Site News

Hello!! Back again with another announcement, this one is just to clarify some things as we iron out the transitional kinks from moving over to Lorekeeper! Thank you guys for your patience!!

I just wanted to clarify that the rule about traded designs losing all monetary value has been removed and anyone is able to resell a traded Lepi directly, which we hope will alleviate some confusion or stress when trading designs.

However, the ability to add-on additional art value when reselling designs has also been removed. This is because we are not tracking purchased art value on the masterlist, and as a result this rule was previously very easy to exploit for scams or artificial value inflation of a design to bypass the resale cap - something we had personally observed happening, and in some species on a fairly large scale in money laundering schemes. Unfortunately, we just don't physically have the time to verify and track art value and thus have no way to safeguard people against scams utilizing this rule. We don't want scammers to feel welcome in the community, so we came to the conclusion this is the safest option to ensure that add-on art cannot be abused.

We understand that this may negatively affect some owners who cannot resell their Lepis for the same amount as previously. We're hoping that since previously traded designs couldn't be sold at all (which applied to a large swathe of Lepi designs), and gacha Lepis could only be sold for their original price anyway, that the lifting of the trade restriction combined with this rule change will still result in overall more freedom for people reselling their Lepis.

Moreover, you may still resell your designs in unofficial avenues such as on your own Toyhouse with the art price added on - what our rule means is that we're simply not hosting or sanctioning such sales on official Lepitsune hubs anymore, ie the Discord server or the lepitsunation dA group journal. Once again, this is due to the fact that we haven't verified any artwork add-on prices, so these sales become moreso "buy at your own risk" in nature and we would rather not host such sales. Buyers should be alerted that official Lepitsunes will follow the masterlist recorded price instead of the design + art add-on price, but we aren't penalizing anyone who sells their Lepi outside of the server in this way.

We also aren't penalizing any owners who made transactions that shouldn't have been allowed according to previous rules as the blame is on us for failing to follow up or record many of these transactions. These updated rules will only apply going forward.

In summary:

• Lepitsunes, regardless of method of attainment, may be sold for up to the original sale price.
• Adding on extra art value to the resale price is not condoned or allowed in official venues such as the server.
• You may still resell/buy lepitsunes with add-on art value in external venues such as personal bulletins or trade forums, but we are not responsible for any issues that may arise as a result.

We understand that the species had poor organization and enforcement of rules since we had no publicly available masterlist, but now that we have one in place we'll be able to keep better track of transfers from now on. You may redirect people to this announcement if any issues arise, and if you have any further questions please either ask in the server or send a site ticket instead of DMing me on any other platform!

This additionally applies for any future Lepitsune-related issues, as it's been growing difficult to keep track of everything in my personal DMs and we would like to keep inquiries to official channels from now on to maintain consistency in handling them. So to clarify, general ownership and species questions that you don't mind asking in public & may benefit others can go in the #lepi-questions channel in the server, and any inquiries you'd prefer to keep private should be filed as a site ticket!

That's about it for now, and thank you for your understanding and time!

✦ ABOUT THE SITE

Hello hello, Jay here! Happy February and thank you all for your patience! We're happy to finally announce the official launch of the Lepitsune Lorekeeper!!! It took a considerable amount of time and effort to round up and process almost ten years'(!) worth of lepitsunes, as well as finalise traits and give the lore a little brushing-up, but now that it's all done and dusted I hope everyone will enjoy looking around the site! As this is our initial launch, some pages are still subject to change, but adjustments to any important features like site functionality will be preceded by an announcement.

The site is now open for registration, and everyone is welcome to sign up for an account whether or not you currently own a lepi! You can link it to your dA, toyhou.se or both, and if you have ownership recorded under those usernames your lepis should automatically show up in your account. If any of your lepis are not showing up either due to:

• registering under a different name or account
• receiving the lepi in an older transfer we were not notified of

please file a site report here (in the case of the latter, preferably with proof of ownership) and we'll get them to their rightful homes accordingly! Note that these reports are mainly for us to correct any miscredited lepis. If you have done an ownership transfer within the past few months that hasn't been reflected in the masterlist yet, please complete the transfer on-site or notify the other party about registering an account with us.

From now on, we'll be using the Lorekeeper to process all of the following requests, so in the future please submit them through the site instead of PMing a mod!

• design updates, including edits and trait additions
• trade and resale ownership updates
• raffles and Secret Santa-esque exchange events
• MYO submissions - all existing slots that we could track have been added to the site and should show up in your account similarly to regular lepis, but if we're missing any please file a ticket with attached proof

If you are a lepitsune owner and are uncomfortable signing up for the Lorekeeper for any reason, you may still PM a mod regarding design updates and ownership transfers. As the other activities count as active species participation, they will require a registered account on the site!

Lastly, I encourage people to check the updated website and species terms of service (sorry they're long but they're very important!!). Many of my personal artwork usage terms are the same, but with the launch of the website we've standardised some of the vaguer rules. This includes edit rules, of which there are now very few, as well as resale rules - since these vary from species to species, please take the time to familiarise yourself with the specific guidelines we have for lepitsunes, and feel free to ask in Discord or through an onsite ticket if you have any questions or concerns.

✦ SECRET SANTA CLAIMS

For Secret Santa event participants, we've set up a prompt where you can submit your work to claim your Rare Trait Token reward! Please go here to fill out your claims! Thanks so much again for a fantastic turnout, it was great seeing all the completed works and we hope everyone had fun with it!

✦ ABOUT THE FUTURE

I also want to be transparent with a disclaimer of sorts to give an idea of what to expect for the future of lepitsunes... At the start of the project, I had a lot of ambitious plans in mind that I wanted to fulfill for the species and community. For years I've always bounced around little dreams of running a fully-fledged ARPG for everyone as thanks for all the support and enthusiasm you've shown for my little foxmoth fairies, and give people goals and events and things to work towards... But in the process of working on the site, I had to do a lot of reflecting on my personal goals and priorities, and think realistically about the limited time and energy I have available, especially when I work full-time. 

In the end, I've unfortunately had to face the fact that as much as I dearly wish I could, it is unlikely we will ever run a full ARPG for the species.... It's a tough pill for me to swallow, personally, but I want to state that upfront to settle people's expectations... I still aim to run exchanges and raffles and various sales like we've done so far, and I would love to keep the community feel of the species going as much as I can even without a proper ARPG structure. With the help of the site more small community events in the same vein as the Secret Santa will be possible, too! I hope this news isn't too disappointing to people, and I really hope everyone can continue to enjoy their lepitsunes whether in your personal stories or with friends. 

✦ message from jay...

Lepitsunes were born from me sitting down one night in my lonely little university room in March 2013, thinking it'd be fun to come up with my own closed species. The first thing I doodled was a little foxlike critter with big tufted ears, grabby paws, moth wings and a long, tasseled tail - that's the original lepi base you can see on the site, numbering LEPI-001-017, and today there are currently 436 official lepitsunes out there! They had a hiatus from 2017 when I graduated uni and started working full-time, and I never quite had the confidence people would still be interested if I ever brought them back. It was thanks to my friends who suggested running a gacha for fun in 2020 that I started making them again, this time in a team, and since then I feel like I've seen the community livelier than ever. 

Next month, it'll be the ten year anniversary since I did that first lepi scribble, and in that time both I and them have come a long way - they've seen me grow as an artist and a person, and have helped me make many good friends and meet so many cool people. I'm endlessly grateful to anyone who's ever expressed interest in lepis, and I'm over the moon just seeing people talk about them or even draw them! It makes me really happy to know I could make something that can make people happy, so I just wanted to thank you guys for all your support over all these years! I'll keep doing my best whether with lepis or other creative pursuits, and I hope everyone will stick around!! ♥