Rules and Other Info

The server is based around the idea of political roleplay. There are many countries that have been created, each with their own unique set of values, government styles, and ethos. These countries engage in diplomacy, trade, and, rarely, even warfare with one another. You can found your own country or join an existing one—that's entirely up to you. There are plenty of countries always looking for new members and allies, so if you need anything, just ask the community.

Server Rules

Please note the following rules are to be followed in spirit, not just in letter. "Lawyering" with staff about what the rule technically says or does not say will get you nowhere. Staff have the final word on the meaning of rules.

1. No use of third-party programs that provide an unfair advantage over other players.

• In addition to explicit cheats like x-ray, schematics mods, and combat hacks, this includes things like keyboard/mouse macros or automatic reloggers.
• If you wish to use a third-party program, check the list of explicitly allowed/forbidden programs here. If you don't find your program on the list, you must ask staff whether it is allowed, and otherwise assume it is not.

2. No indiscriminate griefing.

• This involves going around destroying stuff for no logical reason from the point of view of your ingame character. This rule is specifically intended to guard against uninvested and uninterested players using Elgeis as a quick destructive thrill, rather than engaging with the RP aspect.
• Griefing/raiding is allowed as long as you have a reasonable in-character RP motivation, but likewise expect retaliation by the target(s) of your actions. Griefing to steal from storages is considered an RP reason.
• However, when griefing, stealing, starting wars, or taking any other "controversial" in-character action, we expect you to stick around and follow up for any reactions that those affected may make. Avoiding the in-character consequences for such gameplay, by going inactive or otherwise with out-of-character actions may result in staff intervention to ensure that a natural in-character course of events, or its functional equivalent, plays out.
• Spawn and the End entrance are plugin-protected, but nonetheless, griefing them is against the rules. It is also against the rules to block off the End exit portal, which is left unprotected to allow for transportation of entities between dimensions.

3. Invite judiciously, and use the forms.

• If you want to invite people to the server (and please do!) there are two Google forms pinned in #important-links-and-info. If we think your invite is a good fit for Elgeis (it's hard not to be), we'll approve them quickly.
  1. Send the form titled "Form for inviting new people" to the person who you want to invite.
  2. Fill out and submit the form titled "Form for giving character references for your invites" yourself
• That being said, please make sure that you only invite people who you believe will be non-toxic and follow the rules of the server—we all have friends that, great as they are, would not make good Elgeis-ers. It's best for the staff, for the community, and for your friendship that you think carefully about who you invite so we don't have to go through the nasty business of banning buddies. Additional notes:
  1. Players must be, at the very least, 13 years of age.
     • This is not only the minimum age for a Discord account, but the political simulation is likely too complex for someone younger than this to competently participate.
     • Lying about your or anyone else's age will get you banned.
  2. You may under no circumstances provide the person who you sent the form to with answers for questions asked in the form or by the admins once they've joined the discord. The process that we have for allowing people onto the server is in place to make sure that only those who will be a good addition actually get on. The server environment only exists because everyone understands and respects how the server works.
  3. Vettees must read this rules page themselves - you can't summarize it for them or read it to them.
  4. If you want to post the invite form in a public place (such as reddit, other discord servers, etc.) ask staff first.
  5. Wait until after a player is vetted to recruit them to your in-character country, ideology, etc.
     • Before a player is vetted, they don't exist IC - you may not try to sway them to any ingame viewpoint, including in joining or not joining a particular country, forming opinions about individuals or countries, etc.
     • While we understand that some discussion between very close friends or family members about IC matters is unavoidable prior to vetting, we ask that this be kept at a minimum. Deliberate cases of pre-vetting influence will be punished accordingly.
  6. The ability to speak English is required to be on the server, as virtually all discussion is conducted in English, and being unable to speak it would make participation in the community nearly impossible.

4. No usage of alt accounts.

• One account per person. This includes logging in on someone else's account who's already on the server, such as a sibling or friend.

5. In order to be on the Minecraft server, you have to be a member of the Discord.

• If you leave the discord, you will be removed from the whitelist.

6. Keep in-character (IC) hostility to a reasonable level, and don't be toxic out-of-character (OOC).

• A good rule of thumb is to keep content to around PG-13, owing to our minimum age being 13.
• When out-of-character (OOC), don't be rude or toxic, or use offensive language and slurs. Keep sensitive topics such as those of a sexual or excessively violent nature to the #inappropriate-discussion-and-content channel, nowhere else, and don't be creepy. Keeping the Elgeis community comfortable for all to participate in is of the utmost importance to Staff, and we will take action to make sure it stays as such.
  • Toxicity is acceptable in-character (IC), as the characters we play in Minecraft have their own "serious" world they interact in, so they have reasons to actually be toxic. In-character, players are free to swear at others whose characters you hate, get into shouting matches, or invent slurs for in-game countries. This will of course likely have ingame repercussions, but it is an acceptable part of gameplay as far as the rules are concerned. However, using real-world toxicity, such as real-world slurs or attacking someone's OOC person due to IC events, will be treated as toxicity per the paragraph above. Finally, this shouldn't have to be said, but sexual topics of any kind are not appropriate for IC.
• If you have an issue with another player that makes you think they are breaking any of the server rules, please bring it up in #server-management-discussion or, if you feel uncomfortable with that, in DMs with any of our Staff. Please do not start flaming that person, smearing their name behind their back, throwing vague and unverifiable accusations, or engaging in any form of personal vendetta campaigns - these constitute a form of toxicity as well, and the only way the Staff can properly assess the situation is if you remove yourself from it and provide direct evidence why you think their behaviour is unacceptable.
• Basic common sense housekeeping applies, too. No spamming, no advertising other unaffiliated servers (Minecraft and Discord alike), trolling (OOC), etc.

7. Don't let the game world (IC) affect the real world (OOC), and likewise don't let the real world affect the game world.

• Do not bring your IRL opinions, biases or presumptions into the game if at all possible; likewise, do not form IRL opinions, biases or presumptions based on someone's actions in the game world. Do not metagame - please read the "What is metagaming?" section of the FAQ below.
• One exception to this is that OOC identity changes (usernames, pronouns, etc.) that do not constitute a change in the actual IC character being played should be respected.
  • Since everyone's feelings are different, we aren't going to stop everyone from ever referencing a past username, but if someone asks you to stop making jokes in regard to their identity, stop.

8. Don't abuse glitches.

• This includes TNT duping, lag machines, 0-tick farms, AFK fishing, breaking or travelling beyond bedrock (including accessing the nether roof), or other abuses of in-game features. That being said, this is a very gray area, and if you're not sure, just ask.

9. Don't make skybases without entrances.

• Any build unattached to the ground that has space within or storage within or on top of it must have an entrance that is accessible, without the use of any special items, from the ground of the same dimension.

10. Use each Discord channel as it's meant to be used.

• Discussion channels don't follow this rule as strictly, but channels such as #mc-world-news have specific guidelines on what belongs there. All channels have their rules outlined at the top, so if you’re not sure what a channel is used for, check there.

Make sure that you read these rules carefully, because this list is your only warning.

We're quite good at rooting out rule-breakers, and have many tools to help us do so. Please don't make us have to ban you—you will be found out.

• We have a zero-tolerance policy for rules 1-6, and breaking them has a good chance of resulting in a permanent IP ban.
• Rules 7-9 are more lenient, as a lot of the time they're accidentally broken by players operating in good faith. If you do happen to break them, we'll ask you to stop/fix your mistake. However, if you refuse, continue, or lead us to believe the rulebreaking was done maliciously, you will be banned.
• For rule 10, breaking it will result in your message being taken down and you'll be given a warning. If you continue, you'll be muted in that particular channel.
• Encouraging rule breaking by others will be treated as if you are breaking the rule yourself.
• Undermining admin ability to enforce rules will also be punished harshly. If you're going through all this to get into this private community, it's assumed that you want the rules to be followed so you can have the gameplay experience they're set up to create. It's therefore expected that you will help enforce the rules as a community member by letting staff know about rule-breaking or vulnerabilities for exploits.

Differences from Vanilla MC

Extradimensional restrictions: Past 3000 in the Nether and 5000 in the End, the following restrictions are applied, to prevent abusing the infiniteness of these dimensions to escape from the consequences of RP:

• Shulkers and furnaces break after 5 minutes.
• All other storage blocks cannot be placed, and existing ones break 10 seconds after opening.

Factions: The factions plugin allows for protection of builds, chests, doors, etc. within "claimed" territory. Each person in a faction provides that faction with 20 "faction power". Each unit of faction power can be used to make one "faction claim", each 16x16 blocks (1 chunk). But be careful! Each time you die, you lose 4 faction power (it recovers over time), and if your faction power is beneath your faction claims, people can faction claim your claims! To see a full list of faction commands, type [/f help] on the server. Note: Lecterns and trapped chests will be accessible to all, regardless of the chunk's status.

MCMMO: An RPG-themed plugin where players can "level up" by practicing certain skills, from woodcutting to archery to fishing. As you level up skills, you unlock special abilities that let you become powerful within a certain skillset. Here's the MCMMO wiki for more: https://mcmmo.fandom.com/wiki/McMMO_Wiki

Dynmap: A real-time, in-browser, GPS-style map of the server. You can find it pinned in #important-links-and-info.

BetterWanderingTraders: Adds custom wandering trader trades. Currently, you can buy player/block heads and parrot eggs along with the normal vanilla trades from wandering traders.

Brewery: You can brew alcohol and even invent your own recipes.

CombatLog: If you get into combat with another player, this plugin kills you if you log out. Wait for the timer to run out first!

Custom Foods: Using vanilla foods as a base, you can create new foodstuffs with unique recipes and effects.

GroogePlugin: Adds a variety of random features. Currently, it adds the functionality to give armor stands arms by right clicking on them with sticks, /hideflags, and /showflags. Type [/groogehelp] in-game to see the commands and what they do.

LittleComposter: Adds the ability to make items compostable. Currently, the following are compostable:

• Rotten flesh at 15%
• Poisonous potatoes, sugar, and all raw fishes at 50%
• Cooked cod and salmon at 65%

PwnPlantGrowth: Changes how plants grow to be more biome specific, creating a more dynamic and specialized farming environment. The current configuration settings can be found here.

SimpleRename: You can rename items without having to use an anvil or XP. Type [/sr help] in-game to see the commands and what they do.

VillagerModifications: Allows for villager trades to be disabled or their prices changed. Currently, villager trades for food items (soups, cakes, and meat) and glass are disabled, and apples and golden carrots have been made more expensive.

Other differences from vanilla MC:

• Arrows work as fuel in furnaces.
• Putting potions in a furnace will evaporate the liquid and give you an empty bottle.
• Holding an empty glass bottle and picking up XP gives you a Bottle o' Enchanting.
• Zombies have a 5% chance of dropping phantom membranes.
• Crouching + right clicking on an item frame turns it invisible.
• Creepers don't do block damage, but do health damage.
• Insomnia is disabled; phantoms don't appear after not sleeping at night.
• The Ender Dragon does not grief blocks.
• Elytras are disabled in the overworld.
• Ender chests are disabled.
• Cobblestone can be smelted into gravel, and gravel into sand, all in a blast furnace with a 20-second process each smelt.
• Lily Pads, Small Dripleaf, and Spore Blossoms can be obtained by using bonemeal on the proper blocks within their natural biome.

FAQs

How does RP (roleplaying) work on Elgeis?

The player is expected to put themselves in the shoes of their character, and react to the world around them from their character's point of view; this includes taking into account their character's cultural and political views, personality, but also the physical realities of the Minecraft world. The staff does not enforce any worldbuilding or metaphysical claims - nor do they refute any of them; everything here is up to the characters to decide, through their IC point of view. First and foremost, Elgeis is a form of political simulationist roleplaying - the emphasis here is on creating believable and internally consistent political narrative. The characters are mainly a vector for the simulation. As PvP and ingame conflict (strictly IC) are encouraged, and the players are pulled from a pool of many different people, Elgeis is less comparable to your average TTRPG and more to a loosely organised LARP; the rules are what keep people in check, but making space for others to RP in or collaborating with everyone else to make the most interesting narrative are not required, and rather people are encouraged to do their best to simulate their own character, and see what happens when the trajectory of their story collides with others. As a specific note, there is generally a "one character per person" expectation on the server - you can change your name, behaviour and even backstory, but it is up to you IC to convince people that you are not the same person anymore, and the admins will not interfere to force people to believe it.

What is metagaming?

Metagaming, at its core, is using means, motives or connections within the real world (where you are OOC, or out of character) to influence the gameworld (where you are IC, or in character), or vice versa. For instance, asking someone for money in real life to do a certain thing in the game would be quite egregious metagaming; another serious example would be declaring war on someone's country in the game world because you stopped being friends with them IRL. Your opinion of someone should not be influenced by your opinion of their character, and ideally, the opposite is also true. Your character should only act for the reasons they have within the game world, and you should separate yourself from the game state when not in character. There are several rules and guidelines you are expected to follow to make this smoother and easier for you and everyone else.

First of all, avoid directly lifting political entities or factions from the real world into the game world - taking inspiration is fine, but having a country that is named the same and works the same as a real world (including historical) country is considered bad form. If you are unsure about your idea, please feel free to ask the Staff first

Secondly, don't start things you are not prepared to face IC consequences for. If you start a big war or plot and then never log on or leave the server, that is frowned upon and may, in particularly harsh cases, result in a ban. For similar reasons, do not let individuals not on the server (even former players) influence your actions on the server, and if you have temporarily left the server, don't try to engage with it through other people - the interactions should be driven by those who can take the responsibility for them.

And foremost, use Discord and channels for their intended purpose. If you are expressing intent to influence the game world, or disclosing factual information about the actual, current game world (like bunker coordinates) that is not known yet IC, that is IC discussion - don't do it in OOC channels, and even if you do, the Staff will allow it to be taken as IC. This is to prevent people from making game-changing decisions and then avoiding consequences by claiming they are OOC, and to prevent creation of unnecessary cognitive dissonance for players who would know a lot more OOC than they do IC. Of course, you may discuss IC events from an OOC standpoint, but if you are talking about IC information OOC, use only that which is widely available IC, or that which is purely OOC (for example, if there is a war and your character has made a public statement denouncing that war, it would be perfectly fine to state that you are actually having quite a lot of fun spectating the war OOC; but if you said "my character is actually loving that war and is bullshitting everyone", this may actually count as IC evidence.

Is recording other players in VCs allowed?

Generally speaking, it is nice to ask other people if you can record them before doing so. However, Discord is a public space and VCs are interactions between strangers, and as of such, there are no rules or laws in place explicitly mandating you must do so. If there is an IC conversation going on, the participants can and might be recorded discussing things from their IC point of view, and those recordings can be used for IC purposes later on. However, recording OOC conversations (which should be relegated to VCs marked as OOC) without permission will generally be considered harassment, and the Staff might issue penalties for doing so.

Why is the “vetting” system so important?

If you’re reading this, you’ve been through our vetting system or you’re going through it right now. People often wonder why we have the vetting system, which seems a bit arbitrary at times.

The vetting system is in place to allow Elgeis to remain a public server while still ensuring that only the right people are allowed on. In addition to the necessity of being non-toxic and understanding how to RP detached from the real world, the delicate environment of the server only exists because everyone understands that each country has both physical and political boundaries, and everyone respects each other’s boundaries to ensure that their own are respected in kind. Having people on the server who either don’t care about/don't understand boundaries or who don't care about the worldbuilding and RP of the server makes the server a bad place. All of the safeguards we have in place prevent the wrong people from accessing the server—and there have been many, many saves in the past.

How do I join a country or found a new one?

There are a multitude of possible playstyles on Elgeis, and many of them are determined by whether you join a country or found your own. Different countries have diferent opportunities and potential challenges to offer, and it's always a good idea to learn as much as possible before making a decision on who to join, where to settle, etc.

If you want to join a country, the most straightforward option is to ask in an in-character channel, or join their discord, which should be listed in the #affiliated-disords channel. Different countries have different approaches towards accepting new citizens, and you may have to wait a little bit for them to vote on approving you.

If you want to found a new country, the process is somewhat more extensive, but it's still pretty easy. First, look at the map pinned in the #political-discussion channel, that shows all the borders of Elgeis countries. Most people opt to settle in unclaimed land, as people rarely ever take issue with that, but you could theoretically settle in someone's borders - just expect them to challenge your claims in their land, depending on how strong they are. From here, make an announcement in the #mc-world-news channel announcing your country's name, a map of its borders, and optionally some additional information about it and a flag. Then, find a hexcode that you want your role to be, and post it in #server-management-discussion, so staff can give you a role for your country.

What does Elgeis/“LGS” stand for/what is it?

LGS is the acronym used for the friend group that started the server back in August 2018. It stands for “Le Gaming Squad”, a dated term from when using “le” even ironically was still cool. We try not to think about that. GoatWhisperer, FlyingGMM, ClapYoThighs, 06Smg05, and AbstractEgg are founding members of the server who still play, and a few more members of LGS have joined since then.

At some point, the decision was made to change the name to Elgeis (still basically pronounced as LGS) to provide a fantasy-style slant to the name and to recognize that far more people play on the server today than the original LGS crew.

How did the server get started?

LGS had many private Minecraft servers over the years with the political roleplay theme. Most of these servers, however, died within a month or so. This happened to Elgeis as well (called the “barren period” by Elgeis historians), before the server was opened up for semi-public recruiting in late November 2018, reviving it. We decided that while we wanted more people, they needed to share our values of wanting to engage in politics, and that they needed to be conducive to building a strong server community.

Channel Use Descriptions

The Elgeis discord has many channels for every type of discussion. Before writing in a channel, please read its description.

Introduction (out-of-character):

• #lobby is for talking to unvetted without interrupting the vetting process.
• #new-members is for vetting new members to the server. Currently only unvetted players and staff members can talk here.
• #country-info is for information on the countries of Elgeis. No discussion is permitted here—each country's leader is permitted to post one message here showcasing the country's wiki page and a short pitch on the country's leader(s), titles, and general values/government.
• #rules-and-other-info is for the rules and other information, currently being the list of our six staff members.
• #important-links is for links to important server links including, but not limited to, the server address, dynmap link, and wiki.
• #affiliated-discords is for links to each Elgeis-related discord servers.

Minecraft Discussion (in-character):

• #crafters-chat is for general discussion of stuff you do on the server, such as builds, boasting about your accomplishments, etc.
• #political-discussion is for discussion of politics on the server. This includes border disputes, political declarations that don't belong in #mc-world-news, negotiations, etc. The most recent version of the political map is usually pinned here, as are different countries' discords should you wish to join them.
• #trade is for announcing and negotiating trades. Each person gets one pinned message to advertise their trades, so let the admins know if you want to do that. You can of course edit that pinned message as your trades change.
• #crafter-memes is for memes regarding the server, be it management, history, or contemporary politics.
• #words-of-wisdom is for memorable quotes from people on the server.
• #mc-kinda-news is for news announcements that isn't of concern to the international community. Any questions about announcements in this channel should be directed to #political-discussion. Repeatedly posting unsuitable content in this channel may result in being muted in it.
• #mc-world-news is for news announcements which concern the international community. Any questions about announcements in this channel should be directed to #political-discussion. Repeatedly posting unsuitable content in this channel may result in being muted in it.

Meta Discussion (out-of-character):

• #ooc-general is for OOC commentary and discussion on in-game affairs.
• #server-management-discussion is for discussion pertaining to the server in terms of how it's run/stuff done for the server but not stuff happening on it (such as plugins, patches, maps, etc.).
• #wiki-discussion is for discussion of the Elgeis wiki primarily, as well as other meta records like maps.
• #mapmaking-mania is for discussion of the Elgeis map which is pinned in #political-discussion.
• #emojis is for any images you want to be made into emojis. Post the image and what you want it to be called, and one of the staff members will consider making it an emoji.
• #admin-announcements is for the admins to make announcements pertaining to server management.

Just For Fun (out-of-character):

• #off-topic is for non-server-related discussion.
• #face-reveal is for any real-life images. Everyone must have clothes on.
• #cool-memes is for non-server-related memes that you feel like sharing.
• #inappropriate-discussion-and-content is for stuff of a mature nature that's worth sharing but may offend some.

Voice Channels:

• #the-bot-channel is for typing bot commands.
• #no-mic-chat is for people who do not have a microphone but would like to still participate in voice channel conversation.

Useful Links to Know

• Elgeis Wiki: (You're here right now!) A wiki for the server's rich and complex history. Everyone on the server is free to edit the wiki, but remember to keep things objective, accurate, and clearly written. Questions about the wiki should be directed to #wiki-discussion.
• Compendium of Server History: An overview of the server's rich past. It currently only runs up to December of 2018, but serves as a good record of ancient Elgeis history.
• Form for joining: Please refer to Rule #3 to find and use this form wisely.

Congratulations! You have now finished reading the Rules and Other Info writeup, and are now up-to-speed on the workings of Elgeis! If you're being vetted, you're now welcomed to go back to #new-members, let @Staff know you're finished and ask them any questions you still have. Good luck!