Changelog

* You can now add an interior narration (thoughts and feelings) to a cutscene, without having any text in your main post.
* You can now use parenthesis with ACCEPT and REFUSE commands, though there are some caveats (read HELP ACCEPT for more information).

* Ropes can now be properly used to bind other characters. The STRUGGLE command can help you extricate yourself -- eventually. A new passive ability, secret-escape, has been added to the sleight of hand skill. This will allow someone who is tied up to sneakily untie themselves.
* You can no longer "block" attacks barehanded, unless you have some martial arts ability, or the attacks are also unarmed.
* It is possible to poison weapons and projectiles now. While weapons can hold multiple layers of poison, projectiles can only fit one at a time on the tip.
* Projectiles no longer constantly bounce off targets.

* Shady Arts as a skill now has its own special abilities and help file.
* Character Presence level can now act as a means of unlocking special abilities. (Such as potentially griefy criminal abilities that we'd like to make sure stay in the hands of thoughtful roleplayers.)

* Cutscenes now have a 'skip to last post' button if they have more than three posts.
* Lazyleaf poison can now be refined through herbalism.

* OOCMail sent for plot notes should now come with a timestamp.
* If you've already seen a dream, you won't see it again next time you log in.
* If you are offline for 12 hours within a day, you will gain a small stat boost. The time it lasts will scale by how long you've been offline. (This is to incentivize game-life balance and work against dark patterns of addiction for players who are addictively inclined.)
* People in the Faded Zone or the Otherland will no longer age.

* You can no longer enter character creation menus on a session that is logged into a character.
* Lifts now exist. You can ring the bell to signal the lift operator. While it is possible to jump down (either onto a lift if it is below you, or down to the bottom of the lift shaft) it is not advisable and can lead to some serious harm.
* Fixed a bug with using pronouns while emoting.
* Using the POUR command now shows different messages than the FILL command.
* We now have a feature that recognizes playtesters, and should post automatically twice a month while awarding Presence to the top five playtesters. All past bugs, ideas, and typo reports have been incorporated to make sure to reward pre-alpha playtesters accordingly.

* The story page for characters now paginates relationships, logs, and dreams if they exceed a certain number of objects.

* You can now add forum posts to story developments (in-character fiction, rumors, and the like -- topics made on the roleplay-relevant boards).
* When editing or adding new story developments, logs and relationships and everything will be paginated if necessary and also ordered by most recent first. This should help make story developments smoother and easier for players.

* Another caravanserai has been built out in Omrazir -- the "Sign of the Simurgh", in the southeastern part of the city, is a cheaper and more derelict option for poorer travelers.
* You must now be holding either the new container or the source countainer in order to fill a container (ex: you're either carrying the glass, or the pitcher of lemonade).
* It is now possible to beget twins (fraternal or identical) -- or even triplets (very rare), and midwifery abilities have been added along with a bevy of labor complications.
* Raspberries can now be foraged in forests in Ruvera and the Kalentoi Empire.

* The forum now has polling options. You can make a checklist or a single-choice poll with up to seven options, and while one account only gets one vote, you can change your vote.

* There is now a command to combine the last two character logs: COMBINE LOGS.
* A few small website tweaks for the sake of accessibility. Some odd looks may be noticed, but it's a work in progress.

* Added blowgun capabilities as a ranged attack, and resultant wound types/combat moves. (Also fixed a bug related to aiming stage requirements.)

* Added a Gnosis ability (AB CONSIDER, if you have Gnosis).
* Some small website changes for the sake of accessibility.
* Track erosion should be less laggy, as should the calculation of time and season for locations.

* A dice roll number on performances will now only display if you have the combat_ooc toggle configured to be on. (Extrapolating how willing a player is to get numerical dice values thrown at them in the middle of roleplay.)
*Prompt indicators have been updated: if the screenreader is toggled on, roundtime-in-progress will be indicated by the word "Busy" while readiness to act will be shown by the word "Ready". General state will be mentioned, if configured to show, with "You are in good shape", "You are in middling shape", and "You are in bad shape".
* Many colors have been reworked for higher contrast to suit vision-impaired players, and there are now color themes that can be configured in the settings. "High contrast" will be the default theme, but the old theme is accessible via the "muted" option. It is also now possible to configure more color options, for things, tells, exits, and weather.
* Having the screenreader toggled on can now affect the display of some in-game objects (analyzing written works, for example, or tells in emotes).
* If you create a new character with the screenreader option on, the default prompt configurations will be different (to read something like "You are in good shape and ready.").

* There is now quick and easy-to-use functionality for staff (read staff-only command help RESPAWN) to use to resurrect corpses that have accidentally died. (This is not IC usage of resurrection abilities, but intended for OOC administrative mistakes.)

* Avaria dates should now properly show up in month/day/year format.
* Rebalancing in a fight now allows proper emote substitution, and it also helps to drain fatigue.
* Obfuscated whispers now use dashes to represent the obfuscation, rather than periods (these will neither be read by a screenreader, if screenreader mode is on, nor cause undue capitalization).

* There is now a configuration option (combat_ooc) for turning off the broadcast of OOC dice rolls in combat. This is default off already, so if anyone wants to see the dice rolls, they will have to toggle the setting on (CONFIG COMBAT_OOC).

* Time of day has been made more cohesive, so that the lore hours correlate with the dynamic sunrise and sunset times throughout the seasons.
* We've added a LOOKUP/CONVERT command to easily translate Avarian dates, times, and cultural chronological conventions such as hour names.
* Dusk and Dawn have been added as periods that can be uniquely described in room descriptions, and all current "evening" tags have been changed to "dusk" as now evening will indicate a period of time that is fully dark but not true, deep night.
* The help file for TIME has been updated to be more, well, helpful!
* Kalentoi day names are now slightly different from Sirdabi ones.

* You can now set the scene on a room to last for a long or short period, while the default is just a couple days before it expires. Colors can now be put on those "room moods" too.

* Exits can now be cramped, which will require the use of the SQUEEZE command to get through, and travellers who are too large may just not be able to fit. Exits now can also have preconditions, such as standing on top of a rock to be able to climb up a well shaft. Lastly, there may now be special events that occur specifically after using a special exit.