Thestrals

The staff has decided (via majority vote) to change their previous long-standing policy regarding being able to see Thestrals. Previously we did not allow players to claim that they could see Thestrals because this is considered canonically to be something that people do not generally see, seeing death and truly grasping it are very different things and ultimately rare even among adults. This has been a heavily contested choice with ultimately a close vote, however the decision is "no active staff oversight" regarding the ability to see thestrals, leaving the decision of being able to see them (or not) to the discretion of the user(s). Meaning you decide if you can or cannot see them in cases where thestrals would be present.

[Staff Papertrail Link]

iNPC departure and Easter Break

iNPCs are leaving Hogwarts IC on April 10th! This coincides with Hogwarts' students' Easter break, which is from April 10th to April 24th this year. During this time, your character can stay at the castle without classes OR return home for the entire break. Please be consistent when writing your character during these dates.

2021/22 Duelling Championship Stage 3

The third and final stage of the Duelling Championship has begun? Who will come out on top? The title is almost anyone's to take!

Facing off on Saturday, April 30th, the Pride of Pendrast and the Blazing Badgers!

Spectator Thread (duels linked in the thread)

Concluding the tournament on Sunday, May 1st, the Murder of Merlin vs the Viridian Vipers!

Spectator Thread (duels are linked in the thread)

Come and cheer for your House and friends!

A few days ago, we announced a small patch to the duelling system. You can find it here.

Champions of the Hexwizard Tournament Announced!

The Hexwizard Champions have been announced at the Midspring Celebration! You can find the full post in the Great Hall celebration post, but the champions are also listed below:

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry:
@Howard White

Beauxbatons:
Angélique de Clairmont (@Santario Martin)

Durmstrang:
Yefim Rumyantsev(@Flash Holmwood)

Koldovstoretz:
Rodion Makarovich(@Aurora Ranvier)

Mahoutokoro:
@Mathias Pride

Ilvermorny:
Miles Thatcher(@Simon Kincaid)

Congratulations to our Champions!

The ball continues, and sign-up for the two activities are now closed. If you've signed up for these activities, the mod-posts are up: Flying Torch Tag & Firewalking Obstacle Course

Champions Now Have a Discord Channel -

Hexwizard Champions, you now have a Discord Channel on the main site. Feel free to reach out to any mod or admin if you need to have them given access to a school channel.

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Hexwizard Champions have a Locker Space

Hexwizard Champions, you now have a locker space on site where you can communicate plans. You can discuss some of the more involved plans that you might have. Champions, I will arm you with several items (making them now). You can -give- these items to the members of your team and that will give them access to the forum area. Give them to who you intend because if you give it to someone that you do not want to have access to the team, I cannot remove that item from their inventory. This serves as a vanity item in player inventories as well.

Hexwizard Rosters are Out

A place for Champions to post the members of their team and update as their team grows. The core team is 8 members. You can add "back-up" members if you wish. Players are free to sign up (to state their interest) in these threads but the Champion is under no obligation to add the member to the team. There are some basic expectations:

- Adding you to the team needs to make sense. For example, if you are a Hogwarts student, it if highly unlikely that your character would be able to sign up (and be accepted) to the Ilvermorny team unless your characters knew one another very well. Well enough that you are willing to abandon your school and friends to assist another school in winning.
- If you sign up, you are saying that you are intending on remaining on site as an active member on the account that you are presently using. If this is too great a commitment, then please do not sign up.
- You need to be registered with Index with a Trunk.

Sign-up Threads and Roster Links:

• Hogwarts
• Durmstrang
• Ilvermorny
• Mahoutokoro
• Koldovstoretz
• Beauxbatons

Questions People May Have:

1. Can I be in more than one team?

No, due to conflicts of interest and a want to involve as many people as possible in the game, you can take up one spot.

2. Can I sign up for more than one team?

Sure, but if both teams want you then you may need to make a choice. Also, a captain may overlook you and pick someone else that "does not have other options" possibly, so take care in this but you can apply for more than one team.

3. Can I be a special person and on a team?

No, due to conflicts of interest and a want to involve as many people as possible in the game, you can take up one spot. However, Stage III you can run the final trial with the team. If you do not want to, you can defer that to a waitlisted member. (Yes, it can go up to 9.)

4. Do I need to sign up if the champion has already added me to the team?

No, if I already knew you were a verified member of the team I/they already added you. If you also want to sign up on the thread, go for it. You are hurting nobody.

5. What is the time commitment?

This game is happening during the 2022-2023 school year. You are going to need to be posting regularly and actively. We try to be reasonable with the time requirements since most of us are professionals or students, but look for the ability to write a meaningful post weekly with reliable internet access.

6. Can my student die?

I do not kill players. I am mostly talk. But hurt, yes... they can very much get hurt.

7. Are the special people OK with their position?

I am sending out letters to them today to verify that they consent OC to this.

Both Slytherin and Ravenclaw are in need! Each house will be down one prefect in the coming weeks, so we're launching a call to the students of these houses - throw your hat in the ring!

To apply, please check out the applications that were posted earlier today in this thread. Both applications close on May 7th, so get to writing!

Changes in Wages

Hogwarts has a graduated system of earnings, year 1 players earn 1 sickle per day. As players graduate and move through the years, they earn more money. A year 2 user makes 2 sickles per day, a year 3 user makes 5 sickles per day. The growth is not only inconsistent but it creates an economy that is ill-adapted to new players. With most "desired" items costing 20 galleons or more, at a sickle per day players had little hope of getting what many consider "basic" items within their first year.

It is for this reason we are normalizing wages - players are getting 10 sickles per day as their daily scholarship. Starting today. This will have an impact on site economics and a readjustment of prices in the shop. Previously the wages were outside of staff control as were the prices of shop items. Now that we are able to adjust these prices and normalize wages we have elected to do so.

Questions:

How much do Staff get paid?
15 sickles a day. This is a change from the previous pay. As a Headmaster I earned 6 galleons per day, HOH earned 4 galleons per day, Professors earned 2 galleons per day and Prefects earned 10 sickles per day. Newspaper and Team Captains' are untouched, they earn 5 sickles per day. Often due to the disparate earning capacity, Professors were left feeling that they should not use their earnings at all due to scrutiny or that they could only use it to 'help' or reward other players rather than to use it as compensation for their efforts.

Are we about to experience inflation?
Yes and no. We are going to normalize the economics. Some mid-game elements will go up in price. Some early game elements will as well, however the speed at which they will be able to acquire these items will remain the same or in some cases be drastically reduced. However, everyone is going to have money, not just a select portion of the population.

When is this happening?
Immediately. There will be changes at every level, including rewarding top earners. The rewards will be reflective of the new economic state of the site. The prices of brooms will be changing. The cost of passes and vanity items as well.

Q&A Regarding Wand Lore

1. Can a player claim the dragon type their wand came from if they do not have the ability?

yes, but like anything else in-character on this site -- once you say something, you have to stick with it. in other words, if you claim Hungarian Horntail you cannot later say it is now a Chinese Fireball even if you add "the other one broke". You are expected to keep whatever you get unless you take this ability.

2. Can we have the "RP flavour" (that's specified in the Wand Maker list) that matches our character's wand without applying for Wand Maker ability or do we need to apply if we want to RP the flavour?

Yes, the flavor is the non-statistical part that clearly states "Flavor". So you will not get any statistical effect from the wand, but you can say your wand is warm if you have that sort of effect or it vibrates when Parsel is being spoken within hearing range. Minor clarifications are going to be added to the wandmaker ability following this announcement.

The Ban of Levi Drakos

Levi Drakos, also known as Alois Proulx, Professor of Care of Magical Creatures and formerly as Persephone Barret has been removed from staff and banned from Hio. In the past it was our policy to keep these matters private to grant the former user dignity and to save face (even if that involved lying) because they were gone and no longer the community's problem. However, we have had an incident that cannot be swept under a rug and not discussed because there are too many victims and potentially victims we are unaware of.

It has come to our attention that Levi/Alois has lied to multiple members of the community and knowingly, willfully and intentionally caused harm to members of the community.

1. They falsified their age. They claimed to be 23 years old when in fact they were 17, turning 18 this past December. They went as far as to falsify their ID [driver's license], it being a felony in many states to use a fake driver's license and a misdemeanor crime in most states to use fake identification. They also joined our 18+ discord channel before their 18th birthday, again lying about their age on 11/03/2021.
   
   Reducio

   
2. They falsified their living situation to include a dangerous, unstable living environment and impending homelessness as well as historical accounts of abuse to garner sympathy, convey false vulnerability and in turn members shared deeply personal information about themselves and now they feel violated.
3. Sought a romantic relationship with a member of the community, claiming to be significantly older than she was. The potential ramifications of this would have been staggering. She was thankfully rejected, however this user had become ostracized by members of the community for rejecting Levi/Alois in a relationship that should never have been pursued.
4. Faked a suicide. Levi communicated to members that she was suicidal, in part due to the relationship that never was as well as a culmination of issues mentioned in #2. The situation so dire, Santario Martin made arrangements to allow Levi to move in with her. Levi was fully aware and consenting, arrangements made to transport her vehicle, addresses exchanged, cellphone numbers exchanged and a financial burden of travel, hotels and household changes made to accommodate Levi moving in were undertaken by Santario. Concern for Levi's well-being communicated by Santario on multiple occasions, when it came time to drive to her residence Santario started her drive on May 6 drove 17 hours urgently to the address provided. On May 7, Santario came upon the hunting shack that was allegedly Levi's residence to find it locked with a pad lock and a suicide note. Members were on call with her until about midnight on May 6 going into the 7th, she had failed to answer multiple attempts to contact by cellphone and DM leaving many to fear something had happened.
   
   Reducio

   
   
   Several things were also discovered:
   • She had provided us with a false name: Samantha Parker.
   • She was safe and alive, living at her alleged "neighbors" a residence she had given Santario in the past claiming that her actual residence had no official address so packages needed to be sent to a neighbor. She never lived in the shack, she was in sound health and welfare. In fact the shack did not belong to her or her family, the door which was knocked in by police (who were called) in search of a body or a critically ill Levi belonged to some other innocent third party. There was resultant property damage.
   • Many of thee life circumstances she claimed to have experiences never happened.
   • She had deleted the shared pictures of herself in the DMs of the group of members that were associated with her sometime prior to Santario's arrival. It is believed now that this was done to prevent herself from being positively identified. Her hair was dyed recently from blonde to red when she was ultimately found by the police and again it is believed that this was done to make herself harder to identify. However visual recollection from Santario states that they were one in the same. The police requested a handwriting sample and Santario reported that they concluded that the sample appeared to be the same. The person who they found denied being Levi or knowing Santario with Santario present. However, she was in possession of Levi's cellphone, the phone number has been verified as Levi's by multiple members of the community. It has been concluded that she was one in the same. This final act being a final act of cruelty.

Levi is being removed from staff for reasons 1 through 3 -- she cannot oversee other members of the community if she is dishonest. She is being banned from Hio for pretty much most of the above. What was done was incredibly cruel. In my 20 years of community management I have never seen someone do something so audacious and callous to another person for no perceived gain. In Santario's case it was particularly cruel because she had lost her brother a little over a week ago to suicide and Levi was very much aware of this and watched her grieve, she was still reeling when all of this transpired. I cannot expect Santario or the other affected members of staff (as there are several) to be able to work with her after what she did and if I had to choose between a liar and someone willing to drive 17 hours to help another person out, there is no contest. I also cannot trust her to arbitrate the community standards when she lacks a personal ethic. She will not be welcome back.

Disposition:

• Her parents have been in contact with us. Apparently she did what she had for her "amusement", she took pride in fooling people according to the statements provided.
• They were apologetic for her behavior and stated that she would be restricted from social media. f she returns to the site, she has bypassed our IP ban and her family will be contacted. Most of the staff have her blocked, if I get evidence that she is online and contacting members I will be forwarding the information to her parents.
• The family was notified of her ban May 7. They are amicable and agreeable this this.
• Levi was placed in psychiatric care as of May 7, they have a history of admission so this is not their first admission.
• Known victims have been contacted.
• The staff was notified May 9 a few hours ago. The sports teams were also made aware of this recently. Levi is no longer a Broom Racer, I will NPC a character with the same stats for the duration of that race. Levi has been removed from the Hexwizard tournament, their iNPC was representing Ilvermorny.
• Several staff members may require a few days of mourning, as will several players. Please give them the space and time they need and forgive brief delays.
• I will be attempting to address ways of preventing this in the future and socializing members.

I request that those close to Levi be given the space that they need to mourn and compartmentalize what has happened. I am certain your condolences are appreciated but Levi was well-loved by many of us.

What Next?

1.) I will be temporarily taking over Care of Magical Creatures, I will be removing any remnant of Alois from that curriculum and improving it. It will be opened up eventually for players.
2.) I will be finding a way to end Levi's story, I have no plan of hiding what happened and will be making a wider statement to the community as there may be other unknown victims.
3.) I will be monitoring character creation for new accounts for some time, I expect that she will return.

Duelling Extension

Due to recent events that have effected Dueling Moderators as well as Duellists, we have granted everyone a 2 day (48 hour) extension for the next 2 rounds.