Mon May 31 14:10:56 2021

At 12 o'clock PM, Day of the Bull, 15th of the Month of the Spring
on the Theran calendar Williad perished, never to return.

The goal of this character was to see if I could make the duergar tougher than the fire giant (Wijara). I guess it’s hard to achieve without getting Emperor. Williad’s roleplay was such that I could not really conspire against the current Emperor. Williad was a true faithful of the Empire and did not put personal ambition above the empire. It was really me as the player that wanted Emperor.

Williad was also a terrible blade, in that he helped the other sects, almost as much as blades. I tried to make him a what a War Master should be, leader of the army behind the Emperor. He did not require favours returned and was more than happy to help all Empire gear, coins or levels.

One thing that was rough was sometimes he was a bit of poison chalice, in group vs group dynamics, Williad was always targeted last because people want pk wins and go for the low hanging fruit, and warriors are limited to rescue and so was not always possible to keep everyone alive. That was always a sting to Williads roleplay and so often I went solo.

I am not going to complain about people quitting out, though blatant as it is. Actually, the most annoying thing about it was I would use my preps and they quit as I hit the outer and so wasted my preps. But one can not make a beasty character and then expect everyone to fight. I realise that I can get way more fights by making a weaker character. Instead this character was designed to be beasty because I want that epic 1 v3 fight like a surfer wants that big wave.

I could not get a 1v1 fight with Moj and so over stretched myself in that 1 v 2 in the tree in hope for an epic win. Losing the strange bracers there certainly weakened me for subsequent fights.

Regarding imm interactions, I have mixed feelings about this one. I like Empire because it’s mortal driven. Decisions are made by mortals and so they need to stand by them and face consequences of them. But on the other hand, in 500 hours I never spoke to an Imm or had an imm talk to me directly or via a mob or even saw an imm speak on CB. While I know I log a lot of hours off-peak, this char still got plenty of on-peak hours as I was off work a bit in Feb and March and then every weekend. Only 1 imm comment (and negative one) after role comments, no well done getting codex back from 4 or 5 defenders or whatever. Seems like it’s hard for some players to get praise these days.

Re Destuvius comment on the pbf. I didn’t anathema Qhefniz over imperial law or being wrong on it. I anatheme’d him because of complete lack of respect. Williad never required blades to join him if busy, never asked for any gear, blades had complete freedom, there was only one thing that was not negotiable, respect. And he had plenty of chances to stop the disrespect before the anathema hit. Qhefniz complained that I didn’t attack a maran that apparently struck him in hamsah. While I am sure the maran probably did and I can attack the maran if I choose, I can’t confirm it and why would I break Tribunal law when I can simply walk out of town and the maran will engage me there anyway (which happened). Destuvians are interesting roleplay choice, exactly what an Empire needs if they want to stay weak. Ideology vs real power. I’d rather have an orc by my side than Rathgar 😊

Is why you as a player are insufferable. You are literally the same character over, over, and over again. Williad was Wijara was Zaol. You use the same preps, wear the same gear, have the same perma get you the same strange bracers, every single character. You flee at covered with bleeding wounds while taking 'wounds' on a vuln weapon. You are the most risk averse player in this mud.

Qhefniz provoked you to Anathema him because he knew he would be placed right back into the Sect. The root cause of the Anathema was you not knowing Imperial Law and being proven wrong, at that point he told you to learn to read after pasting Imperial Law to you. You said you did not attack the Maran because you didn't want to be 'uncivil' in town. No need to lie about the situation to make yourself feel better for getting called out by an IMM. You were in town when he got hit, they did not immediately attack you out of town.

'Destuvians are interesting roleplay choice, exactly what an Empire needs if they want to stay weak.'

Just say you don't like to RP but you like the powers.

You literally stole Neajess's constant 'ya' as your only RP mechanism.

0/10

I am sorry I killed the alts you made to kill me.
I held a grudge against Itzen, it's not healthy. Move on.

For what it is worth three of the four sitting sect leaders agreed with the Anathema. Veristrix would have Anathema you if he could too and for the same reason Williad pointed out. In my eyes, you could have used that incident to plot against Williad and get on good terms with the rest of the Council/Emperor so you could get him booted and installed yourself in his place, in stead you chose to talk back to the War Master. I think the Anathema was well deserved and I was really surprised that you were reinstated, as an Elite no less, after that.

I’m not sure how I got dragged into this but I guess I’ll chip in that I thought Qhefniz was more of a leader than the sect leads - didn’t just run around solo - and since they’re all gone I can say thought the sect leads during the short time I played this char were really awful examples of Empire as it’s laid out in the help files. Still often very fun to explore with. Learned a lot about where loot is.

My vision of empire and the destuvian religious views are just very different and both valid.

I would have done everything I could to prevent you from being HP as my char believes the destuvian religion is possibly the weakest tactic for empire. The rest of the council agreed with me.

Williad's view of the empire was that we want people to line up for bloodoathing or to at least ally. But the destuvian view basically excludes too many people. Why ally with empire if the empire sees you as scum. The answer being fear? Not really, such an Empire stands alone and is too weak. By contrast if the Empire can team up with Tribunal, non-caballers and even some orcs it is much stronger.

In war, nothing is more important than victory. Qhefniz might tickle your rude parts when sitting around the council room chatting about purity. But as War Master he would make a fool of himself leaving corpses around before deleting and reincarnating as a rager to repeat the corpse dropping/deleting process.

That sounds like a really interesting IC argument to have.

But it's an IC argument. There is no OOC "right answer". You really make it sound powergamey when you start mixing IC and OOC perspective.. if you're just trying to make your "team" win, instead of doing what your character would do you aren't roleplaying. You're playing text-based Counterstrike.

Also - Empire dogma, at it's core, isn't about a "team". Imperials shouldn't be long-term teammates with anyone. Their entire purpose is to take over literally everyone, recruit everyone worthwhile and kill/enslave the rest. Sure, use the Tribunal while you can. Use the Orcs. Use whoever. But if your character (or you, the player) start to lose sight of the fact that they are NOT permanent allies of the Empire, then you're missing something really, really important.

Empire cannot have permanent allies, unless the entire scope and purpose of the Empire dramatically changes.

Let me take a bite at this bait.

Preferring the world view of a fellow Destuvian over the current sect leaders is great and dandy. This should fuel imperial politics, backstabbing and favor trading. And I don't see anything about not running solo, or being compelled to gank in the helpfiles about Empire. I mean, you could, not like Empire cares about ephemeral concepts like parity, but it doesn't mean you have to or ought to. Especially not in the case of Williad who was a one man wrecking crew.

Now since you're calling out Imperial RP and help files, let me give you a quote: "10. The Emperor and Council will interpret and execute the Law." Unless Destuvius speaks as himself, or switches into an imperial mob and says otherwise, the wrong interpretation of a sitting council member is the law. Funny how that works, right? Also, regarding Imperial roleplay, the questions to enter your sect hall are instructive. In them you will find that the position of sect leader is revered and you *NEED* to strive to become that. Publicly disagreeing with Williad is not a problem, the problem is publicly calling out the War Master which is demotion/Anathema territory. If this is bad Empire roleplay I'd love to hear it from an Imm, because I'd be personally surprised.

Where everyone was at least a little bit wrong.

Did Williad make a bad call? Not being there, but seeing the explanation and the comments, I'd say that yeah, he probably did. An Imperial that's more interested in obeying Trib law than taking care of his Sect is probably not doing a great job.

That said - you're still an Imperial. He's still your superior. Being overtly disrespectful to a leader is (or at least should be) a guaranteed anathema. If Qhefniz was upset, fine.. do what an Imperial would do, but a good Imperial (that wants to remain an Imperial) wouldn't be openly disrespectful or insubordinate. Regardless of why, those actions are still on you.

There are so many more fun and interesting ways you could have handled that. Many of those ways could have actually undermined him with the Emperor or other sect leads, and set you up.. but instead, you gave him a perfect (and valid) opportunity to get rid of a potential threat.

Youre a bad imperial if you ignore doing something that is valid in Empire law because of Tribunal Law.

Pretty strong character but didn't really give any sort of vibe of wanting to be interacted with.

I assume this is the part of the law under question, and I know its hard to look at things retrospectively when not involved and not having all the information at hand.

Having played a few Imperials I do query what you are saying to be honest as the impression I am left with is a stated absolute where as its clearly written as a "may", which means ultimately its at player discretion. And this even comes down to the person attacked they "may" retaliate but certainly don't "have to". Me personally I usually always jump at the chance, but could you clarify a little more might give me some ideas for a character choice later down the track.

If a Citizen is attacked in such an area, they may retaliate for the time that it takes for their guild guards to allow them or their prey the protection of their guild. Also, another Citizen may aid an attacked Citizen under the same time restraint. A Citizen may not pursue his victim into a Protected City unless the original attack occured within that Protected City.

So if the War Master was wanted for a month and left a pile of dead magistrates at the vanquisher you would argue I was a good Empire? Instead of teaming up with various Tribbies to destroy the tree and village and spread the influence of the Empire.

All to exercise my valid right to strike a maran in Hamsah instead of applying a little bit of patience to continue the fights out of town.

This is what separates the Blades from other groups, order, discipline and tactics.

But yeah, I don't think from an IC perspective anyone in Empire should care if a pile of Tribunal guys end up dead anywhere if it happens because they are challenging Imperial Law.

The very second the Tribunal cabal interferes with Empire cabal conquest, they become the exact same thing as an Outlander or a Battle dude. Its just far more convenient to treat Tribunals as a perma ally.

This sort of brings up something I have proposed before.
If empire build up power, some of the names of NPC's in balator could change name, then subsequently Hamsah and maybe even arkham and patrollers on eastern road. So it enacts the spreading of Empire (e.g. Watchman becomes Imperial Watchman). Then too much time with less influence it recedes back.

The name change is cosmetic except for one thing. Imperial guards don't attack Wanted Empires. This creates a pathway for Empire to tell Tribunal, you know what, prepare for war.

Yeah I get nobody wants to do that coding work.