Role of StarClan in WCF

Hello everyone! A few weeks ago, a discussion occurred regarding the role of StarClan in the WCF universe. Frankly, this discussion is long-overdue. StarClan has never played a large role on this website, but neither has it been completely done away with. This uneasy balance has been contentious with members since the foundation of the website, which has lead to inconsistent policies with little concrete grounding for when StarClan involvement is allowed. Therefore, I would like us to have a conversation about the future of StarClan on this website and make some concrete guidelines that we can use going forward. As some basic ground rules, we will not be opening year-round threads where members can roleplay their StarClan or Dark Forest Cats at will and members will not be allowed to create prophecies and or initiate other omens or spiritual interference without some sort of approval. What’s at stake in this discussion is under what circumstances members will be able to get that approval. If you are a relatively new member, Monthly Meow LX explains how StarClan on this website has historically differed from the canon StarClan and is important context for this discussion.

We have a few options for how to proceed. Firstly, we could simply continue our current policy of allowing contact with StarClan only during leader ceremonies or rare, pre-approved visits to the Moonstone. This plan has the benefit of already having years of precedent, so we won’t have to change how the roleplay functions or justify why StarClan is involving themselves in plots now, but haven’t done so in the past. It’s also been proven to work relatively well, as we’ve had no difficulty maintaining interesting plots without involving StarClan. However, this does restrict the plots that we can roleplay and relegates medicine cats to a largely advisory role, as well as creating a disconnect between the world of WCF and that of the canon series. While this in itself isn’t bad -WCF does, after all, have a totally distinct history and environment- it may turn some members away from WCF because an aspect that they enjoyed from the books is not present.

One problem with this current state of affairs is that it invites questions about how StarClan functions within the universe of WCF. We could fix this problem of ambiguity by explicitly relegating StarClan to a Moonstone-only role, in which StarClan cats can only communicate to living cats through the Moonstone. This model allows us to expand the role of StarClan within the roleplay by allowing medicine cats or leaders to visit them as well as allowing the potential for non-medicine cat or leaders to communicate with StarClan. However, it limits StarClan by removing their ability to directly interfere in the lives of the clans or communicate with cats who haven’t visited the Moonstone.

We could also go in the opposite direction and eliminate StarClan from the roleplay entirely, outside of our annual Halloween event. In this scenario, cats would only visit the Moonstone ritualistically and the StarClan mythos would be simply a set of beliefs and principles, rather than an active force within clan life. There are a few advantages to this approach. As with relegating StarClan to a Moonstone-only role, it provides clear boundaries within the roleplay and explains the role of non-believers in Clan life. While it’s always been hand-waved away within both the canon series and in this roleplay, it makes little sense for nonbelievers to persist within the clan when cats regularly spring back to life before their eyes. As well, presenting StarClan as a belief system allows for personal plots regarding belief and large-scale plots, like our Weepingstar arc, that go into how faith systems can be manipulated for personal gain or how ordinary happenings can gain undue significance within a religious context (i.e. cats misinterpreting natural events for acts of StarClan). However, plots of this nature may be beyond the scope of this roleplay, especially given our all-ages atmosphere. While most members during Weepingstar’s arc enjoyed the plot, others felt that it was disrespectful toward religious members and issues of belief aren’t appropriate for an all-ages Warrior Cats Roleplay. Additionally, it makes little sense in-game for leaders to suddenly stop receiving lives, especially given the high-profile plots we’ve had in the past surrounding leaders either refusing to visit the Moonstone or not being granted the lives they want. Finally, this is a large divergence from the canon series and while some potential members may like the idea, it’s likely that others will find it to be too much of a departure from the books or otherwise distasteful.

Finally, we could move closer to the canon series concept of StarClan by allowing more involvement. There are two ways we could do this: gradually introducing StarClan involvement or revealing StarClan intervention through a major plot, possibly one tied to the tenth anniversary. Both of these options have the potential to increase activity by opening up a new array of plotlines. However, an uptick in activity isn’t guaranteed. Plenty of Warrior Cats roleplays have a canon-like relationship with StarClan and struggle with activity, so while we should take this possible boost to activity into account, introducing StarClan will not be a silver bullet that solves every issue we’ve ever had with activity.

Gradually introducing limited StarClan intervention would take the form of opening up the moonstone to non-leader visitors and allowing cats to receive small omens or prophecies. Most instances of StarClan interference would be “omens” where potentially-natural experiences are interpreted as StarClan-sent, which would give us freedom in allowing some factions of characters to believe in the omens, while others disregard them as meaningless. Similarly, cats wouldn’t have a way to verify others’ visions. Expanding StarClan’s role in this way would allow us to return to something more akin to the canon clans’ relationship with StarClan and, unlike the Moonstone-only approach, would allow us to more easily expand StarClan-involvement to ordinary warriors and relatively new members, rather than just to leaders and medicine cats who already have coveted roles. It may be difficult to enforce and there could be some issues in preventing too many cats from receiving StarClan-sent messages, but enforcement is far from impossible and we can work out a clear system whereby members must get an explicit go-head from the moderators and me before proceeding with a StarClan-oriented plot point.

Finally, we could go in a more dramatic route and re-introduce StarClan through a major plot event. WCF’s ten year anniversary is coming up and it seems like a prime opportunity to do something unprecedented, such as moving territories or forcing the clans to work together in some new way. There are a few compelling reasons to go this route, as it would be an exciting and potentially activity-boosting turn of events and allow would us to fix some structural problems of the website as a whole by dramatically changing the status quo. For instance, if it lead to a re-shuffling of territories, we could build a map where it’s easier for border skirmishes to occur because Snake Gorge won’t be a large obstacle in the center of the territories. However, there are also some serious drawbacks: if things go wrong, we could be stuck. As well, plots that involve lots of characters acting together tend to lead to the forums getting locked up, with everything on pause as we wait for one particular member to get online and have their one particular character go through with some needed action. If members end up not liking the changes whether that be a territory change, a clan change, or a reshuffling of belief priorities, we could see another exodus, much like the wave of old-time members who left following the EarthClan merge, or the changes could further the new member-old member divide. As well, the amount of work that would go into setting up a major plot is also substantial and much of the organizational aspect of it would fall on me alone, which, realistically, I would struggle to keep up with. The six months or so have been rather tumultuous for this website, so we may not want to add to that further by having an unprecedented plot.

I will create a poll where we can vote on which direction to take, but first I want to open this blog entry up for debate for two weeks so we can make certain that we’ve discussed all the potential pros and cons of each option before making a decision. So, what kind of plots do you enjoy? Is consistency within the rules and plot of a roleplay important to you? What are the bounds on how consistent a roleplay should be when that rigidity may restrict plots? When does a roleplay become so loose that it loses its identity? Do you think that StarClan involvement could improve activity? How should we regulate StarClan activity for each of these options? How do we ensure that rule-breaking won’t slip through the cracks? Are plots regarding faith appropriate for an all-ages Warrior Cats roleplay, or should we avoid them? Would one more change break the stability we have right now, or should we be pushing for some sort of ten-year bash?

EDIT: The poll is now open and can be found here. Please score each route on a scale of one (the idea is fantastic and would greatly improve the roleplay) to five (the idea is terrible and would ruin a lot of what makes WCF a fun and unique roleplay). Voting will remain open until the evening of December 1st.