Welcome to Treasure Island! This is the roleplay section of the South Pacific forum, and arguably the one place on the forum where you might have the most fun. We are a friendly bunch and love to roleplay and experiment with different things in this world we have been creating throughout the last years. We would be more than happy to have you join our community and make your own contributions to our roleplay world. We understand that getting involved might be a bit daunting at first, but hopefully reading this guide and asking some questions will help you get a decent grasp of how to do things around here.

In this post:

1. Roleplay standards
   
2. Forum structure
   
3. Getting started
   
4. Canon history
   
5. Other important facts
   
6. Additional guides and useful stuff
   
7. Getting help
   

Roleplay standards
Roleplay here is divided into two separate parts: canon and extra-canon. Our regional canon is modern tech and the setting is the official regional map. That means all our official roleplays use technology similar to whatever already exists in the real world. However, we also roleplay in a universe different to that of the real world, meaning you cannot use real life maps to describe your nation or events, like European colonisation, to describe your national history. Exceptions are made for languages, religions, inventions, ideologies, and similar. Similarly, avoid statistics from NationStates when providing data about your nation. Most of the time our nations here have very little in common with those on NationStates, except maybe for the name. Everything we do must make sense with respect to the real world.

But what if you do want to start a roleplay where everything happens in the real world, or perhaps a fantasy/sci fi roleplay? You can always do that, just remember that it will not be part of the official regional history, it will count as extra-canon. There is nothing wrong with that of course, and chances are everyone who participates will have lots of fun. We have a developing sci-fi canon.

The most important rule is that any roleplay or fact that involves nations that belong to other players must have their consent. Remember that roleplay is collective writing. Another longstanding rule from our roleplay community is that whoever starts a thread is free to determine its rules. If you start a roleplay, you are free to decide if anyone can participate or it only certain people are invited. You can decide if certain kinds of posts shouldn't be allowed (like one liners), and can ask for moderators to remove posts that break your thread rules.

Another thing to take into account is that there is a difference between posting in-character (IC) and posting out-of-character (OOC). We will all be posting as different characters with different personalities. It is important to remember that no matter how disgusting a character might seem, the person behind the computer should always be treated with respect. We all want to have fun, and being respectful helps us achieve that goal. You will see that some threads have the tags [IC] and [OOC]. IC threads contain the actual "story" and OOC threads are used for discussion and questions. Many threads don't have a tag, and in such cases you have to read the posts to determine if it is in- or-out-of character.

Rules and forum moderation

Forum structure
Handbook: this is where you are now! Here you can find guides and discussions about the roleplay community itself and where people may post tools like the election simulator.

Main Canon: this is where all the canon roleplays take place, including wars, presidential inaugurations, sport events and national histories. Threads in here can be both in-character and out-of-character.

• Diplomacy: this is where nations can hold diplomatic events and international organisations hold their meetings. You will mostly find national embassies and international summits.
  • Embassies: this is the place for all embassies.
    
  • World Forum: this is where our equivalent to the real-life UN resides, called the World Forum.
• Media: this is where all nations can post articles from their various newspapers. You will find threads where anyone can post short snippets, threads where you can exclusively post news from your own nation and social media.
  
• Facts: this is where all nations can post their various national histories and information. You will find threads where people exclusively post about their national information and survey threads where everyone can answer a specific question with regards to their own nation.
  
• Maps: this is where you will find the official regional map and will be able to claim your own plot. You will also find national maps made by individual nations, and a guide on making your own map.
  

Extra-Canon: this is where all the extra-canon roleplays take place, including alternative world roleplays and sci-fi roleplays. This is where you would do anything not related to the main canon, which is based on the regional map.

Treasure Island Report: A collection of roleplay news and articles about various aspects of roleplaying.


Getting started
Here are a few tips on how to start roleplaying, divided by our different canons.

Main canon:

1. To participate in the canon roleplays, you need to claim a plot on the regional map. As long as the claim complies with the rules, you may start roleplaying before the map has been updated. The map is updated once a month.
   
2. Build your nation. Decide the basic facts, like the size of the population, what political system your nation should have, languages spoken, etc. See Additional guides and useful stuff for some tips and inspiration.
   
3. You can introduce your nation with a brief thread with the basic facts and answer surveys here or in the master thread.
   
4. Have your nation react to ongoing events in Flash News
   
5. Browse our own Encyclopedia for more facts about other nations and other interesting articles.
   

Take your time, there's no hurry!

Sci-fi:

1. To participate in the main sci-fi roleplays, you need to claim a plot on the sector map. As long as the claim complies with the rules, you may start roleplaying before the map has been updated. The map is updated at least once a month or when needed.
   
2. In the setting for the sci-fi roleplays, our nations are in the process of discovering each other. It is recommended to contact players for a first contact event.
   

Fantasy:
Unfortunately we have no established setting yet for fantasy roleplays. You can help us getting started!


Canon history
We briefly mentioned the regional canon in the previous section. But what is it?

The regional canon is all the roleplays and facts that have been agreed upon by the different players. We continually build on top of that history and broaden it with new roleplays, and use it to influence the course of our future history. Some roleplays have had a great effect on our nations and define the current political climate. Find in the list below the most important historical events.

Important historical events:

Late 1400s: Some nations have developed ships that can cross the oceans and begin to explore other continents systematically and trade with distant nations. Colonisation also occurs.

1600 - 1900: Colonial powers from other continents are present in the South Pacific region.

1650-1775: Pirates plague the cross-Pacific trade. The major stronghold of the pirates is located on Government Island. The pirates come from many of the seafaring nations, but a major force is the pirate fleets from Huawan. Traditional trading nations like Karnetvor and Sedunn form a coalition to defeat the pirates.

1864: Sedunn hosts the Grovne Convention that establishes our equivalent of the Geneva Conventions and the foundation for other international laws.

1920s: Communism arises in the South Pacific.

1949-1955: The Great War. A war between a pact of democratic nations, including Ryccia, Sedunn and Sporaltryus, and a pact of imperialist nations including Karnetvor and Tekarai. The war ends with a decisive defeat of the imperialist side.

2014-2015: The Great Instability: civil wars are fought in Ryccia, Sporaltryus and Darkstraits, and subsequent brief but violent conflicts pit Ryccia against Sporaltryus. Foreign powers with opposing political systems support the various factions, sometime with a direct military involvement.

2017: The World Forum, an organisation similar to the real-life United Nations, is founded.

2017-2018: The Serevan War. Ethnic tension between Serevans and Erinorans in Erinor escalates into a civil war. The Serevan rebels are backed by communist Bruuma while the Erinoran government is backed by Ryccia and GI-Land. The opposing sides fight on the Sereva Island. The war ends with increased autonomy for areas with a Serevan majority and increased world tension.

2017-: The Reizen Civil War. An uprising against the central government occurs in the Reizen Province. It escalates into a bloody civil war with three different rebel factions, in addition, different nations are involved to promote their ideologies and/or enforce peace.
Our regional canon might be complicated to understand at first, but all our active roleplayers are very friendly and would be happy to walk you through the basics.

Even though your nation may be fresh on the map doesn’t necessarily mean it was just founded, from an in-character point of view. If you want, it may have existed since antiquity.

If you choose real-life languages or religions for your nation, you may have to coordinate your history with other players that have nations that speak the same language.


Other important facts
These are some basic main canon facts that you will want to keep in mind:

• Our planet is called Pacifica. It is orbited by two moons called Maxima and Minima. It has the same physical properties as the real-life Erath.
  
• The areas where most of the roleplay takes place is located in the southern hemisphere, hence the seasons follow the same cycle as on the real-life Earth.
  
• The English language is the lingua franca. In the main canon it has a different name, Austral.
  

Our having one regional canon does not mean there cannot be alternative timelines. If you want to make an alternate timeline with different elements (like a version of our history where we developed faster-than-light travel), we really encourage you to do it and ask around to see if there is interest in the idea. It might be really fun!


Additional guides and useful stuff
Find below useful links for building your main canon nation.

Internal:

• Treasure Island Mod Requests
  
• Realism and Population
  
• How to write the news
  
• World Building
  

External:

• TSP Encyclopedia - wiki articles about our nations and related
  
• List of countries by GDP (nominal)
  
• List of countries by military expenditures
  

Getting help
This is a very basic guide, but there is much more to know about our roleplay section. Your very first option should be to post here, or visit our Discord channel on the official server of the South Pacific region, or the dedicated role-play server on Discord. We will be glad to answer any questions you might have. There are no stupid questions. If you still feel you need some guidance, you can send a private message to any of the following people, who actively roleplay here and are willing to answer all of your questions:

@Qwert
@Jay Coop
@Hammerstar

If you have a question about a specific roleplay, you might want to ask instead the person who started the thread, or anyone who seems particularly active in that thread. If you have questions about the gameplay regional government or how to get involved in other aspects of our region, you can follow this link. If you have questions about the forum itself, you should head over to the Operations Center, where forum administrators can answer your question.

This guide is an updated and revised version of @Kris Kringle's. The logo was created by @Jay Coop.