Unless wights being unable to join cabals is by design.

Venting my frustration with Melissa here rather than the death thread, I'll save that for positive things. This is 400 hours worth of griping.

If I want to play an evil defiler (and that's all I play) then unless I'm an orc I can only be caballed if I'm orderly or a scarabite. Why should the evilest evils have to be the ones who have the most respect for the law?

Being caballed is a big deal. Even if whatever I was going to get came through, it wouldn't have been the same. Cabal powers are sweet and all and I'd have been twice as scary with a nightwalker but that's not the point. The point is people could just sit at their inners with their cabal powers and expect my to fight them there, and even if I did manage to power through, force a flee, and kill the guardian, it wouldn't matter. I was possible a little scary but with an inner/outer of my own I could have drawn people into fights. Even if they send a lowbie to retrieve it's a moral victory. Every other hero in the mud had this option.

Yes, there's Scarab. But the roleplay is incredibly restrictive. There's basically one character you can be, you can try and add your own twists on it, but it's still the same basic idea.

It boils down to this:

Scarab and Scion will not co-exist. That's not something we're interested in.

Some time ago, we were having trouble finding qualified staff who had an interest in running Scion. As a relevant side not, the primary reason cited by more than one staff member as why they didn't want the job was a desire not to have to deal with the habitual Scion players.

At that same time, Scarabaeus had (and still has, albeit perhaps with limited time) an interest in running Scarab (again).

So fast forward to today and I don't think a lot has changed.

nt

Right out of town.

nt

I think I have a high charisma too.

NT

>Unless wights being unable to join cabals is by design.

I wouldn't say this. It's more like the status quo is just how things shook out and we're okay with that. Which is to say we didn't change what we thought a Wight was or what it could do solely because there aren't as many cabal options as some people might like.

>Venting my frustration with Melissa here rather than the death
>thread, I'll save that for positive things. This is 400 hours
>worth of griping.
>
>If I want to play an evil defiler (and that's all I play) then
>unless I'm an orc I can only be caballed if I'm orderly or a
>scarabite. Why should the evilest evils have to be the ones
>who have the most respect for the law?

They don't have to be, but if you limit yourself to a specific role/build and alignment/ethos then you limit yourself to a very finite subset of an already relatively short list of cabals. Maybe you need to branch out.

>Being caballed is a big deal. Even if whatever I was going to
>get came through, it wouldn't have been the same. Cabal powers
>are sweet and all and I'd have been twice as scary with a
>nightwalker but that's not the point. The point is people
>could just sit at their inners with their cabal powers and
>expect my to fight them there, and even if I did manage to
>power through, force a flee, and kill the guardian, it
>wouldn't matter. I was possible a little scary but with an
>inner/outer of my own I could have drawn people into fights.
>Even if they send a lowbie to retrieve it's a moral victory.
>Every other hero in the mud had this option.

Technically you had this option too, at least until your pledge was rejected.

>Yes, there's Scarab. But the roleplay is incredibly
>restrictive. There's basically one character you can be, you
>can try and add your own twists on it, but it's still the same
>basic idea.

Scarab has a little more dogma than some of the other cabals, but I wholeheartedly disagree that it is as restrictive as you say. Now, maybe 99% of the people who play Scarab go about it using the same basic pattern, but that's their fault and it doesn't mean you can't be more creative.

If you want a caballed Wight you know what your options are. If you want a caballed (but not Scarab) undead (but not Wight, specifically) then I guess you know what you have to do.

Is wight able to take the recruiter's bloodoath and have his ethos switched back to orderly?

asd

As fantasy archetypes go, being an evil mage who perverts the natural order is probably more common than being an evil mage who perverts the natural order but also has utmost respect for the law.

As far as I can tell, and correct me if I'm wrong (I got a single sentence by way of explanation in game), my pledge was rejected because I was a follower of Emnon. Now, I do see why this makes sense from an RP perspective - despite the fact that Melissa wasn't particularly servile, Emnon lore states fairly unambiguously that his followers are slaves and this is at odds with Scarabite veneration of free will. Now, I didn't really start out wanting to follow Emnon, it's more that if an imm shows up and gives me encouragement I'm probably going to join in their religion (like Ogrot being Akresius-lite). And I don't resent this because Emnon was very cool and seemed to 'get' what the character was about, but by no fault of my own my character became uninductable to any cabal around the 100 hour mark and didn't get this confirmed until about the 300 hour mark. One meeting with Scarabaeus I pointed out that I had Emnon's tatt and asked if that would be a problem and at the time it supposedly wasn't.

Now, worshipping Emnon might have been a particularly problematic choice of god for a scarab applicant, but the same basic argument - that you're subjecting yourself to the will of a divine being other than Scarabaeus and thus not following your own will and thus unworthy of being a scarabite - should apply to every other religion.

So yes, being tied to following a particular religion with a very specific roleplay if you want your evil conjurer/necromancer/A-P to be able to join a cabal really is quite restrictive. And being able to join a cabal is huge, strategically.

Emnon - takes slaves, thus no scarab
Destuvius - Heirarchy and obedience, thus no Scarab
Drehir - God of deception, at odds with truth, thus no Scarab
Jormyr - Maybe?
Rotwang - ... Maybe?

Point is, while in theory the idea of being in the cabal without buying into the religion is possible, with the options that are out there it seems sort of improbable.

If you want to be an evil character in an evil cabal which isn't all about being civilized and artistic and loyal and subordinate and other things that in most fantasy contexts are more closely associated with goodly knights than evil sorcerers, Scarabaeus worship does seem to be your only option.

And while we're here, I got to know a couple of other scarab applicants who seem to be doing either reasonably well or very well who are also getting nowhere with their inductions.

I really do think there's a problem here and it needs consideration.

gr

nt

Emnon
Drehir
Verathi
Jormyr
Raltevio
Akresius
Destuvius
Scarab
Zurcon
Rotwang?
Thrakburzug?
Umiron (maybe?)
Twist (if he's around...my personal fav mwuahahaha)
....probably someone I'm forgetting.

Now, there are two Battle IMMs on that list, but in the past, mages have been able to follow Battle IMMs (though often at a slight disadvantage).

For an evil conjurer, A-P or necro who wants to be in a cabal or than Empire or Tribunal.

I honestly don't think the above category is a tiny niche. It's a popular fantasy archetype, it just doesn't come up much in CF because being uncaballed is hard.

NT

>Point is, while in theory the idea of being in the cabal
>without buying into the religion is possible, with the options
>that are out there it seems sort of improbable.

If by "buying into" you mean adopting a role that generally jives with the Scarab theme, then yes.

If you mean that a person can't be successful in the Scarab cabal without actively being a Scarabaeus follower and pursuing the religion, you're wrong and people have demonstrated so in the past.

I'm sure one can make a follower of each (except Rotwang) to join Scarab.

Thing is you take gods in the whole of their religion, but you don't need to be this comprehensive to follow a god. They each have 3-4 aspects, and you may focus your religion around those.

Thing about Scarab is that your will is above all else. And whatever your will leads you to is legit. This actually provides you with countless RP options and opportunities.

For example people often take Destuvius as Orderly and Hierarchical. Bue my favorite sphere of his is Reason, which greatly suits BOTH Empire and Scarab.

You can easily go Deormdel in literally ANY cabal (including Scarab) because the idea of god is almost unnaturally versatile.

You're also forgetting religious options with your character actively influencing the religion. Yeah this path MIGHT lead you to tat loss eventually, but it's there.

I didn't get more than a single sentence to tell me why my pledge was rejected but as best as I can figure out it was because I had Emnon's tattoo. I can't think of any other reason why I would have been considered unsuitable for the cabal. If someone who knows more wants to correct me please do, but until then I have to assume it's the one reason that makes any kind of sense. "You have subjected your will to another" - that has to mean "you have a god besides scarabaeus" because I sure as hell wasn't taking orders from mortals (in fact I wasn't really taking orders from Emnon either but according to his helpful I might have been).

If I played undead, I'd not give a dung about petty human opinion on anything, be she Voice or not. Wight is a straight up imm induct material.

Just waited/baited him for the inevitable failed assassinate and sent him running for the hills. Even so the point stands - I played a character with decent roleplay who didn't suck at PK for a good number of hours and got rejected from scarab, and I'm told this was because I worshipped a different god. Knowing what I know now it might be because I didn't have a "real" role entry or because I got pulled into RoTD, but until someone confirms those I have to imagine it was for the reason I was given.

If I start listing the stuff I wanted (reasonably) but didn't get and never got an in-game explanation... I think I'd run out of post space.

I try to just not have any expectations. At least not to the level where I can be soured about not having them met.

And being inducted into a cabal isn't an extraordinary thing.

My character didn't fit into any established cabal and that's fine, but I think the game should have room for this general type of character (evil mage who isn't a tree hugger or servant of the law) and means having a cabal for them. And I don't think scarab is filling that role.

i've been ruminating a post about this. but the low playerbase, the overly-conservative nature of the majority, and the ease of lowbies retrieving just make raiding/retrieving stupid in today's climate.

if people see opposition, they just log off.

and even if someone does make an attempt, the only reward is usually death. can a guy at least get a pat on the back or trying (and hey, sometimes succeeding)?

i know Twist or Umiron mentioned that they had some thoughts about this last year but it's been quiet since.

time for a change, ya'll.

nt

With a non-baer, non-avderlain role.

It's just as bad for them as it was for you, and your "niche" was much narrower than theirs.

Strienat, Deormdel, Akresius are there.

Not really a niche

But havina an unrestrictive Team Evil cesspool cabal would help indeed. Even if with literally no powers. Or perhaps just allow others to give cabal items to Tremblefist under certain conditions?

I would even argue a high bar for entry should come with the cabal - like you're put through your paces and induction would come at 150-200 hours played. But there's definitely a gap right now and as cool as scarab is, it's not filling it.