyes, one eye one color, one eye the other, etc). They're rare for a reason.
Only one character per player is going to Impress per clutch - a player can have multiples up for Impression and let the queen's player choose if they wish.
Girls: Very few girls are up for Impression, even the Weyrbred ones. The few times there are runaways, they will mostly be sent home. They would have to have made a big Impression on the Weyrleaders and the Searchrider of the Weyr to be allowed to stay. Any other Holdbred probably have no family left. Every female is needed for marriage thanks to the population and even the dragonriders know and respect this.
Okay, this may seem like a silly rule but: There isn't large groups of people around. So if you want to say that "most" or "everyone" in the Weyr hates/loves/somethings a character, at least three PCs not played by you have to feel this way. I mean, most characters yours interact with regularly will be played characters anyway. You can certainly you go "characters whole family hates them/loves them" cause you know, they're her/his family. Just not everyone, please?
If you have a ranking character, be active. If you don't post once a month, we will either put the ranking character up for audition or kill her/him, though we usually wait a bit longer for that and only for sensible reasons. If you only post once a month for two months, after the the third month you do this we put them up for audition and you aren't allowed to have them back for at least three months.
Everybody loves babies, especially when babies are what ensure the human population on Pern won't be going extinct any time soon. Unfortunately, this Pern is not a safe place for babies and...well, things always happen. So, in order to keep everything fair, please alert both Krystal and Natala (email, OOC board, tag board, chatzy, AIM--we've made ourselves very available) so we can roll to determine gender, if it's born a mutant (only if its parents are carriers/mutants), if it survives the birth (being stillborn is the other option), and if it survives childhood. Everything else is up to you--heck, you can even kill the kid if we roll it alive and you want it dead--but we want to try to pretend things are a little realistic. We know they really aren't, but sh!
Mutant Rules
All mutants are nineteen and under.
Only two mutants per age - for example, just two fourteen-turn-olds. We know sometimes this might be accidentally broken because people will have different birthdays but just assume if there's two or more on an age you can't join that age.
Two mutations per mutant limit - it doesn't matter if they're physical, mental, or one of each.
If you have a mental mutation, likely people are going to try and pretend you aren't a mutant at all, or that it's just a useful talent. Physical mutants have a tougher time of it, though it's mostly in attitudes and not often physical bullying.
Dragon (and their cousins) rules
No joining with fire-lizards.
One character of a player can have up to three fire-lizards - the rest must have two or less. Remember that there isn't much food and you are probably starving your characters getting them enough meat to eat while they are young.
No fire-lizards with names ending in th. Way, way, too confusing.
Your fire-lizards should not be and will not be speaking in full sentences. If they can string more than two coherent words together at a time you're probably breaking this rule. Any flit that has the ability to learn to speak in full sentences will be given out randomly or earned.
There is no such thing as a humanless dragon.
If you join a dragonrider, the dragon's size should be in the average range unless we have otherwise noted we don't mind non-average of that color. The word average has to come from somewhere.
Ask before having your female Fly, and all clutch statistics must be approved - e-mail pernevolutionmods@hotmail.com.
Rule Violation punishments: If after multiple warnings (and we will warn you the time before you're about to go over the line) someone is still disobeying the same rule, a character may be stripped of anything extra on them - animals, fire-lizards, etc. If having nothing but themselves, player may lose the right to play a mutant or a female.