Birchwood Isle Family Roleplay

Although not written into the rules, you won't get very far if you don't have Discord. It is required for you to submit your application to join the site! If you have any questions or concerns about how to join, or if you don't yet have an account on Discord to use to join our chat, please reach out to an administrator via PM and we will get back to you to help set you up. This is not only how we process our applications, but also where we talk about our threads, characters, and community. Ideally, you should join before you register on the forum!

Access to Birchwood Isle has been private to its founders for a decade. We ask that all prospective members first understand that this is a sacred space for the people who created it, and as such, our motto stands: "Love it. Live it. Or leave it." All files contained in this board are considered mandatory for prospective members. You should read and absorb every file before deciding if Birchwood Isle is the right roleplay home for you. It will not be the ideal place for many people. Bear in mind that odds are, you need us a lot more than we need you!

Every so often, something changes significantly at Birchwood Isle, and we need to be able to keep you up to date on all of the happenings around the island. This board contains up-to-date announcements of any changes you need to be aware of, and important announcements will be added to our news section at the top of the page. Often, these announcements will cover opportunities for you to get your characters more involved in the culture and activities of Birchwood Isle, so it's worthwhile to check them out and be up to date!

All characters are subject to administrator approval. While we understand that for many of you (and us as well!) these people are "emotionally real" and that you may be deeply attached to the people you choose to bring to Birchwood Isle, every one of them must be processed and filed into the correct member group, sorted into the correct folder, and verified for suitability for our roleplay. Please ensure you've read all of our rules before you decide to submit your inner person for approval. We will reject unsuitable applications to ensure suitability!

The very first thing you should do after you've finished reading our rules is to submit your member application. This application helps admins and existing members know how to interact with you and your characters by telling us about your preferences, a little bit about who you are (anonymously), and helps us verify who has read our rules and to rule out anyone who isn't suitable for our site and environment. Later, your character applications will be added to your member application thread to help guide future interactions.

The age of adulthood on Birchwood Isle is 25 years old. Therefore, all characters between the ages of 12 and 24 are considered "adolescent" on this site. All adolescent characters must have a guardian, and the Orphan Village only accepts residents up to the age of 18. If you wish to play a "young adult," you must therefore include that young adult as part of an existing family, and they may not have authority over non-relatives. Please see specific information about this in the Member Groups file under "Adolescent Member Groups."

Child characters on Birchwood Isle must be aged between three and 11 years old. We do not accept inner children under the age of three and children aged 12 and over are classified as "adolescents" in the Birchwood Isle system. Please be aware that very young children who are highly dependent on adults for both interaction and general care may not receive as much attention from other members as characters who are old enough to engage with other children and take care of themselves. We encourage an age floor of 6 years old.

"Non-kin families" refers to any family that is not related by blood or adoption. This includes those living in the Orphan Village or at St. Jude's Academy. If you're new to Birchwood Isle and trying to figure out where your inner kid might fit, this board may be useful for figuring out the best place to put your high school-aged character. For children, the non-kind families section will help you get to know the people you'll be living with at the Orphan Village, and your own information will be added to the Orphan Village when you're approved!

The Northern Isle makes up the majority of the folks who live on Birchwood Isle. This is the middle class part of the island, which many of the Eastern Islanders think of as the "backbone" of Birchwood Isle. Some may be small business owners, while others are employed in island services. Most people living in this part of the island are financially comfortable and have the means to take care of large families, as are common on the island. Landscape in the Northern Isle varies from thickly wooded with large homes and long drives to suburban areas.

Families who live on the Eastern Isle are loaded -- filthy rich! Many of them are involved in the government of Birchwood Isle, while others are enormous contributors to the island's economy as business owners and employers. Some arrived on the island rich, others became rich living and working on the island. The families who live here live in enormous homes and often have large families. They're far from perfect, but they are the financial machine behind everything Birchwood Isle is and does, and they tend to be left alone.

Families living in the Southern Isle most often work in agriculture. The children of these families are expected to put the work in to help maintain the farms and ranches here, and they put in long hours alongside their parents. Homesteads are also common here, and some families choose to live on the Southern Isle for the independence of homesteading. There is a strong sense of community among these families, and they are always helpful to one another and hospitable to outsiders, as well. Most of the island's food comes from here.

The Western Isle is is also where the poorest members of Birchwood Isle's economy live. Families living in this area are often low-wage and struggle to provide for themselves and for their children. They are substantially smaller than families in other areas of the island in some cases, or substantially larger in others. The mixture of different cultures and traditions on this part of the island is a complete spectrum, but they manage to maintain a strong sense of community in spite of their differences.

A community within a community, Stone Creek grew up when a handful of core families isolated themselves from other members of the Southern Isle community. Stone Creek is located in the Southwestern part of the island and remains its own isolated village of interconnected families. Their culture is strict, leaning toward severe, and they govern themselves as much as possible. Birchwood Isle officials know to leave Stone Creek residents alone, for the most part. These families prefer to police their own community.

If you're hoping to create a family, or even if you're looking for friends for your character, you are welcome to request the character you want. You will need to have an application on file for your own character first, and then you should put together some information about what you're looking for. You may be as detailed as you like. Some people love a lot of detail and other people want room to expand on the basic concept! Please note that we do not allow child or adolescent characters to request parents at this time.

This is the place to keep track of your character's emerging story! You can use this board any way that you like. However, the staff suggests keeping a running account of everything that has happened to your character in the order in which it happened to your character. Another option is to keep track of every thread your character has been with some notes about what happened in that thread. This can be useful to avoid getting your child or adolescent character into trouble in every single thread (and creating a monster!).