Sanctum / Manual Of Style
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The following rules are intended as guidelines to aid in creating a uniform style for the Internet Editions (IE). Feel free to break the rules if you have good reason. The rules don't necessarily reflect the current practice as of the first revision of this document and therefore the early releases of the Internet Editions may vary considerably from the stated rules. SpellingThose members of the Project who are more familiar with American spelling may tend to see misspellings where there are none. Be sure to check if a misspelling may, in fact, be a valid British spelling. Quotation MarksThe IE will follow the British convention regarding quotation marks. What we're terming the British convention is to use a single quotation mark to enclose a quotation, only using a double quotation mark in cases where the content of a quotation requires the inclusion of a quotation as well. A trivial example: Lone Wolf replied, 'The giaks yelled "Shaag!"'
Because of the limitation of the character set used by many early web browsers, no 'smart' quotes will be used. Smart quotes have different representations depending on whether they appear at the beginning or end of a quotation. DashesEmdashes will be represented as a double hyphen surrounded by no spaces in formats incapable of representing the emdash directly. Endashes will similarly be represented as a single hyphen. The darklord--not Lone Wolf--died. If the number you've picked is between 1-4 Poetry & VerseAny poetry that appears in the IE will be indented from the left margin and the original line breaks will be preserved. SignsSigns that appear as text - as opposed to an illustration - in the original published versions will be set in all caps and centered. The original page breaks will be preserved. Signs that were originally represented with an illustration but for which we have no replacements or rights for the original will follow a similar convention. Character StatsThe names of the basic character stats - Combat Skill, Endurance and Willpower - will be set in all caps. The typeface will be reduced to four-fifths the size of the surrounding typeface. Modifiers to attributes will appear with a '+' or '-' followed immediately by the number. If it is an abbreviation of the attribute, the abbreviation will follow the number immediately (e.g. +3CS). Otherwise, it will be preceded by a space (e.g. +3 COMBAT SKILL). CitationsAll direct references to the name of a published document will be set in italic typeface: The Caverns of Kalte
ListsUnordered lists will be represented as a bulleted list. Serial (Oxford, Harvard) CommaTo prevent ambiguity, all comma separated lists of three or more items will have a serial comma before the joining "and" or "or". Lone Wolf quaffed Laumspur, Alether, and Oede but still felt a bit weak.
To show how not using the serial comma can be ambiguous we have the following dedication to a published book: To my parents, Ayn Rand and God
I don't know who was more offended, God or Ayn Rand. EllipsisAn ellipsis mark will be three periods (.) separated by two single, non-breaking spaces and preceded by a further non-breaking space: ' . . .'
It shouldn't be shortened to exclude the separating spaces. Inter-sentence SpacingThe period (.) following the end of a sentence will in turn be followed by a single space - not two. This convention began because of the practice of web browsers truncating contiguous white-space characters to a single space. Referring to Numbered SectionsWhen referring to numbered sections, the word 'Section' will be capitalized. Item NamesThe names of items that can be picked up and carried, or that are already carried, will be in initial caps. If the item names appear in all caps, they will be converted to initial caps. The words 'weapon', 'backpack', etc. will only be capitalized when it refers directly to the Action Chart or to items owned by the character, not in the general sense of those words. (e.g. 'Record this Weapon on your Action Chart', not 'The Giak has no weapon'.) The word 'item' by itself should not be capitalised. Personal TitlesTitles should be capitalised if they immediately precede the name (e.g. Captain Prarg). When they appear on their own, only sufficiently exalted names should be capitalised (e.g. King, Queen, Prince, Baron, Fryearl, Lord, Lord-lieutenant, captain, bo'sun, journeyman) and only when referring to a specific person or persons (e.g. "the King of Sommerlund", "only a king of Sommerlund can..."). The names of ships and books should be italicized. Capitalization of Enemy and Creature NamesNames of sentient creatures and races are capitalized. The names of enemies are also capitalized within the section where they are fought. This will often be a judgment call. A list of specific capitalizations follows:
All Capitalized TextPortions of text that appeared in the original publication as all caps should in general be converted to capitalization appropriate for the context and occasionally presented with a bold typeface. One exception is in the case of character attributes (e.g. COMBAT SKILL and ENDURANCE) should be presented in all caps but reduced in size to 0.8em. Section TitlesAll section should have initial capitalization including those that didn't in the original (e.g. 'How to carry equipment'). Footnote MarkersFootnote markers will be Arabic numerals (i.e. 1, 2, 3, . . .), will be typeset higher and smaller than surrounding text (i.e. superscripted) and will follow trailing punctuation. Order of ChoicesThis is a matter of personal discretion in many cases, but the order of the choices at the end of a section should be from most specific cases to the default. (e.g. First "If you have the Kai Discipline of Hunting, . . ." then "Otherwise, . . .") ChoicesThe choices at the end of a section are preferably referred to as "choices" or "options", but not "links". Errata Wording"Removed" and "replaced . . . with" are preferred to "deleted" and "Changed . . . to". Compound ModifiersCompound modifiers should be hyphenated when used to directly modify a noun, but left unhyphenated if used as a predicate adjective:
If a compound modifier is very common, it will sometimes be merged into a single new word (e.g. awestruck, airtight). However, noun-noun and adverb-adjective modifiers are generally not hyphenated since there is little danger of confusion.
Thought SpeechThought speech should be italicized in formats that support italic type, and should not be contained within quotation marks. Cardinal DirectionsCardinal directions should be unhyphenated
Singular "Their"The word "their" used in the singular is not an error.
Illustration CaptionsLine breaks in illustration captions need not follow the original. They should be be formatted according to the constraints of the output format. OnomatopoeiaOnomatopoeic terms constructed as verbs (e.g. clicks, clanging) should not be italicised. "Thud" should never be marked as onomatopoeia. Specific Words and PhrasesEntries for incorrect uses are marked with an asterisk: "(*)".
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