There are some points we would like to address in regards to the current rumours being shared on twitter:1. SVF strongly condemns OOC racism. We are comprised of a large number of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ players—half of our admin team is BIPOC and LGBTQIA+, and the vast majority of our members are very left-leaning/progressive, so we take serious issue with this allegation.2. SVF allows and encourages people to make native Ishgardian characters who resemble POC. (See House Durendaire, Charibert, etc for examples of Ishgardian characters who resemble POC.) You can see the proof with your own eyes by looking at the members who have been doxxed in our CWLS.3. SVF's rule against grey/blue/purple skinned Duskwights is not based in OOC discrimination, but a lore decision about a fantasy race in a fantasy world. Duskwights are not a parallel to any group of marginalized people in real life—they are a purely fantasy race, and accusing SVF of being racist against BIPOC for excluding them is similar to accusing a dungeon master in D&D for being racist for making homebrew rules excluding tieflings and dragonborns from their campaign. You may not agree with our take on the lore, but to call us racist against real minorities because of it is frankly ridiculous, especially when you know nothing about our personal backgrounds, beliefs or cultural heritage.4. SVF has never and will never police how anyone, including our own members, RP outside of official SVF events & gatherings. We have only enforced our rules within our own server, and we have never restricted players from RPing with whoever and whatever they wish to RP with outside of the server. This is stated clearly in our rules. And we do not enforce our take on the lore on others, as we believe strongly that everyone is allowed to RP whatever they want, with whoever they want, and on whatever concepts they want. And that same respect should be extended to us.5. SVF fully condemns the behaviours of Cerwyn for inciting public harassment and witchhunting against members of SVF, none of whom are racist as she claims, and many of whom are BIPOC and/or LGBTQIA+.6. SVF condemns the notion of "guilt by association" where Cerwyn is inciting the idea that everyone in the CWLS is guilty of being a bad person simply for being in the CWLS. We have attached statements from some of our members who PM'd us during this situation. This "guilt by association" that Cerwyn is pushing is absolutely uncalled for.
The purpose of this official response is not to address Cerwyn directly. We expect her to continue operating in bad faith, spreading disinformation and deliberately scrutinizing and misinterpreting any line of dialogue we've ever said to paint us in the worst possible light. We have neither the time nor energy to engage her in an endless back-and-forth. So instead, this statement is simply for any normal, sensible people out there who might appreciate having both perspectives in this conflict made publicly available so they can draw their own opinions.Lastly, this carrd was temporarily taken down in order to protect our members from harassment being inflicted on them because of Cerwyn, and Cerwyn's refusal to allow the innocent members of our community to be free from her assault on their safety should be condemned in the strongest possible behaviour for what it is: disgusting, borderline illegal behaviour.
Welcome to St. Valeroyant’s Forum, a heavy RP Discord community for like-minded, lore-rooted RPers who enjoy low-fantasy Ishgardian roleplay!In St. Valeroyant's, our goal is to explore a Classical Ishgardian Community, with all that entails. Class divides, deep religious beliefs, a society struggling to reconcile Peace after a millennia of War—we aim to provide a community where these topics can be explored in a safe and respectful way.Though we may explore dark themes at times, we absolutely do not tolerate OOC bleeding of bigotry or similar themes within this community.In order to better reflect Ishgard as we see it in game, we follow lore more closely than many communities. Please familiarize yourself with our rules, both the OOC and IC sections, before applying!To join, hop into our discord below and submit an application. Because of time zone differences, please expect a day or more for us to get back to you.We thank you for your patience!
Click on the icon for a Discord invite!
OOC RulesBy participating in this community, you agree to abide by the following rules:1.1 IC does not equal OOC. In order to facilitate a safe and respectful community when exploring topics that can be potentially sensitive, it's imperative that our members all understand the separation between character and writer.
-
1.2 We operate on the golden rule. Be polite and courteous to others. Name-calling, accusations, hostile behavior, abuse, harassment, or threats towards other members will not be tolerated.
-
1.3 No racism, sexism, homophobia, witch-hunting, griefing, and offensive slurs of any kind.
-
1.4 Be mindful of each other’s beliefs and opinions. Our community has people from all walks of life, and we expect our members to be able to discuss differences with respect and grace.
-
1.5 We encourage friendly banter, but if it is escalating or if a member expresses their discomfort, we expect our members to respect that and stop.
Likewise,if a moderator asks for a topic to be dropped, (perhaps due to its sensitive/provocative nature, or simply because it’s developing into a budding argument), we expect our members to drop it immediately.
Repeatedly failing to do so will first result in a warning, and then a ban.
-
1.6 In cases of harassment, notify an Officer with screenshots or other evidence of the harassment. Our Officers will look into the issue, and take action (ranging from speaking to the other person, to an outright ban) depending on the severity of the harassment. Please note that complaints borne of second-hand information will result in a warning.
-
1.7 Spoilers belong to the spoiler channel. Some of our players are new, so we ask that all Stormblood, Shadowbringers, and Endwalker spoilers be kept to their respective #spoiler channels.
-
1.8 The application process cannot be bypassed. No exceptions. We won't reach back to applicants who leave questions unanswered, intentionally vague, or respond with something along the lines of "find out IC".
We all like our IC secrets and plot twists. However, the SV Forum staff would like to know the most crucial ones in advance, just so we don't suddenly find out later that your posh Elezen noble is secretly a vampire overlord or a dragon king disguised as a human.
Rest assured, your character's secrets won't leave our officer chat.
IC RulesIn order to create a roleplaying environment that reflects traditional Ishgardian society, we currently have the following restrictions in place:2.1) Only Ishgardian Hyur and Elezen characters. According to the lore, there are approximately 10% other races and tribes dwelling in Ishgard, but we are currently only recruiting Ishgardian characters. This is because opening the server up to non-Ishgardians or partially non-Ishgardian characters tends towards a community with primarily non-Ishgardian characters.This restriction includes characters disguised as elezen/hyur. No secret Voidsent, Primals, Ascians, Auspices, full-blooded dragons like Nidhogg glamouring/transforming into elezen/hyur (not referring to Ishgardian heretics who have taken dragon blood to transform), lycans, vampires, or any other members of races that do not exist on Eorzea!We also do not recruit Gelmorran Duskwights, as that is a completely separate cultural group that is not endemic to Ishgard.
To clarify our stance on "Duskwight" characters, we consider elezen
with grey, purple or blue-ish skin tone to be Gelmorran.According to Encyclopaedia Eorzea I, the "defining trait of the Duskwight (Gelmorran) is the color of their skin, which has come to take on darker hues after generations of calling shadowy caverns home."
Considering Ishgardians (see House Durendaire, Dzemael, or Charibert) all have darker skin tones and some Gridanians also have darker skin tones, we assume this alludes to the specifically grey/blue/purple tones that we find on Gelmorran Duskwight NPCs.Also according to Encyclopaedia Eorzea I, Ishgardian elezen split off from the elezen in the Shroud before Wildwood (Gridanian) and Duskwight (Gelmorran) elezen even started their respective societies:
ca. 350 - Ishgardian elezen settled the region of Coerthas.
ca. 660 - Other non-Ishgardian elezen migrated to the Black Shroud.
ca. 740 - Elezen and Hyur settlers of the Black Shroud built the subterranean city of Gelmorra to protect themselves against the Elementals.
ca. 1076-1077 - The conjurer Jorin successfully communes with the elementals and citizens of Gelmorra are permitted to live in the Black Shroud (above ground). They begin to construct the city of Gridania.
From this timeline, we can assume that it is unlikely that native Ishgardians would have the grey, purple, or blue-ish skin tone that likely arrived after Gelmorran Duskwights split off from Gridanians in 1077. However, considering the close proximity of Ishgard and the Black Shroud, it's not unlikely at all that the two peoples have intermarried at some time! But a grey/blue/purple skinned elezen in Ishgard may have faced the same ostracization as an outsider, since they have a quality that so blatantly others them as a "Gelmorran Duskwight."In gameplay however, we cannot choose to play an "Ishgardian elezen", so we welcome the use of the duskwight model (the game itself uses duskwight models for many Ishgardians), as long the as grey/blue/purple specific to the Gelmorran Duskwights is not used. As we are a primarily Ishgardian community, we generally do not accept half-Gelmorran, half-Gridanian, half-Ul'dahn, half-Limsan, half-(other culture) characters, unless you can really sell your character concept to us!~2.2 Characters must follow the lore closely. If something has happened in-game or is explicitly mentioned in lore books then it is considered lore abiding.
Can your character be a nobleman from a lesser house? Yes, go for it! We do know there are many aristocratic houses in Ishgard, most serving one of the Four High Houses, and a few risen through the ranks thanks to their war deeds during the Dragonsong War.
Can your character be the heir of House de Haillenarte? No, because that position already belongs to Stephanivien Brightsun, and Stephanivien's siblings all have a name and a face.Playing the MSQ/side quests IG is a simple, fool-proof way to learn the basics of lore, but should you wish to explore lore niches or dust off details you might have forgotten, our #lore-resources and #lore-discussion channels are at your disposal.~2.3 Characters may not have significant ties to major lore figures. This includes WoLs, Azure Dragoons, top governmental officials of Ishgard, characters with strong ties to existent FFXIV NPCs (example: Haurchefant’s lovers, Ysayle’s brothers, Aymeric’s best friends, Artoirel’s and Emmanellain’s missing siblings and future heirs of House de Fortemps, etc.).Though your character may have ties with the House of Lords/Commons, we ask our members to refrain from mentioning the Parliament in #hearsay or other IC channels. This is for a very simple reason: Parliamentary decisions will affect all other players who RP in Ishgard, and those decisions should be left up to the in-game lore. In addition, crucial NPCs such as Ser Aymeric (and supposedly members of the four High Houses) are also part of Parliament, which leads back to our rule against characters with strong ties to existent FFXIV NPCs.What we accept:
(Noble Character) is financing this initiative.
(Noble Character), with the blessing of his House, opened a new school in the Firmament.
(Noble Character) has decided to appoint (Lowborn Character) House Knight.What we do NOT accept:
The Parliament declared that all citizens shall needs pay higher taxes.
As per decision of the Parliament, the House of Commons will now accept Auri spokespeople.
The House of Lords decreed that, from now on, all Temple Knights shall have to wear a pink feathered tutu instead of their chainmail.~2.4 No Nightclubs or other modern, non-lore rooted RP venues. Our members are welcome to seek them out in other communities, but mention of them in SVF is not permitted, to keep a more lore-friendly atmosphere.~2.5 Please keep lore-bending RP outside of the Forum. Our members are welcome to RP with whoever or whatever they like. There will be no repercussions or backlash if a character privately enjoys hanging out with a kitsune Warrior of Light. We ask, however, that our members keep that to themselves and refrain from bringing lore-bending RP into the Forum or to its members.~2.6 We do not consider Fantasias to be canon.
If you are no longer satisfied with your character and wish to re-roll a brand new one, that is fine.
We do not welcome, however, characters who, for example, were born Seekers of the Sun and then became Hyur/Elezen by drinking Fantasia as part of their own backstory.
