Avatar Standards
While the Distant Sands administration has tried to be as comprehensive and straightforward as possible with the sim's avatar standards, please keep in mind that the rules outlined below are not a catch-all, and administration reserves the right to act in the spirit of the rules when necessary. If you have any questions about an avatar you might be interested in making, please reach out to the staff team and we'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.
Character Apparent Age
All characters on Distant Sands must not only be of legal adult age, but also must appear to be of legal adult age. There are no exceptions to this rule. Administration will ask you to alter your avatar if we feel it appears to be too young.
Animal-Shaped Creatures
Ferals
Avatars representing real life animals are prohibited, including their robotic representations. Quadrupedal alien life is permitted on a case-by-case basis via admin ticket, keeping in mind that any such character must be fully sapient and suitably alien enough to not be mistaken for a real world animal (ie, you cannot mount antennae on a TWI Wolf avatar and claim it's a Hak'shugg).
Taurs
Taur-based characters are permitted only on a case-by-case basis via admin ticket. Before submitting an application for a taur-based character, please understand that characters with nonhuman genitalia will not be approved as this is considered too close to infringing on our feral restrictions, and that a taur-based character will be subject to the same in-character decency laws as everyone else while in public.
Anime-based Avatars
Anime-themed heads such as the M4 series are permitted on sim as long as they utilize realistic, non-cartoon skins.
Avatar Realism
Cartoon-shaded avatars and cel-shading are prohibited. Avatars should look like they fit in the environment of Distant Sands. A minimum character height of 36" (0.9m) and a maximum height of 10 feet (3m) will be enforced, with any exceptions purely on a case-by-case basis at administration's discretion. Distant Sands uses The Box method for avatar proportions in order to maintain realistic avatar sizing. You can find The Box and its instructions in the landing area. Unless given an exception by administration, your character must proportionally fit within this box.
Avatars from Other IPs
Avatars representing existing IPs are prohibited from use. Examples of prohibited avatars include Sonic the Hedgehog, Pokemon, and Digimon. You are not permitted to use one of these avatars by claiming that it's just an alien species. Avatars representing custom-made species from the community such as sergals, avali and protogen are permissible. You may not refer to them by their given name however, and must come up with a new species name for them.
