Join us for a month of wicked good fun as we celebrate the month of All Hallow’s Eve. This October, the Salem City Counsel will be hosting a Harvest Festival, with activities and spooks for the entire family! Face-painting, hayrides, pumpkin carving, costume contests, and an art festival are just a few of the attractions waiting for you at Gallows Hills. But make sure you get the young ones home by nightfall! You never know what ghosts and ghouls may be lying in wait...
And for those of you who aren’t too faint of heart, dare to spend All Hallow’s Eve at the House of the Seven Gables for a DANSE MACABRE that is sure to make your hair stand on end. All guests must be 21+ and tickets will be on sale for $40. All the proceeds go to Salem Historical Society.
As promised, we’re doing October big here in Salem with a month-long event to celebrate the spookiest time of the year! Starting October 1st, feel free to post starters and threads taking place at the harvest festival. This portion is completely optional, and you can continue regular threads as you deem fit. The list of available attraction at the festival are as follows:
Face painting
Pumpkin Carving
Children’s Costume Contest
Hayrides
A Hay Maze
Witch Trial Re-enactments
Midnight showings of Rocky Horror Picture Show every Friday
Open-Air Market with various vendors, artists, and food stands
Probably same lame local band playing Monster Mash ad nauseam...
On October 22nd, we will officially be transitioning into DANSE MACABRE, a more traditional, mandatory dash event that will last until November 1st. More details to follow, but this will be our first big event - plots and random pairings will be given out to all who wish to participate.
More details to follow, but feel free to start plotting!!
Looking into our crystal ball, here’s what we see happening for our Random Pairings during this event:
These pairings were picked randomly, but were inspired by characters we haven’t seen interacting on the dash yet. Please message each other to plot out as much as you need to before starting, and get creative with it!
The scenarios are meant to be fun jumping off points; they’re fairly open-ended, so feel free to make your own spin on them - or come up with something different if you’d rather. Just let us know so we can offer the plot up to someone else if it’s needed.
Deacon Carlisle and Paige King
Maybe it's curiosity or maybe you’re going out deliberately looking for trouble, but either way, you find it when the two of you end up locked in a storage closet or basement somewhere. Reception has always been spotty here - are you getting a signal?
Kaya Masondo and Alexandra Wilson
You’re at the bar when the bartender gets an urgent call. There’s no one else around, so he asks if you can cover for him real quick. Only, it’s been half an hour, and there’s still no sign of him. That’s what you get when you hire amateurs and don’t pay them...
Jamie Kingsley and Frannie Corwin
A drunken stranger has fallen into your laps (maybe literally!). Neither of you are sure you’ve ever met this person in your life, but they’re like a child the universe has tasked you with taking care of. At least you’ve got a co-parent! It’s up to the two of you to make sure this inebriated fellow gets home safe and sound.
Georgie Wallace and Riley Montoya
You’re pretty sure this is the door to the bathroom... You can hear someone puttering inside and every time you knock, they say they’ll be right out. The two of you might be waiting an awful long time - Have you heard of a man called Godot?
Kacie Kingsley and Ale Rossi
(injury tw) Who knew that spooky, dark lighting was also dangerous? It’s just a scratch, or a twisted ankle, but one of you didn’t come out of the scare-zone unscathed. Who knows first aid?
Sunil Kumar and Myra Malik
Most of the items up for silent auction are lame, but there’s one prize you are determined to take home with you. Only problem is, someone else feels the exact same way. It’s time for all-out silent war!
Lennon Hollingsworth and Jude Wilson
They said ‘scary,’ but you didn’t think it would be quite this scary... One of the decorations plays right into one of your greatest fears. Good thing there’s someone there to help you out.
Sophie Thompson and Eva Giatti
Yes, the music is loud and it’s crowded in here, but that doesn’t mean people can’t see or hear you. Someone didn’t get the memo, and now the two of you are privy to a stranger’s juicy secret (could be criminal activity, cheating, etc.).
Taylor Evans and Breanne Samaya
You don’t have a target on your back, but you wouldn’t know it from the way one of the scare-actors has singled the two of you out. There’s a fine line between being committed and going overboard...
Isla Baker and Park Hyunmin
Sorry, I thought you were someone else... Your friend was supposed to dress up in the exact same costume, so as soon as you see it, you strike up a conversation like it’s old times. Only, oops! Turns out the costume is more common than you thought. Why didn’t you stop me sooner?
Lachlan Peters and Verona Warren
Some people take their costumes waaay too seriously... There’s someone dressed up as cupid who is going around pretending to play matchmaker. It’s funny enough to watch other people stumble through awkward, forced meet-cutes, but then his arrow lands on you. Valentine’s not until February, you asshole...
Vanessa Rodrigues and Fei Davenport
It was not on the schedule, but the DJ’s decided it’s time for impromptu karaoke. Maybe you feel sorry for the guy (he’s trying) or maybe you’re dared to do it, but singing in public is always easier with a partner, right?
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, things have slowed down around the main because we’ve been completely overwhelmed with real life circumstances. For that reason, we’ve decided to add the wonderful Andi to our admin team to help us out moving forward! Please give us some time to get everything situated, but hopefully this should mean a massive improvement in our response times and help Salem continue to be the great community it has grown to be.
Hi friends! It has become clear our current guidelines are not sufficient, so in order to promote more diversity within the group, we’ve decided to implement a few new rules moving forward:
We are still requiring at least two out of a potential four characters be diverse, but moving forward, your second character must be BIPOC. That means, if your first character is white, your second must be a person of color. We cannot retroactively apply this rule to current members with only two white characters, but please note that in the event you drop one of your characters for whatever reason, you will be subject to this diversity rule moving forward. Additionally, we strongly encourage you to consider redeveloping one of your characters to be BIPOC if you can, but again, we can’t enforce this.
Fridays will now be dedicated to the acceptance of diverse characters only, instead of diverse characters and wanted connections. We are still considering gender non-conforming characters to fall under the diverse umbrella, but we are closing the loophole that allows the acceptance of white cis characters.
We will also be undergoing a temporary “non-BIPOC ban,” which means we are halting the acceptance of any white faceclaims outside of those already on the app count. We understand this may be upsetting to some of you, but our current ratio is pretty dismal with only 1/3 of our characters being BIPOC, so drastic action needs to be taken. We can’t say for certain how long with rule will be in effect, but we hope you understand why this action is being taken and respect the spirit with which it is being implemented.
We aim to be completely transparent with you guys, so if you have any questions about how we came to this decision, we welcome you to come and speak with us. Similarly, if you have any advise or ideas of other actions we can take to help increase inclusivity and make our group stronger, we are always here to listen. Having a safe space is our number one priority. Thank you all for your understanding, and for your help in achieving that goal.
joe manganiello is Armenian and American would he be suitable here as he is technically biracial ?
No, under our current BIPOC acceptance rules, Joe Manganiello would not be accepted. And I don't mean for this to come down solely on you, but we're quite frankly really disappointed and disturbed by the number of asks we've gotten of people trying to get around our diversity rules on a technicality. We've been trying to be polite, but it's getting ridiculous. If you have to ask whether someone "counts" as a POC, chances are they don't. If you only want to play a person of color if they are "white-passing," maybe that's something you should reflect on. Our current acceptance rules were not put in place just to create hoops for you to jump through justifying why you should be allowed to play a certain face, but an attempt to encourage real, genuine diversity.
This has been a really hard decision to make, and one I think I’ve unfairly been putting off, but I don’t feel like I’m in the right state of mind to admin a group anymore. My intention was always to create a longstanding, safe and inclusive environment, but personal and professional pressures have sapped my energy and attention to the point where I’m no longer running the group up to my own standards. I want to be selfish and keep pretending it’s still working, but you deserve better and the fact that you’ve been so patient with me is just proof positive of how incredible you all are. This decision hasn’t been made lightly, but I’ve decided it’s time to shut down SalemRoleplayHQ for now.
But I really, truly mean it when I say how incredible this community is, so Andi, Jess, and Kenney have graciously stepped up to create a new group that everyone is welcomed to join. Hopefully, it’ll be a seamless transition and you all can continue to grow and explore your beautiful characters. Please check it out here! They will make sure to keep you apprised of any details as we transition.
I’m so sorry if this announcement has disappointed anyone. It’s not the ending I had hoped for, but I have to be honest with myself about my capabilities, and this group in its current state would only suffer under my leadership. But even though I’ll no longer be your admin, I hope you know I’ll still be here as a friend or confidante if you ever need it. If you have questions or even want to express your disappointment in me, my door is, as always, wide open.
I love you all, and am truly grateful for what we’ve built together.
Attention, Salem residents: the Danse Macabre has now begun!
Welcome to our first official dash event! As a reminder, you may continue old threads if you wish, and your characters are not required to attend/work the event... but where’s the fun in that?
Open starters can be posted anytime now, and we will be doing the draw for the random pairs shortly, so add your characters’ names to the event post replies if you want them included in that.
This event is meant for FUN, so dress your characters in costume, meet new friends, and party on. And don’t let the sightings of a spooky weeping woman ruin their night (or do - whatever tells the best story).
Don’t forget to post your characters’ costumes with the tag #srphqhalloween
We are so incredibly proud of the work that this group has done, and that we now officially have more than half of our characters being BIPOC! Creating a diverse and inclusive environment has always been our #1 goal, and we really appreciate you all being respectful and encouraging of that.
As we have reached our goal, we will be reopening applications for white faceclaims starting now, but please note that this is not an invitation to flood the group with white characters and undo the beautiful diversity we have fostered here. As such, we will now be implementing a 30 white faceclaims cap. This is separate from the 40 person mun cap and means that, if we reach 30 white faceclaims (admin characters not included), we will not be accepting more until others are unfollowed. The same acceptance rules will still be in place with Friday being dedicated solely to the acceptance of diverse characters.
If anyone has any questions, concerns, or advice, we welcome any and all feedback. Thank you all for helping to make Salem what it is!
