Beqanna

Beqanna is one of the oldest equine role playing games on the internet. Founded May 31st 2001 by Dianna and Ceara, it now has four additional owners, and is home to more than 2,500 separate players who have almost 20,000 characters between them. Since its opening, Beqanna has gone through 13 different website versions, each one representing a substantial site-wide plot change. The website is notable for its longevity: throughout the site's 8 years, Beqanna has never suffered a period of complete inactivity.
Beqanna is widely recognized as an authority and foundation for many other horse roleplaying games. It has also spawned its own website personalization studio, Amanecer, in addition to many pieces on DeviantArt.
About Beqanna
The website is now, and always has been, a place for creative writers to express themselves through unique characters. A player joins, creates a horse, and is then free to play that horse throughout a number of scenarios, called plots. These plots may be site-wide, developed by the officers and owners, but they may also be player driven. For larger plots created by players, owner approval may be necessary. Once a character has been joined, there is no need to wait for approval. They may become active within Beqanna immediately. Once a horse becomes active, there are three main places it may go: to the Meadow, a grassy area for homeless horses to live on their own, to a herd, or to a kingdom.
Herds
Herds in Beqanna are structured like the herds found among wild horses. A lead stallion controls the territory, and nominates a lead mare. He also has other mares within the herd, as well as some foals from his mares. Other stallions will not live with him - a newly joined stallion must either find a mare and then claim a territory, or challenge a stallion currently in possession of a herd for his mares and lands. A newly joined mare may be claimed by a herd stallion without any work on her part.
Kingdoms
Beqanna kingdoms are structured something like ancient feudal kingdoms. They are ruled by a king and/or queen, and below the monarchy sits an aristocratic hierarchy. Below that are the ranks. The ranks typically consist of a side that focuses on fighting and the arts of war and a side that focuses on diplomacy and other non-fighting tasks. These ranks, also called castes, have occasionally been merged by kingdoms into one single rank, or split into as many as four ranks (dividing the fighting and non-fighting into in kingdom and out of kingdom branches).
Within a kingdom, the king and queen control everything. The goal of most horses living and working in kingdoms is to rise through the ranks, being promoted to a position of leadership and perhaps eventually being promoted to king or queen in their own right. The current monarchy may take it upon themselves to do all promotions, but they usually retain a caste leader for every division of the ranks to provide recommendations. These caste leaders are also typically in charge of organizing activities to strengthen and train the horses in the ranks. In the absence of a clearly defined caste leader, the monarchy may provide the training activities, or may delegate a lower ranked member to do so without promoting him/her to the rank of caste leader.
Development
Over its 8 years of existence, Beqanna has seen a number of different plots which have required it to change substantially. What began as a light (good) kingdom against a dark (evil) kingdom with a few herds quickly spawned the Amazons, an offshoot group of mares who rejected the idea of stallions ruling them. Shortly after, a tame "Beqannaville" was introduced, but was removed again in a plot some time later. After this, mythical horses began to be introduced. Any horse with some kind of special feature is considered a mythical: unicorns, immortals, magic-wielders, and many others all exist within Beqanna. The mythicals eventually formed a separate kingdom, followed soon by the neutrals, a group of horses who wanted to escape from the struggle of light against dark. Next came a kingdom of only stallions, seeking to escape from herd life and the distraction of mares. Finally, the mythical kingdom split into dark and light mythicals, and later into neutral mythicals.
List of Beqanna Kingdoms:
* Amazons - all mares
* Hidden Tundra - all stallions
* Heaven's Gates - lights
* Dewdrop Deserts - light mythicals
* Dazzling Waterfall - neutrals
* Forbidden Dale - neutral mythicals
* Chamber of Evil - darks
* Forsaken Valley - dark mythicals
Past Versions
* 1: The Beginning
* 2: Winter Wonderland
* 3: Cloud of Darkness
* 4: Return of the Sun
* 5: Summer Flowers
* 6: Darkness Reigns Again
* 7: Separation of Authorities
* 8: Disruption
* 9: The Aftermath
* 10: Armistice Again
* 11: The Coming of the Storm
* 12: Tranquility Again
* 13: The Lull

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See Also

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