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Vanities and Virtues (vandvmod) wrote,
@ 2021-08-24 12:26:00

Vanities and Virtues: A Regency RPGInspired by the Works of Miss Jane Austen

Vanities and Virtues is an InsaneJournal-based RPG set in the 1810s in England- the period known as the British Regency and best-known to modern readers through the works of Jane Austen. The game is not intended to feature characters or situations from any of Austen's novels (and therefore no such characters will be permitted.) It is, rather, inspired by those novels and intended as a place for Janeites to create Regency stories of their own.

A Few Rules:
1. While IC drama is of course encouraged, OOC drama is strictly forbidden. If you don't have anything nice to say, we had much rather you didn't say anything. You are hardly required to like everyone. However, you are required to be polite to everyone regardless of whether you like them or not.

2. The standard RPG rules apply: Twinking, powerplaying, and theft are all high crimes here, as they are everywhere.

3. We ask that you attempt to keep to the written style of the times. While we are none of us Miss Austen, we are hopefully familiar enough with her works to know when a turn of phrase would be particularly out of place. This is especially important in the dialogue and personal writings of your characters; much greater freedom is allowed in your third-person writing, of course, although we would still advise you to keep modern slang out of it.

4. You are welcome to apply for original characters not listed on the Assembly page. However, the purpose of this basic list of characters is to make sure the characters in play know the familial relationships and other basic facts of their peers, as residents of a small community like this would. Therefore, if you apply for a character not on the Assembly page, he or she must be one of the following: a) A soldier of the Regiment newly stationed in Ashe Cross; b) A lower-class, likely uneducated person such as a menial worker, a governess, or a lady's-maid to one of the upper-class Misses; or c) A person whose family is just now moving in to the neighbourhood with proper justification for such a relocation and an extensive history explaining these reasons.

5. Personal journals are to be used as just that: your character's personal journal. In other words, NO IC COMMENTS MAY EVER BE USED IN THE JOURNALS. Your character should write in his or her journal as much or as little as he or she would be likely to given his or her leisure time and personality.

6. Letters, notes, and calling cards were important mediums of communication during the Regency period. There is a community set up to serve as the proper location for all such written correspondence between character. It can be found at

vandvletters. We hope you will use it often, as it serves the function that 'magical journals' or 'online journals' do in other RPGs- a place for your characters to comment-bomb each other in the first person. The community

ashecross is the proper place to put all third-person threads, which will likely be the majority of your roleplay here.

7. Regarding character limits: At the opening of the game, the limit is set at three characters per player. This may be subject to change at a later date. Similarly, we ask that if your first character is a female, you second be a male. This is for the sake of balance; if it is found to be unnecessary, this rule will be repealed.

The Premise

The village of Ashe Cross would not seem to anyone who happened upon it to be the sort of town destined to produce more than its share of Heroes and Heroines; for while the daily cares and small dramas of a neighbourhood may seem quite epic to its inhabitants, they are bound to appear trivial to the less discerning eye, and the village in question, while picturesque in its way, appears no more romantic than any of the hundreds of villages like it to be found in the British countryside.

Still, when a neighbourhood is meant to become the scene of adventure, something will happen to throw adventure in its way.

For Ashe Cross, events have conspired to impress not one but two Most Novel Events upon the generally quiet town. The quartering of a Regiment in the neighbourhood would be enough to send the community into a tizzy on its own with the arrival of the soldiers in their red coats and the enhanced society which only Officers can impart to the local assembly. It seems quite unnecessary, then, that this momentous event should coincide with the arrival of another, if more private, set of newcomers. And yet it has, for the long empty manor known to all and sundry as Wingham Place has just been let! And not only let, but let to a handsome bachelor and his beauteous sister, rumoured to be eligible to the tune of 9,000 a year!

With happenings such as this, a good deal of excitement is in the air. How could Ashe Cross fail to be destined for greatness as the site of uncountable adventures, romances, heartbreaks and scandals in the near future?