┌─── ∘️ June 2025 Newsletter ️∘ ───┐
Greenrain, Season of Vernus, Year 1641

	“The first season, remarking growth and regrowth, begins each calendar year. Life flourishes in verdant green and prepares its buds for the Summer season to follow.”
	- Standard Calendar, from The Compendium

🩷 🩷

Happy Pride Month, Avalorians! In this special first Pride Month edition of the Avalore newsletter, alongside usual updates, a few special sections and events will be happening this June! Below you can find our first community Pride fundraiser (featuring exclusive player perks), a list of vetted LGBTQI+ charitable organizations, and related in-game and Discord events. Lastly, I'm very excited to announce that in-character alchemicals will be made available this month so that players can access transition and wider gender-expression options in roleplay and their stories (read more below).

Pride is a special month to celebrate, educate, and learn about our roots, and that is impossible to do without community. I feel it's important to state that I am very proud of this community for fostering, and continuing to foster, such a welcoming space in the MCRP sphere.

Thank you & keep being yourselves. Here's to many more years of celebration and learning.

  ️  

° Pride Month Events & Activities

Community Fundraiser & Exclusive Perks

Keep an eye out for a fundraiser post within the first few days of June outlining this year's (and our first!) community fundraiser. The charitable non-profit organizations selected will be be ones of a grassroots nature that perform direct action in North America, and a community poll will be held to determine the top three picks. Depending on the amount of money gathered, all will either go to our top selection, or split amongst the top two to three. All donations will be tracked and published publicly for transparency once the fundraiser concludes.

Pride Fundraiser perks ($10 range) will include:

• Exclusive title pack
• Exclusive Pride 2025 profile trophy (hand-drawn)
• Exclusive lored in-game badge

Other Charitable Organizations

Here are some larger and well-known organizations that you can also personally contribute to!

• The Trevor Project - An organization dedicated to crisis services, peer support, research, advocacy, and education for LGBTQI+ youth.
• Rainbow Railroad - A group that facilitates asylum in the United States Canada for international LGBTQI+ refugees.
• The Elton John AIDS Foundation - This group is a large coordinator for funding to various AIDS-related global initiatives.

Discord Events

Streaming

Tune in every Wednesday evening this month at 7:00 PM EST for an educational pride-related stream! Come learn about the roots of our community, and stay to chat if you'd like. Please note these documentaries cover sensitive topics that are lived experiences such as police violence, the AIDS epidemic, sex work and sexual violence, etc.

• June 4th: Before Stonewall (1984)
• June 11th: After Stonewall (1999)
• June 18th: We Were Here (2011)
• June 25th: The Death and Life of Martha P. Johnson (2017)

In-Game Events

• (TBD) Festival of Belonging - Come participate in the Spire's day of celebration, a festival dedicated to remembering that every community member belongs, and uplifting one another's differences in this small town on the edge of the world. A post will be linked for this event once made!
  

° New & Upcoming

Systems Updates

Arcane

• The team is hard at work putting together large reworks for the Arcane system. It is a big, complicated issue - and so they're taking all the time they need so that it comes out just right when it's ready!

Alchemy

• Two ingredients will be released this month, with names TBD. Potion effects will be (respectively) masculinizing and feminizing, analogous with real life Hormone Replacement Therapy for character gender expression.
  • Also analogous with real-life, either can be utilized in smaller doses to achieve an androgynizing effect as desired.

Community Updates

General

• An Announcement about the much anticipated Vampire Update! This covers some frequently asked questions, and gives some information on where we're headed with it!
  
  Spoiler

  Originally posted by Dee in the public discord, linked here!

  Vampires: We get asked about them a lot so I’m going to make this announcement to answer some FAQs.
  Are they still happening?
  Yes. The original project hit a few snags along the way and I have taken it on personally to see it through. I intend to convene with Lore to help disperse information.
  How are they being introduced?
  There is intended to be an initial series of events, then when a bulk of them are out there, it will hopefully circulate via a system in place. I will try to personally oversee this; there may be an intermittent Vampire Plotline in the same way that the Fey Festival aimed to tie up some loose ends.
  When are they being introduced?
  Ideally soon. Hopefully early summer but I have not touched the project while working on fixes to Arcane, which has spiralled into a greater project.
  What about other transformations?
  I have in mind 2 others, one of which is Lycanthropy—but that will operate off of a skeleton that we’re going to work out for Vampirism, and as a result it may be pending on any quirks Vampirism needs to have ironed out.

  Those seem to be the main ones. If you have questions about them in lore, or any other character pertinent queries, I ask that they take a backseat for now. I’ll make a thread as we get closer for those discussions as to not leave staff with a “vampire” section of tickets (there is one already).

•  An important announcement from Reedie about appropriate content for the public community spaces!
  
  Spoiler

  Originally posted by Reedie in the public discord, linked here!

  What is 'tapping the sign', anyway?,
  Hi everyone.

  I just wanted to put a brief announcement out as I was made aware some people are unfamiliar with the phrase that's become known as 'tapping the sign' in our community (especially since it dates back to the first month of the server). Basically, it's a reference to this original post here: ⁠announcements⁠

  But it's also grown past just that. In general, the idea is to keep things beyond a certain threshold of innuendo / lewd joking to more private areas. I know lots of folks have sexy characters and that's totally fine. Keep in mind however when you're talking in a public channel, not everyone is necessarily on the same page as you in terms of comfort level. For that reason, if a member of staff (especially Community) 'taps the sign' and asks you to move somewhere private or rein in the jokes a bit, please do so. It's not a space to debate about what should or should not be allowed in public chats. We've made a decision on this line, and we're going to stick to it.

  I get that might feel arbitrary, unfair, or at worst 'silencing' discussions about more intimate topics. I appreciate that - the reality is, we have to ask that you do those in at least more private areas with your friend group.

  As ever, if you feel a staff member is being abusive in terms of overly moderating the issue, I encourage you to open a moderation ticket - folks like Zos love going after staff, believe me. (only half a joke). I don't want it to turn into an ongoing (public) debate though after a staff member has asked someone to rein it in.

  I think this is a reasonable enough request, and I appreciate all the horny mfers in this community taking one for the team to keep public channels generally pretty wholesome places.

  Thank you!
  Reedie

  --

  P.S. the general advice about going to moderation for these concerns goes both ways - if you feel staff are being too lax in some areas, feel free to open a ticket as well. No promises we'll act on it, but you will at least get a response.

  
  
  

Discord

• Pride Month Mini-Update
  • An assortment of LGBTQI+ related emojis are now (permanently) available
  • New server icon
  • Staff icons rainbowified
• Due to popular demand, the "Dice Roller" bot was removed from the discord. Rest in peace bozo!

Website

• New main-page header logo (comes in rainbow and standard flavours)

Technical Updates

In-Game

• New features as of 05/19/25:
  • Can now sit on other players, by popular request. Do not use in roleplay unless you're actually on someone else - general rules of good roleplay etiquette apply.
  • Username colour is now character-dependant. /namecol will update it for your current character. Unfortunately this will wipe all current custom colours, sorry.
  • Can now use /status <username> to see the status of other players (their alchemical effects),
  • Updated tools and consumables courtesy of @Avajain, the updated items will be live on the website shortly to view.
• Bugfixes:
  • Fixed being able to talk in a channel after you've left it if it was your active channel
  • Fixed an error when your character's name was longer than 30 characters and you try to use /stats
  • Fixed a persistant spell being added to your daily recasts even if you failed the cast roll
  • Fixed potion toxicity not adding the right number of penalties if you were already over the daily cap when consuming
  • Fixed feat/spell requirements using the stat/skill modifier with alchemy effects. It now only uses the base stats/skills.
• An important technical PSA:
  • If anyone has information on what they did to get the extra hindrances bug (i.e. it prompts you to get one even though you shouldn't need one), please let Reedie know. Having trouble tracking down what's causing this.

° Player Events & Projects
Player-lead events and projects of Avalore, curated by the editor and Community Team to feature for the month.

Player Events

• Recurring - Foraging in the Reach: Enter for a chance to win a DMed foraging mini-event trip!
• Recurring - Nutward Putward Cave: "A number of groups have taken interest in the rumors of the recently found, recently named Nutward Putward Cave just north of town and a bit off the beaten path, due to its uncharted and labyrinthine tunnels, small bounty of crystals, and other details. While nothing sinister no fearsome creatures have been found lurking within the cave as of yet, it is full of narrow passageways, rough edges, and flooded chambers, and should be navigated accordingly.
  

Player Projects

• Minor Villages of Rulan by @Wayward Nomad
• Wrath in the Waters & Callan's Logs by @Bobbie
• Poetry of Helara Umeneri by @D_K
• Aralei's Papers by @Faye Spiritscribe

° Player Photos
Players are able to submit photos through our Photo Album forum (via our Discord server) to be featured in our newsletter, and even used as promotional material for Avalore!

Mutant Mayhem (event by @Waffleheart!)

Submission by @Bliinx

Wailing, Haunting Part II (event by @dinosipscoffee)

Submission by @Bliinx

Hojo Camp!

Submission by @yoursecondexwife

Covetous Campaign event at the beach!

Submission by @Jarckow

Spire Drinking Game (Diarmait won)

Submission by @yoursecondexwife

A Lesson in the Arcane! (event by @cosmic_evil)

Submission by @yoursecondexwife!