Please feel free to use the practice arena at your leisure to sharpen your wandwork and dueling skills, but keep a few simple rules in mind:

1. KNOW THE SITE RULES.
Without exception; all SS board rules apply.

2. NO UNFORGIVABLES.
No unforgivable curses are allowed in this arena. Ever. For any reason. Period.

3. Know your limitations.
Creative RP is definitely encouraged in the dueling arena, but for the enjoyment of all and the credibility of your character, please try to keep your dueling close to canon when possible and realistic with regard to your age and year at the school. Few people enjoy dueling against an all-powerful, flawless, omnipotent first year who knows every spell ever invented and even invented some extra-special spells the Ministry is about to ban, after all. Keep it plausible.

4. Spell Invention.
Whenever you can, keeping to canon is preferred. However, some situations call for creativity and so spell invention is acceptable, if both duelers involved agree. I do ask that if you have to use an 'invented' spell, please make a very simple OOC comment at the bottom of your post indicating the spell's intention.

5. RP intent, NOT outcome.
Remember your control over the spell ends where your opponent's wand begins. Please RP what you want the spell you cast to do and let your opponent determine if it hit or missed and what the result was. This will create an interactive and fair RP experience for all.


6. No fatal blows.
If you RP your character receiving a life-threatening or fatal blow in the dueling arena, your character may actually die in the RP. Please keep your duels 'friendly' and do nothing to cause permanent damage to a classmate.

7. Receive Credit!
If you would like to RP in the dueling arena to earn extra House Points, please place the following information in the Dueling Log Book thread:

1. The names of the students involved in the duel. Two duelers are required to log a duel.
2. The SCREEN NAMES and houses of the duelers involved.
3. The outcome (who won, and what was the winning spell, hex or jinx used?)
4. post #

I will read the dueling thread so please do not enter information into the log book unless you really did RP the duel, or else I will be forced to take house points away from you.

It is your responsibility to log your duel. If you do not enter your duel into the dueling log book thread, I will assume your duel was for fun or practice and will not award you points. Also, there is a cap on how many points a student may earn in the dueling arena; if you reach the cap, I will not award further points to you for your duels. It does not matter who wins, for the champion and the defeated will receive the same number of points per duel, up to the maximum points per dueler per term. (e.g.: If dueler A has 0 points and dueler B has reached the maximum, they can log a duel and I'll still award dueler A points even though dueler B is no longer eligible for receiving more points. But if they both have 0 points, they both get the same number of points no matter who won the duel.)

If you have any questions, please PM me at XanaSnape.

8. HAVE FUN!