Fri Sep 22 11:33:25 2023

At 11 o'clock AM, Day of the Sun, 27th of the Month of the Long Shadows
on the Theran calendar Viera perished, never to return.

Race:	fire
Class:	anti-paladin
Level:	51
Alignment:	Evil
Ethos:	Orderly
Cabal:	SCION, the Scions of Eternal Night
Age:	452
Hours:	521

Loved Viera. You really made a impact.

I really did not want to delete, but life has been really busy and it is not letting up any time soon. Between a newborn and a full-time job I don't have much time to CF.. CF takes total attention and you can't exactly feed and soothe a baby while playing :-(

As I'm typing this I'm holding my baby. So yeah, really time-constrained. If not for that I would not have deleted, not even for Baldur's Gate 3 which I'm not playing now for lack of time.

This was possibly my favourite character I've ever played. For her RP, I took a "bimbo" stereotype and adapted it. She's pretty, vain, thinks the world of herself, is very self-assured, and her positivity and self-belief radiates outwards to others. She's fundamentally happy and positive, and is a traditional "evil sinner" in the sense of just indulging, joyously and without restraint, her desires. She might act nice and this is just because she wants to, or it serves some purpose. Unlike the stereotypical bimbo though, Viera was very smart: at least for a giant. Many of you who spoke to her might remember all her proud declarations of her being real big smarts. It was meant to evoke a kind of cute unselfconscious giant RP, and I hope I succeeded in that.

Emotes: I have a bunch of common gestures that I thought would portray her well, and wrote them as aliases in my client. I felt they added a lot of flair and I encourage others to do it too. When writing a description, also write up a few common gestures that are really characteristic of your character.

Speech patterns: Viera is able to speak Common in a human-like way but does not. She finds the giant speech pattern more concise and comfortable, and since she tends to do whatever she enjoys, she speaks giantly.


The anti-paladin class:

This is my first AP ever. I died a lot more than I should, and I think if I did giant AP scion again I would have fewer deaths probably.

However, I fundamentally _hated_ the class. It was just not fun for me. I think Xzelyx you heard some negativity from me one time when I said ruefully after a battle that I should not have gone into that fight.

The class simply incentivizes you to play conservatively, not risking things. Why risk it to fight a villager worth 1 or 0 souls, and instead die and lose all your charges?

But that's just completely against how I like to play. I think I'm more conservative than some other players, but I do always like to give a fight. 1v3/4/5 at the Maran? Let's go! Disastrous. If you wanted to get a big AP weapon, you would absolutely not do that.

I lost my biggest weapon (which had Ghrudzar's old souls in it) to a 1v3 at the Tree and I just didn't notice insects had fallen during the gang. I was mentally prepared for it, knowing that my playstyle and the AP big weapon simply does not mix, so I continued fighting through.

Overall, it's a myth that charge-less AP is a punching bag. It's definitely able to hold its own. That said, I could so acutely feel the difference as a charge-less Scion AP, compared to the real Scion power builds I've played (conjurer, invoker). You could full-sac a Scion conjurer and they'd come back with a regear set with all the potency of a 100 charge AP.

Spine of the Akragaka spear melee is a bit busted. It's so good that I think it wouldn't make sense to play dual wield unless you were rolling 100+ charges. I think Xyfa/Vaskal covered this adequately in his goodbyes and in discord theorycrafting, so I won't belabour the point.

This is my first and final AP. I'll leave this nasty class to my betters, like Xyfa.


Goodbyes:

Vaskal: ya mate Vaskal now I retire also like you and not get old faster than you! My second IC marriage ever. You were awesome, I wish I got to interact with you more. You also had adorable giant RP down to a tee. I wrote your post-delete story into my roles, since in my headcanon deleted players aren't "dead" per se, but rather "permanently retired from adventuring". They exist as NPCs you never see out in the world of Thera. The last four role updates I added were really about you, and I felt a little bittersweet writing it. I knew you were Xyfa after a while, but when I'd made you my apprentice I didn't yet know. Boy, did I feel embarrassed as a player, when my so-called apprentice just exceeded me in skill and knowledge at every turn. That time you saved my life with an excision. Woof. But what could sphere vanity chancellor say, other than good job? I definitely felt like the apprentice in our relationship :-)


IMMS:

I LOVED the long description, whoever set it. It fits the character so well.

Morius I only saw you once. I wish I saw you more than once. That one time was very atmospheric, so much so that I went and voice-acted out our conversation. I imagined Morius with a deep but smooth and gentle bass voice, a very still posture hiding all that power and danger under a gentle mask. I must admit I was disappointed not to have interacted more with you, but hey, any interaction is a bonus. I do want to give my thanks for making such a fun and interesting evil religion. Charismatic evil is always so, so fun to play.

If anything, I just really wanted to progress in the religion so that I could get a title other than Supplicant of Vanity. I'd even thought of a few! Viera the Soulful Sorceress of Sin. Viera the Magnificent Magister of Morius. Viera the Prettiest Giant Archmage. etc. It was fun dreaming up titles.

Rarywey: I loved the Inn events I managed to get to when Lyeeth organized them and you'd be there. You're such a great IMM and it shows in how many people roll up Rarywey followers.

And thanks for all those IMM rewards too. This has to be my most rewarded character ever. Riddle on an AP who can heal 200-300 hp per tick with bloodlust and ivory troll amulet? Whoa. A few months from now, I absolutely will think back to this day and think, why did I delete an AP with Riddle?!

I wish I figured out how to use the quest dagger. I figured out what extra stuff it gave silently, but it simply wasn't enough to use a mainhand dagger over a spear.


Scions:

Faeha: I feel this is one of the most criminally underrated characters of 2023. Your RP was hilarious and over-the-top and fun for the people around you. You were scary competent in a fight, though you were a bit reckless compared to me. But I think the MUD is a much better place because of players like you, you make it more fun for everyone in PK and in RP. Never change! Keep rolling more characters! I wish we managed to overlap a bit more, although another part of me also recognizes it would feel bad for the enemies to have a conjurer/AP pair like us with bash and demons blowing #### up. I'm sorry Viera is male-giant-only in her sexual preferences otherwise we could've spread our sins all over the bedroom in Morius' Church.

Merittet: you had good RP and were the first induct and my first apprentice too. When you made Vampyre first, I felt vindicated in my choices. I was sorry to see you con die so quickly, but hey, it's good for the MUD that you're mixing it up and killing and dying plenty.

Seraphis: I didn't get to interact as much with you. You were very competent and I didn't notice any shady behaviours you as a player were previously accused of on past characters. You tended to have absurdly long logins overlapping my most common login times, which meant that for a while I'd always log in to Scion-o-clock between you and Vaskal and Faeha who tended also to share that time zone.

Various other Scions: I really appreciate those people who put in the effort to RP. To write detailed backstories, to give a clear feeling and visual of who your character is, and where they come from. I am very much a pro-funstick player and I did not want to deny anyone a spot, so as far as I'm concerned if you've been trying to do your tasks for a while, trying your best to RP, and you're not a griefer, I would induct you.

I have maybe two negative impressions of Scions.

Jaqusa: unfortunately you have your tells and I absolutely as a player did _not_ want to induct you. That said, ICly I saw nothing wrong so I did: I tried always to be strict with IC/OOC separation. Recent events don't bode well though and you were lucky I never logged on to see your new title.

Dunvidd: you were absolutely not rejected for OOC reasons and it was annoying that you said so on discord after your delete. The moment I logged in, villagers complained to me. Of course I don't take the word of a worthless magic-hating luddite, so I ask if there were witnesses. Then Vaskal told me everything and so you were rejected. You could have corrected your behaviour, but you didn't want to. You just want to play in the way that you believe is right. That's your right, but it's also my right to not induct.


Heralds:

Lyeeth: oh teacher Lyeeth. I had so much fun doing the apprentice/archmage RP with you, and you acted out the alignment conflict really well too. I also loved all the Herald events you organized, you were a machine and a beast. After I killed a goodie you were helping to rank, in front of you, I half-expected you to start hunting me the moment I got in range, apprenticeship be damned. But you never did and I was thankful for that. I'm glad we got to RP some.

Damil: apprentice Damil, you were great and I'm sorry our plans for having magey events at the Inn never came to fruition. Unfortunately I just ran out of time to play CF :-( I never got to publish the AP book I wanted to. I even wrote it down in detail in notepad. Congrats on High Herald anyhow! You were keeping the Inn going.

Heralds in general: I always love Heralds and I've never played any character who makes them an enemy. You guys keep the intense long-form RP interactions going, and I enjoyed those few times I got to act out Viera's whole Mean Girls bimbo prettiest giant famous big smart archmage thing.


Fortress:

I have such a soft spot for all of you. I love you guys, loved fighting you all. Almost none of you were no-RP griefer types as far as I could see, and I think part of the credit has to go to our amazing duo of Azo-Baer.

Coqui, your mage RP is on point. I love seeing mages who act like mages, talk like mages. If mages existed in life I would definitely expect them to behave very differently from non-mages. I do encourage more mage players to try to act out stuff like magey research you read or are interested in, experiments you perform, secrets you're trying to hoard, etc.

Garrick: such a great IMM candidate. Congrats! I loved your dwarf speech and RP. Totally on point. I tried to be as nice to you as possible in our fights, I know it can be oppressive if we just kept trying to hammer down on you.

So many more names I can't remember but you guys were mostly awesome. Give me a shout here and I'll tell you what I remember.


Village:

Xzelyx: ugh I hated fighting you. You were responsible for saccing EVERY SINGLE one of my weapons. I don't think I lost a single significant weapon (10 charges or more) that didn't have your hand in it. Awful awful matchup. But as a player I must admit you were very brave and always mixing it up. Still, hate! Argh STSF argh! So many times fighting you I'm just there thinking, #### this AP class, if I were a conjurer you'd be running for the hills!

Rest of you: absurdly brave, powerful, and always making my life miserable. Eledsoere, Mahinya. You both killed me solo. Retrieving from village outer was total nightmare fuel, same as the Tree.


Outlander:

I don't like this cabal and I feel like it incentivizes anti-fun behaviour and less interaction/fighting in the MUD. That said, some of you were pretty cool.

I didn't like Korgo. I was somewhat grudgingly fine with him, until the logins changed when Vaskal and Seraphis got into hero range. I'm still mad at those three times you got away either writhing or convulsing. I swear you had a high luck stat or something. You parried everything that one time in Galadon when convulsing, I was SURE they'd given you Fires as a longevity third legacy. I guess it was pure dumb RNG.

Others I didn't like: Icaeos.

Rest of you were fine. Mystrillania was cool.


Tribunal:

You guys were allies of convenience, but I do remember a few I RPed with in more detail. Nephinae, Mistrirn: both had cool RP. Good luck in IMMland Nephinae!


Empire:

Man this was a dead cabal throughout so much of my life. I felt bad for Sulirye who just powered through some seriously hard times, and like me never got much love from deadbeat daddy Morius.

Sulirye: you were a really cool character. We had some fun bitchy RP in the Church. I wish you'd just switched sides to Scion, I'd have immediately inducted you no questions. Anyone that famous who's made a name for herself has already passed the induction trial.

Other Empire: I remember Dhramghuul being quite competent. There was a short period where Acaeygah and Sargrizitha fought Scions a bunch, sadly usually losing. I remember Sargrizitha was always very ragey and upset at stuff. I totally know the pain of playing AP. I'm suffering too, I wanted to tell you. But IC is IC so I said nothing, and really I thought your level of complaining was on the edge of OOC. I remember Shyen being my partner in a Herald item-finding event, she was a bit reserved but had some RP flavour to her.


That's all I guess. Write here and I'll reply.

Thanks for the mention, I thought you were cool too. Easily in the top 3 characters this year for me, and that's without even really interacting with you a ton. You are amazing, so good for the game as a whole. I wish all the best to you and hope your life settles enough to come back with more amazing characters some time.

I didn't get to do much interaction with Mystrillania, just saw her consistent presence in the game for so long and never heard a bad thing from anyone, other than general anti-outlander frustration which wasn't really picking you out.

I did get to interact with Celedyl briefly in the Inn, I think at my request, and I did not regret it. I thought, here's a player who knows how to use emotes to bring a character to life.

Loved Loved Loved Viera. A perfect mix of deadliness, excellent RP, and depth in a character. Bravo

Viera was just fantastic. Every interaction was awesome and its super rare for a character to be my favourite both as an ally and as an enemy, but you were. Just incredible work all round.

Needless to say I enjoyed Vaskal a lot! But, as you remind me, I also enjoyed Svarden so much. He had a fun backstory, a frightfully consistent RP ("Rebbels!"), and we had such very fun banter going on. That one time you should've had me dead to rights outside the Consortium, and your bash missed, then you grumbled at me and said you tripped on a pebble? I thought to myself, this guy gets RP. Weaving in a realistic frustration at your enemy's luck in a way that's not just not OOC, but actually overtly IC.

I was constantly trying to seduce Svarden to join the fun side, and I guess it worked in a way, if you believe in reincarnation :-P

I couldn't say enough how good you were both as ally and enemy. If only I'd played more hours towards the end, I am sure I would have had a blast with Gochon RP-wise too.

I rarely ever interact much with AP's because of most of my character choices, but you entertaining one of my "sermons" was really unique and pretty cool all around. Probably the "only one" I had a sermon with where it was ok to keep your weapon but understandable.

Cool toon, good job!

You did your role exactly right, at least during those times I saw and especially during the sermon.

Great char.

I want to thank you for making Scion accessible. There is no way I would have even attempted a scion to go through Morius. Seraphis like you a morite only got 1 response.

My only regret is we did not get to fight along side each other. After 1300 hours of playing Odaza I would have gone in to that mummy with a lot of practice. But was not meant to be.

Elthorn was my first evil conjurer in 20 years. I also owe you an apology for not being there to fight by your side. The plan was to get kills at mid level to get murderous rep and then level straight to 51 and join you for some rocking. I found murderous reputation to be completely unacceptable for devils in the way I wanted to play. Evil conjurers are great solo pkers, but cabal raids with lots of fleeing around, just not the way I want to play at hero, so pulled the plug on him.

Good luck with the next and once again thanks for giving me that double scion itch scratching.

I heard some mixed reviews of Drogathar, but at least from my POV you were just a complete assbeater with or without gang partners. You got me twice when I was fresh into hero range before you deleted.

Seraphis definitely did his RP tasks in a serious and task-oriented way, though I guess one feedback I might have for Seraphis was how "workmanlike" the RP was at times. You would RP on when requested, e.g. if someone asked about backstory, but most times you were focused and very efficient in communications. Nothing wrong with it, I think that's pretty common amongst PK-intensive players.

Elthorn I didn't interact much with unfortunately as my hours tailed away. Again you did the induction task thoroughly with high effort, which I always appreciate in a Scion applicant.

I think we have had enough conversations that you know the esteem I held you in. Smart, cunning, vicious and respectful. All in all, one of the best enemies I have had. GLWYN!!!

Stupid Xzelyx. If you didn't exist maybe I would have deleted with 200 charges!

To add insult to injury, Xzelyx outlives Viera :-(

Serious note though good job on lasting so long as village leader. BATTLE is good for the game, keep inducting!