The Passage of the Alpha is the ultimate test of leadership, strength, and integrity. Your tokota's merits will once again be tested; he or she will venture into the wilderness alone in an attempt to gain favor from Aippaq, and prove themselves worthy of being known as one of the great leaders of Tokotna. Not every tokota will make this journey, however, and the road ahead is dangerous and full of obstacles.

Prerequisites

• Your tokota must be at Dominant status to participate.
• Your tokota must have at least 300 additional HP after reaching Dominant status (625 HP total if the tokota was originally uploaded as Submissive.) You must have your HP confirmed by an admin before you can begin the Passage of the Alpha.
• Your tokota must have successfully completed at least five each of hunting, fishing, exploration and caving/diving.
• Your tokota must have received at least one first place in any class in any group-sanctioned competition, including continuous events, OR 5 wins in PVP competitions.
• Your tokota must have at least one direct offspring that has reached dominant status. The only exception to this last prerequisite is if your tokota is infertile (not sterilized by owner,) in which case you will need an extra 250 HP(550 HP required altogether in order to participate). and you must complete 1 additional PotA Prompt (4 prompts total).

• A Stone of Aippaq can be substituted for one of these requirements:
  
  • Dominant offspring
  • 5 successful activities (out of the 20 normally required)
  • First place in an event

• A Forged gold medal can be substituted for one first place in an event.

Only one Stone of Aippaq and one Forged Gold Medal can be used per PoTA application. Please link to the proof of ownership of the Stone and/or Medal along with the other requirements.

Rules

General

• Only one tokota is allowed to enter per prompt (meaning you can depict other tokotas, but no simultaneous entries for Passage of the Alpha)
• Your tokota(s) must have had their alpha prerequisites confirmed by an administrator in order to submit these tasks.
• If an entry looks rushed, sketchy, or very quickly done it may be denied. They don't have to be masterpieces, but they should be detailed, with equal or greater skill than existing pieces of the same medium posted in your gallery. If it looks like it took two minutes, it will not be accepted.
• All pieces must be original, with no templates used or copied elements (background, etc) from other art or literature pieces.
• Commissioned/collaborated entries are accepted, however, in the case of collaborated entires, please be aware that only one tokota may be judged per set.
• The Passage of the Alpha rites do count for the show/competition HP bonus, however only the tokota participating gains the bonus.

Art

• The tokota(s) must be depicted full body (75%+ visible). Angles and perspective will be taken into consideration.
• Full background is required to the best of your abilities (like all tokota events, art effort is compared to your own gallery, not other artists).
• Images must be colored, but detailed grayscale is allowed, as long as the tokota's defining markings are very clearly depicted with shading, etc.
• Images must be at least 300x300 px.
• Prey animals, fish, handlers and any other required subjects must have some detail to them, silhouettes are not allowed.

Literature

• At least 1400 words.
• Must be entirely focused upon the task.
• The tokota(s) should play a main role in the story, not just be casually mentioned.
• A handler, if included, should be mentioned significantly throughout the story and play a prominent role.

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Judging

Judging will follow a similar rubric to the Rites of Fertility; however, you will be graded with a pass/fail.

Judged overall (the completed set of all 3 prompts):

• 1-70 RNG score.

Judged per prompt:

• 1-20 unbiased effort score; this will be compared to your own gallery. (Determined by admins.)

• You may choose to include additional bonuses to raise an individual image's score. You may include up to 4 of these bonuses per image, however only a score of +90 may be added to the prompt set's overall score this way. (Meaning that if you included all 4 bonuses for all 3 prompts, you still could only add a guaranteed score of +90 from these bonuses, rather than +120, and you may divide up the bonuses however you want, for instance, only including 2 per prompt for one, but all 4 for another, and so on.)

• Optional: +10 for somehow including a depiction of your tokota's soul animal, full body (50%) or worked into the scenery/theme.
• Optional: +10 for correct setting. You can read more about the various areas of Tokotna here.
• Optional: +10 for including a handler, starter or lore figure.
• Optional: +10 for a short story of at least 500 words. For literature entries, this bonus will be awarded for at least 500 extra words.

Score is determined by the sum of the three image's respective scores and the overall RNG score. Any score below 50 overall will fail. If you receive a perfect score (above 100 overall) you will receive one randomly-rolled trait (Common to Extremely Rare. Will be added to owner's bank.)

If you fail the Passage of the Alpha, you can re-enter with new images/stories, without having to recalculate or collect more HP.

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Prompts

In order to complete the Passage of the Alpha, you must choose any three of the following prompts to draw/write. You may not use the same prompt more than once per tokota. These can, by all means, be AU (Alternate Universe) and not be canon in your personal story line.

1. The spirit of Aippaq itself leads your tokota to the mountainous Ridge of Elders to personally commend their wisdom and leadership with a gift. This gift can be a long-lost trinket from your tokota's puphood, healing herbs for an ailing friend/relative, a short visitation from the spirit of a deceased loved one, or anything else of emotional value.
2. Two packs of wild tokotas are at war with each other over a spread of territory. It is up to your tokota to break up the violence and chaos and return the peace. (You can use Starter tokotas, untamed Wild tokotas, or random generic designs for the wild tokotas in this prompt.)
3. Your tokota is mysteriously stranded in foreign territory, be it another part of Tokotna or some place even more exotic/foreign, such as a poacher's den, a zoo or a desert on the other side of the globe. They must discover a way to either survive in their new surroundings or find their way home.
4. One of the original starters is in grave peril. Somehow, your tokota must save them from a natural disaster, predator, confrontation with another tokota, or some other incident.
5. Some kind of lethal force is encroaching on the territory of the fearsome Desna pack. The pack leaders will not listen to reason and move the pack to safer grounds, away from the territory that has belonged to them since the Tartok Mountains first rose from the earth. Somehow, your tokota must convince Fenrir, the only other dire who has enough sway and command over the pack to move it.
6. The spirits have recognized your tokota's worth - unfortunately, this includes the darker spirits as well as the benevolent. Will your tokota be tempted by the call of dark forces, or spurn them for the light?
7. The land is dying; flowers are wilting, prey is scarce and illness has spread over both wild packs and other inhabitants. There have been no sightings of any spirits, much less visions of Aippaq. Villagers have begun to wonder if the great spirit of Tokotna has been corrupted or has simply vanished. Your tokota must uncover this mystery, and bring back the soul and health of the land.
8. Your tokota has met with a potentially fatal accident. Weak and close to death, they must find recovery through either a friend, stranger, or their own mettle.
9. Your tokota crosses paths with an infant or child (animal or human) that is too young to remember where it came from or who it's parents are. Your tokota must choose to either take mercy and care for and protect it until the parents can be located, or abandon it to nature.
10. Your tokota awakes in a body that is not of their own species (human, animal, mythological, anthropomorphic.) While learning to cope with their unfamiliar anatomy, they must find a way to return to their natural self.
11. An unfamiliar danger forces your tokota and an old rival to work together. Will they erupt into conflict, or sort out their differences in the face of a threat?
12. Your tokota must learn to cope with the loss of something close to them; be it a prized possession or a friend/loved one.
13. Upon sleeping one night, your tokota finds itself within a dream-like purgatory of some kind, with surreal obstacles and challenges blocking it's path. Somehow, your tokota must find his/her way to wakefulness by conquering the demons of their dreamworld, and finding their way to Aippaq's light.
14. Part of being a leader is knowing that one is neither immortal nor invincible. Your tokota must select and train an heir.
15. Your tokota has faced many hardships on their road to becoming a respected leader; revisit a memory from the tokota's earlier years/puphood, or re-draw/re-write an old art piece.
16. Sikrinerk escorts any lost spirits of the departed to Aippaq, and has called upon your tokota to help. Depict your Tokota with Sikrinerk, guiding a spirit up to the Ridge of Elders to peacefully pass on.
17. Some sort of disaster is about to befall the forest. Depict your tokota working with Aga, using their wisdom and strength to save the forest and prevent the catastrophe from unfolding.
18. There has been a great shortage of prey recently, and many tokotas are starving. Your tokota must go on a journey to find Nagruk, and request his help and guidance in locating and hunting down large quantities of prey to feed their hungry packmates.
    
19. A dark spirit (Borga, Meelanik, or Sivoganik) has shown up, with an offer that is hard to resist. Does your Tokota accept the deal and join the dark side, or do they turn it down and choose the light?
    
20. Evil spirits have been following your tokota, watching their every move. Your tokota has realized this and must find a way to lure them to Sikrinerk without the spirits knowing. It is up to your tokota whether they use others for help or use only what resources they have available to them. 
    
21. As an upcoming Alpha, Aippaq and others are aware of your tokota’s presence. Aippaq comes before your tokota and asks for them to run an errand. Depict the task Aippaq has asked of your tokota and whether or not they’re happy about it.
    
22. Dark spirits have taken over an area of Tokotna and are attacking innocents. The area is covered in shadows and monsters, forcing most of its inhabitants to leave. Your tokota decides to do something about it and must find the leader of the spirits, with Sikrinerk’s assistance and guidance, and either scare them off or take care of them and take back the area. 
    
23. Evil spirits have taken over the mind of your tokota’s spirit animal. They must find a way to free their friend from the spirit’s clutches in whatever way they see fit. 
    
24. All alphas, no matter how experienced, know fear. An evil spirit has thrown your tokota into a maze of their own mind and the only escape is to defeat their greatest fear. Depict your tokota finding a way to face their greatest fear and whether they triumph or fail. 
    
25. Your tokota has been given a special quest by one of the deities, undoubtedly one that is very difficult and dangerous. There's also another problem... going on the quest will anger another deity, who will work against your tokota to prevent them succeeding by any means necessary. Is your tokota able to complete the quest, or are they defeated by the opposing deity who will do anything to see them fail?

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Rewards

• Your tokota will acquire one of the Passage of the Alpha-exclusive earned traits, of your choosing or rolled randomly. These do not count against your tokota's overall trait limit.
• All future offspring of the tokota will have a high chance of inheriting a random common-uncommon trait.
• Your tokota becomes unable to fail a caving or diving expedition.
• The corresponding totem of your tokota's chosen RoD animal:
  
  
• You will receive 1 PoTA Token (see below)
  
• Any tokotas depicted in future works alongside your tokota will receive a 1+ HP bonus (stacks with Superstar trait).
• +10 to score in any group-sanctioned competition.
• Additional breeding slots will be unlocked. See Breeding Limitations for more details.
• You must update your tokota's import with your choice of one of the exclusive Passage of the Alpha backgrounds. Note: the "Special Tokotas" backgrounds in this folder are exclusive to tokotas from those events (Advent, Tokoween, tamed wilds, and TCA Rehoming tokotas) and may not be used for other tokotas.

PoTA Tokens

PoTA Tokens are one-use items that will allow you to do one of the following to an undesigned genotype;

• Change the gender of a genotype.
• Remove a heterozygous gene from a genotype.
• Add a heterozygous gene from one of the parents of a genotype.
• Remove infertility from a genotype.
• Ressurects one deceased genotype.
  • Only applicable to Genotypes born after November 5th 2019
  • Comments dividing split litters with one or more deceased genos must indicate which split partner owns the deceased geno(s).
  • Deceased genotypes are not allowed to be transferred to other users.
  • Genotype is resurrected fully healthy.

There are additional limitations for PoTA token use:

• PotA Tokens cannot be applied to Uploaded Tokotas.
• PoTA tokens cannot be applied to base coat genes, manes, or mutations. They can only change genes for markings.
  
• Tokens cannot be sold, traded, or gifted to other users. You must own the geno you are applying to token to.
• You may use multiple tokens on a single geno. However, only one person may add tokens to an individual geno (even if co-owned).
• Any genetic modifications made must have been possible in the original breeding. ie., you cannot add a gene that neither parent had, nor can you remove genes if it was impossible for the pup to be born without them (ex. Marked cannot be entirely removed from a geno whose parents both have MM marked. Similarly, Blanket in its homozygous form (BlBl) cannot be added to a geno who only has one parent who has nBl blanket).
• You may add homozygous genes if both parents possess the gene. It will require 1 PoTA token for each 'half' of the gene (2 tokens if the geno did not have the gene at all).
• You may remove homozygous genes if it was possible for the pup to be born without them. It will require one PoTA token to remove each 'half' of the gene (2 tokens to completely remove dominant genes).
• Similarly, adding restriction/extension genes will require that the base gene is present. If it is not, you will need 2 tokens, one to add the base gene and another for the restriction/extension. (Ex., If you want to add restricted piebald to a geno that does not have piebald, you must first add piebald(nPb) and then add the restriction(+R), for a total of 2 PoTA Tokens)
• In the case of chimeric parents, where we are unable to discern which chimeric half a geno was rolled from, genes must only come from one side of the chimeric tokota parent. If half of a chimera has piebald and the other half has blanket you may only choose one of these genes to add.
• You may use token(s) to create a double merle if this possible in the original breeding, but the geno will then be rolled for possible penalties (including blindness, deafness, or infertility)
• You may use 1 token to change the color of Merle Points or Points if the two parents of the geno possess different color variants of the same gene. (For example, changing Mrl+t to Mrl+l).

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How to Submit

1. Complete your images - they do not have to be in any specific order.
2. Submit them to the folder, "Passage of the Alpha" in the group gallery.
3. Link all of your images in a single comment and post them to the correct comment thread in the Hierarchy Updates journal with the correct form.

Skin by Horsepoint and alexpeanut, paw icon by Kawiku, images by noebelle