I honestly didn't read all of your nonsense below as I knew it was pointless ramblings of defense for a crappy character. The real point is, if you are so proud of this piss poor excuse of a dumpster fire of a character, why hide behind anonymity? Are you scared of the backlash or in all honestly you know you were absolutely trash and you'd rather try defending your terrible actions from behind the veil of a mask instead of standing in the open with your peers? Maybe you are a little bit scared to tarnish your name, as you are on discord, but I believe you actually knew you were trash, and just want to reclaim whatever bit of something the char was.

Overall, I really disliked interacting with your character, and if you were trying to pull off the Joffrey affect, from GoT, where you acted so terrible that you wanted people to hate the char, you did it, but in CF, it was much more than the char, it was the player too with the mechanical abuse and much more.

Yikes, I mean even skimming pages and pages of endless rants here makes me uncomfortable of all the stuff that must be in your head....

You know that Luke Skywalker line when he says something like wow, every single word you just said was wrong? That's pretty much the best description of the discord mess. The funniest part is how people think they know what's in someone's mind, or absolutely just know, with 100% certainty, why someone did something, or what they were thinking, and how they assume so much and call it fact. Two quick examples: I have never, in all my time at cf (which is since the mid-90s) named a merc. I don't even know how. I don't know what the hell people are talking about. I bought a gazillion mino mercs in Seantryn (they would die or I’d forget they had no boat and leave them then log out or something) up till level 40 I think, and would walk in to the store, buy it, emote/rp at it, usually something like "sayto mino 'Do not fail me like your predecessor' or some such, walk over to the boat seller, buy it a raft, then go about my businss. Never named anyone or anything. Not once. Not just with Yms, but not with any char, ever. Again, wouldn't even know how. If it happened, and I’m not convinced it did mind you, it wasn't me and was some game mechanic I’m unaware of. All you discord people think there is some mechanical plan in my head. Nope. Not even a little. (There IS one character around now with a name that starts with the same letters as a frequent mob, and THAT really annoys me.)

Other example, people seem to think I had some nefarious time changing thing. Could not be more wrong. I play whenever my job and family permit. I am not and have never been a fair-weather player. But this time there is a particular reason for any changes in time. Until December I had a lot more playtime, because, at the beginning of December, my wife and I had a baby. From that point on, nothing mattered more than my daughter. So, from then on, if I ever said something to the effect of I’m being called away suddenly or unexpectedly, it meant I had a diaper to change, a baby to feed, or some other issue. It also meant my weekends were no longer available to play the game. As for weekdays, my times didn’t really change much. Not sure why people are saying otherwise. Maybe logged on a tiny bit later, and yes, stayed up later three days a week sometimes, but even then not a huge difference. And the nights I really did play very late, nobody was there – often just two or three other players logged on in total, none of whom were heroes. Either way, it was the result of how my wife and I do shifts overnight and who has the baby and who tries to get some sleep. For the first two months I would stay up late and have her, so she’s sleeping while I’m playing, I feed/change when needed, then at 4am or so we switch and wife takes over and I try to get some sleep. Again, nothing whatsoever to do with the game. And to the extent people are suggesting I would fair weather play, are you on drugs? By definition I had no alts as a scion leader, so how would I even know that it’s a good or bad time to log on? More, my times were routine, they never really changed but for when my baby was born, and then were extremely consistent after, both in log-in and log-off time. Note, often there were zero – literally zero - heroes on and Zog and I would chuckle how for some reason Thera no longer had people awake when we were awake. How curious. But good odds, bad odds, no odds, I logged in, I stayed logged in. If I had to log off, I had to log off. But I don’t recall ever logging on and logging off in less than a full hour or more. If it happened, it was exceptionally rare. I had so much to do even if I couldn’t hunt all of my multiple enemies online at a time if that were the case – I got preps, things to call charmies, gathered gold, explored, prayed to Skreenak, tried to pick someone off, try to get better equ, whatever. And the best example is just a week ago when I logged on, Archmage is already covered with wounds and bleeding, there are four or five hero outlanders – and I stay logged on and wait. And wait. And wait. And they never came in. It was so pathetic. I was desperately hoping they would. I stayed on for hours. They eventually logged off, not me. I like playing. I have one char. So I play when I can play whatever might be going on or whomever might be logged in. Contrast this with the HUGE number of people who logged on and off in seconds. No joke. I would see certain villagers in particular log on, I’d send Zog or someone else a tell saying X awoke, and then do a “who” and they were gone. No joke. And this isn’t just village applicants, we’re talking full-on hero/hero-range members. Same for people in other cabals. 0-5 min logins. Shockingly bad.

Anyway, as I said, you people who keep lobbing these ridiculous and ridiculously wrong complaints? Shame on you.

I have volumes to write, and I am writing them. I think it will take 8 or 10 separate posts, and each is going to be long, for what I now coming back to re-read I see is almost 30 pages. A lot, and I expect zero people to read it all. I presume most won't even read more than a little. Nonetheless I think it's worth writing it all so people (a) can know the actual facts, (b) I can comment on the race/class/cabal/edge/religion/character stuff after 700 hours (some things should definitely be changed), and (c) say some farewells. So read, don't read, I don't much care at this point, entirely up to you. The discord crew, at least, has shown it doesn't really deserve respect. Let me retract that: many of the discord crew, but not all. Unlike them I don't want to paint with too broad a brush. And that's why I post here, where all people can see, not just those who log onto discord. Enjoy or not, read or not, your choice.

So Much OOC

I've been playing this game since the mid-90s and while ooc was a lot less taboo back then, this char by far got the most ooc attacking from players. These usually came as a result of one or more of three things (though there were more, but these three were by far the most common: Not leveling fast enough to fit how other people think the game should be played; "Child"; and time spent with orcs and things at the orc village.

Leveling

I got so many not-so-thinly-veiled ooc tells (and not just a few outright ooc tells) from people about me not following their prescribed timetable for leveling. All of you people who have some issue with someone else not leveling when you think they should: I'm right and you're wrong. There is not an opinion thing, it's not a gray area, it's black and white, and you're wrong. If the game wanted people only to play at hero, you'd roll a char, you'd go to the academy, and when you get out you'd be a hero. The game starts (functionally) at 11 and every single level on the way is equally valid, for anyone, in any way, and all possible permutations. Period. If someone never wants to level past some random level, then so be it, this is a game and that’s how it is played and players are meant to have fun. If you want to fight someone at that level, then have your character do so. You have every chance to roll up the counter to the level sitter and kill them all you want – after all, they are level sitting, they will be there when you get there, right? Zero
The three funniest things here though: she was saurian. She was not human, such as Vimalv (who people point to recently), so she always – always – had people up to nine levels higher than she in her pk range. There was no taking advantage of having no exp penalty, and if anything, she was vulnerable to people of higher level. But people sent tells saying how afraid you are that leveling would mean fighting people your own level. I was doing that, losers.

Likewise her longest time until hero was at level 31. She was there less than a month. People would send tells, again saying how much I’m taking advantage of my powers. What powers, exactly, hm? I had zero Scion powers at level 31. Nightwalker is level 32, bitches. Which meant that by pk’ing at 31, I was deliberately hampering myself. One more level, just one, and I’d have nightwalker, which would have made things so much easier and brought so much more pks at that level (and got me my second path and tattoo much faster). But, as Ziz wrote in a comment, she was hiding being a Scion, which yes, was very old school Scion and came with a lot of benefits, like getting #### from Outlanders (one guy made me not one but two sacks, on request!), and Villagers, who gave me gold and equ and told me where to find mages, etc. She was a regular old shaman, with a significant exp penalty, and zero cabal powers. She had one path at that point, pain. What superpower was I exploiting? How was this somehow a “sweet spot” to stop? What special ability was I abusing? How was I “griefing” anyone? There were none and I wasn’t. Facts. People just want to whine and because they think everyone should just level up to hero (or whatever level they happen to be), then it must be so. Afraid not. No sweet spot. No cabal powers. No 0 xp penalty abuse. Just winning more fights than people liked with the basic shaman set.

And, the best part: sooooooo many people (I’m talking scores, maybe more) sent tells in my 20s saying you’ll never level, you’re a level sitter, you’re afraid, you’re a coward, blah blah blah.
When I leveled to 31, I got the same tells – you’ll never level, you’re afraid, etc. etc.

When I leveled to 40 and 41, same old stuff. You’ll never level, you’re afraid, I know it, you’re a trash character trying to play whatever/whenever, you’ll never hero. Yah.

Guess how many of these people apologized – or even in a rp-appropriate way admitted they were wrong? After I leveled up, not one person sent a tell saying “Scum! I am glad to see I was wrong! I look forward to pulling out your tail and barbecuing it now that you have reached the guild pinnacle!” Nobody. Because you people (not everyone, obviously, but the large posse of people who made these comments) are ####s and are what’s wrong with CF.

To sum up: all you douchebags who get your panties in a twist over how much time someone spends at any given level? Get over yourselves. Doubly so if you’re whining about someone who got zero mechanical advantage – and in fact hampered herself.

“Child”

It was shocking, even to me, how much this engendered not just regular rp-hatred (though people are morons, read on) but in-game ooc hatred. So much so that multiple people had to deal with imms. One was so insane, went on a huge hissy fit and went so far as to start busting out the “See You Next Tuesday” word (which while not such a big deal in England still is a big deal in the US and other places) and they got ROTD’d and I think ultimately lost the char. I don’t know why so many people were triggered by it, but it was so much fun watching/hearing (through tells and says, obviously) people foam at the mouth. As Ymstrecca would say: Delightful.

To explain where it came from and how: if you’re a Star Trek fan, you will know the character Kai Winn. She was the leader of the religion on the planet Bajor. She was an evil, selfish, power-hungry, greedy, lying, loathsome high priestess. She called everyone “child”. And that’s not strange – the clerics/priests/holy people of many if not most rl religions, including Christianity, use that word and call people child – just like people call priests “father.” Which is why I was always amazed at how many people seemed to think it had anything to do with age. Several commented on how they are older and live longer, then would see saurian live longer than anyone and would of course not admit they were wrong and just change topic. She was Skreenak’s high priestess. Everyone – literally everyone – was beneath her. Child was the default. Some were either powerful enough or allies or for some other self-serving reason were excluded, but you could count those on one hand. Wow this really made people go red in the face so fast.

And then there were the class of people who thought to try and reverse it, and call her child, or some other rhetorical trick. She adored that. Mimicry, as she told many, is just flattery. And of course she loved flattery. People who tried to “get her back” by trying to sound like she did just made it better for her.
In any event, I still don’t get why an internet game character calling someone else’s internet game character in a made-up world “child” made so many of you rl angry. But it did. If you’re one of these people, you’re weird.

Orcs

My first thought after reading all these people’s hatred about what Ymstrecca did was wow, nobody once seems upset at Zograthe. Which is good, Zograthe is tremendous and when I get to my goodbyes I have a lot to say, every bit of it positive and glowing. But I think people either don’t know stuff, or just want to hate Yms, as none of it was done without Zog. So let’s talk about it.

People keep saying I “gave” items to the orcs, as though I would go and take items myself, then go give to Tremble. Wrong. First, I couldn’t give to Tremblefist. No non-orc can. If Tremblefist has an item, it’s because an orc gave it. So people who are saying I’d go give and be there alone are just wrong mechanically. Second, I don’t recall ever going and raiding a cabal, getting an item myself, without any orcs, and then going and finding an orc and giving the cabal item to them to give to Tremble. Is it possible it happened once? Maybe? I’m not going to swear? But I don’t think so. The fact is it took a lot longer, and was much harder, for her to raid solo. Taking the head required five or six or seven rests, rng dependent, and using all her preps. Without any opposition, just the destructor.

Conversely, Zog and I would raid together, and more often than not – in fact almost always – Zog would get the last hit and thus have the item. Which makes perfect sense as he has third attack and is dual wielding and I have only second attack, and a single weapon, which got parried or dodged much of the time. I had a nightwalker for my best DPS, but he would have the enormous giant or some other charmie, so about the same. His DPS was just to exponentially higher than mine it made it pretty regular that I would stand I front with my sanc and reject pain and stone skin and whatever as necessary, and then he come in and beat the mob up. So he almost always got the item and gave it to Tremble. Why is this somehow confusing or odd? It is both logical and, you know, the truth.

The 2% of the time the item landed in my hands, it largely depended on what was going on, who was logged on, and, most important, who could defend. For example, if there were non-hero range outlanders on and no Scion to defend, why would I give to the Archmage just to have the outlanders take it right back? Just silly – why take at all at that point. The goal is to keep an enemy’s cabal item away from your enemy. Again, why is this somehow confusing or odd? And no, nothing in the Chasm, nothing written or said, says anything to the contrary, or even suggests, much less mandates, some benefit to having the Archmage hold items. Sure, you can make it up as part of your rp, but that’s you, not the game or the lore. The goal is keepaway. (Asterisk being orcs, interestingly enough: they DO benefit by having cabal items with Tremblefist. Funny, huh?)

And no, nobody ever said anything to me, not Morius, not Rahsael (before he went dormant), nobody. And Morius was active at least some of the time (see: Solanzara), and could have. None of this was a secret, and Yms was there for months and hundreds of game hours. Further, I’ve had more than a few scions over the years and nobody ever said anything about this somehow being poor form, prohibited, bad rp, anything. So yeah. You discord folks who want to be upset about it, great, more power to you, but it’s purely your personal viewpoints and they mean zip.

Next on people’s tirade list seems to be what would happen after taking items and giving to Tremblefist. In particular, summoning mobs to the gate to attack pcs under a certain level, and not evil, trying to retrieve. First, all this hatred about summoning hero mobs? Nope. Yet again the “Skywalker” line. Wrong. None at all. Probably thinking of the ‘enormous orc’ and that mob is not hero. Also, I had no idea about any of these mobs, I learned all of this from Zog. He would suggest orcs and I would try to summon and then see if they autoassisted gate guards. Not all do. This was my first summoner who ever spent a lot of time with an orc, so all news to me. And I was perfectly happy to do it, so don’t think I’m trying to pawn anything off on Zog. He just suggested mobs and I gladly tried.

Second, why is this bad? I’ll set villagers aside for the moment, but literally anyone else can just send themselves home and heal, or find other ways (which I won’t elaborate on here, learn yourselves). As I mentioned above, the goal is keepaway. Why would we not do everything we can to keep the items? If the answer is “you’re out of range and they are trying to get their cabal item, it’s not fair!” then I am curious why I don’t hear you same people talking about out-of-range healers who sanc and heal outers with mass heal, etc.? Or summon mobs when lower out-of-range bards or invokers come? Etc. Also, why do they have to come and get the item right then and there? They can literally do anything else. Go level. Go explore. Go gather gold. Go rp in the inn or anywhere. Go pursue a religion. Go get equ. Other than villagers, nobody is hampered to do these things without a cabal item. All of them had the exact same abilities like “heal heal” and return potions and magic buffs from groupmates that they did before. They just don’t have chameleon or call mantle or whatever. If you created a character that just can’t exist unless it goes over and over and over to try and retrieve, ok, but that’s on you, not me.

To be honest, I think the issue actually is the orc village. For decades – seriously, for decades – I have complained about it, because I play a lot of villagers, and it is by far worst on them. Nobody, absolutely nobody, knows the frustration of a villager having to retrieve from the GSV. On one char I had to spend 70 mins rl sitting and waiting out plague, nothing to do, eventually opening up another window and playing a different game, checking back every few minutes just to see how many ticks had gone by. On another I wasn’t so lucky, I was without moves and was found and pk’d. This happened many, many, many times over my history with rager chars. And I have complained to imms. I have also said that if you’re going to make it possible to give items to Tremble, then you should get cabal xp, and edge xp, when you retrieve. None of which was ever done.

By which I mean, this is the system. None of it was in my head when I rolled Yms, had no idea what characters would exist in her lifetime, obviously, but once it became clear Zog and I had similar times, then as Mando would say, this was the way. Nobody had to come. If you came and died, you knew what you were getting into – especially in the last two months when it was famously described ic and in ooc places.

I think the biggest problem is it’s been a long time, if ever, that a powerful orc and a shaman had significant time together on a regular basis. Zog did some time with Takoa, but dispel is a lot better than dispel magic. And I also just had more time because Takoa wasn’t scion long, and then deleted not long after uninduction. I think people are bitter about the effectiveness of the duo, and bitter at how we played well within the system. I won’t call it jealousy, as lots of the discord people are extremely accomplished (a few not quite as much as they think they are, but accomplished just the same… ?), but more just bitterness that their sense of how other people should play doesn’t jibe with those other people, much less the game itself. Nobody griefed anyone. WE got griefed by thieves and raccoons, actually. But that’s another story.

Which brings me to a final point here: People seem so upset about getting killed. As someone once famously wrote, I’m sorry you got pk’d in a pk game. Why are you upset about it? I ask this because I never, not once, full looted anyone – despite Muirrigg, for example, literally saying to me when we were in our 30s and I got him and his group in the mausoleum, but then fell as I wandered to check something for equ, that if he’d got back to my corpse first, he would have taken everything. Full looted all of it. You know how much I took from him? Nothing. Not one piece. And despite her lifelong journey for better things, she NEVER fulled anyone. In fact, 90% of people she killed lost NOTHING. (Other than gold, and for outlanders, that really meant nothing.) Zero. So why the hate? You lost 1/3 of a con (or 1/5th if you were a leader). Nothing else. And yet soooooo much hatred and taking of things when she died. You people (again, you know who you are) are such hypocrites.

Anyway, all of which is to say nobody did anything for any mechanical or exploitative purpose, or did anything even close to the edge for rules or unsportsmanlike conduct. We took cabal items. We held at the place best able to defend them and with the chief of that place. A place that has been this way, almost entirely unchanged, for 25+ years. If nobody did this before, ok, but so what? And when we did take items? Most heroes never came, which is another topic – at times it would be two of us and FIVE of the enemy, but they never came.
People 41 and below did, and many got through – the gate doesn’t even stop evils at that point, so they just walk in – and those that didn’t get through were the result of the way the GSV is set up, again, for decades. That’s it, no more, no less. A fair amount of orc mobs, we learned, are NOT summonable. These we did summon were actually pretty low/weakish mobs, with a couple/few exceptions, but still not hero mobs. Zog would rattle off mob after mob after mob and we’d see. And they wander, so even if they were summonable many wouldn’t actually be at the gate for long. And remember, if you kill Tremble, ALL items are returned, not just your cabal’s. So we saw lots of fun team-ups, like outlander and duerg sitting and resting together while they fight Tremble. In range of each other. But sure, let’s ignore each other so we can fight Tremblefist! Eyeroll.

That’s about it for general ooc hatred stuff, and how the orc village worked.

One final point on me and Zog: No, there is nothing ooc. Zero. I have one and only one char, always. I hadn’t played for months before rolling Yms. Had no idea who or what was in the game. When I rolled her Zog was already a hero. I only became familiar with him because at one point he, Takoa, and Hidona were killing the blademaster. At this point I was already working to mooch stuff off Takoa as a fellow scion pledge, and I had an invitation, so I went in and helped (one or two of my blindness attempts actually worked!). I also died. The three of them killed the blademaster a second time so Yms could have a dragon coat. And Zograthe gave her – gave her! – the earthquake axe. With that, he became Yms’s best friend. Give her a legendary axe to use to bring Weh? Mithril? Help her get a dragon coat?? Best bud. And she’s level 17 as I recall. He was repeatedly helpful to her, getting things she lost, etc. Of COURSE she viewed him and all orcs as her personal servants – more like pets, really - and would say so on cb frequently. And why not? He would hold onto things for a future login to give me. And when ultimately Takoa was gone, Zog continued to be helpful, and even travel from time to time despite not being able to group. And, yes, Zog not a few times commented how much better it would be if I leveled to hero so we could bring Weh everywhere. Didn’t matter, I did as I wanted to do, and then when I did hero, well, the rest is history. The orcs were like her big bad pet guard dogs and the GSV the doghouse. It was terrifically fun and made perfect rp sense all around.

Once we were hero, btw, no small part in the relationship was both of us maintaining our fictions. Presumably he did, I can’t know until he is dead. But he was always respectful, never told her to do anything, always requested if he wanted something (often asking me to summon an elf mob to drain ?). In other words, he played her perfectly. Got everything he wanted from her, all by playing second fiddle. Called her “Chancellor” and was always very cognizant of how things appeared to others. And at times I didn’t make it easy for him. While by that time we were conversational, I did not hold back from barking orders every now and then. I imagine internally (or even on orc channel) he chortled and mocked Yms. But never outwardly. More on him in my goodbyes, but this is how it came to be and why it lasted her whole life.

Honorable Mention

So not nearly as much, but a couple/few times people thought I was griefing them by not letting things repop, or messing with their leveling. Nope. If you knew about each other, you would know it happened only in one area. And that area has a prep. And I needed a mob to repop in that area. And it’s not like Ymstrecca was going to ask some lowbie enemies oh would you please leave the area so a certain mob can return? I would be ever so grateful! And if I identified it, they would just go get the highly limited prep, or, if villagers, get it and bring to Tahren or whatever. So, how would she get it? She needed people to leave the area.

What people complaining about it never seem to mention is that she didn’t follow them. If she were actually trying to grief, she could have just gone where they went, to whatever next leveling area they picked. Or, after the first repop, she would have stayed and continued to try and prevent them from leveling. She didn’t. She got the prep and then went on about her business. Would I have found it annoying? Of course. But I would have seen what happened and realized she just left when done in three ticks. You’re only telling half the story, oh complainers, and there was zero griefing. Just like she never full looted – or even looted at all – this, too, is myth, not fact.

The Character

Ymstrecca was conceived while on a train re-reading a book where “Ymstrecca” is the name of a river. Tad Williams’s Dragonbone Chair series. If you haven’t read, I recommend. I liked the name. I had not played a saurian yet, so wanted to try that; I’d heard from more than one player that the inherent is cool, and of course detect camo is great. I hadn’t played a shaman in a long while and wanted to try out some paths, so shaman. A quick look at the wizlist at the time, and personal history with some imms who are listed as active but really are not, led me to a narrow set of choices, and I’d never followed Skreenak, so that was that. All my chars are religious. I take it seriously and have had some success. It is an often overlooked part of the game. I urge everyone to try it if they haven’t, or try again with someone else if they were burned. Other than one exception a very long time ago, I have never had anything but stellar experiences interacting with imms when I’m a follower, be it in shrines or elsewhere. More on Skreenak later. I now had name, race, class, patron. Evil, so no fort. Shaman so no village. Saurian so no empire or trib. That left outlander or scion, and it seemed silly to be outlander as the biggest benefit of saurian is mostly wasted. So, scion was really more a forced default choice. I was a bit nervous as I knew there hadn’t been a leader in a long time, and Morius is a known deadbeat dad, but I was game.

Now, I needed a role to bring the components together. Role entries tell the story. And I’ve mentioned the Kai Winn character in the back of my head. She was a self-centered, egotistical, megalomaniacal, uber-greedy bitch who thought everyone was beneath her, was either below her in the Skreenak religion or a nobody because they were some other religion, was spurned early on and out to get it back on literally everyone, and take absolutely everything she could get. Everything was hers, she just kept stuff spread all over Thera, to paraphrase an old Steven Wright joke. Chaotic evil scion priestess of Skreenak (which, btw, is why I was always just rolling my eyes at people who complained I was too mean, wanted too many things, whatever. Hello?? Sphere greed? Skreenak? Literally working to END THE WORLD??? Come on people.) Lie, cheat, steal, kill, whatever. Constantly lied to tribunals – whom she called “mercenaries”, always. Always called villagers “that merry little band of magic hating morons/imbeciles.” As Zix mentioned, went years pretending not to be scion after she was inducted – almost never went to the chasm just in case someone might see the outer nightwalker acknowledge her or be inside. And that pretending got her gold, equ, whereabouts of enemies, preps, was just gloriously funny and fun. Even when a couple suspected, they helped me – one villager even saying “well, I can’t kill you, so may as well help you kill that mage I can’t kill.” That was terrific. Once she did go public, she always capitalized the C in Chasm. Called it the Night. Was important to her that people took it seriously and with fear/respect.

But the other side, and frankly a really easy side to figure out for anyone who took even one minute to think about it, was that if you gave her ####, if you were nice to her, she was delightful. Because she was a shallow bitch. Give her shinies and she’s happy. I gave #### out. She gave away famous and legendary items to people who demonstrated respect and, well, niceness to her. Or fawned over her. ? Which, again, wasn’t hard to figure out. When I deleted she had about 2.5k gold (she hadn’t deposited much in years, she actually spent a lot of money on watches, roots, other preps/potions, heals, the usual).

The final piece of the role puzzle was Weh. RP is important to me and every char has multiple hooks – race, religion, cabal, etc. Making her a saurian meant being a saurian. For those that spoke with her or got notes from her, the marsh almost always played a part. Likewise, the unique storyline of saurian in the helpfiles is Sra and Weh. So, Weh became a huge motivating force. Constant and omnipresent. It was important to me that while she want to embody it (read: be the killer), she readily accept when she met it (read: died). And she did. She might have complained about losing things (sphere greed), but never about actually dying. She incorporated Weh into the Scion philosophy by telling people that after research, Weh is the fuel that widens the portals. Won’t say more because Scion is Scion, but it was all on purpose.

So, that’s how she came to be and I did not deviate from that over the 700+ hours. Despite others going ooc routinely, I never did, as is my practice. And yes, that’s self-congratulatory. If you got as much ooc as I did, you would be proud you didn’t respond in kind, too.

Race/Class/Cabal/Edges/Religion

Race

Saurian can be cool but too many drawbacks. My single biggest disappointment (and there were several) was just how bad, yet hugely expensive, Vigorous Coalescence was. I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said one of the big reasons I rolled saurian was to try it and get that edge. I am not convinced it really did anything at all, I didn’t even really see much additional duration or heightening of effects. A little, maybe. But the edge is *really* expensive. Like, really. I would never take it again, probably not even if it were really cheap. My suggestion is double the times – meaning, they last twice as long, and then make cool-down longer, but maybe not a full twice as long. That would then make it not just useful but strategic. And of course, vastly reduce the cost of the edge. Word to the wise.

Similarly, saurian equ options are just horrible. Need imms to sprinkle more in, and encourage area writers to add in new areas. Don’t need to flood the market but as it is, just terrible. And weird, btw. Some things that wouldn’t fit on face or claws or foreclaws should have, and things that did that shouldn’t have. Examine them, read their descriptions, and there’s really no rhyme or reason. These, too, should be reviewed. (I get I’m suggesting imm work when there aren’t enough imms. Putting down markers as placeholders for when there is enough staff to do stuff.)

The low str was difficult to deal with a fair amount, and why one of my big disappointments equ-wise was never getting a certain no-disarm weapon. Carry weight was in constant need of management. Also was hard to tell which supps really did benefit from the 24 wis. The lower int meant only average mana, but that was fine. And with enough trains (and a couple extra trains given to her) the base hp became alright but still not great. As mentioned above, no despoil (despite most people thinking I had it). Yms spent hundreds of hours in the 7s, 8s, and low 9s for hp. It was only the last 200 hours or so she cracked 1k, and that not consistently. And this with relatively elite gear (given hell and silent closures). Dex was good but without dodge didn’t shine. Still, was able to carry a lot of items, if weight didn’t get in the way. No complaints there.

Every now and then detect camo acted weird – in particular re: assassins in GSV. But for the most part it was as good as it sounds. This helped both in pk but also pve. If I ever play another saurian, I’d probably try good as I’d want to see how the inherent works for the Sra side, but definitely also to have detect camo. Just like having detect hidden on duerg it’s extremely useful. And turned out to be really helpful with assassins generally – it’s great being able to stop somewhere and know they can’t be stalking you. Several tried on eastern, I’d duck into drogran or grove or wherever and bam, no more stalking and I don’t have to run anywhere. Very helpful and one of the reasons I never got assassinated despite not really doing the usual things to avoid.

Last saurian thing: was really, really, really, really frustrating having to live with the home point. Getting back to the chasm was not very quick. And recalling and not being able to heal anything was problematic more than a few times. And of course everyone knows where your home is, and that you can’t change it. I wanted desperately to be able to change hometown to Hamsah, or even Balator or Arkham, but can’t do it. And I get it, but it can be a significant drawback, so take it into consideration if you plan to roll one.

Class

Shaman is great. The basic toolkit is great. Would I tweak some things? Some mana costs? Some affects? Sure. But no big issues and a lot of love for it. My paths? Not so much. I found both underwhelming.
But first, a general plea to the staff: there is no reason the shaman shouldn’t know exactly what the commune does. It makes no sense that a "hero” of the guild, an ultimate practitioner, has only a highly vague description. And even when getting an ally to go to the arena and let you commune on them, you don’t really get full info. Make it so at hero there is a separate helpfile maybe? Like “heroimm” helpfile? Dolorous coil, for example. Or worse, decaying touch. What does it do? The shaman communing it should know and the helpfile is misleading. Please, I’m begging you, I know how much we all want (and agree) cf to have mystery and the fun of discovery. But not only should this not be one of those areas, but it doesn’t make thematic sense.

Likewise, I’m begging you, please do for warpriest what you do for gates warriors: let the shaman know when they put something on whether it helps or hurts as a light or heavy armor warpriest? The helpfile is largely ambiguous and incomplete. If something is made of a jewel, but 10 lbs, is it better than something weighing only 2lbs, but made of copper? If something is called “clothing” but weighs 20 lbs, is it better than something identified as “heavy armor” but weighing less than half? There are so many items and permutations and unknowns – does dragon armor count as heavy? Light? Neither? What about things that aren’t either? Is it then just pure weight? And how would it compare to something weighing more but of a “light armor” designation? Again, there’s no reason the shaman wouldn’t immediately know.

Ok, to the paths. Pain and Pestilence certainly were excellent thematic choices for Skreenak – and he said he actually never had a pestilence shaman before, so wanted to see it himself. But they did not impress. Others have had and no doubt will mock me for not getting it right or properly exploiting, but I had a lot of hours with them, used in multiple combinations on multiple kinds of characters/races/classes/mobs, and just didn’t live up to hopes or expectations.

Start with pain. Dolorous coil is fine. Lowest level, don’t have huge expectations power-wise. Gives a bit of +dam (as helpfile notes), scaling as you level, but top is still not much. Which is fine. As to the other stuff it does, it’s minor, very short duration, but worse: is dispelable. Not a skill, but a commune, so the instant you dispel, you dispel what you just got from the weapon. That was annoying. But fine, lowbie commune, lowbie expectation. The bonus to using a flail and lashing (not the flail itself, only if you lash, so you’re giving up something active to do) was pure damage. And that could have been great, combined with lag from lash… if it landed. Maybe if you also have the war path it would work better, but it was running around 30 – 35% success rate. More often than not I would lash and miss. Make it actually work, and then you’d have something.

Anguish was good in that it turned out it had higher dam output than all the other communes – more often than not more than torment, more than decaying touch, more than afflict, more than dispel evil/good, etc. It became a go-to for just damage. And it has a bit of a secondary effect which I don’t think ever turned a fight but I suppose in the right conditions could. And while mental damage may be good for certain foes, fatigue is mental damage as well as drains moves, which for a shaman is big as we have no real lag ability, so not really a big help.

Spasms and wrack. These looked so good. I was so excited for people not to be able to do stuff. Never really worked that way. Tried and tried. Wrack especially – a certain mob on the way to a certain prep wracks, and I constantly would find myself getting that “the pain breaks your concentration” echo and having a round of lag. Never really saw that on an enemy – if they were pincering, then they pincered again after the three round lag. If they were cranialing, then they cranialed after trip lag. Etc. And wrack is REALLY expensive in mana. I’m sure people will reply saying they had it happen, and ok, but I went back over fights and counted rounds and just didn’t happen as far as I could tell. Spasm was a bit more obscure, not sure if, for example, a thief would have tried to come back and blackjack, or a necro try to come back and sleep, or whatever else might be affected, but again, never seemed to stop anyone when they tried.

Embrace pain. HUGELY disappointing. I expected it to work like orc but did not. People kept telling me they saw people do two, three, four torments in one round. Nope. First, it only triggered off caps damage, and I was almost always trying not to take caps damage, so it hardly ever went off. Second, when it did, I couldn’t do anything right there – when using it I would deliberately violate the rule not to stack commands, and indeed stacked commands, just to see, and didn’t get immediate and multiple commands in. Went off just as they would normally. Third, it was really disappointing not to work against hold person. That’s an imm decision I guess, maybe it’s a gameplay decision, but it felt like it should snap you out of that. But nope. Fourth and lastly, the benefits it gives (meaning the stat benefits you get when it goes off) last so short it’s kinda negligible. Even adding two or three more ticks would make a difference. You’re using it to the exclusion of reject pain. I don’t think they are balanced that well in that regard.

Reject pain was good. I think it’s better than potion sources of the similar spell. The loss of being able to see your own stats, as the helpfile says, can be annoying, but you get used to it. After spending a couple hundred hours testing out embrace pain, which seemed really cool, I mostly defaulted to reject pain for the last few hundred hours. Except when fighting bards, then I used embrace.

Pestilence was really frustrating and disappointing. Start with decaying touch. It says it causes “disease damage” but didn’t seem much different regardless who I communed it on, meaning, I expected lower damage on races that resisted disease, and higher damage on races that were not or even vuln, but the differences were very small, if at all. Worse though, the echo says the victim spasms, but nobody is spasming. And despite doing it three or four times to some folks both in real pk and in testing, nobody ever saw any lasting affect. Also, the last bit in the helpfile says “while a victim is afflicted with a decaying touch, any additional physical contact with the shaman can cause additional symptoms of decay.” Well, my fights, like most shaman fights, can last long. Not sure what this means, but nothing ever showed up and nobody ever reported any affect. Again, maybe it was hidden and something was there nobody ever mentioned, but it had no discernable impact on them.

Pestilence was fine. Didn’t really see huge boost to mana regen, but ok, for about a dozen hours you get it and then have a two-day cool down. As a non-scion it would have been pretty disappointing, but with the ability to corrupt places as part of the scion toolbox, I could benefit once I had pastor (more on that later). I did think it would do more as it’s confined to one room, but nope. The mana boost was ok.
Corrode, like decaying, was disappointing. Several reasons. While very glad to have at least one area affect commune, it hit group mates, in particular mercenaries and npcs charmies. Which made it very dangerous to even try to use. Then, even when without charmies, it’s two round lag but doesn’t have actual oomph. The echoes talk about wearing down defenses, but it seems it just reduced armor class, which at hero is about useless unless fighting a gates warrior or couple other exceptions. It also says sometimes it erodes equ, but nobody ever had a piece of armor fall off as “broken” or whatever, and when would that really be useful? Again, I’m sure people will mock my lack of creativity but she spoke about it repeatedly with various characters and none could come up with a good reason ever to use it, other than as a basic area ability.

Effluvium. Hugely disappointing: unless you run solo your entire life, like an honor-bound character, you can’t use effluvium, which if I weren’t scion would have been even more frustrating. Effluvium affects your cabal mates, your groupmates, everyone. So unless you want to #### with your allies, you can’t use it. It also isn’t as helpful as you think as it only affects people in pk range, unlike, say, smoke or other area affects. If I can get hit for damage and -str by the damn freezing of an invoker’s conglaciation when I’m a level 12, then effluvium should work, too. I couldn’t even use it in cabal defense (the rare time that happened, I got raided 2x, total. Seriously) because it would #### with my own cabal mates. It also has a pretty long cool down, so once you use it, you are out of luck if an opportunity arises the next couple game days. The rare times I did get to use, it was fun to see some affects, but also its spread was a bit narrower than I would have thought. Wouldn’t say it should cover an entire area, but would probably suggest one more outercircle. So if spreads two rooms out, would do 3. And I’m not playing one again, likely ever, so I’m not asking so I can have it better. Just my perspective.

Finally pastor. I had hoped that all the things about the other path communes would become noticeably better once I got pastor, or, if necessary, perfected pastor. Nope. None of them changed. The only real noticeable change was rot could get old rot – and still I never got even one rot death. I thought I’d at least some, but not one. Cannot say strongly enough how disappointing that was, as that seems to be one of the biggest supposed benefits of pastor. Even after perfecting I saw no difference in decaying touch, pestilence, corrode, or effluvium. I did notice a bit better regen in effluvium/corrupted spots, as it says, but the helpfile says “standing” and it made me wonder if you really had to be standing, so no resting, no sleeping. Imms might want to clarify. Not complaining about that, any boost to regen is good. But hard to know how to handle once you get it. The rot part though – that really disappointed. Oh well. If I had it over to do again, and had the choice to pick, I wouldn’t pick either path.

Cabal

Scion is just so great as a cabal. I’ve played every cabal, had multiple leaders in most, including dead cabals, and Scion never disappoints. Morius scion interactions are great, though far too rare. Lore is great. Freedom is great. Always simultaneously being the victim and the aggressor is great. Morius in fact commented that he was cursing me by inducting me, not blessing, because all it does is make you a target and sets you up for a life of pain. Which is exactly as it should be.

But I’ll be honest: I wish I’d known how it works for communers. But for one time, a martial, my previous scions were all mages (of different classes). So I had no idea I wouldn’t get despoil. I was kinda counting on that. ? Likewise I had no idea I wouldn’t get sight. Was kinda counting on that, too. ? Had no idea I wouldn’t get volley. And yup, was kinda counting on that as well. ? Nightwalker is a top-tier power, especially for a summoner, no doubt. But that was pretty much it mostly. Once I became a hero and started teaming up with Zog, I learned that just like the corrode and effluvium stuff, scion powers don’t give a #### about groupmates. So as I said to Zog on multiple occasions, working with him actually was a drawback, as I could not use beckon or forsaken. And those are good powers. I imagine people asked themselves, or cabal mates or groupmates, why I hadn’t used the power. Now you know.

Along those lines, I had hoped that upon becoming Chancellor, I might get something. I knew there are no scion leader weapons, but thought like battle, for example, I might now get one power I normally don’t get. Maybe despoil or sight or volley. Nope. I think – think? – my nightwalkers were beefier, and that was helpful, but that was it, and not 100 on that. No new skills or spells or powers. Oh well. But you don’t go for Chancellor for extra skills or spells. You go for the coolness, and it was, as always.

It’s just so fun being what is widely considered the biggest evil position in the game. Even moreso than Emperor in that Scion isn’t here for order, it’s not here to try and take over land, it’s just evil for evil’s sake as they work to destroy pretty much everything and everyone. Emperors and such are imposing and terrible. Chancellors are the stuff of nightmares and frightening. Not speaking of any particular character, including mine, but more the position and title itself, the lore of it and its place in Thera.

Morius gave me strict instructions early on as to the kind of candidate and how to deal with them. I will not reveal here. I inducted six or seven or eight I think, I don’t remember. I did what Morius instructed, and likewise instructed scions to do the same and report to me of applicants. She did ask if people ‘brought Weh’ and if not, told them to. How much was tailored to the pledge, some needed more than others – just one was fine for at least one. For one applicant, one wasn’t even necessary as they buttered her up so much. If you did what was asked of you by the scion(s) who talked to you and gave tasks, and didn’t just demand you be inducted like it was owed to you, you did fine. Also had some patience. Scion isn’t a 30 person cabal, and I was more afraid of being slapped down for too much inducting than too little. I also wanted some variety – despite Solazara’s silly bit about only inducting invokers, there was only one at any time, never two at a time. When she wrote that, we had an ap, another shaman, a conjurer, a shifter, a muter, and I think one other. I don’t recall. In any event, I didn’t have different standards than in previous years/chars, or that other Chancellors had, or that differed from what Morius instructed. To the extent I was dealing with some people before the baby was born who later could not log in when I was logged in, that is unfortunate. None of you wrote a note however. Not much I could do. I did think Morius would eventually name a new Advisor, but of course did not. Obviously I had no control over that. My only negative comment is that the Chasm needs a fountain or well. I hated when early on I was still using water skins and needed to leave to fill them up. I know it’s primarily a mage cabal, but even so. Get us some damn water! ?

As far as running generally, I had people report on research from time to time, set instructions, but most people didn’t actually want to talk about it, or, it became obvious, didn’t actually have anything other than a platitude. Every now and then I thought about issuing ultimatums, or even uninducting, but that seemed too harsh given there are no specific rules being broken. I tried to encourage people to come up with stuff but they for the most part said the same things over and over without ever developing their rp story. One char literally said the same thing for hundreds of hours. So, whatev. Most also did not level to hero until near the end of her life, and the one hero, Dondonxa, hardly ever logged on when I was logged on, so I was alone, pretty much always. Which of course also lent itself to allying with Zog, who was logged on much of the time I was logged on. (Coincidentally and luckily, you conspiracy theory nutjobs.) 95% of Yms’s life she had no scion to group with. It wasn’t a choice, it was a reality.

p.s. To all you scions: every single time Yms ever mentioned talking to Morius, hearing from Morius, talking to the Archmage, whatever – totally false. After she was inducted, she never heard from him again. Even when made chancellor it was “an immortal” and it was one tell. Never any imm interaction for scion. Made it all up. She wanted people to think she was tight with the powers that be so they would always fear her and walk on eggshells. Need to keep you all in line! So she just made stuff up and pretended it came from Morius or the Archmage. Good times. ?

Edges

I’ve already discussed Vigorous Coalescence. Blightcaller helpfile says more damaging and slightly more potent. I never saw the more potent side (though I wouldn’t know just how bad it was if it was the actual rot if they didn’t die I suppose, to some extent) but there definitely was a damage boost when communing, and on some people it was a significant increase – on one person it got a ****DEMO*****. I’d probably get again if I were pestilence and so might want better rots.
Curse of parching was great. Being able to make people thirst as well as starve for damage, but more importantly to drain mvs, was great. Would get again.

Diametric opposition. So when I took this, empire was on the rise. Yms was chaotic so this was of no use against outlanders, unclear how useful against villagers as no way to know who was lawful, and I didn’t really fight much with tribs. But against empire, that would be great – except it never lasted. I had very few fights with empire people as it ended up, which was too bad. So, I guess I’d take again, but it would be better if you could be more sure your enemies are the other ethos.

Empowered enfeeblement. Solid. Would take again.
Languor of Aeons. Took late mostly because I wanted other edges and didn’t want to squander points. But I absolutely HATE that wither takes rl time off a char, and so would take again just for that – I think players should get to play the char as long as they want, and even though not so many people age die, nonetheless I hate it. And the small -dex never hurts. Would take again.

Seasoned traveler. A must for most chars in my opinion.
Strong back. Weak char. Carry weight. Would take again.
Unpredictable. Multiple stsf chars over her life, seemed helpful.
Unyielding Adversary. Took late, as mostly if I was healing myself in a pk it probably was not good, but during raids and even some pks, was quite helpful. Second tier but would take again.

One aside: could not take sightbinder and don’t know why. Frustrating not to be able, but equally frustrating not to be told why – you discuss and you don’t get told. Not enough int? Not enough charisma? I don’t know. (I have my guess.) This edge was part of my big strategic planning and finding out I could never take it was quite a blow. And it impacted her quite a lot. It’s one reason I might not do another saurian who has the blind spell/commune. Frustrating.

Religion

What can I say? Skreenak is fabulous. Just a joy, every second of it. But dude, you became a total deadbeat dad! Even after you said you would be more available!! I cannot stress how disappointing it was not to be able to interact with you for the last four hundred hours or so. And I’m not blaming you, I’m sure you have real life stuff just like me and everyone (I really hope you weren’t absent for something bad, like illness, in which case I hope you recover quickly and fully!!), but it was really sad for me. I have had great times with imms and you’re right up there. Fun, funny, generous, and demanding, the total package. For those who care: I had to have 5 pks, bring 20 gold, and get inducted into scion to get first path. I then had to have 30 more pks and 150 gold to get a second path (and tattoo it turned out). That is one reason why I stayed at 31 – I wanted both paths before leveling too much. I have not had the paths before and wanted time to get used to them before leveling up. I won’t go into more detail about our talks (which were far too few!) but suffice to say Skreenak is a hoot and a half.

Separately, as referred to above, it’s a great religion to follow as a char in that you can be totally base, totally free, totally selfish. Nobody and nothing else matters. You can pretty much do no wrong, so long as it’s part of amassing all the things you want. Again, I won’t go into greater detail but it’s wildly different than following a Dest or Rahs or Baer, or Ergush or whomever. I urge people to try. You’ll like! But you can’t use God-King, I trademarked that. ?

People

I’m going to limit to very few. First, Takoa. Right off the top: you’re a douchebag. But let’s get to the game: I bet you were totally surprised and shocked that I could uninduct you. I know from experience, for example, that commander and drillmaster can’t uninduct each other (or at least they couldn’t, maybe that’s been changed). I suspect you thought yourself totally safe and in a “#### her, she can’t do anything to me, so I get to do what I want” position. Hope you enjoyed the wake-up call. And you know why? You totally brought it on yourself. When I got made Chancellor and you Advisor, you immediately started bitching to people how upset you were, how jealous you were, blah blah blah. Did you think people wouldn’t tell me? But that would have been fine. It was great, in fact, to Yms, she loved it. You were suffering and she was the boss. All that did was make it sweeter.

And she was ready to have you be important, do whatever, be an actual Advisor of import. I didn’t know it was you, Torak, but I knew it was a vet with lots of knowledge and that would have been very helpful. Made it even more fun. So I had incentive to keep you around.
She gave you one and only one instruction: don’t induct anyone at first. She wanted to start off handling inductions as the new Chancellor. Make the place her own, set standards, keep tabs on everything. If you’d waited even one week chances are she would have gladly let you start doing it and take the time off her hands. But no. Literally the very next day you violated the sole directive and inducted someone.

And do you recall what you said to me when I uninducted you, Torak, and reminded you that you were the Advisor to the Chancellor and I was the Chancellor? You said “Chancellor doesn’t get to choose Advisor.” Well, yeah, that’s right. But so what? Nobody said anything about who chooses what. You had no answer, and that’s because you never thought you’d have to explain, you thought you were safe. You were wrong. I have zero sympathy for you, and all this trash talk about her is #### as you brought it on yourself 100%.

The only caveat I’ll even consider – and given how you’ve been fast and loose with the truth I’m not convinced this is accurate, but if so, ok – is if Morius actually led you to believe you could do what you want and not give a flying #### what Yms said or did, that you could ignore her and he would back you up. If that’s true, then ok, I would be bitter too – at Morius.

Nothing Yms did was wrong, or even strange. She was the Chancellor. You disobeyed the single rule she set for you. You had the world as your oyster. But you wanted that one thing. Why did you think that was ok? What did you think would happen? Did you think she’d be “ok, that’s fine.”? Come on. And I challenge everyone reading this: if you as cabal leader gave an order, and someone deliberately violated it, doing it on purpose to challenge you, what would you have done? The answer is every single one of you would have uninducted on the spot. And don’t work hard to come up with some wacky contrived ridiculous rp reason you wouldn’t, I get enough of that from Trump and don’t need more gaslighting here. You know the truth. You would have done exactly what I did. Torak, you paid the obvious price. The fact that you think she did something wrong is absurd. Oh, and on your discord you talked about level sitters. See above. But worse, you said you hate level sitting banes of fun – but then talked all about and only about a thief. What exactly did you have to complain about anyone not a thief? Or Yms in particular? Rhetorical questions.

Conversely… Zograthe. What can I say? Such a joy. A gift to the game, and to Yms. Having played ragers most recently, the whole concept of pking with other people was pretty new to me again. Been years since I really had that. Finding someone to do it with who was both uber competent and uber-well roleplayed was just terrific. We had so much fun together. I have to imagine we’ve been either enemies or allies in the past, but I haven’t spent this much time with another character in years. Many years. I’ll have to wait until you die but I am very much looking forward to seeing how Zog thought of Yms. As I wrote, she thought of you as first among pets, and the whole orc village as a playground. I suspect a lot of orc channel stuff about lip service but mocking her, etc. Either way though, as a pair, we did a lot of damage and it was great fun, mostly winning but losing sometimes, too. You getting and holding onto equ or preps or whatever for Yms was almost too much sweetness for an orc, which I know was perfectly reasonable given how much carnage she enabled for you – all those outlanders you could never see but for her, and summon to the huntress, etc., was just a treat. Even so Yms loved it and so did I the player. We both had some family stuff (how’s the wench? ?) but never once broke rp or went out of bounds. Can’t say that about a lot of people.

I was always jealous how you’d get the killing blow more often than not, and I’d get the assist, or even not an assist as I would not join the actual melee, just summon, dispel, and before I could type a damage commune they were dead. But some not-insignificant portion of your kills really only could have happened because of me. Ha! ? Dispelling bash protections when you’re with an orc is just beyond fun. Watching it on your screen is too funny. I have been on the other side, I know. Or even with ragers who don’t need to be dispelled but have a shaman wither me so I’m weaponless as the orc bashes. Totally sucks. But it was fun to be on this side of it, this time around, and you made it happen. I definitely learned some stuff from you, and I tried to show you a couple/few things, so as players I think we both got better. I was never privy to internal orc stuff but it seemed like nobody was really confident enough even to consider challenging you as chief. I thought Teygora would, and one other, but nope. There’s a current one now who might, we’ll see. I liked all the orcs, actually (I know Teygora’s player is talking #### but I liked Teygora nonetheless – oh and of course *I* knew I could redeem others, but why would she? She couldn’t give a #### about anyone else and would never even have tried, and shamen aren’t healers, can’t word people or cure disease or anything, so it wouldn’t even have occurred to her, so of course I had to say oh, did not know that. But as I’ve said I’ve had shamen before, not my first rodeo), and it was fun having pretty much all of them treat me like the queen. Often the younger ones would walk by me, then come back, bow, and then go back on their way. I don’t know if you told them to do stuff like that or was just their independent rp, but Yms loved it and all it did was endear her favorite children to her more.

I’m sure I’m forgetting stuff but the headline: exceptional character, I hope you age die as you want, and you have received all the accolades and imm love anyone could get. You deserve it.

Sola: Your problem is you want to have all your role restrictions, and that’s great, but you want to have what you want anyway. You want other people to do as your char wants them to do, despite your roleplay, not because of it. It doesn’t work that way. You keep putting it on me to have figured out a way to let you be prideful and still get what you want. No. The onus was on you to figure out a way to get what you want. As I mentioned, you could have come and said how you’re the best in the whole world, give me any task and I’ll not just do it but do it better than anyone, even you, or some such. You also could have refrained from insulting the one person who can give you what you want in your very first conversation. You could have done a lot of things differently, but you didn’t. All you did was further antagonize the Chancellor – on purpose – rather than figure out a way to get her to do what you wanted within your set “pride” parameters. You set a goal for yourself that you would never ask to join a cabal, but demanded to be invited. Ok, great. But you have to accept that is a very low likelihood of success, especially when that cabal is Scion for Pete’s sake. It’s like saying I am going to follow Jullias. Well, ok, but pretty low likelihood he’s going to come back and empower you.
Also, unlike literally everyone else, you actually had a theoretical path to being inducted: Morius. Unlike me, he did interact with you, at least to some extent. Frankly Ymstrecca was worried that’s exactly what would happen, he’d just induct you and bypass her. Wasn’t a big worry, imm religion is separate from imm cabal stewardship, for the most part, but certainly not impossible. And from what I read on discord you did try. But that failed, too.

Like I wrote on your death thread, you are an excellent roleplayer. But you don’t seem to accept that choices have consequences, and other people’s roles are equally important and valid. Coming to the Skreenak greed-sphere Chancellor of scion saying I refuse to request, you should beg me to join you, was just not going to be viable. And you didn’t even really try, as subsequently you just decided to try and publically shame her into doing what you want – and you see how that went.

Oh, you sent three notes. I try to save pks, win or lose (I hit save buffer in zmud), and all immteractions. Not much else. I took a brief look at my saves and don’t have one with a list of notes, so not sure I have it logged. I’ll look again more carefully at some point. But you sent two public at least (maybe there was a third?) and one “private” with just you, me, and Morius (I always responded with everyone, adding Scion back in).

Also, btw, as you saw in the pbf – Yms leveled solo to 42. You did it 9 more. Which is hard, I know, I’ve done it. But it just wasn’t that special.

Everyone else: over 700hrs I interacted with a lot of people, so feel free to post and if appropriate, I’ll respond.

Random Stuff

I am particularly tickled by people who say I was cowardly, or played conservatively. You have no idea. If I wanted to play cowardly or conservative, I’d very, very rarely die. I died, most often, precisely because I was not being conservative. Precisely because I was not being ‘cowardly.” I would die with unused dr preps in inventory. I would die because I would just stick around and not recall. I would die because I wanted to give people fights. I would die because the character would have stuck around. As those of you who have played know, a big part of playing shaman is rope-a-dope. You have to cut it just right. I often let it go too far precisely because it’s supposed to be a game, and I don’t mind dying. Especially once leader.

And why don’t I mind dying? Because I rarely if ever loot anything, much less full loot, and most people do the same in return. Sadly though, there are douchebags who don’t abide by the same sense of sportsmanship – which is totally within the rules, I’ve full looted in the past under certain circumstances. And that’s a big reason why I deleted when I did. Long ago – like four or five hundred hours ago, I got the white dragon hide in a trade with Kiekua. Gave her the spider hide and she gave me the white hide. I was a fully out scion by the way, which made me believe maybe the player was a newbie, but nope, we all know who it was. I think I had a nightwalker with me when we made the trade in the inn, but maybe I misremember that part. In any event, before that, having to find ways to cover the cold vuln sucked. Mobs took advantage, people took advantage, it blew. So I decided if I ever lost it, I’d call it quits rather than have to go through all the hassles of getting potions or whatever to cover, etc.

Well, all those hundreds of hours later, and the fifteen or twenty pks since, nobody ever kept it. People were cool. Just like I never took people’s vuln protecting stuff. Until the other day, when people I had killed and left all entirely, or took just one thing, took six or seven high-level famous or legendary stuff, including the white hide. They are still active, I believe, so I will not name, though of course they are on the pbf so choose to look or not. A couple weeks before, Muirrigg, who as I mentioned had told me four months ago in our 30s he would full loot me and who I had killed (alone and with Zog, both) and taken nothing, got me and took three things, the phylactery of free movement, the staff of wonders, and the earth mantle. People being this way gets tedious. Obviously I didn’t delete because of what Muirrigg’s player did, and I would not have deleted now but for the taking of the things the last time. But it adds up. Again, totally valid in the rules. But punitive for no real reason.

I did want to age die very much. But as to that one thing: I hit old at 600 hrs. 600! Given when I hit mature and old, I was not even going to hit the average 813 hours, let alone adding in years as a long-time leader. I never used age items, was never withered with age-stealing, I don’t understand. Maybe an imm could take a look but something was way off. BTW, the new wiki doesn’t have the average hours for each race anymore.

Separate from all that, I’m one of the people who actively and vocally want people to live up to their rp, and pay prices if they don’t. Get booted from or demoted in cabals. Have imms smack them around. One of the ways I think people fail repeatedly is they don’t even try, once, to retrieve. Like I wrote already, I know just how hard GSV can be. But to not even try once? And against people who you *know* aren’t going to loot you? Come on. This is the kind of thing that if I were an imm I’d uninduct so fast it would make your head spin. You join a cabal, you take on benefits and obligations. I always tried, at least once, in my previous characters and here with Yms (except when she was young and had not come “out” about being a scion). I don’t think there was ever a log on where I logged off without at least trying once.

Even the village, which against most of the crop of villagers I faced was just a death sentence. Often I outlasted people – they would log off and I could then retrieve. Or other scions joined. Or other allies joined. Great. But if not, I always tried at least once. So many people never even did that, even when they had not just a great chance to escape, but to actually get their item back, whether in the chasm or the orc village. People need to get over it and actually do what rp would demand.

Obviously if your character is sphere coward, or sphere deception, or has some other rp reason not to try even once, great! You go you. But for the vast majority of characters, shame on you.
Another thing related to the ooc stuff: people obviously rolling up new chars and holding grudges. It was very common for people to come and know stuff they either couldn’t, or really wouldn’t know. People who obviously had alts, or previous characters, and were bitter. Grudges. Get over it.

Likewise lowbies who would talk smack, talk big, act tough, were just stupid. Terrible rp. A level 13 whatever is not going to roll up to the Scion Chancellor, Tormentor, tattooed of Skreenak, blah blah blah and talk like they have been around hundreds of years and know everything and have killed you 11 times. It’s just sad and pathetic and wholly unrealistic in that environment. Terrible rp and just silly. Only doing it because they are out of pk range, and 9 out of 10 never even got to range.

To those who suggest there was some change midway through her life, wrong again. Other than not being able to play as much because of the baby, she was the same from start to finish. Of course there were differences because circumstances changed. She wasn’t empowered then she was. She wasn’t scion then she was. She didn’t get a second path then she did. She didn’t get tattoo then she did. She wasn’t Chancellor then she was.

But even more important than the life stages were the surroundings. She wasn’t so famous the first half of her life. People more often than not rp’d in a “normal” fashion. By the second half, people didn’t, they just wanted to be ####s, and had no interest in anything other than starting at 11 (Spinal Tap reference). People clearly were importing their previous char’s anger/hatred/frustration into the new one.

Also, something I forgot to mention about looting. Often I would take items from a corpse, to id. When someone got back to their corpse very quickly and I was still doing it, I told them to wait, I have no in interest in these things beyond learning of them. I would then hand them back (and typically clean my claws). If they didn’t get back and I had to go, I just dropped them next to the corpse. On a few occasions though, Gurwunt being the most recent, they refused to take them back. Comes, gets all corpse, recalls/walks away. I sent tells saying I intend to give back, come back, but no. In those situations I did a few different things, I dropped next to the corpse and told the person that’s where the items are. In a couple situations I left at the cabal outer of their cabal, and told them, and sometimes someone else from the cabal, that the items were there. Once or twice I left on the floor of one of the rooms in the Inn. But sometimes, like Gurwunt, they just refused and talked smack and nothing I said would convince them to take the things I still had back. In those cases I did whatever, sell them, give them to people, put in the pit, sac them, etc. I don’t consider that looting at all, as they chose not to get them.

Next, I’m enjoying the cognitive dissonance of some on discord who on the one hand complain Yms treated others as NPCs and only there for her benefit, that all were beneath her, while on the other hand simultaneously saying she was the servant to the orcs. Do you people even listen to yourselves? I think people in Siberia can hear me rolling my eyes.

In the end, nobody was supposed to like her. She is chaotic evil main characteristic greed holier-than-thou self-righteous priestess of a god who encouraged her to be even more greedy, more pk-centric, and more power hungry. I really don’t get the hate. Honestly. She didn’t full anyone or even close, ever. She didn’t uninduct anyone, other than Takoa, and that was a very specific set of circumstances. There was only one other Scion once Takoa was gone, Dondonxa, and she not only kept the one Takoa inducted (there was thought about uninducting that one, to make a point, but ultimately decided it wasn’t that player’s fault, and she could rp justify keeping without too much of a stretch) but she then inducted people pretty quickly, and had a modestly robust scion, which now has five or six actives. You didn’t like how she talked to you? Great. But so what? Your characters should have hated her, but why would the player? It really makes no sense. How are the real-life people behind the screens all up in arms because a character called their character child? Why is that so triggering?
And when you sent tells opposing her, did you really think this character was going to reply oh, man, you are so right. Sorry about that. Or, oh, man, that was my mistake, my bad! Her whole life was about being better than everyone. She was never going to concede. And I made that very clear to people. More, I didn’t drum it at people – UNLESS they kept coming back and talking smack. I did one and only one thing always:: every time I killed someone, I told them Weh comes to all, child. But other than that, I rarely started things up with tells. Instead people would send these obviously bitter tells and she would respond as always, with condescension and somewhat true, somewhat fake caring about making them better, as a parent would.
Nobody on my side (mostly me and Zog and to some extent other scions like Sopiraja for example – you’re doing great, keep it up!) ever broke roleplay or tried to get mechanical “wins”, and I am not in Zog’s head but I know I, for one, and I would bet him, for two, certainly never even once thought about playing to ‘win’ rather than playing the roles. Your problems, most of you, stem from the fact that shaman + orc chief + gsv is just viscious. And you’re right. But taking advantage of it, once it became clear the orc chief and I had similar login times, is neither bad rp nor bad for the game.
We start our daughter in day care this week and will start going back to our workplaces, so I doubt I’m going to have time for a new char any time soon. Truthfully the wholly unwarranted hate has both fanned and dimmed the desire. On the one hand, #### all y’all. (Not all, really, just the vocal minority on discord and all the alt-playing douchebags.) You want to hate, I’ll give you a reason to hate. But on the other, so tiresome having the peanut gallery take pot shots on total #### unsupported by actual facts or knowledge. She was a shaman. A class made to be aggressive and pk-focused. She was successful. As the pbf shows she had 102 pks, which these days is very good, 91 of which were solo, without any real way to lag or prevent people from just going away, which of course proves that all those people bitching about her ganging her whole life, were just ####tards. I actually think her first assist was in her 30s, and she still had plenty solo kills after hitting 40. Numbers don’t lie. So, who knows. Maybe I’ll be back, maybe not. Been a long time since I played a Tribunal, and it was so much fun ####ing with them, maybe that will be the next. In time, perhaps.

Indeed. Weh comes to all, children.

You contradicted yourself a lot on that journey in text walls, but it all really doesn't matter. Good luck with your new kid, they are awesome.

You clearly are investing a lot of effort into this character.

It pissed me off dealing with you.

I'm one of those people that raged at you - and after trying to read all of this I'd love to explain where you're missing the mark in my opinion on why your character is getting so much ####. It's not because you broke rules. It's not because your character was mean - I actually thought Ymstrecca was a well ROLEPLAYED villain, and added some great spice to the game.

What wasn’t fine — at least for me — was the way you consistently used area mechanics to create situations that lower-level players couldn’t realistically respond to, and in ways that prevented them from being able to play their characters or even engage in PK in a balanced way. You could stack mobs far above our level, create overwhelming pressure, and just sit there outside PK range where nobody can push back or do anything about it.

That doesn’t feel competitive. It feels stupid, and worse because you seemed to be doing it when there was nobody in your PK range that it would actually impact, so really the only players you were impacting consistently were the ones that can do nothing about it. When that happens consistently, and it was a nightly thing, it stops being tense or interesting and just becomes annoying and frustrating - I like the tension of the game and the frustration and the loss - but not when it's something I can't do anything about, prevents me from using powers that arguably break the mechanics of my character (no resist for village vs. prepped anything loses, etc) and offers no recourse other than...log out and wait for someone who can retrieve to log in and retrieve.

I play to have challenging fights and meaningful conflict. If I lose, that’s fine. But I want to feel like there was a real contest. When the system prevents me from even trying to respond to the source of the pressure, the end result is making it hard to play my character against those I can engage with, and it happens every damn night, it stops being fun and starts to reflect on your character/user more than the RP/mechanics.

I can’t speak for everyone, but if other people feel anything like I do, that’s probably where a lot of the backlash is coming from.

You don’t have to agree. But if you're gauging your success on whether or not you're more skilled, broke rules, etc, and then confused about backlash, you're not judging your characters the same way the community does. There are plenty of folks who are very skilled like you are, leverage mechancis to their advantage, etc. - but they actually seem to recognize that there's a mutual playability aspect of the game that matters as much as being good at the game - it's like spawn campers back in the halo days. Yeah, someone would eventually get rid of them, but it was still #### to respawn straight to a headshot you can do nothing about and made the game less fun.

What did we do to spawn campers? We ostracized the #### out of them, because they weren't engaging in competitive play, they were ####ting on peoples parade and talking #### that justified why you should just "get better then". This feels very similar because you're missing the point that people are annoyed with entirely because you're focusing on the rules, rp, etc and not the actual real life impact the things you're doing have on others that's arguably uninentional - so it feels like abuse of mechanics even if it is technically allowed, etc.

"Hey that's not my problem they don't like the mechanics" doesn't make it any more fun to play against - so regardless of whether or not you want to continue playing the way you did with Ymstrecca, if you want the community to celebrate your characters recognize the impact your characters are having outside adherence to the rules and mechanics and think about what your character is actually contributing to the game.

If you have more than one person going OOC on you, the likelihood that you're the problem is high - and that's not a statement about you breaking rules, etc, it's about recognizing that if you're getting multiple people to rage OOC at you, you're bringing something to this game that is atypically frustrating for people to interact with - and it's not just dying, because I've played for years and had maybe 5-10 OOC tells that entire time. Multiple in a single character is abnormally high.

```This entire post made it clear that your leadership of the Chasm could be reduced to a single principle: Kiss my ass. There was no way I was going to impress you. You continue to think that solo leveling as a drow shifter doesn't mean much, even though I'm sure it was harder than the tasks you gave the inductees. If only Sol would have kissed your ass and flattered you. That's what a real Scion does!

Takoa didn't kiss your ass and inducted one person? Kick him! Forget Scion having two leaders. You could have went to Morius and demand he be demoted but… he didn't kiss your ass. Neither did Sol. You wanted your chaotic evil unlovable character to be treated like a beloved queen. I'm not sure you gave a damn about being a good leader or anyone else in your orbit. As I said before, that's your leadership style. But it's no different from the inflexible RP you criticized. If Yms tried to get an induct from Yms, I'm not sure you'd get it, but you got your induct and leadership position from Morius so you have no complaints.

I feel like I'm just repeating myself but I really don't know how you think I didn't accept the consequences.

The consequence was: ‘not being in a cabal for 250+ hours and not going to Trib cause I was holding out hope for a Morius induct’. When none of that worked, I accepted the knock on consequence and deleted my character.

I only hope that when you make your next unlovable ice queen character that you don't run into someone as inflexible as you when it comes to inducts, but I'm going to say this with my whole chest and be arrogant in a way I rarely am: You don't have the balls or skill to play the types of characters I do, rp wise. Your brand of inflexible and difficult RP gave you your cake and orc allies too. Sure, your enemies hated you, but they were always going to hate a Scion. You got to deny other people their goals and ignore tuneup attempts to reach out, which is something I'd never do on my characters because I choose difficulty and inclusivity.

Tristhana, for example, was a bitchy asshole Advisor that people still liked cause I didn't rp at them and order them around. I actually included them in the story. I'm convinced you think all asshole rp is the same.```

Well, I made my thoughts clear about how our interactions went, but I'm posting here to tell you GLWYN and see if you'd be willing to post my cherry picking, those extra notes, or you're cabal recruiting rationale now that the character is gone.