!! LEGENDARY REQUIREMENTS !! - Updated 2/25/2020

[Matope]

The swamp is ready.
Its fireflies have been sleeping in the eyes of its children
and they stumble blindly through the mire, lost.

The time for the lights of the swamp has returned.
The spirits of the mares and the stags are ready
to stir in the bodies of the Kin.

We are legendary. We are story and myth taken form.
We are souls bound to the flesh of our
Sisterbrother, our Motherfather, the Swamp.
And we are ready to awake...

[Matope]

What are Legendary Kin?

They are Kin of any species who have been Chosen by Matope, often for reasons not obvious to their fellows or even to themselves, and they have been gone for so long that their origins have become the stuff of much-argued story, and some no longer believe in them.

They are said to be able to bless expectant does with especially hardy litters, and are said to bring special power to the naming dreams of unhatched foals. They are also given the power to understand the heartbeat and the rhythm of the swamp through its sacred animals--the treant, the crane, the firefly, and the owl, which gives them insight into weather and to coming changes. With their voices they heal hurt trees and with their keen eyes and instincts they find the richest foods for their people in times of scarcity. Their dreams are thick with riddles that foretell, in the most cryptic of symbols, the times to come.

And, some say, when they lift their heads and cry their strange and eerie cry to the skies,
the Fathermother's lost children hear them, no matter where they are, and return, prodigal, to her mired breast...

[Matope]

Unlocking your Legendary Kin

It is no easy task to unlock a Legendary kin. They cannot be bought or traded for, and must be RPed for.

To qualify for a Legendary, you must be an active RPer who has completed a naming dream for the kin in question, contributed at least one story to the Storytelling forum with the kin in question, and accumulated at least 50 RP points for the kin in question  in the Roleplaying forum, legacy on Gaia Online, or in various events. Roleplaying and myths can take place at any stage of a kin's life.

What counts as an RP point? Well, in order to make our RP requirements more flexible, we've changed them from asking that you complete a certain number of RPs and solos, and have instead assigned various kinds of threads and activities point values. You can complete any combination of these tasks, so long as the total adds up to a minimum of 50 points.

• RP with another user - 5 points, with at least 500 words by the kin claiming the point.
• Blessing RP - 2 points, with at least 500 words by the kin claiming the point.
  > 3 points for a Legendary Kin giving a blessing, with at least 500 words.
• Solo RP - 1 point, with at least 500 words. Each additional 500 words is another point, up to 5 points/2500 words per solo.
• Artwork - 2 points
  > Artwork is worth 4 points if there are 2 or more kin in it
  > Must be at minimum either lined and shaded or lined and colored, or fully painted.
  > You can either draw art yourself OR commission it, but only one kin can claim the art for points.
• ORP - 5 points base, with at least 500 words, but more points may be awarded by staff

Once you have completed these requirements, make a new thread in this forum including links to all your completed work, your naming dream, as well as a short summary of your kin's life story and a blurb about why the they should be considered for Legendary status. This will not guarantee Ascension, but only put you in the running.

It should be noted that Matope's mods have very flexible views of RP, and we will not tell you that your posts have to be several paragraphs or even sentences to qualify. So long as your RP fulfills the minimum word requirement, you are free to RP as you'd like. Think Gricean theorem here: Say exactly what you need to say and no more or less, and that's fine with us. All of the shop mods have been known to post one-word dialogue replies when it was all that needed to be said.

[Matope]

Legendary Ascension

Once every couple of months the mods will get together, review the qualifiers, and use a set of guidelines including quality, adherence to canon, out-of-character behavior in the thread, and depth of character development to determine a handful (one to ten) of second-tier qualifiers. These will then follow further instructions to complete for the Legendary, through a series of PM-received dreams from the Swamp which will require IC response. Any valid and original IC response will be considered sufficient for obtaining a Legendary, but they should be thought of carefully and with attention to detail, as some aspects of these responses will manifest in the Mare or Stag's finished form. In most cases all second-tier qualifiers will receive a Legendary, but there is no guarantee.

The recipients of Legendaries will receive a PM outlining the kin's new powers and their limits, and also the updated image of their kin, including anything that changed or was added or subtracted due to the kin's response to the Swamp's dream.

Once your RP reqs are completed, you do not need to do them or post them again to re-qualify if you are not chosen as a second-tier qualifier. Your chance will come again next time Legendaries are released, and with each selection your chances will be slightly higher for being chosen. However, adding more content to your post never hurts and will almost certainly help.

If you would like to have more than one Legendary, you will have to complete the reqs for each kin.