Mon May 31 17:46:43 2010

At 10 o'clock PM, Day of the Great Gods, 33rd of the Month of Nature
on the Theran calendar Pophris perished, never to return.

This was my thirdish assassin, but it was my first assassin whose focus was to learn about the gentle art of assassination. Assassination is like fishing. Find where the bait is, wait for it, and then try to set the hook. You will miss often and you will die, but there's too much about CF that encourages conservative play. Jump in and go for it.

As a dark elf player who avoided the use of even flight, stoneskin, and protection, it was made painfully evident that melee was not my character's forte. Martial trance combined with the hp-granting buki edge helped considerably, but by that time I was ready to retire.

Religion
--------
I started out as an Urtrekis follower, and for 400 hours I rabidly sought out antipaladins and prayed whenever I made a kill. I never got that interaction with Urtrekis. I officially gave up on Urtrekis when Ckath approached me and asked why I had never joined the Empire, and my response was, "Because no one I had respected had asked me to." We talked, Dispater showed during my interview, and two oaths later, I was suddenly playing my first imperial. I continued my habit of giving people back a gold coin after killing them so they could make their journey into the next world after I gave up on being a Breaker.

Characters
----------
Jazon - you gave me a really good feeling toward Empire in that you were receptive to my wishes, not pushy, and appeared competent.

Jeikdurr and Damgril - I hated you both for being rude, aggressive, and demanding me to take the oath. It was probably good imperial duergar roleplay.

Adarmar - I had no feel for your character beyond being aloof and making prepped imperial arials look OP--when I watched Ckath kick your butt in the arena, I wanted to generalize--but your persona made it fairly easy for Ckath to persuade me to conspire against you.

Ckath - Great leader, full of guile and lies, and doing a great job in rebuilding the Empire. But why was there still a Black Sect? Where was that gear you promised me? And my trip to the Circles? Of course I knew you were lying about the Black sect, I didn't need you to get me gear, and going into the depths of the Inferno was impossible for me with our differing login times and my rl obligations

Molo - I love your character, and there was something about you that seemed to grant me luck. When Ckath returns to Dispater for eternity, you'd be my pick for Emperor. Good luck!

The Simpsons (Battle) - I tried to have good relations with Battle, mainly because they were almost always without the Head and fighting against odds against Nexus, Fortress, and Scion. The cease-fire with the Empire has given you a chance to rebuild, and that is wonderful. I hope Marge (Knacnar) has more of a presence in the future, for cabals need leadership.

Homard - Why aren't you drillmaster yet? Doh! Great guy, and I suspect my relationship to Battle puzzled you, but you grew to trust me as far as you dared.

Bart (Blarg) - my bud. Thanks to you I was actually with someone to gain a few ranks, and I'm also now just beginning to understand Moo. I really enjoyed your upbeat demeanor.


Ageryn - Two prayer beads, helm of brilliance, fulminator, Heartseeker & Amythylar, and spike toed boots made fighting you just plain stupid. Our fights were over so quickly I don't even know if you bothered to overprep. You were fast, precise, deadly, and a class act every time I came back to my corpse. You are awesome.

Cruggin & Lephraphuse - Good adversaries, gracious, courteous, and effective.

Celn - Watching your pachyderm run around Galadon without any serious threat must be a great deal of fun. I got the distinct feeling that you didn't like that I refused to stick around for trampling and goring, but then I was equally disgusted that an elephant could somehow drop out of my assassination and somersault to safety as many times as you did. Have fun, and don't get caught up in roving armies of Imperials trying to destroy Nexans raiding the Village.

For the record, I never had progging gauntlets. Probably because I can't request them.

I knew you were biding your time for the right moment to join the Empire. You certainly did it well and were promoted accordingly. I've played a number of Imperials and with Shadow it is sometimes hard for me to remember that being a good shadow is often being a crappy Imperial. Jazon tried to be both, but its a tough road. Jazon was smarter than trying to fight everyone and their mother who didn't want the oath. melememelem might have had great RP, but a Shadow Lord who is out for himself isn't going to demand the oath of everyone...just aint gonna happen.

I think you were a great Shadow, but definitely didn't seem to care one lick about the rest of the Empire...which is quite fine. That is my "outside" view of it. I may post more eventually depending on how long my current lasts.

Good Job...keep truckin!

I considered Battle briefly, but after a few melee fights I quickly reconsidered because vanish;recall is OP. I would have joined the Blood Tribunal, but I had garnered a few warrants for being sloppy. I didn't consider myself scary enough to be an effective Scion, but an important deterrent to joining the Empire was that I was not going to join it while Jeikdur was head of the Black Sect. He being made anathema made joining a character option.

When I joined Empire, Adarmar told me that to be a successful shadow, kills might be nice, but information was essential. That information I was to get to him, and everyone else be damned. I continued that operational policy as shadowlord, and I decreed that I would only promote those shadows who issued regular written reports on enemy-related intelligence: specs, legacies, forms, preps carried, and so on. In my old age I grew soft and shared combatant movement over the leader channel instead of reporting strictly to the Emperor.

In my opinion, the best power the Shadow Sect receives is Eavesdrop. That allowed me to find enemies, thwart retrievals, disrupt ranking, and plan for the future. It helped me earn promotions, and it conferred power that extended far across the realm of Thera and the limited scope of a character's login.

I would have never guessed you have over 600 hours! I'm assuming that
much of the time you were awake I had no idea.

Even with the 'truce' in place, any Villager would be a fool to trust
an Imperial. That said, I felt I could trust you simply because of
how many dozen times some random thief or Duergar would tell me that
you were nearby, likely stalking me. Yet you never struck. Plus, you
let me know where mages were more often than any Village Scout.

Very well done.