Thu Oct 31 21:03:09 2013

At 9 o'clock AM, Day of Thunder, 24th of the Month of the Sun
on the Theran calendar Damolo perished, never to return.

Though we did not interact much and only fought a time or two, well done.

I had no idea who it was so good even better done.

I prefer when good players are able to not have tells on who their characters are. I wish I was better at it.

GLWYN

Solid warrior. Obviously knew your stuff and now knowing who you are I don't feel so bad about you having us over a rail with the staff and the elemental and the council, etc. I drove you out of the room I think maybe once before you'd get me dirted and then flee and return in so I knew it was no hope. Still not sure what happened when Ama went back in but I was too depleted to help.

Your comment about the things you 'may or may not' have done to me when you caught me sleeping pretty much made me hate you. So whenever you were on I was out to get you.

As far as our other conversations went. I'm glad to see you were REALLY trying to be the way you were. And sometimes backed it off when you felt you went too far. At least you were aware of the line.

And reading your response to guild guards, and in response to hearing about it from you and I possibly remember at least one other character making a comment to me in game about it, and now knowing who you are. Let me say this and get your thoughts.

I honestly don't see the problem killing a neutral guild guard to kill evil guy inside. No different than killing a neutral mob to get a piece of gear. Like Ludan for example. If I'm Paladin I might think twice. Obviously I'm not mowing down guards in Voralia or Darsylon. Which I've also been faced with. People hiding in a guild I can't open due to RP. I'm just saying...I know you were quite miffed about that and your comment above suggests you encountered it with more people.

I think it is mainly due to the fact that most light walkers should hesitate before hurting non dark. It is both of our role to take it to the extreme and neutral guild guards will fall if necessary "for the greater good" cliche. Normally a priest of mine would balk at such bit this one is not the usual.

Oh, I went back to heal you at the Council that time but you had just stepped out as I re entered. I got caught by the staff and my bulwark was down.

Killing a neutral guildguard to get at an evil guy hiding inside constitutes "hunting as the wicked do". You need to seriously watch that kind of behaviour and make it the extreme exception to the rule, or you're going to get a divine boot up your ass. A Maran might be lucky to get away with it once or twice, but for an Acolyte, that doesn't fly.

Never had my Acolyte do so. However, I defended a Maran's honor who did. IC it was my position to trust the decision making of a Maran and guild guards have been targeted by Maran regularly since I started playing 15ish years ago. The Battle giant as well. It is justified in some roles as zealot behavior and if an Immortal wants to step in and curb that behavior then that is great . Not all immteraction has to be gifts and positivity. Mixes things up and creates an interesting dynamic. Zealously blurs the line to a degree that a role here and there can utilize.

What about Nexans. As Dwybaen I don't 'hunt' Nexans. But if they knock on my door. I'll do what I need to do up to and including killing them. I know that some Maran pretty much advocate hunting them down when the Light tips heavily because they are likely off committing some atrocities to the light to get it back in balance. I really dislike the trend of other people trying to impose their version of Maran and Acolyte on people just because that is your experience and you believe it to be true. I mean we still get the idea that Aco's need to bee meat shields all singing Kum-bay-ah when the Empire comes and not like Trenloch busting some ass.

There is a rather obvious difference between a neutral guildguard sitting around not harming one of the Light, and a Nexan beating down the Tara'bal.

If a Nexan starts hurting one of the Light, then it is your job to get them to stop. How you do so is up to your character. You can talk it out with them, or you can just kick their teeth in. If you're feeling merciful, you can even let them get away.

The fact remains, you should conform to some degree of minimum standards in your systematic destruction of the wicked. Destroy the darkness, be it through conversion to the Light, or bloodshed. NEVER should you take a life - regardless of morality - without accepting the weight of this action. Failure to do so invites your falling from the narrow path of the Maran.

Killing bystanders to get at your enemy is a Not Very Good thing to do.

And I'm not lobbying for unlimited activity like this. I think this has happened an entire 2 times in my current chars life. But you do understand the point I make right? There are a lot of dogmatic police roaming about.

Maran are the guys that do the dirty work, that sacrifice their innonence in order to ensure the innonence of others.

And Acolytes are there to make sure they don't stray from that narrow path and become that which they hunt.

I always that Lochzan had such an awesome role...a guy who fought evil for so long he became disillusioned as to what evil really was and became that which he had fought against.

I could see the hammer falling on a sphere purity baer paladin but old style maran would not blink to kill a neutral to kill an evil. Especially if the neutral is protecting the evil ie guildguards. It is not something I would do as lawful good. But surely something I would as chaotic good maran.

>I could see the hammer falling on a sphere purity baer
>paladin but old style maran would not blink to kill a neutral
>to kill an evil. Especially if the neutral is protecting the
>evil ie guildguards. It is not something I would do as lawful
>good. But surely something I would as chaotic good maran.


Actually (and Shokai can correct me on this), I'm pretty sure "old style maran" (meaning a Shokai follower, which is how Maran came into being in the first place) would NEVER kill a neutral guild guard. And FOR SURE wouldn't ever go kill Ludan just for gear (to reference the prior example).

The problem is treating a mob like a mob instead of another PC. I tried to (as Damolo, which of course isn't going to work, because like I said, imperial assbag) put it this way - imagine when the Sultan's guard shows up at the home of the recently murdered guild guard and tells his wife and newly-orphaned son "I'm sorry, but your father died in the line of duty, because the Captain of the Maran didn't want to wait for an Imperial to leave his guild."

Possibly that orphaned child is now bitterly infected with hatred of the Maran and might end up joining the Empire out of a need for vengeance.

Let's throw another hypothetical out there: what if we made the guild guardians children? Neutral, still, but mobs with a child's description.

>Actually (and Shokai can correct me on this), I'm pretty sure
>"old style maran" (meaning a Shokai follower, which is how
>Maran came into being in the first place) would NEVER kill a
>neutral guild guard.

FWIW, I had this exact conversation with Shokai once many years ago and he didn't care if Shokai kids did this.

Which wasn't the response I was expecting at the time, but there you go.

He was awesome. So are you and Twist though.

They are technically protecting evil in this instance.
But it is NOT something a orderly maran/squire should be doing very much if at all.

Thanks for that.

Granted, for me it was IC as a follower of his, but his response was something along the lines of "Remember that you already walk the razor's edge in the fight with the dark, see to it that you do not become what you hunt."

Which has many interpretations, of course. Some hear that and think "Ok gotcha, it's cool for me to pwn teh guildguardz." I heard it and thought "Ok gotcha, killing (relatively innocent) neutrals for the sake of the hunt may be a step down the dark path, better not do it."

"FWIW, I had this exact conversation with Shokai once many years ago and he didn't care if Shokai kids did this."

Yeah, I'm not sure why you'd expect otherwise. Shokai was also cool with you waxing neutral NPCs for gear because at the time, there wasn't always an abundance of choices.

"NEVER kill a neutral guild guard" is the exact opposite of how I interpreted Shokai's religion. If he's protecting evil, you kill him and get at that evil. If neutrals are ranking with evils on Kiadana, they're all fair game, you just don't hunt them later. If anything, Maran has gotten to be a lot less "walking a thin line" now than it used to be...I don't see very many marans walking any sort of "thin line" because you need to be kinda cookie-cutterish to get the powers in a timely fashion.

I'm not kidding when I say that I feel like being a Maran now is way more limited than it was when Shokai was actually running the show. I know his times were limited and all but I never had an issue getting Maran's roleplay until it became 'paladin-ly' like it is now.

Are you still a good person after slaughtering neutral cityguards, tribunals, and guildguards to get at one evil man?

If the ends start justifying the means, then you've fallen off the path.

It's supposed to be a dangerous path. Greater good is part of that. If you never attack anything neutral, it's not really that dangerous of a path is it . Marans aren't paladins..there should be a pretty significant difference in practice between a maran warrior and a maran paladin.

What there is now is not "correct". You have a ton of Maran talking about how dangerous it is to 'fall off the path' while being a good Maran...but in practice they carry themselves about like paladins, being afraid to get warranted because they might get attacked by Voralian cityguards and might accidentally kill them. Being a chaotic good Maran is a zealot thing. You're out there *destroying* evil, for the greater good. You're doing things that you don't always like, as a goodie, because that's *your* job not someone else's job. So on and so forth. All that's required to be 'good aligned' is that you are not acting selfishly...all your actions are guided by thinking of others and other people perceive that about you. Your roleplay job is to meet those requirements, while vanquishing evil, to protect others.

If you take all of that together then the differences between Acolyte and Maran and Paladin all start to stand out and become apparent. Right now they're (in my opinion) very vague, specifically because the definitions have narrowed since Shokai and Aarn left.

This is why there are differences in Ethos.

Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good.

And yes I do think the views have narrowed since the days of Shokai and Aarn. And likely it is directly because of popular opinion. Everyone thinks Maran's should be this way, so people play them that way. Then you get an anomaly in the bunch and all of a sudden people have their panties in a twist.

I've played every incarnation of Knight/Fortress/Dawn/Warlock, etc. The only negativity I've ever gotten about my characters has not surprisingly come from my enemies who think I should be playing MY character differently.

Water off my back at this point.

You're making "RP choices" that always equate to sidestepping the RP drawbacks of your other "RP choices," like immortal and cabal.

"My RP is that I don't care who I kill." says the neutral battlerager.

"My RP is that I make friends (t/n: feed gear and grovel to) strong enemies regardless of my cabal dogma being to kill them."

"My RP is that I hoard all awesome gear." says Fort pally.

etc.

1. Wanted to see what h-elf warrior with int for primary stat and STSF could do.
2. Wanted to help out Empire when it had low numbers.
3. Wanted to get back into the swing of things - first mortal in months. Playing mortals helps me gauge how things are.
4. Wanted to get some experience fighting neoshamans.

Gedunthos - Don't worry about the guilt trip Damolo layed on you. He was sphere Anger, and I tried to show that in my conversations with people, but all I ever ended up sounding like (to me and likely to others) was a whiny bitch. Meh.


Um. 85 hours isn't a super long time for one of my mortals. If I'd gotten War Master I'd have certainly stuck it out longer, but I can't say Ergoth is unworthy (Damolo can (and did), but he's kind of a ####).

I knew last night after turning away a 3vme raid at the Palace and killing one of the healers that I'd "found the groove" with this char (at least as long as I had the Eagle Staff - thanks Ildilintra!), so this was a good time to go out, I think.

I realize that there's the Imperial Recruiter and all, but I was dismayed that I got to like level 44 before anyone even bothered to offer me the Oath. I grouped with a few Imperials on the way up, even, and they didn't offer it, until finally Gedunthos and Xermn did on the same night.

Probably partly because Empire didn't have the Codex a lot of the time, I suppose.

Lots of allies, lots of enemies. Most everyone I can think of did a really great job. I do have a few things I'm going to be looking into, but I sure didn't want to make any changes or talk to anyone's God/Goddess while I was actively playing.

Thanks to everyone I interacted with. Was a great "back into things" character.

And the interpretation they are taking. What are your thoughts? I don't think I'd ever not have that interpretation again as it gives you such a strong advantage and more pks.

I also don't want to get too deep into it as it involves active characters and such.

I can say that if I'd have gotten War Master, I'd have lobbied the next Emperor (or if I'd won the vote, decreed it) to change it back, for reasons you can surmise.

Or at least should be. I should be allowed to have that same interpretation with my imperials and not get in trouble.

.

nt

Seer-e-us-lee.

They just destroy you so bad that is all you can remember.


I make this point because my tribunal, Izuhlzin.. could never become vindicator because how he interpreted the rules. By hasting Hunsobo(twists char) to get me eagle staff if I lost it because i could not kill the mob. The whole concept is stupid but I abide and let someone else do it. And something as simple and ####ty as that kept me from becoming a vindicator.

And here you allow a huge scale view happen that has a much large scale of people who get burdened. Not to mention a huge power surge for empire. And if you are going to allow such things to occur that are fundamentally so different from ALL previous eras... then I, too, should get that chance to view things that way.

And maybe we be a little less stupid about little things like, 'hasting a warrior to get you a staff'.

I was balancing not getting stuck at the bottom of hero range with whether or not you'd say yes. Turned out you'd say yes, and I'd get stuck anyhow.

Way to uh... Rocket through the competition I guess.

I deleted right after that but at least I confirmed they couldn't do it.

So that leaves, Herald, Battle an Nexun now.

Very surprised that malice was so tough on you, since I figured you were full up on con (outside of the one where I got lucky with the con damnation). Chaille felt you were one of the weakest imperials due to your malice bitching (deserved or not) and so were better off dead, though I never fought you with the eagle staff.

Hope I helped with #4 on your list

I had nothing to do with how Malice was written up, so yeah I didn't realize how it worked at the time.

I had relatively low con because the point of the char was to help some lower level imperials level up and get into hero range, so I put every train into HP and never trained up CON even if I ate a silly mobdeath or whatever. I think I deleted with 13 con or something.

But yeah, surviving the malice later became a snap once I realized it sapped con each hour ala Rot and I just needed a few +con items. Wouldn't have helped the one time I died to it though, due to that -9con damnation you hit me with.

The bitching was essentially a hatred of "rot-and-run" tactics, since I'd always send you packing when we did fight, it seemed. That and sphere anger RP, and trying to get you to stick around a while longer and maybe die next time.

After the first few tells of the conversation though, I realized I was coming across like a whiny bitch and couldn't think of any way to salvage it, so I just shut the hell up.

Yep, you helped a lot with #4, as did Cavani. Also fighting alongside Soviatos helped.

I have always enjoyed your mortals. Last time, you and I made a great team as allies and it made me wonder what sort of enemy you might make. You were one of my favorite Imperials and I was gradually trying to engage you in more conversation. Great job getting me at the Palace a few days ago. Good payback for gating to you and killing you in your sleep that one time. That was a Huh. moment for sure but enjoyable! See you soon I hope?

>I have always enjoyed your mortals. Last time, you and I made
>a great team as allies and it made me wonder what sort of
>enemy you might make. You were one of my favorite Imperials
>and I was gradually trying to engage you in more conversation.
>Great job getting me at the Palace a few days ago. Good
>payback for gating to you and killing you in your sleep that
>one time. That was a Huh. moment for sure but enjoyable! See
>you soon I hope?


That gate death was embarassing and a pretty clear reminder to me of just how much my skills (such as they are) have gotten rusty in the time since I've played. Forgetting about you and Deaer potentially gating to me and just slowing/sleeping when I actually had speckled pills in my backpack - meh.

But yeah the payback felt good (though ganging you down in Hamsah between also felt good, so this didn't feel so much like payback as just a "f*ck yeah!" moment.

I do have to say that our conversations re: guild guards disappointed me some - but I do understand that Damolo was "random assbag imperial trying to get under your skin" so obviously a grain of salt and all that.

I wish we could've developed that conversation among others more. I was distracted at the moment (wife) so couldn't fully delve into it but yeah basically hard edged when it comes to any but the Light standing in the way of killing the taint. Though I never struck one Amatrysti would not look down upon that behavior. You coming at me randomly, Amatrysti was like wtf is this tactic?Part of the growth of my character so keep an eye out as my role progresses .

Oh, and I don't mind dying to quality foes. I laugh, learn and move on. It only builds my respect for you and those who play like you even more.