I am sure that anybody that is watching anything mortal related is aware of the present, long-standing, cabal wars imbalance. There are a lot of convoluted and distant theories as to how to fix this, but I have one that is minimally intrusive and which I am sure will have a lasting impact.

ACTIVE GODS.

If you put an ACTIVE god in Tribunal you will see its numbers rise. Not some imm's remort imm, one immortal overseeing Tribunal and being actively involved. The Spire was overflowing with people around the time Marmaanth came up and started being active.

In my mind Tribunal is the swing cabal. It keeps Outlander, a cabal flourishing under ACTIVE immortals, in check and also hands deaths to criminals from other cabals.

Empire, too, would really benefit from a second active immortal. I'm not sure what Khasotholas' situation is as I've taken a break from both Empire and his religion, but I'm sure if a second imm came along Empire too would grow in numbers.

I have nothing bad to say about Dreaa and Muuloc and I'm not entirely sure what their reasoning was for creating non-religions, but these two individuals would be at the top of my list for repositioning into Tribunal and Empire. Scion has Eshval, who is a seemingly constant and beneficial presence.

Rather than disbanding cabals, purging them, or doing something silly like spurring on a neo-Sylvan/Master war, just realign yourselves and give people a reason to roll a Tribunal or Imperial. A little bit of ACTIVE imm goes a long way. Just look at the Fortress under Aarn, Outlander under Innis & Lyristeon, and Battle under a suddenly more visible Ordasen.

I understand how it is a hard sell to have suddenly a new immortal running a cabal. It does not make RP sense. But at the same time, it is impossible to be in a cabal that has aboslutely no active Immortals. I understand that others check in from time to time, but that is still not enough.

Take the Tribunal as was mentioned above, One Immortal posted on here that they have deleted, and the other two are dormant. Right now, everyone, and I mean everyone is running all over the Tribs right now. I saw a Storm Giant Maran kill a Trib in hamsah because he was told he was GOING to place a wanted flag on him. Poor guy had not yet even placed the flag! And no, he was not an evil Trib.

I for one would not want to play a Tribunal right now. I never see them awake anymore. You would have to be a one man army.

I guess the point I was tring to make is yes, I understand the RP aspect of bringing new Imms into a cabal, but unless you plan on phasing out a cabal, (are you?) someone needs to be awake at the wheel.

>I saw a Storm Giant Maran kill a Trib in
>hamsah because he was told he was GOING to place a wanted flag
>on him. Poor guy had not yet even placed the flag! And no,
>he was not an evil Trib.

I don't think there actually are any storm maran right now.

He's no Maran. The guy your talking about is about the worst roleplayed goodie hero I've seen in a long time. How he hasn't gotten turned neutral yet is beyond me.

I have nothing bad to say about Dreaa and Muuloc and I'm not entirely sure what their reasoning was for creating non-religions, but these two individuals would be at the top of my list for repositioning into Tribunal and Empire. Scion has Eshval, who is a seemingly constant and beneficial presence.

They just haven't created their religions yet. They were given the current "generic" helpfiles as 51-52s so people knew who they were when they saw them on "who imm". It has nothing to do with them being "religionless" immortals.

I understand it generally shouldn't be discussed so as to avoid OOC preferences involving the players of certain Imms, but when they commit to religions, can we expect to see them continue on in their current incarnations, or will they move on to cover other areas of need?

I ask because I believe that in CF's current, percievably unbalanced state, the more info we have regarding the Immortal staffs plans to correct problems, the better.

Also, Nepenthe is constantly dropping hints that seem to indicate there are several massive projects in the works. Can we get any info on these at all, such as how close they are to completion? It is fairly obvious that until these projects are completed, the MUD will be percieved as continuing its current state of stagnation.

It should be kept in mind that while some problems may not truly be as severe as they appear to be, that they appear to be could be a problem in itself.

... but when they commit to religions, can we expect to see them continue on in their current incarnations, or will they move on to cover other areas of need?

This is up to every individual imm when they reach the appropriate level. They come up with their proposal (either staying as themselves or reincarnating) and work with the team that oversees religions. They can comment on it if they want, but I imagine you'll find out for these two soon either way.

Also, Nepenthe is constantly dropping hints that seem to indicate there are several massive projects in the works. Can we get any info on these at all, such as how close they are to completion?

There are always projects in the works, and at this point in time there are several larger-scale projects in fairly mature stages of development. None of them are my projects though, so I don't care to hint at anything specific. If the imps or the people heading up the projects want to let some information out, that's up to them.

The core issue is that most cabals depend on one or two immortals for day-to-day interaction, improvement, and monitoring. Sometimes, issues come up unexpectedly and a central figure has to go dormant or semi-dormant on short notice.

When this happens, we can't just immediately throw someone else at the cabal. For one thing, the majority of staff members already have commitments to cover. For another, they might not have the background to cover the opening in question, or more simply they aren't interested in it. Finally, we might not know the exact status of an existing immortal in that cabal- if someone just doesn't log in for a week or two, we're not yet talking permanent replacement, even though the need is perceived on the player side. They might pop back up tomorrow.

Even when a person becomes available, we need to work out a new persona, with background, a defined role in the cabal, often a shrine, etc. We don't want to make rash moves and create a 'religion of the week'-- sometimes this happens because someone leaves unexpectedly, but we try to guard against it.

All of this takes time, often more time than we have after knowing the position is needed. We have a big chart which gets constantly updated, and we're generally on alert to make sure every cabal has at least one person actively participating in it from the immortal side. We often cover interim need by having ohter immortals work through NPCs as well, which might not be visible at all if you aren't in the cabal.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Without saying too much about what is or isn't coming, some of this has occured to me/us as well.

I can see Whilath's point of view in a way on this. There are those cabals that seem to either have a serious lack of player involvement that hinders other players entrance to try to make the cabal better because they do not show up or fill spots, especially in small cabals such as, as far as I know, Scion. There are also those cabals that seem to thrive best, like Whilath said, under often seen Immortals. I remember when Sylvan was THE RP cabal because it seemed the IMMs were around more often, not so much because there was actually alot of RP with the IMMs happening. I personally would like to see alot more of this, but at the same time, I see Nep and Valg's points both that not only the lack of IMMstaff that seems to pop up sometimes but the lack of knowledge of people who cannot always be reached (i.e. The IMMs probably do not have all of each other's phone numbers to call each other up and say "yo, sign on?" or something). Hopefully with the budding talent of Dreaa or Muuloc or some of the other younger IMMs (I can't remember any but Cytherea), this situation will change.