Wed Jun 18 22:25:52 2008

At 3 o'clock PM, Day of Deception, 16th of the Month of the Winter Wolf
on the Theran calendar Nerisa perished, never to return.

This was a fun monster, my first healer and a character I designed with the story idea that she was essentially raised in a grand manipulation to become the priestess to 1) an incredibly vain goddess who was neutral regarding the strength of magic or 2)a malevolent goddess interested in promoting the designs of Scion from the shadows. Nerisa's life was dedicated to discovering just who was the goddess empowering her, and I was bracing myself for the possiblity that I would be turned evil. That would have been a fun challenge, but the roleplay with my patron imms never quite took it that far.

The religion itself was modeled loosely after the gnostic cults of early Christianity, with esoteric knowledge and access to new rituals as status within the sect grew. I had wanted to roleplay rituals for initiates, accepted, and devotees, but opportunities and time constraints made that impractical.

I felt it essential that Nerisa should spread the word of the Mistress of the Veil, and a few of you were curious enough to play along for a short time. Most people gave me the understandable impression that they were not going to actively worship an immortal whose name wasn't on the wizlist.

I deleted Nerisa when I had reached a state where I felt I could go no further with my role or my exploration. The immortal(s) who played the Mistress had increasingly set higher challenges for me, the last one being to get all the followers together (keep in mind I was selling the religion to anyone who would listen, regardless of ethos, alignment, or cabal) to sing kum bay yah together as the Mistress brought about the end of the world. I just couldn't pull that one off, but I gave it a go hoping it could spark something like the Jhagad nightmare we had a few years ago. From an exploration standpoint, I found I had reached a point where I couldn't be self-reliant, and the only people reliably receptive to an uncaballed healer were the handful of Scions whom I really grew to enjoy. Allow me to say goodbye to you first.

Chancellor Igbah, you were a true leader and a palpable presence in conversation as well as a fight. I felt honored to be your pocket healer, and if I managed to save your life a time or two with a convenient healing sleep or spiritual salve, then still I owe you for the inspiration and guidance you gave Nerisa.

Advisor Waris, I found your persona captivating and I could not get enough of your conversations. You intrigued me, you taught me, and had you and the chancellor tried at all to persuade me to join Scions, I would have had to look hard for excuses to not jump to your side, regardless of the probable loss of communes.

My good friends in Nexus, chief among you Grecken, I remember laughing heartily when you tried to bribe and later to pressure Nerisa to join the Island, but after we reached an understanding I found in Grecken a dear, trusted friend. For a long spell we spent a good deal of time together, and I greatly enjoyed your company.

Members of the Fortress, I did not get to know you. Frequently you had your own healers and paladins, so you did not need Nerisa's healing, and a few of you were so aloof or flat out inaccessible when I tried to interact with you that I said to hell with you.

Most imperials left a bad taste in my mouth, although I tried to get to make my services available to you until your emperor attacked me in Veran and then sent insulting tells when I understandably worded away. After that, not only would I not swear the oath, but I was going to be damned if I'd heal any of you, and I'd happily have screwed you over at any opportunity I could.

I made an effort to work with Battle, but most of you treated Nerisa like a curiousity and left me alone, rather than playing along with the cult of the Mistress. To those few of you who did sacrifice with a prayer to the Mistress, I thank you for participating in that rp.

A few Outlanders and Tribunal graced my character's life, but only Teldasill and Seyriannia really left me with an impression. Harbinger, I thought you would have been really fun to be around, if only shifted mages could speak to their groupmates. Seyriannia, I didn't want to have anything to do with you after you we ventured into ST and I barely survived a fight because you wouldn't assist. At that point I felt that your attitude was it was all about Seyriannia and acquiring the perfect set of gear for your outlander elf bard at the expense of those around you. I hope that is a wrong impression of you.

As far as gear goes, I found it ridiculously easy to accumulate good gear as an uncaballed healer. I made no attempt to get gear--I think I surprised an immortal when Nerisa sacrificed a staff of striking to the Veil when she was in her 20s--but despite that, I was embarrassed at how good my set was when Nerisa dropped it at Igbah's feet before she willingly bared her neck to his blade.

Immortals: thank each of you who interacted with Nerisa, the role contest award, the restrung weapon, and especially the immortal who, unknown to me was following me after we started to roleplay, fell into a pit with me and took damage.

PS. Colorado Springs, even in the summer, is beautiful. I will definitely be going there again.

Hey. I take that was an insult. I tried to chill with you as Quiltell a decent amount, and figure out what you were all about . Thanks for helping me get the scepter, by the way.

I had no ill feelings to you, and for whatever reason it seems that I have bump into and have a good time with your characters time and again, and Quiltell was no exception. My general experience with Nerisa was that people who needed a bitch healer were friendly, and people who didn't largely didn't give me the time of day.

Right from the start until the end, your rp, preachings and initiative impressed me greatly. And I don't think I could have revealed myself to you..although sphere knowledge, the Mistress that you were expecting and I was playing along with isn't very Yean at all..perhaps opposite in fact

Glad you liked the weapon although it doesn't do much at all. Unfortunately, you never lost it to anyone heh. It would have made for some fun bits of rp, as I was going to torment anyone that dared possess your scepter. And that part when we fell into a pit gave me away, didn't it? I didn't expect to take damage as well.

I always saw the religion as a cult-like following kind of thing. With you as head priestess, I was looking to see how many initiates we could gather. If the great worship was ever pulled off, I think that would have been very neat.

Overall, very well played char with a solid non-pantheon religion fleshed out. Glad you enjoyed the char, I know I did.

I liked Nerisa and never really understood her regarding the cultish type thing. Though i'm uncertain of what fight I did not assist you with that I should have.

I was never really overly sure where you stood with scion. Knowing as a player that you were a neutral healer. I tried relativly hard not to drag you into our stuff toooo much, having seen neuts maimed before...

As far as exploring goes, I hope you learned some intresting things following me around. You certainly opened my eyes to some possiblities I had decided weren't really all that logical.

Thanks for proving me wrong on some quests and tolerating a smelly soul sucking duergar.

Thanks for always healing all my chars that saw you, but one question.

What was up with you and voralia? Man, you sat there ALL day. I knew that if I needed a little healing help, I just had to head to voralian.

Anything rp about that?

I spent a lot of time writing role entries, organizing area notes, talking to people, and spamming sups because I mostly put one practice into each supplication and skill. I also have a family hostile to mudding, it was fairly safe to go for a short afk there. Guild sitting was not something I wanted to do, but being in other windows or dealing with some critical honey-do to keep the peace was a recurring problem.

n/t

Hey, sorry about falling through with that shapeshifter person I was going to use to follow your religion and do that bet with whoever that Imm was :p I completely and utterly forgot my characters name when finals came about, and I was like "Oh God dammit"

I had a few people who took up the religion, but for all of them their faith was as shortlived as their lives. The characters that are going to stick around probably have a solid story in mind, which means they likely already have a religion planned to the exclusion of a character-conceived faith. Thanks for the roleplay though!

To bad we never got to explore in ST together at some point. Hope you'll return soon with another cool char! I was really curious about your religion, care to tell us a bit about it now? heh

When you gated to me when I was trying to proselytize to a few young warriors, you just reeked of awesome evil roleplay. However, because I was sucking up to the chancellor and advisor, I saw you as a rival and did my best to undermine you with them with the goal of getting you kicked out of Scion. It didn't work, but I was trying to be a manipulative wench who was neutral in the sense that she did both good and evil instead of being uninvolved.