Thank you everyone for joining and partaking in this event. A special thanks to @Noah Jupe, @Juniper Kelly, @Ari Gwild, and @Avery Chen. Couldn't have done it without you guys.

========================================================

========================================================

April 10th, 2022.

On Arrival

For those arriving, they will see a dark mansion looming across a cliff. It was away from proper civilization, at least muggle-wise. That is exactly how the Ashwoods liked it. Duncan Ashwood would have the home built in such a way after the death of his grandmother.

Murder, is what he prefers to call the incident for those that knew the history. Injustice, is what his wife would call it. Pain, from his mother, Ida.

But for those who don't, they'll simply believe it was just another one of the Ashwood antics that somehow didn't break some sort of building codes.

Congratulations, you probably signed your death certificate when you accepted Vale's invitation to her party. Even better, you get to meet her brother, Raydon, too! A rare event, for he is rarely home as he is always exploring like his father and mother used to do.

Inside the home you are immediately introduced to a large, looming staircase cased in a deep red carpet that reaches to the many floors found. It would break up into two section, one going left and the other going right. The further up it travels, the darker it seems to go to the point that it was difficult to see the top of each. Maybe because of the poor lighting done throughout the mansion. It didn't explain the deep chill you may feel as you swear something up these stairs, in their looming darkness, was staring back at you.

A young man could be heard chuckling up these stairs, and once the fear of possibly seeing a ghost implemented in your mind, it would be revealed to you that your imagination and disturbance was a false lie when the suspect revealed himself.

It was none other than Raydon Ashwood, dressed in an all black, yet messy gardening outfit. He even had a straw hat on.

His outfit would only be completely revealed when he lit a candle torch he had, used to wandering in the darkness of his own home.

"Big brother!" Vale shouted out in her excited antics. She rushed by all her invited peers from the large, looming doors to nearly jumped her older brother, hugging his body tightly with her own small body. He moved a hand down to pat the top of her head.

"You really are home!" She chirped, turning her body around to point her older brother out. "This is my older brother, Raydon guys!" "Mom is preparing lunch right now. And dad is finishing up one of the games." Vale turned her head back to her brother, her eyes sparkling. "Already?"

"Yeah yeah, calm your bones. How about you show your friends where they'll be staying? They gotta be tired hearing you blab about today on the ride here." Vale blinked. Slowly, a large smile made its way on her face before encouraging all those invited to move their belongings to the largest guest rooms of the home. As her aunt moved to usher Vale's peers in, Vale was already on a pointing spree of her family home.

The Ashwoods welcome you poor children to the mansion.

========================================================

The Rules

OOC

• This event is being run by a student, and not by staff. This doesn't mean that OOC rules are not longer in effect. if there are any players who are behaving inapproriately and harassing other players that break OOC rules, you'll be banished from current threads of this event and you'll be reported to staff for doing so. At the most severe, you'll be officially banned from future party events. Seriously, don't ruin the fun for everyone.
• This first ever event is on a test run, meaning that there may be mistakes or tedious actions committed throughout it. Please be patient, but thank you for committing through with this whole ordeal.
• The Ashwoods, other than Vale, are dNPCs. They can't be interacted without Vale's POV. Meaning your character can't attempt to interact with them that doesn't have Vale's eyes upon it. Obviously, you can interact with Vale with no issues.
• Any events happening at Hogwarts, whether they are errands, threads, or so on can not include you if they happen from April 10th - April 24th. Mostly because it wouldn't make sense IC for your character to be in two places at once, and you could get in trouble for messing with your's and others' timelines. Keep an eye on IC dates and recall the IC break dateline. If you need your character to leave the party early, do let me know via owl for papertrail reasons.
  
  The party is occurring from April 10th - April 24th.
• Dice rolls are occurring in the official .io discord server under #bot-spam, for those wishing to ensure they are getting fair rolls or wanted to see ahead of time on what they receive. I won't have an exact time that I'll be scheduling this, but I'll try to keep note of the rolls being finished in the first year party thread.
• After all events are concluded or even in the midst of them, please give me feedback or criticism if able! This will help me to plan the next year event better and be able to open it up for everyone by then. I want to make this event a yearly thing as Vale grows up. About 6 parties or so in total, I believe. Thanks again for taking the time from both you and your characters to partake in this event!

IC

You are at the Ashwood Mansion, and while they are known to be off-putting and questionable, they are competent adults. At least one of them is.

1. No fighting. Adana Ashwood have taken your wand away for both your's and her family's safety. The family is considered to be under Ministry Watch at this time, and she will do anything to protect her family after all she went through. Without further ado, this doesn't mean characters can't get into arguments or not actually fight each other with fists (following OOC rules), just know that I might roll for family intervention if Vale is there witnessing it. Just for semi-realism sake.
2. No wandering off without supervision. The Ashwoods can't be everywhere at once, and they can't afford to explain to families and the Ministry why a child doesn't have a head on their shoulders anymore in their own household.
3. There is something deeply wrong with the Ashwoods. If you already interacted with Vale, you probably have an idea about the rest of the family. Grandma Ida is an elderly woman who seems like she's the bogeyman of bogeymen, Duncan (Vale's father) is a strange man who behaves like he's a mad scientist, Adana (Vale's mother) is calm and collected yet enjoys chaos, and Raydon is a mix of both Duncan and Adana. They're bizarre, as stated earlier, but surprisingly endearing to children. No, they're not going to be showing you how to mix poisons or even give you any (this breaks OOC rules as well), and they're most certainly not going to go out of their way to harm children. Scaring however, is a different subject.
4. Various activities are happening. For most of us, we planned our characters to be at the mansion for the entire break. However, some are leaving much earlier for their own IC events, or sudden OOC issues. For note, since the Ashwoods are an old pureblood family, they have a Floo Powder Fireplace. As long as your character follows the rules of Floo Powder, they can use that to go home. At the worst, they can be assumed to have been taken home via broom by an adult.

Any questions or concerns can be sent via Discord or by owl.

The Events

The games will be having their own, separate threads for the sake of having everything looking neat and easy for everyone to follow. There is other events, and I plan to include some things such as a dinner party thread as well for those interested. Again, this is on a test run. Not planning to go crazy on threads for the time being.

The games scheduled are Axe-Throwing and Truth or Dare Cards, which are occurring on different days.