Elliquiy is an adult literary roleplaying community.
For those unfamiliar with the concept, play-by-post roleplaying is a way of writing in Internet discussion forums (or email exchanges, or in chat rooms) where multiple authors collaborate on a story. Each author takes turns writing only the actions of their own characters, responding to the situations that their writing partners set up, and in turn providing situations for their partners’ characters to respond to.
Elliquiy is one of the largest play-by-post roleplaying communities. Its focus is more literary than most—many of its members are either professional authors, or self-publishing hobbyists who write fan-fiction or erotica. It is also primarily for adult writing; either erotic or outright pornographic.
I was invited to Elliquiy in mid-2012 by a writer friend who goes by the name “Rogued1”. I had no interest in writing porn, or even erotica, but I was encouraged to join anyway because of the literary inclinations of the community. I didn’t think of myself as a writer, or of having any hope of ever being one, but my writer friend believed otherwise. They believed that being immersed in a more adult literary community would ignite the latent author in me.
I ended up being an active member for almost a decade, writing stories with literally dozens of massively talented partners. Some of those stories were written over the span of years. I made many wonderful friends there, some of whom have gone on to even greater things, like becoming professionally-published authors, or creating their own roleplaying forums. Some of my characters and story elements even found their way into published works by others!
I finally left in late-2022, after long-standing frustration with the politically-conservative leanings of the moderation staff. Also, I mean, I was never really into writing smut. I don’t regret the time I spent there at all, though. It was a wonderful run, and I walked away with several wonderful friendships, and a whole portfolio of stories to share.
Elliquiy is a private forum, and most of its contents are not publicly-accessible. So don’t be surprised if the following links won’t work for you. However, if you are on Elliquiy, and you’re looking for me, my profile name is Saria, user ID# 36094. I also set up a page for myself on Elluiki. Don’t bother trying to contact me there, though; as I said, I am no longer active on the forums.
My Elliquiy introduction thread
To join Elliquiy, you have to create a thread in the introduction forum, where you introduce yourself and provide answers to a questionnaire. (At least, that’s how it was done when I joined. I have no idea how it’s done now.) There is a brief vetting period, where members get to ask you questions or offer writing prompts.
I had enormous fun in my introduction thread, but there is only one piece of writing I think worth salvaging from it:
| Title | Type | Synopsis | Date | |
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| UNDER CONSTRUCTION Scythe has a question | Short story | In defiance of her government Conditioning, Scythe has a question. |
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The Storyteller’s Café
The Storyteller’s Café was one of the features of Elliquiy. It offered numerous challenges to get a writer’s creative juices flowing.
Virtually all of the non-collaborative writing I did on Elliquiy was in the Storyteller’s Café. I have never been inspired to write by the mere dangling of prompts in front of me, but the gamification provided by the Café challenges hooked me.
The primary challenge of the Café was its “menu”, where you had to choose items from at least three categories:
- The blend
- These were broad genres, such as “urban fantasy” or “steampunk”. There were 25 in total.
- The mix
- These were more specific elements to be incorporated in the story, such as plot arcs like “journey & return”, or things like “a mysterious lost city”. There were 15 to choose from.
- Add-ons
- These were still more more specific elements, like “an absent minded professor”, “fashionably late”, or “a rumour”. There were 15 add-ons.
There were also occasional special events that offered a 4th ingredient you could use, for extra points and an event-specific badge.
My intention was to ultimately use the entire menu—which would require at least 25 stories. I even wrote a small random generator that would select the three ingredients, with the self-imposed rule that whatever came up, that’s what I would have to use.
Ultimately, I only wrote 5 stories over the span of just over 2 years. Here they are:
| Title | Type | Synopsis | Ingredients | Date | |
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| UNDER CONSTRUCTION Niole’s blessing | Short story | As the age fades, the last of the gods and goddesses seeks out a mysterious city. |
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| UNDER CONSTRUCTION In which she returns home to her forest | Short story | A forest spirit returns to her enchanted forest after a lifetime in the human world, leaving it deeply changed by her passing. |
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| UNDER CONSTRUCTION The woman who made fire afraid | Short story | Xi Qun is scheduled to die at sunrise, but a visitor has come to the tyrant Zeng Jingzi’s Palace In The Sky, demanding to see him. |
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| UNDER CONSTRUCTION Seeking Kronar | Short story | The journal of a most interesting quest, in which a rather put-upon scribe ultimately finds herself Queen of a new land. |
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| UNDER CONSTRUCTION Iram | Short story | Explorers in 1928 seek out a legendary city of lost wisdom. |
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Drabbles
A drabble is a short story that is exactly 100 words long (not including the title).
Drabbles were one of the supplementary challenges of the Storyteller’s Café, where they were called “demitasses” in keeping with the café theme.
I didn’t often attempt drabbles. I thought the challenge was interesting; with so few words available, one is forced to pare ideas down to their core, using universal concepts and themes as vocabulary. But I prefer exploring ideas in depth, studying every facet, and trying to find novel concepts and themes, or at least novel takes on the classics. Drabbles just aren’t my bag.
Here is the totality of my Elliquiy drabble output:
| Title | Type | Synopsis | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Don’t trust them | Drabble | Some inventions are best left on the drawing board. |
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| Happier times | Drabble | He just wanted to give his little girl a toy for her birthday, like they did in the before times. |
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| The true death | Drabble | If the only winning move was not to play, could you deny the game? |
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Word of the day
The Storyteller’s Café also offered a word-of-the-day challenge.
The Café’s rules for word-of-the-day stories were fairly loose, so I imposed some additional rules on myself to make things more interesting. I decided that it wouldn’t be good enough to merely use the word of the day in the story. Rather, I decided that the word of the day should be integral to the story; that the whole story should be about the word of the day, or at least heavily inspired by it.
| Title | Type | Synopsis | Word-of-the-day | Date | |
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| UNDER CONSTRUCTION Thus sails the star ship | Short story | A cold calculation is necessary on an overburdened starship carrying refugees. | ballast |
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| UNDER CONSTRUCTION A writer’s pride | Short story | A writer ponders the absurdity of the human farce, and the price of her immortality. | panegyric |
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| UNDER CONSTRUCTION A hypothetical question | Short story | The age of peace has dawned, but as we all know, everything is at its greyest just before the dawn breaks. | bonhomie |
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| UNDER CONSTRUCTION An eye for equality | Short story | What sacrifices must be made for a world with perfect equality? | egalitarian |
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