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(repost from Discord)
Kareloth Sandborn is no more. I rolled him before summer after a failed outlander attempt. Before that one I hadn't been playing since 2020 or something. The idea was I hadn't really had a successful fire AP (had some arials back in like 2009 and earlier - who were only successful in farming pre-hero, vault yay). Further: the hunt for charges is a motivator to PK. With that previous outlander I felt like it was such a resource burn to engage in pk only to end up farming preps again, so by being an AP I would have an incentive to get out there and start swinging. I had hoped I would be able to build a big weapon at some point but that sadly didn't happen. I think I was sub-20 for all of Kareloths being.
When I rolled Kareloth I didn't have a role in mind. I just wanted to get out there and start pking and enjoy cf. This is also reflected in my role chapters, but eventually I kind of started telling the story of two devils watching Kareloth and granting him his blessings gradually while commenting on his progress. The inspiration were the two grumpy old men back in some muppet show if anyone remembers. But maybe my interpretation of Hell doesn't exactly follow CF lore brilliantly  . In character my approach was a more soft evil inspired by Viera and Grudzar or whatever his name was. More of a I'm going to kill you but I also don't want to be an ass about it. I genuinly feel like we are a handful of returning vets playing this game with some new blood mixed in, and we need to ensure we all have a good time. I certainly ganked at times just to get that sweet sweet charge but if we actually managed to kill someone I tried to return everything.
Since I knew I would have to have all minor advantages I could get to compensate for my lack of pk skillz I spent the first ~60 hours of the characters life just mastering skill after skill. Unclear if it was worth it, but it was satisfying to see the numbers go up when there were bonuses.
Originally I had intended to go Scion and even had sphere Pride to aim for Morius. But along the way some Dread Lord offered me some gear if I took the oath so I went for it and thought back on that at least in Empire there are others to interact with. Maybe some fun cabal politics to get involved in. It would be at the cost of those cool Scion powers I know and love but hey, probably worth it. Side note: black circle and centurions are actually very good - I value them higher now than before I must say. Power of the damned less so. Seemed to fail a lot. Paladins have no problems killing lost souls so they can just try to summon you again into the waiting gank. So in conclusion Scion powers are still better until reaching Emperor in my oppinion. Maybe the compensation is that as an Imperial you have more diverse allies potentially, but this was rarely the case in practice nowdays.
So the grind started at 36 to get charges. It was slow. I think all the charges during Kareloths life were newbies asleep at the keyboard or just extremely lucky ganks. Had some great fights though. But man bash and iceball are both just so damn good. Going with spear as a main I dropped many skills that could have aided more. But the melee of spear is pleasant, along with the edge of more unholy procs if your weapons elemental damage matches the blessing. I waited to fire control until leveling up to 51 which was a mistake, I should've waited for frost control. I fought many a maran.
Kareloth died alot. I think I deleted with 10 con and certainly by the end of his life with a set it was a more rare occasion. Orbs of travel are mandatory if there are druids and/or Outlander leaders about. I have to remember that. But hard to get. Otherwise retrival is a death sentence, but this has already been hashed to no end so let's not delve more into that. I often got my weapon back, even from the infamous Shapa. Hug often took it though. But no hard feelings, it's all part of the game even if it is frustrating at that time. An AP with 10 charges is basically having a regular non blessed weapon. I played more conservative later in Kareloths life and chasing charges became less important.
There is probably a discussion to be had on protections and PK, that if you use too much of it some feel disinclined to fight you. At times I used everything I could find, especially when retriving against overwhelming odds. It really helped when I got aura as a quest spell (thank you THANK YOU!). But I was swinging ABS/stone/ethos align/positive/flight/enlarge for the bigger ones and that didn't mean I was mowing people down, just that I could tank them a little longer. However, zapping up and quaffing for a retrival with two marans raiding while running from Hamsah just takes a little too long unfortunately. That council is really weak sauce. Makes it hard to defend. Best case I arrive in the palace and there is at least one of the council members remaining. Compare to the watcher where I would argue you'd need at least three to raid. This has been hashed out as well so I don't want this to deteriorate into a discuss about that. Just my thoughts.
I had some great teamfights during the life of Kareloth and I think my gank o meter likely tells that story as well. At one point I got locked in a no recall/teleport room with a Blade and after a discussion he agreed to surrender his soul to my weapon.
That was my first demotion down to bloodoath since no blood reckoning was called. The second one was during summer when I was away on vacation and was sent down again for inactivity heh. So three times a bloodoath but then eventually as the last Empress/or deleted I managed to ascend to the Throne. Basically as there were no other active sect leaders. But hey it was a new for me in CF and the powers are awesome. Might be an AP has the most mileage out of the powers of all classes that could potentially get them.
Side note, accidently attacked Coqui in Seantryn very recently after getting Emperor. Though for a moment I'd get demoted there but the Emperor dictates the rules and all that  . I did get wanted for it but outlanders kindly stripped the wanted flag from me along with a weapon not long after.
In regards to PVE, we did some dragon slaying and a trip to the Shadow Plane but other than that not a lot of new things.
On edges: I have one regret, I took firetap. It probably gave me 20 extra hp/mana per tick in a room on fire (which requires lavawalk to be used or you get damage from flames). I thought it would be a good idea in combination with firestarter but completely not worth it. Firestarter in itself though is cheap and quite worth it.
What I really wished was that I would have saved the points for the iron grip edge (recast to remove it).
I rarely used iron grip. I was extremely reliant on invoking a certain item to become full/quenched. Further: prevents usage of wands without excision and mana as a fire AP is precious. Not to mention not being able to use orbs of travel. So big regret not taking that.
Since I was so reliant on bash for getting my kills I took the "carry heavier things" edge but honestly I don't know if that had any affect at all.
After fighting Gochon I took the shield eyes and the remain conscious edges but I felt they had no visible effect at all. Maybe they prevented something but I kept being knocked out and blinded. Felt like a waste.
Spine of Akragaka was obviusly good as hell. I also enjoyed Profane Synergy but I don't know how much effect it had. But it felt like it worked. Seasoned traveler is a must have on an AP since you are always moving. Lastly Mana Sensitivity was also a great boon as I often fought villagers later in Kareloths life and knowing the state of the veil is crucial.
Feast of Sorrows was probably good. I used aura of despair when I remembered but the drawback of being aggrod by nature mobs also cost kills and made fleeing harder so unclear if it was worth it. I played around a little with power word despair to help but often bash or iceball were the superior action.
On Empire: Holy hell I've been slaying the red dragon alot. I don't know if the gold grind is good but it is busy work. I think it was the first character of mine that reached the 30k commerce exp edge thing.
Being the near constant underdogs was a curse and a blessing. It opened up for plenty of fights. Not being able to attack in cities was a major drawback though. I think I had a Dread Lord way back (Vanakoth) who broke the law plenty to rack up the early charges before taking the oath. If I'd ever go Imperial AP again that might be the way to do it - obviously justifying it in a role.
Another aspect of being underdogs is that the internal conflicts were pretty non- existant. Yeah we could have some snide remarks internally about other sects if we were more than one black online but there were never any real conflicts.
I wasn't really looking for Dread Lord position but then Drucin offered it and I accepted with a gold fee to a certian avian god. Drucin was really well RP'd by the way. Loved his mafiaboss manner.
Anyway, eventually as he lost the position I think there was only me and a War Master about so I wrote a quick note to Rillan and Destuvius suggesting myself as the next Emperor and what I wanted to do. I got a deal with Rillan who wanted me to fill the council seats within x days. I had some ideas of whom I wanted to see. However, Divine had one active member (divine voice) and there is a limitation on how frequently they can be promoted, so I couldn't promote him in time. I was sweating and Rillan gave me a task I thought impossible but somehow did manage to pull it off. It was ... interesting and great show of Empire RP. I regret not trying to follow Rillans religion.
Some have commmented that the incentive is for the Emperor to keep a dormant council to ensure he/she isn't ousted. To prioritize not promoting veteran players to the leadership positions. I didn't think about it that way until I was going to pick Dread Lord between Laisren and Harlsreen. I asked them both to provide a list of what they were going to offer me for the position. Harlsreen had an offering that was frankly more interesting than what Laisren offered. But then Laisren asked who I thought was more likely to usurp me. That and given that Laisren had previously been a Dread Lord and I felt bad about him as a player losing it gave him the position.
Sidenote: I laughed out loud at your role Harlsreen! I love being sufficiently annoying to warrant being mentioned in someones role.
Then there were few changes in the council. Malliokh had been bribing me so when the former War Master was demoted for inactivity that was an easy promotion to give.
During my time as Emperor and even in the Discord chat there were discussions on having war with the Village. But frankly I was looking at the cabalwars command and seeing that Outlander+Fort were outnumbering us 4 to 1 and even more at times. We didn't need another enemy raiding us. In regular fights I saw Shadows and Blades being two rounded by deathblowing berserkers. I didn't think we needed that. With greater numbers it would have been a different story.
On enemies/allies: So many to comment on over the months. Xyfa - your characters are a blessing to interact with from both ends. I remember back in 2020 you played Ysforgul or something like that, Empire War Master and I was playing fort invoker (Antaluvion). You were a beast and a boon to the game back then and have greatly improved in pk since then. I started scanning exits of areas when moving around after hanging out with Harlsreen.
Ryfin: saw you just age died. I think when I randomly got a kill on you from a gank you were the one worth the most charges (4 I think). Solo I couldn't bring down any tranced assassins. You had that anti-bash edge I think, so a missed bash cost like 5 rounds of lag. I could spam iceball and outdamage you but then you would just vanish and quaff away. You managed to bring me down quite a few times, both solo when I was spamming directions to farm gold and in teamfights. Potent enemy for sure!
Vartin: you had a suicidal streak and I felt bad about killing you, then you randomly got the disarm commune (which I knew since you started to dispel with light of the heavens) but I didn't think about setting up iron grip to prevent you disarming. So when ryfin or whichever assassin it was had kotegaeshid me I couldn't bring up my spear so you sacced it and then deleted the day after. I felt so stupid for that.
Xzelyx: I couldn't do anything about your build. You auto-feinted my melee and dodged my spells. I was especially impressed when you charged into a group of three of us and somehow got stfs cutoff to prevent me from fleeing and actually killed me and got away with it. I could just have excisioned a return wand but felt we had the numbers. But that didn't help. Kickass.
Laisren: Your RP was spot on for both d-elf and vampyre. But after having quite a few logins with you I have to admit my urge to roll a vampyre has significantly declined. The blood farm and sometimes not even being able to join exploration as there simply isn't things of sufficient level to feed on. The boons you identified from drink varying types of blood seemed very underwhelming, but I would have loved to hear your thoughts as a player on it.
Rhourder: We had a great journey together and your CON death was a real bummer. One of the few times I felt I had to use the anonymous CF bot thing to compliment you after your death.
Current council members: Good luck! I don’t want to comment too much on current characters. I felt like I took a chance with you and grew with it!
Outlanders: Air shifters with harpy: I couldn't hit you, you deafened me and you outmeleed me by somehow zapping up before every fight. Disembowel risk made it even trickier.
Other air shifters: constant annoyance, especially when joined by air form druid.
I really wished I would have taken the time to investigate how a low level earthbind wand could interact with your fly command, even if you resisted it. Like would it prevent you from flying away for 0 hours or something?
There were just so many enemies (and a few allies) over the long existence of Kareloth. I am grateful to you all for our interactions.
Imms: Thank you for aura and the quest spell, the latter was really cool. I wanted to make more use of it in teamfights. Interesting drawback aswell .
Thank you also for the title! Felt really cool.
Reason for deletion: Several, I just moved in with my girlfriend in a new city. I haven't changed work but I want to focus on us. In addition, I kind of felt like logins were a chore. I had a decent set, some charges, all save one control and probably the most powerful position in the game. I had kind of reached all goals. Yeah would have been nice with Tiamat and water temple and I should have gone for a religion but it also felt too late and I had already burned out.
Thank you all for making this such a great game!
Oskar with most recent character of note Antaluvion back in 2020.
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