Rules

DiarchyOfEquestria, even though it’s an open world set in an AU, does have a set of rules required to keep the experience fun and balanced for all players. First and foremost please remember that the sub does allow 18+ content. It's okay to not want to participate in that, but try to tolerate the ones that do.

Secondly, you may notice that the subreddit and the wikia are fairly interlinked- this is intentional, as the wikia is meant to be consistently updated at least bi-monthly in order to keep continuity and canon in order as well as being our primary host for OOC and IC information. We urge all players to help update the wiki with notes on ongoing arcs, characters, locations, etc. Maintaining a database is a tall order for such a miniscule number of people, especially when it comes to matters of accuracy, so your help would be greatly appreciated!

With those points out of the way, the rules themselves are broken into categories for ease of reading.

## OOC Rules

### Character Creation

1. Standard races are generally unrestricted - Crystal Pony, Earth Pony, Pegasus, Unicorn, Griffon, Zebra, Donkey, and Mule are all open, and characters of said races can be created without approval from the mods.
2. Non-standard races do require mod approval, since they can easily become unbalanced (particularly when it comes to lore). To get them approved, all you have to do is PM a brief description of your character to a mod who specializes in that particular species - Deer and Angelic/Demonic characters should be sent to /u/DemKiriai. Changeling characters should be sent to /u/DarkLordSnuffles. Crystal Pony characters should be sent to /u/Ink-Dash. Minotaur, Breezy, Seapony, and Dragon characters go to /u/Cinderheart. Any custom species or species not on the above list (Including Alicorns and Draconequui) must be PMed to all four individuals for approval. In that case, you will be informed when a consensus is reached.
3. Suppose you have a character in mind, but they have some power outside what ponies normally have - maybe they can shoot lightning from their hooves, flick their tongue like a chameleon, or any other oddity not related to their species. In this case, your character is basically a metapony (metagriffon, metazebra, etc.) and a potential danger to the balance of the subreddit. As above with custom races and extremely unorthodox species, you'll have to get approval before you can use them regardless of the ability's potency. Please PM /u/Demkiriai, /u/Darklordsnuffles, AND /u/Cinderheart. You will be informed when a consensus is reached and if need be we'll work together with you to ensure everything remains within reason.
4. Careers are generally unrestricted in DoE. Mundane jobs such as mailpony, royal guard, blacksmith, librarian, gardener, masseuse, athlete, weatherpony, and student are unrestricted and can be used by anyone without approval. As are less mundane but still rational jobs such as mercenary, wine taster, attempted superhero, poison joke expert, or adventurer.
5. Nonstandard careers that have a major impact (such as there only being one of them or having a pronounced effect on lore) are barred on character creation. Careers like these include: "Celestia’s personal 007", Wonderbolt, Captain of the Night Guard, Longtime superhero, Demigod, Princess of a foreign country, and so on and so forth. Since the reasoning for this ban is to prevent characters from filling these positions and then leaving shortly thereafter, positions like those may still be earned through RP, just not immediately begun with.
6. In order to keep continuity as stable as possible, prior relationships (friends, flying buddies, romantic stuff, etc) with any member of the Mane 6 or any princesses/princes/kings/queens are banned. You may still interact with these characters once you've begun playing of course and establish these relationships via RP, but no being backstory besties with rainbow dash, sorry.

### Other Rules

1. The technology of Equestria is for the most part directly equivalent to present-day Earth. Meaning your characters most likely know about and how to use the Internet, cell phones, fax machines, etc. Remember that your posts in DoE are in-character to them!
2. As an exception to the above, transportation and firearms are both limited to the year 1850 as far as equivalent tech goes. There are no cars or planes but there are certainly trains. There are no fully automatics and no smokeless gunpowder, but there are certainly revolvers. Use historical discretion when dealing with these topics. They're for balancing purpose and maintaining the general feel of 'high fantasy' from the show despite the changes.

## IC Rules

1. By order of Her Majesty Princess Celestia, Firearms in Equestria are to be heavily regulated- supplies of guns imported to and created within Equestria are to be limited, and licenses required to own either a gun or any of the components that comprise one.
2. By order of Her Majesty Princess Celestia, in light of recent events involving one Starlight Glimmer, a spell has been cast enabling time to more readily create stable loops when altered via magic. Nevertheless Time Travel has been outlawed as an added precaution against repeats of this event. The punishment for breaking this law is left unwritten and is to be scaled appropriately to the amount of damage done to the timestream.
3. By order of Her Majesty Princess Celestia, restrictions are to be placed on the practice of any magic that results in alteration of the mind. This branch of magic remains legal so long as it is performed upon a consenting, aware individual. In all other cases, where appropriate witness testimony or evidence is presented, the case will proceed to trial as a magical sexual assault case along with any other appropriate charges. Please cast safely, my little ponies.