FPC are you against pasting your current draft into this thread or somewhere else on the forum? Adding comments to the Google Docs draft is actually a little tricky depending on the device being used. Also players who don't click through to the Google Docs draft might be discouraged from participating here.
I agree with Liu Che and Kubrick about the colonies. The current arrangement seems to be creating a lot more activity with them. What motivated the consideration to re-open them for colonization?
About character transfers and claims, I think the Character Application portion is unnecessary.
Rule 5h wrote:A character is always owned by the player who originally created them, unless publically transferred to another player via the Official Character Transfers thread.
A character, house or bloodline that has been unused for one hundred in-game years will be considered inactive, and players who wish to take control of them may apply to do so on the Inactive character application thread, application should include a brief plan for the character (s) aswell as details of former controller etc.
The IML's internal rule always seemed to me to work well for character claims:
3. If you wish to restore a house without the transfer that the Moderation team requires, then:
----- 3.1. Inquire in the IML as to who might be the previous owner and seek transfer;
----- 3.2. Change/add/remove a letter in the old house name and carry on as usual;
----- 3.3. Proceed to create a new royal house, in compliance with rule #1
As far as I've understood it, 3.2 has avoided OOC conflict between players because the Restoring player could always claim their characters are sufficiently different from the original player's version. 3.2 also forces players to resolve disputes In-Characterly instead of OOC, with the competing claimants working to buttress their claims via RP. There are several current 3.2 examples in the game right now and they seem to be working out well from what I can see. Adopting 3.2 will create less potential player conflict than inserting Moderators into character disputes.