...but first, let me clear up a few slightly misleading things in your above post.

Knights were about honor at all costs when first developed. The whole purpose of Knights was to spread honor. The aiding of Light was more or less supposed to be an afterthought, but as Cador took less of a hand in them, once I imm'd...they stated down the path (which ultimately would lead to them going away) of fighing evil as well. (Admittedly even before I was leading as a mortal helping light was certainly a secondary goal, but not nearly as important as it became afterwards) What basically lead to the Knight's downfall was that conquering evil became more important than honor....and once that line was crossed the genie didn't fit back in the bottle.

So what does all this have to do with the Fortress, and Shokai's followers (or MARAN - (cabal), and Maran - (religion) to clear up that confusion), since so far it's just been a rehash of the end of Knights? Basically when I created the MARAN cabal, I incorperated a lot of the things that drew me into Knights and things I thought drew in other people as well, including some of the old philosophy. Notice I said 'some', this is important. The easy answer to the honor question is that as a cabal/religion no, honor is not important to the whole. The more tricky answer comes into play with the whole 'don't become what you fight' side of the religion/cabal...which ultimately is a judgement call that I could probably write a novel about (there really are *that* many different ways to interpet actions and what not, and generally I just go by past history of the character - NOTE: I said character, not player...I didn't want anyone to misinterpet what I wrote there - and make a judgement call on that and what my instinct says)

I'm sure there are still questions, so ask away and I'll see what I can do to further clarify.

> I'm sure there are still questions, so ask away and I'll see what I can do to further clarify.

Personally, I'm quite satisfied. Thank you for clearing things up, and also for reminding me about what the Knights originally stood for. It was always a little bit confusing to the outsider that honor was crucial to them, yet they were also typically good people going around fighting evil and helping the innocent.

As a side note, I played a couple of Knight applicants, but after some thinking, I doubt I ever actually got in. Possibly because I didn't really understand what the cabal was about. Maybe I should play a MARAN someday, but I think I'd do better as an Acolyte, since the hunter's instincts left me long ago.

There have been some complaints and whines about goodies, especially MARANS and Acotlyes to some degree, using deception and out and out lieing to accomplish their goals. Such as to lure an unsuspecting evil person into an ambush or some other trap.

Of course, a lot of this has to do with individual roleplay and all that, I know. But is using deceptive techniques considered an "evil" thing for a MARAN and therefore "becoming like that which you fight"?

It just seems to me that some classes, and I'm thinking primarily here of a thief or assassin, seem to be designed to thrive on using cunning, wit, and yes, even lieing to accomplish their goals. So it seems to me that a MARAN assassin or thief would be able to do that and stay within the realm of not becoming evil, as long as what they are doing is to accomplish the greater good of eliminating evil from the lands. The whole point being motivation and the reason behind the deception. I don't know if that make sense to you, but it does in my head. Anyway, I'd just like to know what Shokai's take is on that.

as someone else did in the previous thread. Just wanted to say that I'm not the same player, but still wondering

Is deception inherently evil?

Ultimately that's a call you have to make per character. There are a lot of little philosophic traps a Maran or MARAN can easily get caught in. One of the one that is an OOC gripe of mine, is the evil who uses the 'have you ever seen me do evil before? No? Then you're being mean and judging me unfairly' card (note...I dig it when a sneaky underhanded evil type pulls that card...I dislike it when it has the feel of someone playing a 'team evil' character who is essentially neutral with a red aura * ). There are a lot of things that can potentially be used against a Maran...and if as a player you don't roleplay having a very strong conviction of faith, ultimately you're going to end up falling on your face. The more I write this the more I realise (I also got highly aggravated midway through this by something on the news...so if the tone seems aggravated, it's peripheral to this issue and the tone is unintentional) that this is one of those conversations that I could probably write a novel on...unfortunately even after reading the novel you'd end up being confused if you started off that way.

It's more an issue of either you get it or you don't with some aspects of Maran.

* this is also a subject that a much longer rant could spin off of, but as I'm currently growing more and more annoyed, I'll spare the bandwidth.

Good and evil, a discussion based purely on the views of a person.
Was Robin hood a good fellow helping all, or an evil litte thief that betrayed his government. Is George Bush a force for good, or a force for evil? Doesn't it all depend upon your point of view.

That being said, this game doesn't rely upon that or we would never be able to deal with good and evil. You are evil and as such have a red - aura. You are good and have a gold aura. Now we have some fairly ridged guide lines. Evil kills anyone and everyone but especially likes to kill good(gold aura) things. Neutral kill everyone reguardless of aura, but don't get anythings special for killing anything, and good guys focus on killing evil and had better have a very good reason for killing a good thing. (ie you are a rager and think magic is evil) These guidelines are our basis for good and evil in the game. Now there are other things that help promote good/evil(ethos being a large part of it), but they are more fuzzy and grey and allow for greater roleplay. Like do you lie to evil to try and stop them by ambushing them, or do you help out someone so that you can gain thier trust and they will go get you that regeant so you can become a lich.

So remember to think of good and evil in terms of the game not the fuzzy reality that we have to live in.

Crapfully yours SB

First off, neither one should be described with "at any cost".

Neither one dictate that you should "fight fair"(I don't believe there is such a thing as a fair fight in RL or in CF). That doesn't mean that your own roleplay can't stipulate that your character isn't "honorable" while being a Maran and/or a MARAN.

By a fair fight, I meant something like the old one on one duels that once seemed so popular. Two people, fighting it out, no tricks. Meaning no outside aid, no sleep spells, and pretty much anything else that could get in the way of 'duking it out' with class appropriate weapons, skills, attack spells, etc.

So, a fair fight like that would probably be quite unfair to most necromancers going up against a warrior. Sleep spells and undead/golems are significant things for many necromancers.

As for 'at any cost', it would be closer to my intent to say 'whatever it takes to destroy evil, so long as you do no evil yourself'.

Essentially, what I wanted to know was whether a Maran cabal member is or is not required to attempt to fight evil on even ground. Are they allowed to use out of range aid, fight three (or more?) on one, or other things their enemies might rightly see as an 'unfair advantage'?

BTW, I still have yet to be sure which one the fully capitalized MARAN is. Is that the religion or the cabal? I'd guess the cabal, but I didn't want to assume.