Adytum · legal

Terms of Service

Note on voice. Adytum, like its parent product The Fold, normally speaks to participants in a specific in-world voice — the cult's "Voice". This document deliberately does not. These Terms set out your legal rights and obligations in plain English. Nothing here is hidden behind a tone, a metaphor, or a name. If anything is unclear, write to us at the address at the bottom and we will explain it in plainer English still.

1. Agreement

These Terms govern your use of the Adytum mobile application and related services (the "Service"), provided by [legal entity] ("Adytum", "we", "us"). By creating an account or using the Service you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old to use the Service. At signup you must provide accurate information, including:

a date of birth that reflects your real age (we refuse accounts where the calculated age is under 18);
a real email address you control (used for account recovery and transactional email); and
a real phone number you control (used for SMS-based verification and in-app coordination).

We will terminate any account we discover to be held by a person under 18, and any account where the email or phone number is found to be fabricated, borrowed, or otherwise not genuinely yours.

3. Your account

You are responsible for activity on your account. Keep your login credentials confidential. Tell us promptly if your account is compromised. You may have only one account at a time.

Your account is your character in the fiction. The display Name you choose is a pseudonym, not your legal name; you are identified to us by your verified email and phone, and pseudonymous to other players. See §6.2 on what this means for ownership.

4. Acceptable use

The Service is a narrative game wrapped around a social platform. Some game mechanics are adversarial in fiction. Real-world conduct toward other people is not fiction and is governed by this section.

You must not:

Harass, threaten, intimidate, or stalk any person, on or off the Service. The in-game "Hunter" role (and any similar adversarial mechanic) is gameplay only; it does not authorise contacting, following, surveilling, photographing, or showing up to any other player in real life outside their explicit consent.
Expose, publish, or threaten to publish another player's real-world identity — their legal name, address, workplace, photographs, phone number, social-media accounts, or any other information that could identify them off the Service ("doxing"). This prohibition is central to how the Service works: see §4.2.
Use the Service to organise or promote violence, criminal activity, or harm to any person.
Use the Service to harm minors in any way, including content directed at minors or attempts to involve minors in adult-only experiences.
Impersonate another person or misrepresent your affiliation with anyone.
Reverse-engineer, decompile, scrape, or attempt to access the Service other than through the interfaces we provide.
Upload malware, attempt to compromise our security, or interfere with other users' use of the Service.
Use the Service to send unsolicited commercial messages.

4.1 In-game vs out-of-game — the Hunter disclaimer

The Service contains a faction known as the Hunter (and may contain other adversarial roles). These roles exist only inside the application's narrative systems. They direct in-app interactions, in-app messages, and in-app objectives. They are not instructions or permission to take any real-world action against another player.

Real-world stalking, harassment, surveillance, doxing, photography without consent, unwanted physical approach, or threats — whether or not framed as "part of the game" — are grounds for immediate and permanent account termination and may be referred to law-enforcement authorities. If you experience this from another player, report it to [abuse email]; we will act.

4.2 The Name, exposure, and doxing — what is in fiction and what is forbidden

A core mechanic of the Service is the Name: a pseudonym you choose, kept hidden from other players unless you deliberately reveal it. In-fiction, players may reveal a Name to one another ("Confiding"), and the Hunter role may "expose" a captured Name to that player's cult. All of this is in-fiction: it concerns only the chosen Name, an identity that exists inside the game. Exposing an in-game Name through the Service's own mechanics is permitted play.

What is strictly prohibited is connecting any player to their real-world identity — the harm the Service is built to prevent. You must not:

link, publish, or threaten to publish a player's chosen Name (or in-game presence) alongside their real name, face, location, employer, contact details, or social-media accounts;
use information gathered through the Service to identify, locate, or contact a player off the Service without their explicit consent; or
coerce, trick, or pressure another player into revealing real-world identifying information.

In short: exposing a Name inside the game is gameplay; exposing a person in the real world is doxing, and doxing is a serious breach that may result in immediate and permanent termination and referral to law-enforcement authorities.

5. Real-world coordinated activity

Some features — including but not limited to the Co-present Ritual and any territory mechanic — invite players to be in the same place at the same time as another player. You participate in any such real-world activity at your own risk and on your own judgment. We do not vet other players' identities, intentions, or backgrounds. Do not meet anyone you do not trust. Do not meet anyone in a private place. Use the consent flows we provide; never coerce another player into participating.

6. Content and intellectual property

6.1 Our content — the system and the Voice

The Service, including its text, audio, code, artwork, game design, ranks, titles, and the in-world narrative system, is owned by Adytum or our licensors and is protected by intellectual-property laws. We grant you a limited, personal, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the Service as intended.

This includes the cult's "Voice" — the in-world narrator that addresses players. The Voice, and all cult names, faction names, rank prefixes, titles, and suffixes generated or curated by the Service, are our content, not yours.

6.2 Whose speech is whose

The platform's Voice is not your speech, and your speech is not the platform's.

When the Service speaks in the cult's Voice — omens, ceremonies, rank announcements, system messages — that is the platform's voice. It does not speak on your behalf and does not represent your views.
When you create content — messages to other players, custom rites, "cant" phrases, or your own statements — that is your speech. We do not adopt it, endorse it, or speak it for you, and you do not speak for Adytum.

Nothing in the fiction makes Adytum responsible for what players say to one another, and nothing players say is attributable to Adytum.

6.3 Your content

You may create content within the Service — for example, a chosen Name, messages to other players, "cant" phrases, or custom rites. You retain ownership of your chosen Name and of the content you author. You grant Adytum a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable licence to host, store, reproduce, display, and use that content to operate, promote, and improve the Service. This licence survives the deletion of your account only to the extent necessary for backups, legal compliance, and historical artefacts already incorporated into the world (e.g. a coined cant phrase that has entered general in-app circulation).

For clarity: you own your Name and the content you make; we own the system it lives in — the application, the design, the Voice, and the platform-generated names (cult names, faction names, ranks, titles, and suffixes), as set out in §6.1.

6.4 Feedback

If you send us suggestions, we may use them without obligation to you.

7. Purchases and payments

If the Service offers paid items, those purchases are handled through the Apple App Store or Google Play and are governed by their terms in addition to ours. Refunds are administered by Apple or Google according to their policies.

8. Suspension and termination

8.1 When we may suspend or terminate

We may suspend or terminate your account, with or without notice, if:

you breach these Terms;
we reasonably believe you have engaged in conduct described in §4 or §5 — in particular real-world harassment or doxing (§4.1, §4.2);
continued provision of the Service to you would expose us or other users to legal, safety, or security risk; or
we cease to operate the Service.

8.2 Process

Where the circumstances allow, we will tell you that your account has been suspended or terminated and the general reason why, and you may contact us at [support email] to respond or appeal. For serious conduct — including real-world harassment, doxing, threats, or harm to minors — we may terminate immediately and permanently without prior notice, and may refer the matter to law-enforcement authorities.

8.3 What happens to your data

You may delete your account at any time in-app or by writing to [support email]. Whether you delete your account or we terminate it, your personal data is handled as described in the Privacy Policy (see "How long we keep it" / data-deletion section of the Privacy Policy): personal data is deleted within 30 days of a deletion request, subject only to records we are legally required to retain and to encrypted backups that are overwritten within 90 days.

9. Disclaimers

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available". To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties not expressly granted in these Terms. Nothing in these Terms excludes any guarantee, right, or remedy that cannot be excluded under Australian Consumer Law or the consumer-protection law of your jurisdiction.

10. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, and subject to §9, Adytum's aggregate liability to you arising out of or in connection with the Service in any 12-month period will not exceed the amount you paid us during that period (or AUD $100 if you paid nothing). We are not liable for indirect, consequential, or incidental damages, or for harm caused by other players' conduct.

11. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify Adytum against claims arising out of your breach of these Terms or your real-world conduct directed at another player.

12. Governing law and dispute resolution

These Terms are governed by the laws of [GOVERNING LAW — owner to specify jurisdiction (state/country)].

Disputes will be resolved by binding arbitration seated in [ARBITRATION SEAT — owner to specify city, in the jurisdiction above], under the rules of [ARBITRATION BODY — owner to nominate]. Each party bears its own costs unless the arbitrator orders otherwise. This clause does not prevent either party from seeking injunctive relief in court, and does not limit your statutory rights as a consumer where those rights cannot lawfully be subject to arbitration in your jurisdiction.

13. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. If the change is material we will notify you in-app and by email at least 30 days before it takes effect. Continued use after that date constitutes acceptance.

14. Contact

Support and abuse reports: [support email] / [abuse email] Legal notices: [legal entity], [address]

Last updated: [date — owner to insert before publication]

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