Weather The weather for each day. If there is no recorded weather for a particular day, you may make it up yourself (within reason) and inform the admin, who will add it to the list here.
Settings and Stories Check here to see what it is like to live in the mountains and what is going on, including the stories and rumours currently circulating the High Country and the legends that are whispered on the wind, as well as what the actual place itself is like. In here you will find descriptions and photos of the various areas and local flora and fauna, a glossary, and, of course, the in-game news and weather - which you should check before moving to the next IC day in a thread or doing a historic post or things like that.
If there is no record for the day on which you want to set your post, you may make up some weather (within reason) and inform the admin, and we will add it to the records.
Tales of the Bush What's been going on, who said what, and some of the oft-repeated (but not necessarily totally accurate) rumours and legends of the High Country, both new and old.
As with all legends, rumours and heresay, one can never be sure how much of each tale is true and how much is fabricated or warped by time and re-telling, so keep that in mind, and have fun reading these. Some, it must be said, are indeed true, but others... well, you know what myths, tall tales and gossip can be like.
To submit your own rumour or legend, please post your idea on the OOC Board as a poll, and we'll vote on which ones should be posted here as "official" Tales of the Bush.
Picture Requests Here, you can ask for a picture to be found or made for you. Please specify what colour, type and gender your character is and whether you want a plain uncustomised photo, a personalised picture or a coloured drawing, and if you have a preference for a particular person to make your picture for you, plus any particular other things you want in your pic, like background, effects, text, etc.
Your first choice for who you want to make your pic may or may not be able to make the picture at the time, though we will try to make sure you get your first preference whenever possible, so please also name your second preference in case your first choice is unavailable.
Troubleshooting If you have trouble logging in, posting, or stuff like that, check here to see if your question has been answered already, and if it hasn't, ask away. If you know the answer to a question there, feel free to answer it. Hopefully we can all help each other out and make sure no-one has to wrestle with the board in order to play.
History From long before european settlers reached the mountains, up to the point that we are RP-ing in Heart of the Whirlwind (ie mid-1950's), this is an overview of some of what took place.
The Main Valley This is the main valley, where many horses graze, whether they have herds or not. Young bands of two- and three-year-olds can often be found here.
'It is a fairly open green valley with hills blocking off all views... like a basin, sunk below the higher Alps, whose outside rim hides the sudden fall to the Indi at its feet. A creek winds down the centre and on one side, raised up on a little hill, is a slab-and-bark hut.'
- Elyne Mitchell, in Australia's Alps Unfortunately for some, the Brolga sometimes likes to graze here, or browse the mobs for mares, and in the summer Man can come with his whips and dogs to chase the brumbies, so it can be a dangerous place, not just exciting.
Here sometimes there is Man, with his dogs, tame horses, lowing cattle and frightening smell of smoke. When the two-legged enemy is here, his tame horses are left in the yard beside the hut. There is only enough room for two people, three if one sleeps on the floor, but most people who use the huts of the high country do not do so for the human company.
Tame and captive horses do not escape often. If you are here after being captured from the wild, you are here for a while, and you can either be tamed and maybe trained or you can fight your way through the ordeal. (i am working on the permission mask, group and stuff which will mean that captive horses really are captive horses for a certain period) Humans cannot go out without their stock horses, though, so trained horses will be able to come and go, it will be up to them to be sensible about it and not act like they escape that easily IC. ^_~
Humans - if you capture a horse in fair rp (no just waltzing up and roping someone) post the forum id of the horse here. The same rules apply for humans capturing horses as for when stallions fight, pretty much.
Yarraman's Valley Yarraman may be gone, but this long, narrow valley just off the Cascades still bears his name... and perhaps his spirit, his dreams, linger on even after his physical form has stopped running.
It lies just south of Dead Horse Ridge, its mouth opening out onto the eastern side of the Cascades, north of the Brolga's bimble.
The Brolga's country. Not a good idea to enter unless you are a member of his herd... or have some sort of masochism thing going... O_o
And if you are a member of his herd... good luck.
Gunmarl Gunmarl means 'place of death', and that is exactly what this is (remember Inle, the Black Rabbit's home in Watership Down?). Register your character's death here, or stillborn foals, basically anything to do with the end of life. Sometimes the spirits of those who have lived before might linger here awhile. Living characters found wandering here may find answers to difficult questions, perhaps questions they cannot even ask, but they are in constant peril while they are within the realm of Death. Naturally...
Numeramang [picture pending]
A vast, open and somewhat circular plain to the west of Ravine, ringed with tall candlebarks and with a strange, low, tree-topped hill in the middle. Several herds can graze here at a time without any need for disturbing each other, such is the amount of space.
(description coming soon)
Next territories:
North-
East-
South-
West-
Ravine [picture coming soon]
If you travel up the Tumut River and straight upwards through rough forest country, you will eventually reach the top of an immense, forested wall, with timbered ridges stretching for miles and miles to the east. A clear track leads north along the ridge beneath your hooves (or paws), and a short way along it the valley on the east begins to open out, and the track, too, turns east and steeply down.
You will find yourself then on a great open ridge which goes tumbling down below you, its lower slopes quite invisible.
Below, there are plum-hued rock cliffs, a lace of waterfall coming out of one sharp-cut valley, and steep slope after steep slope falling into the valley.
Once you reach the floor of the valley, you can see a strange pile of mud squares and high rocks built up like a tree. This was once a hut where men lived when there was copper mining at Ravine. But all that remains now are the ruins and the faintest lingering hint of a presence which did not belong in the mountains.
The Yarrangobilly Creek runs through Ravine, and joins the wide waters of the Tumut River at Lobs Hole to the west.
Rules Point Hotel The Rules Point Hotel is the centre of human social life in the high country area. It is a substantial building, constructed in 1910 and extended and licensed in 1915. From 1948 the guest house has been run for fishing and skiing.
The hotel is a large weatherboard building, with an iron roof over older shingles. It is lined with pressed tin, a luxury in these days. There are wooden floors and brick fireplaces.
Burrabi Tor This tor at the very end of Dead Horse Ridge, by the edge of the Main Valley, is the best place in the Cascades area for fighting - and indeed a lot of fights take place here. Fighting may occur anywhere, but it is here that stallions will often take their most important battles, due to the perfect conditions - the hard-packed earth, the great granite tor rising out of the ground with flat surfaces etched by hundreds of hooves, the occasional tree to dodge and weave around and the view over the Cascades. If you want to challenge the King of the Cascades, this is the ideal place to do so.
Also, if you fight (and win) in another area of the board and would like to have the results of the fight shown (eg if you defeated an alpha stallion and wish to take the alpha's place) then post the fight stats here, ie who was involved, who won, how long the fight took and degree of injury sustained by each horse.
Mares may not squabble for herd positions or resist stallions here, and any mares in the area after a fight are by rights the property of the winning stallion, though if two herd leaders are fighting, the victor may go to the loser's bimble and select from one mare to the whole herd.
You may not fight more than three times per RP day, no matter which board it is on. Anyone fighting more often than that will automatically lose and can even die.
Death is possible in this area, and fights are judged by the moderator/s based on the skill and attributes of each stallion, as well as by the moves made and general quality of the posts. If requested, a poll will be taken.
You may make one move (action) and one counter-move (reaction) per post, eg 'Thunder backed away from Cloud (reaction) and struck out at the other stallion (action).' Any moves made beyond this will be ignored, and unrealistic moves such as slashing at the jugular and trying to break your opponent's back will count against you, not your adversary.
The Murray - Midsection This section of the great Murray River stretches down the side of the Cascades and up around the end of the Leatherbarrel. It is a fairly wide river, and can be too deep for foals to cross in places - in the floods of spring it can even be too deep and swift for full-grown horses to cross surely.
But alongside the river are gentle green banks lined with paperbarks and black sallees and kingfishers dart to the water's surface for insects like flashes of sparkling blue, showing the river's peaceful side and natural beauty.
Several herds can roam along the Murray Valley, but if there are too many or they try to graze too close together, angry neighs and snorts can echo off the Ramshead Range and drift into the Cascades.
The Upper Crackenback The silver river snakes through the undergrowth, lined with bowed eucalypts, black sallees and tea-tree. On either side are gentle slopes that gradually become steeper as they rise up to a tree-capped ridge on the southern side of the river and the southern face of the Ramshead Range on the opposite side. More trees line the northern bank than the south, and a path winds through these trees, edged with snowgrass, kangaroo grass, wattle and the small bright stars of wildflowers.
This is a pleasant place to graze, though Man sometimes turns up here in the summer, with his red-and-white cattle.
Wanbanalong This area's name means 'place of kangaroos', and this is indeed a place well-known to kangaroos throughout the mountains, where a roo may sit back with his or her fellow marsupials and ponder the meaning of life in contemplative serenity surrounded by the peaceful sounds of the bush.
Wanbanalong lies along the spine of Dead Horse Ridge, where the Pool of the Moon reflects the full moon at times, and is known to all kangaroos and wallabies, even wombats and emus, while other animals either do not know of it or are generally respectful enough not to intrude while the roos are relaxing.
Kurrara The name of this area means 'place frequented by possums', and that is exactly what this place is. This is possum central, where the flowers and bush fruits grow thickly and it is difficult for dingoes, foxes and feral dogs to intrude due to the steep gully walls and impenetrable - except to possums - bush surrounding the little hanging valley. All wildlife is welcome here, as on all the other boards, but this area is pretty much run by the possums, gliders and phalangers.
Other creatures can, in fact, find this place a little... hyperactive. And noisy. And messy, if there happens to be fruit about.
Geehi Gorge Elyne Mitchell herself said it best:
'Those strange, silent flats, enclosed from the outside world by the Alps and the steep Geehi Wall, whose only outlet, the Murray Gates, is filled by the rushing river, where Townsend towers above, benign in the sunshine but with a potential force that can always be sensed.'
This is a fairly safe place for a herd or two (or even three if they were small herds and did not bother each other), with plenty of grazing most of the time and a permanent water source, the Geehi River.
This deep, lush, green valley is fairly hard to get into from the Ramshead side, the way up or down consisting of two steep tracks winding steeply from a spur at the western end of the range to the valley floor far below.
At the other end, the valley is much gentler, and opens out onto the Murray River.
A deep, mysterious valley wooded with dark pine trees instead of the usual eucalypts, the cold Moyangul River winding along the valley floor often obscured from view from the ridges on either side by the stately outline of the pines.
Here, in the extended twilight cast by the shadows of the trees and the steep hillsides enclosing the gully, the Brumbies of the Night graze sometimes, and sleep through the brightest part of the day under the protective shade.
