Story/Places/Training Grounds

Purpose
A place for training/practice, friendly sparring, or formal duels.

Outdoors

 * 

Sparring/Duels

 * Healers are on standby, so some realistic damage such as physical weapons or full-power spells are allowed.
 * An altered Globe Of Invulnerability is in effect, in order to keep most spells inside or outside of the ring.
 * official personnel may cast through it
 * hand(s) become translucent and seem to flicker
 * spell passes through adjacent plane before entering the ring

Outdoors

 * grass
 * dense trees on either side
 * middle stretches on to rift's edge

Rings

 * dirt ground
 * violet line, luminescent
 * white chalk line 0.5' in
 * between 30' and 80' across, depending
 * (during a match) Rail along edge
 * translucent
 * two polished birch rails
 * iron spokes

Training areas

 * archery range
 * casting ranges:
 * fine targeting
 * area targeting
 * rogue areas:
 * sneaking
 * traps/locks
 * terrain areas:
 * small cliffs

Reviewing the rules

 * The rules are provided to each contestant who is sparring in our rings for their first time. After that, it is expected that the contestant understands the rules during the course of a match. A review of the rules may be requested at any time outside of a match.
 * Questions on the rules should be asked before your match has started. This includes rule clarifications and example scenarios. Answers provided for these questions are not to be taken as final, unbending, or all-encompassing; ad-hoc calls made by enforcement personnel are at their discretion under their understanding of the rules and are to be considered absolute and final, except by appeal to the Rules Master. Similarly and to a higher extreme, the Rules Master has the final say on these calls as well as their own.

Ending the match

 * Once a contestant is unconscious, the match is over. And once the match is over, contestants are subject to all rules from outside the ring - this means all exceptions made for the purpose of sparring are revoked.
 * No forcing unconsciousness - for example, via Sleep, Eyebite, or Power Word Pain.

Leaving the ring

 * No leaving the ring area; entering the Ethereal Plane is allowed, as long as you remain in the ring. There is a sphere of tolerance above- and below-ground of the ring area, aligned with the ring's ground center and with its same diameter. Transportation to other planes, save for the Ethereal plane, the effects of the spell Banish, or negligible detours such as via Dimension Door, counts as leaving the ring. Casters with access to Truesight are on standby to enforce this, as well as to track invisible contestants.
 * No transporting other contestant(s) outside of the ring, save for the exceptions detailed in the previous rule.

Non-combat tactics

 * No subverting a person's will - this means charm, dominate person, etc., as well as magically causing awe. Illusions and magically causing fear are allowed - but be mindful the morality of the effects that you cause. The ring’s enchantments will prevent contestants under the magical effects of fear from leaving the ring, being that they are not of sound mind to be doing so.
 * There are no rewards for sparring. Paltry bets are allowed, but high or lasting wagers are not tolerated.
 * The ring is for combat. Non-combat mechanics such as threats or leverage are not tolerated.

Permanent effects

 * No expressly lethal tactics; this includes Power Word Kill, Disintegrate, or clearly lethal physical blows such as a stab to the heart.
 * No permanent (or near-) damage, such as crippling, dissolving, melting, or removing limbs, or non-physical damage such as wiping out intelligence. Petrification, including turning to stone, is allowed and counts as unconsciousness. Remember however, that once this occurs then the match is over, sparring exceptions to the rules are revoked, and the petrified contestant is, for all intents and purposes, still considered a person with all the same protections and considerations. That means no damaging the stone person or situating it in a way that it falls on its own. "Situating" here means both physical positioning as well as indirect operation (causing certain conditions which would likely or certainly lead to a result).

Calling aid

 * Once a match has started, the contestants currently in the ring are to be the only ones in the ring for the duration of the match, with the exception of healing or enforcement personnel, or summoned entities as allowed by the rules of the ring.
 * No summoning dangerously strong entities; Find Familiar and the summoning of elementals is allowed, but calling forth a powerful entity via Gate, calling for Divine Intervention, or the very presence of an entity which provides you with your magical ability - i.e. warlock patrons or gods - are not. Any summoned entity is subject to the same rules as a contestant.