If your character doesn't fit a cabal, your character doesn't fit a cabal.

Be an uncaballed maverick. It has its advantages and disadvantages vs. the cabal life and is intended to be an alternate choice.

While evil and good people still can find a cabal
neutral aligned people are somewhat f_ucked.
Do not deny obvious
With the end of Nexus their choices are very limited.
( especially for mages ).

Tribunal
Outlander
Battle
Herald

Thats 4 Cabals, I don't see that as ####ed.

Neutrality is inherently fence-sitting in the war between light and evil. Because of this position, neutral mages enjoy certain benefits and freedoms that evil or good mages do not.

This kind of versatility is a benefit that good and evil can never enjoy. Being good or evil thrusts you into more inherent danger than being neutral. You've chosen a side, and must accept the costs associated with it -- from the start. You should also be rewarded for it.

By contrast, neutrals can fence-sit and benefit from both sides. Furthermore, others find themselves in awkward positions because they can never be sure whose friend you really are. As a neutral mage, your only inherent enemy is typically Villagers. If you're a neutral conjurer, you have an increased arsenal in comparison to good or evil ones. The flexibility in choosing groups is also why many players love gnome shifters (superb mages with all the benefits of fence-sitting). In general, neutral mages can rank anywhere, and go with anyone they please. That, in itself, is an extremely powerful RP and tactical position.

Now, if you want a neutral cabal for solely RP reasons,then I agree that something like Nexus is/was nice. The 4 pillars was brilliant. It was less about powergaming and more about preserving the game balance, and I liked that. Still, there ARE cabals for neutral mages to join.

If neutral mages just want their own gig for powergaming purposes -- no. If you (not you in particular, Dwoggurd) want powers, pick a damned side and accept the costs associated with commitment. Neutral mages are already extremely powerful, and their versatility IS their cabal power.

Who knows? maybe the IMMs are busy scheming in the background, and something will come up ...

nt

!

nt

Just to be devil's advocate...

I dislike playing neutral characters for precisely the advantage you mention. The "upside" is supposedly that they can interact constructively with both good and evil, using each to their advantage. Evil characters can of course attempt the same thing, but it's made harder by the fact that one can't hide a red aura.

What I find irksome is that, as a neutral, a significant number of evils are unwilling to meet my neutrality with non-agression. Mainly because they've no reason to. I'll never be part of their cabal, so unless I have something worthwhile to offer (read: sanctuary, metabolic quickening or shields) I'm at least as good a target as any good-aligned person. Possibly better, since I'm more likely to have usable gear and less likely to have cabalmates I can assemble into a big nasty gang.

So when I play a neutral, I find myself not wanting to attack anyone unless they've first attacked me. Why? Because everybody's a potential ally, and why piss off potential allies. With goods and evils its different. Even if I'm uncaballed I know who my enemies are. Evil people kill innocents and are cruel. I'm good, and I don't like that, so those guys gotta die. Or I'm evil, and I just like to kill people. Or I'm greedy and want their stuff. Etc. Much more well-defined who your enemies are.

Then again, maybe I'm just a poor role-player.

Our Neutral and Goody mage players have grown accustomed and spoiled over the years by always having a cabal for our characters, its not our fault we're spoiled, the issue obviously lays solidly at the feet of the Imm staff for letting us have it so long, and then snatching it away.

A maverick while not having the responsibilities associated with cabal membership, has to work alot harder to find a rp niche and succeed in pk than the caballed character, in my opinion. The game play experience, when you're used to having the cabal chatter etc always keeping the screen busy, just isn't the same without it.

So, while I understand we don't have a right to have a cabal for our goody and neutral mage chars, some of us would enjoy the game more if there was one for us. Forcing us to branch out and change our style of play feels like you're pushing us out of the nest and trying to make us fly, we don't wanta fly, we just want to keep slurping down earthworms.

There will always be player preferences and possible combinations that don't fit into a cabal. According to your post, you're a possible candidate for Outlander (*) or Herald, but you might choose to go uncaballed. That's fine- lots of people play uncaballed characters by choice and have fun with that.

If your suggested alternative is "Quick! Add a cabal for neutral/neutral transmuters!", that won't happen tomorrow.

- Valguarnera

(*) Chaotic Outlanders begin with one additional power (Wind Walk), which is partially redundant with the transmuter class. I don't see this as a particularly big deal, but your mileage may very.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

"but your mileage may very"

I'm guessing that was one of those Fraudian typo's, but just incase it isn't, the word is "vary".

Moving on though, the initial poster does have a point. Neutral mages get the shaft. Masters being replaced by Scion uncovered a rather large hole for the neutral mage. Nexus patched that hole temporarily but with its removal, it's wide open again. It's no wonder you see neutral mages "acting like goodies". I really don't see why Empire doesn't accept neutrals, that could be another patch over the hole and would lead to some very interesting cabal politics.

"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy."
- Albert Einstein

1) If you are going to point out a typo, you should avoid making a spelling error and two grammatical errors in the sentence in which you do it. Another option is to ignore the typo, like pretty much everyone else on our forums. No point being That Guy. It's not an essay contest.

2) I don't see Empire accepting neutrals. It came up briefly during early design and was exceedingly unpopular, especially with Empire's core team. Now that Empire is in, it would also conflict with other design factors (the concept of Anathema, Imperial Law and its enforcement, general approval of well-planned backstabbing/betrayal, etc.) that were established assuming an evil-only cabal. Two strikes.

3) Even if Empire did accept neutrals, that wouldn't help neutral magi much. It's not exactly a prime choice for the four classes involved, given the lack of Sect.

Will any of this change? The cabal picture is something we like to keep fluid, and we probably have room for one more at some point. Nothing is set in stone. However, there will always be some character (neutral/neutral dwarf healer, etc.) who doesn't fit into a given picture at some point and time, and we're fine with that also. Uncaballed characters make up a significant fraction of the high-level playerbase. We have never guaranteed that every possible role must lead to multiple cabal options. (Even so, the original poster has two options, not zero.)

If you feel that joining a cabal is essential to your personal play style, they each have helpfiles. It is not hard to find induction requirements In Character. You can plan around that when thinking up your character.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

99% of the time I would overlook a typo, but your typo was ambiguous. I wasn't sure if it was a typo or whether you actually thought that the word was "very" *shrugs* I wasn't trying to be That Guy and there is no need to get all defensive. As for the essay contest.. I fail to see the harm in trying to improve other peoples English (Oh and it is Freudian, not Fraudian. I never studied psychology, so thanks!).

I understand that the cabal picture is fluid however when you think about how popular neutral mages are (gnomes, svirfs to a far lesser extent) you realise that a large percentage of the character base has only three cabal options (Herald, Tribunal and Outlander). As long as you keep in mind this deficiency when tossing up future cabal ideas then I am sure the original poster will be happy.

Maybe I'm reading your post the wrong way but it does seem a little hostile and defensive. It reminds me of a similar argument "If you don't want to be wrathed, don't play an evil". It's a weak cop-out.

Anyhow, thanks for replying.

"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy."
- Albert Einstein

As it's been said many times before.

I think uncaballed characters with a unique role that doesn't fit the criteria of the cabals is often more interesting and definitely more fresh in concept.

But like Xenoroyal said: Outlander or Herald would be your best bets based upon your alignments.

==
You get 269938 gold coins from the corpse of Valguarnera.
==

or go for an align/ethos change.