Best Of

Silly idea:

Make Praenomen/Vampire be like Shapeshifter. When not 'in it' you're effectively fully masquerading.

Instead of Mutate/REVERT

REVEAL/MASQUERADE to shift in/out. When 'in it' the subrace is activated, etc, but otherwise when you're NOT in it, you're either living or undead.

Cure could still be a thing to clear that 'class slot' effectively and would restrict you from being on Spirit Tether for obvious reasons, but otherwise if you want to run around normally as Carnifex/Scio/etc, you appear as normal you etc. I'm also inclined to say it would take the spot of shapeshifter because werewolf vs. vampire things, but would be kind of unfair to block out a neutral class from shadow tether at the same time, so maybe not.

Just an idea? Dominion could stay or go, this idea wouldn't really restrict the RP involved I don't think.

Thoughts?

I'm going to be real honest, I've had people outright come here to play. Then quit because of the Dominion, like I've had alts in it before and it's not an overly enjoyable experience. I see little to nothing from either of the guilds within Bloodloch that are not the Carnifex. Be that due to the fact that they are smaller, or the fact that they're more cliquey/inactive i don't really know. Also beating a dead horse, a GM shouldn't automatically get a city leadership position as well. Since the Dominion was reduced to a guild that should have been axed at the same time. I may be biased due to being in the Carnifex, but I've played Aetolia on and off before and neither of the other guilds I tried stuck much like the friends I have come and try to play here.

TL:DR We've had people come here, like the class but quit because of all the vampire shit. Rogue vampires/prae get shit on by the Dominion as much as other people shit on the Dominion.

There are some and by some I mean very few vampire players that I've had decent interactions with but the most have either been drama based or something similar to drama.

I mean. Every class has RP strings. Vampires aren't automatically enemied to Enorian or Duiran or even enemied just for entering those areas, as far as I know. But I can't imagine a situation where a vampire or undead is going to be welcomed with open arms in either of those places considering the roleplay behind those states and the roleplay of those organizations. We already have, afaik, quests and content that get gated behind membership in orgs and the like. I'm not sure that that will ever go away.

Like I said before, I fully expect there to end up being a class gated behind Duamvi that amplifies the negatives that Duamvi experience. And there is already stigma against being Duamvi on the Spirit tether, especially in Duiran.

Ultimately, it would be down to whether or not the admin actually view this as a problem. I very much sympathize with the desire to make use of this class but not be hooked into the roleplay of the vampire state or any potential drama. But as someone who once made extensive use of the vampire classes, I gotta say that I don't think it's strictly as big a deal as it is being made out to be. That said, maybe that's because of how long it's been.

I'm not trying to say you guys are wrong or anything like that. But I think we need to be realistic about expectations.

Tbqh I don't see how the Praenomen class which is built upon being a vampire could be separated from the state of vampirism. At a minimum it would need to be retooled and reflavored. This strikes me as an extreme end of what exists with another Shadow class - Teradrim. Teradrim are, as far as I know, not mechanically required to be undead but the Teradrim guild requires it - or at least used to? And I would imagine they want people they apprentice to also be undead. There's a similar situation on Spirit with the Luminary class, or at least used to be - you couldn't generate Spark as an undead Luminary which make it impractical if not impossible to actually use the abilities. I was also under the impression that undead can't generate Devotion either, but maybe I'm wrong on that one. But all that isn't really an issue for people on the Spirit tether because when are you actually going to ever see an undead Luminary?

This whole situation is a pretty curious side effect of the multiclass system. I know on the Spirit side of the game there are at least a small group of characters that have some distaste towards Duamvi, and I would imagine that would extend to the inevitable mirror class that requires its state (likely the vampire mirror, imo), but that's a pipe dream for the time being.

An idea would be to look at the whole suite of abilities that Praenomen get and figure out which ones are explicitly tied to being a vampire. I would argue that if the class can be held and used by non vampires that some of those abilities should be lessened or outright locked for characters who are not vampires. I know that doesn't exactly sound appealing but I'm specifically thinking of things like earthmeld and entomb's sped up death recovery, specifically because spirit anchor reduces death recovery with entomb down to something crazy like 30 seconds.

At the end of the day I'm sort of on the fence about whether this is actually a problem, though I very much understand the frustration of having a class that has good abilities that are lacking elsewhere basically locked off to you due to your roleplay. It becomes a question of if it is worth compromising your roleplay to grab a class that you want to play.

I don't usually post on forums in these matters, because it usually a good way of getting a target painted on my back, but as thus far no guilded consanguine have yet said anything, I will add my perspective.

@Haven, for my character, a lot of the stigma and ill treatment for being a vampire and being of the Dominion has come from the shadow tether itself, even Bloodloch itself. It makes perfect sense that someone from the other tether would take offense at a character being a vampire, and I honestly have no issue there, but getting the same abuse IC, and sometimes OOC, from one's own tether and one's own organisation has been pretty hard to bear, and has been ongoing for a while now - months to years. There's only so much people can take.

But I argue that the solution to people being shitty to one another is not to create a new, un-stigmatized class so that the people who were previously stigmatized can continue to be stigmatized. I argue that maybe the solution is that people maybe learn what's changed both mechanically and RP-wise, not depend on decades old pre-conceptions on what vampires are, maybe actually talk to the people who are actually vampires and actually in the Dominion, and treat each other slightly better, if not IC, at least OOC. And not rely on hearsay and old prejudices.

I'm not opposed to there being such a new class. But it doesn't affect what some vampires, particularly those in the Dominion, are subjected to, day in and day out. And it's getting old.

I've had a few people reach out to ask why I perceive the Praenomen class being gated behind the Vampire subrace as a problem. I thought I might enlighten anyone that's curious, as well as put out a request for other player's input, to gauge whether the logic and reasoning for wanting such a drastic change makes sense.

At its core, nowhere else in the game are players forced to choose between mechanical benefits versus personal roleplay to the degree that the Shadow tether is in regards to the Praenomen class. In a class that arguably boasts some of the most beneficial team-fighting abilities, having the class gated behind a subrace is the exact opposite of what Aetolian combat has strove to become over the past few years; a competitive, interactive scene where classes are often found balanced in relation to the whole of their tether.

This has led Praenomen to gain various, unarguable strengths in terms of utility over the years, where other classes have not:

- AB SANGUIS BIND
- AB MENTIS LURE
- AB MENTIS TRILL
- AB MENTIS DISRUPT
- AB SANGUIS FEAST

These abilities hold an incredible amount of group utility for what is very obviously Aetolia's mainstay; group combat.

I would also like to expand on the roleplay disadvantages I find the Vampire subrace carries. Vampire roleplay is some of the most popular roleplay in the game by all accounts, and has always been an enormous pull to the game's population just by sheer marketing. The Vampire Mud! That being said, Vampire roleplay has also become far and away the most polarizing throughout the entire game. By my own eyes, there does not seem to be an easier way to effectively neuter your chances at roleplay with the opposing tether than to become a Vampire. I have seen them asked to leave cities, I have seen them killed in order to remove them, and I have seen characters willing to completely leave a scene due to the arrival of a Vampire. Now, given the roleplay of both Duiran and Enorian, there's nothing actually wrong with that behavior. What does feel like a particularly rough pill to swallow, however, is having to accept that in exchange for what amounts to a mechanical choice in the realm of competitive combat.

Again, I look forward to input from anyone and everyone, especially the Aetolian administration! There may very well be parts of this that I'm missing, and I welcome all opinions on whether or not this is a genuine concern worth addressing.