WIZARDING SCHOOLS POTIONS CHAMPIONSHIP UPDATE

The potion brewing part of the championship has closed! Moderation is in progress, you should have received your rewards if you have successfully completed one or both errands. If you have not, please contact me or @Melisande Lennox.

We're having a slight delay with the setup of the final task, but it will hopefully go online by the weekend. If you have successfully completed both of the potion brewing errands and stated you want to participate, you will be tagged in a thread in the upcoming days. If you would like to withdraw, please owl Melisande or myself.

Good luck to all contestants!

iNPC Applications and Trunk Updates Trial

The iNPC team wishes to bring the iNPC Application and Trunk Update process in line with the PC Index process. To determine if this is the best approach, or if there are modifications that should be made specifically for iNPC’s, we will run a trial of these changes for 3 months (ending at the end of March). At the end of the trial, we will determine if this process needs tweaking or adjusting based on the iNPC team’s experiences, and your feedback. During this trial period, we ask that if you have any feedback about the change in process, concerns, or questions, to please reach out to any of the iNPC team listed below:

Fabian Toussaint-Fleischer
Esmeralda Fernandez
Emery Albrecht
Évodie Ndoto Masudi
Aiko Mori
Célestine de la Croix-Valmer
Yegor Korotkin
Arturo Reyes

What does this mean for iNPC Applications and Updates?

There are 3 main changes:

1. Modified application threads for each school

The application threads for each school have been updated. These threads are for first applying for your iNPC characters (iNPC Rules), and changing your sport, background, etc. Basically those things that you would usually post in the index or re-index application threads for your PC account, you should use the application threads to do for your iNPC character. When you apply for an iNPC on one of the application threads, an iNPC team member will review it within 2 weeks and either approve the application, request modifications or deny the application. Please do not delete the mod notes on your application.

The updates include adding a place for your encyclopedia link, and removing personality and appearance description requirements in the initial application form. For the update form, we have made it so that any content changes that have been requested should all be included in the content changes section rather than separated out by specific change.

Ilvermorny NPC
Durmstrang NPC
Beauxbatons NPC
Koldovstoretz NPC
Mahoutokoro NPC
Castelobruxo NPC
Uagadou NPC
Tenũsa NPC

2. New Trunk Update thread

We’ve also created a separate thread for Trunk updates and ability applications. If you are looking to update your iNPC’s stats or apply for a new ability, you should post in that thread.

If you have any questions about which thread you need to post in, please reach out to any of the team members listed above. If it has been more than 2 weeks and your application or trunk update request has not been reviewed by an iNPC team member, please reach out to Aiko Mori.

3. Members will be able to post their own Encyclopedia shortly

For this trial period, the Admin team are adjusting permissions in the iNPC forum to allow members to post their own encyclopedia’s and trunks. Prior to this, an admin or member of the iNPC team would have to create your iNPC’s encyclopedia and trunk posts once your application was approved. Please do not post your iNPC encyclopedia and trunk until you are ready to apply for your iNPC character.

Keep in mind that iNPC trunks must follow the PC Trunk rules, which you can find here. If an application and encyclopedia is created before you have been on your PC account for 6 months, the encyclopedia and application will be sent to you via owl, and the posts will be deleted. You are then free to repost the encyclopedia and application once the 6 months has passed.

Will the changes be permanent?

At this time, we are just running a trial to determine if this is the best path forward. We will post at the end of the trial period to state whether these changes are permanent, are being removed or tweaked to better respond to any feedback received during the trial.

Stage 2 - Winter Races Races

Hey racers! Hope you weren't too spooked by the last race. The next stage is set to start on January 22nd, giving you about a week and a half from now to settle any trunk updates for stat changes and spells. Don't leave it to the last minute!

A winter patch is in progress and will be released closer to race day.

There are forums in each house area that were previously known as the house game rooms. We have decided to repurpose these areas as house OOC (out-of-character) areas. This means you can create sign-up threads for house events, create threads that discuss house-specific plots and continue making house-specific games.

Why? This is to eliminate the fact that common rooms were both IC and OOC, causing confusion among new players who often create OOC threads in the common room areas. This also provides an area to organize players who create house-specific events.

What Does This mean for You: Sport sign-up threads and flood threads for your house can be found in your new your house Out of Character Rooms. Games can still be played in here and players can open up flood topics on any subject they deem necessary to spark creativity, togetherness, house pride, etc.

Forum Reorganization

Over the past 24 hours I have made major edits to our forum. The purpose of this reorganization is to make movement through the forum more intuitive and to make finding wanted RP and utility areas easier to find.

Major changes include moving the OC threads from the Leaky Cauldron to the new Out of Character Forum. Moving all sports lockers to a Sports Locker forum for OC discussion because they were cluttering our IC areas. Consolidating our Staff area and making sure that all staff and quasi staff can quickly navigate to their word areas. Character encyclopedia pages have been placed in a Character Index Forum. I have abbreviated some naming in the Ministry of Magic to reduce scrolling needs. Created a Wizarding World area where the NPC schools can be found as well as forums outside of London, Hogsmeade and Hogwarts. Separated Hogwarts and Hogwarts grounds so that we had the space to display roleplay forums without scrolling. I have also made our houses more front-facing - notice Ravenclaw Tower, Gryffindor Tower, Hufflepuff Cellar and Slytherin Dungeons. I have moved Slytherin deeper underground, they do not need sunlight anyways and I have finally given Hufflepuff the burrow of their dreams. In doing this I have also made us more canon compliant. While I am not able to make everything exact, these areas are major facets of the setting and areas that players heavily identify with.

There may be some errors, some space for edits, so please reach out if there are any needs identified.

My next step will be updating site permissions. This will be an attempt to clean up our site permissions so that we have a tighter permissions set-up for events and activities. You may notice some temporary access changes as I am making these shifts. I will make an announcement on completion. I do recommend for the next several hours saving your work before previewing or posting in case you get caught in one of these permission shifts but I will attempt to minimize any work on live permissions.

Duelling Stage 2 - Winter Games

Hey duellists! Hope you're excited because the second stage of the 2024/2025 duelling season will begin February 2nd. Trunks and rosters will lock on January 25th, so you've got about a week and a half to update your trunks. Pairs and matches will be announced on January 29th.

We hope to release patch information by the end of this month. Best of luck to all our duellists and don't leave your updates to the last minute!

Announcing a new piece of Hogwarts Lore! We all know kids start their magical education at age 11 when they begin school at Hogwarts. Before that, we've all got to learn how to read and write. For Muggleborns, they go to muggle schools or are home schools. But what about kids from wizarding families? Check this out to find out a little more about how this actually happens!

With the release of this announcement, we have changed the form of Encyclopedia Update to the following:

Link to Encyclopedia: Please include your link here

Student Year or Adult Level: We need to know your school year or adult level to be aware of the maximum stat points you can have.

Stat Changes: To update your stats, please post both your old and new stats here for papertrail. If you have earned stat points through sports participation, please provide a link to the stat points eligibility post in this section. Please apply for animagus stat updates here.

List of items added: List the spells and potions you want to add in this section, including the year, subjects, and lesson information. For example, "Revelio Charm • Revelio - Year 1 Charms 3". You are only eligible for spells/potions when you are graduating into the next year or received a grade higher than T in the respective homework.

Coding: If you have any special coding of your trunk, include the full trunk code, including the edits here.

In this new format, a screenshot of the report card is not required when updating the trunk post. We hope this change will simplify the process of Encyclopedia Update for all players.

Everyone who wants to update their trunk post after the release of this announcement is expected to use the new form. However, anyone who has submitted their application before this doesn't have to change their form but it is highly encouraged if you change it to suit the new form. Thank you and have a nice day!

BROOM RACING PATCH - WINTER 2025

As promised, a patch has been completed in time for Stage II. Please find the full details of the patch here: Project Announcements

This patch is mostly aesthetic overhauls to the spells and abilities section of the system, though a few spells will have major edits and the Potions System has been expanded. Additionally, a few clarifications have been made on blatching and the Starsweeper XXI broom.

A reminder that Stage II begins on January 22nd, so do update your trunks sooner rather than later to avoid any stress it may cause. Read well and best of luck!