TERMS OF USE.

1. Scope and acceptance

These Terms govern use of the From The Ashes website, accounts, community rosters, events and messaging services (the “Service”). “We,” “us” and “our” mean the operator of the From The Ashes website and its authorized community administrators. Game publishers, Discord, GitHub and other third-party providers are separate from us.

These Terms describe the rules for participating in From The Ashes Guild. Please read them together with the Privacy Notice. If you do not agree with these rules, do not use account or messaging features. A link or continued browsing alone does not establish affirmative acceptance of every contractual provision.

These Terms do not waive rights that cannot lawfully be waived. The Privacy Notice explains information handling; it is not a blanket waiver of privacy rights or authorization for unlawful disclosure.

2. Eligibility and account responsibility

You must satisfy applicable age, capacity and permission requirements and the eligibility rules of services used to sign in. If you cannot independently enter a binding agreement, participation requires any legally necessary parent or guardian authorization. Do not misrepresent your identity, age, authority or relationship to another person.

Keep your sign-in account secure. Do not share accounts, impersonate another member or use compromised credentials. Notify leadership promptly if you believe your account has been misused. You are responsible for conduct you authorize through your account, subject to applicable law; these Terms do not automatically make you responsible for every unauthorized act by another person.

3. Permission to use the Service

Access is a limited, personal, revocable permission to use available features for lawful community participation. An account, guild role, tag, approval, roster listing, event attendance or past access does not create ownership, employment, a permanent membership entitlement or a right to continued access.

Subject to applicable law, we retain discretion over who may access the Service and which features they may use. We may set eligibility requirements, limits, roles and game-specific rules, refuse applications, modify permissions, remove roster listings, restrict messaging, suspend accounts or ban users. We may take action for rule violations, suspected abuse, security risks, resource misuse, legal requirements or decisions to end participation. We may act immediately and without advance notice when reasonably appropriate, and without requiring a criminal conviction or court finding.

Our discretion does not authorize unlawful discrimination, retaliation, deception or disregard of mandatory legal obligations. Roles and tags remain subject to review and can be changed or removed.

4. Prohibited conduct

Do not use the Service to:

• Commit, facilitate, solicit or threaten unlawful acts.
• Create, obtain, upload, distribute, solicit or link to child sexual abuse material, sexual exploitation of minors, grooming, trafficking or sexual extortion. This includes unlawful synthetic or manipulated material.
• Share nonconsensual intimate imagery, sexually exploit another person, or send unwanted sexual content. Lawful, consensual adult content is not automatically classified as illegal, but you must respect the recipient’s boundaries and any feature-specific restrictions.
• Harass, stalk, threaten, blackmail, dox or target someone for abuse; continue unwanted contact after being blocked or told to stop.
• Impersonate people or staff, defraud members, misrepresent permissions, or make maliciously false reports.
• Upload malicious files, compromise accounts, bypass access controls or bans, exploit vulnerabilities, interfere with security controls, or access another person’s private information without authorization.
• Spam, scrape private data, automate abusive requests, overwhelm storage or bandwidth, or use the Service for unauthorized commercial solicitation.
• Post material you have no right to share, including confidential information or another person’s protected personal information.

Game-specific rules and feature limits may impose additional requirements. Their enforcement must remain consistent with applicable law.

5. Your content and the website’s materials

You retain whatever rights you lawfully hold in your content. You grant us a nonexclusive permission to store, transmit, display to intended recipients, format, back up and otherwise process that content as reasonably necessary to operate the Service, provide requested features, enforce these Terms and satisfy safety or legal obligations. Service providers may perform those tasks for us under applicable arrangements. This permission does not authorize unrelated advertising use or unrestricted public publication of private messages.

You must have the rights and permissions necessary to submit content. Participants may forward or reproduce communications; we cannot guarantee what a recipient does with a message.

The website’s original branding, layout, code and original materials remain subject to their owners’ rights. Third-party game artwork, trademarks and other assets remain owned by their respective owners. We do not claim ownership of third-party material or rights we do not possess. Do not misuse our identity or present an unauthorized copy as the official community site. Nothing here removes rights granted by an applicable open-source license or law.

6. Chat privacy and moderation

Ordinary private-chat access is limited to conversation participants. Chat is not end-to-end encrypted and is not a confidential professional service. Forwarding, group membership and recipient sharing can make messages available to additional people.

Authorized moderators may review reported messages and relevant surrounding context to investigate abuse. When disclosed safety systems are enabled, flagged communications may also be reviewed for the identified safety purpose. Review should be limited to necessary material and restricted to authorized personnel. These Terms do not establish an unrestricted administrative right to browse all private conversations.

Necessary maintenance, security response or valid legal process may require access by the operator or service providers. Information handling is described in the Privacy Notice. We do not promise continuous monitoring, perfect detection, automatic intervention or a guaranteed response time. A feature described as a possible moderation measure is not a representation that it is currently deployed.

7. Reports, restrictions and appeals

You may report concerns to community leadership, using an in-service reporting feature when available. Provide accurate information and relevant context. Do not distribute suspected illegal material to other members or send it through ordinary support chats.

We may investigate, restrict content visibility, disable features, preserve relevant records, suspend access or impose a ban. We may withhold investigation details when disclosure could endanger someone, expose private information, compromise security or interfere with lawful process.

You may ask leadership to review an account restriction. We may reconsider a decision but do not guarantee reinstatement or an appeal outcome. Do not evade a restriction by creating alternate accounts or using another member’s account. Do not retaliate against reporters, witnesses or moderators. Nothing here prevents a lawful complaint to a regulator, law enforcement or a court.

8. Evidence preservation and lawful disclosure

We may retain relevant account information, messages, attachments, timestamps, available connection records and context when reasonably necessary for an abuse investigation, security incident, dispute or legal obligation. Where required, we will preserve records for the legally applicable period and restrict access appropriately. An account deletion request or moderation action does not override a valid preservation requirement.

We may report apparent unlawful conduct and disclose relevant information to NCMEC, appropriate law enforcement, courts or other authorized recipients when required or permitted by law. This may include legally permitted emergency disclosures. We do not need a user’s additional permission where the law requires reporting or otherwise independently permits disclosure, but these Terms do not create permission to disclose information in violation of law.

We do not guarantee notice before a report, investigation or disclosure, particularly when notice is prohibited, unsafe or would interfere with the response. A report is not itself a determination of criminal guilt. Automated flags may be incorrect and require appropriate assessment.

9. Deletion and availability

Deleting or hiding a conversation from your inbox may not remove it from other participants’ accounts, backups or records retained for legitimate operational or legal purposes. Retention and deletion remain subject to the Privacy Notice and applicable law.

We may change, limit, discontinue or temporarily interrupt the Service or individual features. We do not guarantee uninterrupted availability, permanent storage, preservation of game progress or membership, or compatibility with every device. Keep independent copies of your own lawful information when appropriate; do not copy suspected illegal material for that purpose.

The Service is not an emergency service. Contact emergency services if someone faces immediate danger.

10. Third-party services

Discord, hosting providers, game publishers, external media providers and other linked services have their own terms and privacy practices. We do not control their availability or all actions taken by users on those services. Linking to a service does not imply endorsement of all its content. These Terms do not replace agreements you have with those providers.

11. Disclaimers and limitations of liability

To the extent permitted by applicable law, the Service is provided “as is” and “as available,” without promises of fitness for a particular purpose, uninterrupted operation or freedom from every security issue. We cannot guarantee other users’ behavior, the accuracy of their statements or the outcome of community participation.

Responsibility for harm, available remedies and any limitations on liability are determined by applicable law. These Terms do not establish a monetary liability cap or require you to release claims against us.

These limitations do not exclude liability or remedies that applicable law prohibits excluding, including any nonwaivable liability for fraud, intentional misconduct, gross negligence, personal injury or statutory consumer rights where applicable. Nothing promises immunity from criminal liability or regulatory action.

12. Responsibility for your violations

You remain responsible under applicable law for your own unlawful conduct. These Terms do not impose a separate indemnity or obligation to pay the operator’s legal expenses.

13. Legal fees and dispute resolution

Each party is responsible for its own legal fees unless applicable law, a valid separate agreement or an order of a court or arbitrator provides otherwise. We may seek reasonable legal fees and costs attributable to your violations only where legally recoverable. Nothing in these Terms imposes a penalty for a good-faith report, appeal or lawful complaint, or restricts a statutory right to recover fees.

You may contact the operator to seek an informal resolution of a dispute. Neither party is required to delay an urgent legal application, miss a filing deadline or refrain from contacting law enforcement or a regulator. After a dispute arises, both parties may voluntarily agree in writing to mediation or arbitration, including the provider, rules and allocation of costs. These Terms alone do not require arbitration or waive access to courts or small-claims proceedings.

14. Changes and general provisions

We may revise these Terms and identify the new version and effective date. We will identify material changes on the policy page and seek additional agreement where legally required. Changes do not retroactively authorize conduct that was unlawful or undisclosed when it occurred.

Applicable law governs these Terms, including mandatory protections available where you live. These Terms do not impose mandatory arbitration, a class-action waiver or a selected exclusive court venue. If a provision is unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue to the extent permitted by law. A delay in enforcement does not permanently waive our ability to enforce a rule. Provisions concerning necessary retention, lawful disclosures, ownership and applicable responsibility may continue after access ends.

15. Contact

Contact the From The Ashes operator through the Leadership page for account, privacy, safety or Terms questions. You can reach community leadership through the linked Leadership page or our Discord community. Do not send suspected child sexual abuse imagery through ordinary messages; use the designated legal reporting process.