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I strikes me as a bit strange that people take offense/rage oocly against perceived references to horrible people/organizations/events from real life, even as they are explained NOT BEING CONNECTED, but have no problem with explicit skill descriptions like vivisect, and oh so many more skills that are pretty gruesome.

Someone ripping your chest open and impaling you on your bones isn't something you worry about in real life. It's absolutely beyond the unbelievable, and thus safely in the realm of fantasy.

I don't feel as strongly about Bamathis's imagery as some (beyond finding it tacky), but for these people, the themes they've objected to reflect real-life issues. They may have relatives alive today who had to deal with them. Arguments like this one are dangerously reductive and completely miss the point.

I can actually be on topic now, so I'm just going to list off the various reasons for why I'm not very happy with the way Bamathis' presence has been handled by the Pools.

First off, Bamathis' very nature, and the policies surrounding him, mean he's always going to be a magnet for player attention. This is entirely fine by me - making deities that are interesting and will draw in players is the point of having such deities around. Bamathis is central to the Albedi/Sapience conflict that no other God has been, and your very own policies are to make sure he has a volunteer filling the role at any given time. Neat. Definitely a good thing for people who want a constant presence for their characters to be involved in, and a positive matter to be sure.

This is also attention you're not willing to hand to our side of the game. There is no spirit equivalent of Bamathis, there is no counterpart we can join for the same experience, we don't even have a lineup of Gods to follow regularly that equals what shadow gets; Czcibor already pointed out how we get one and a half God, both of them more aligned with Duiran to boot. Things are, to say the very least, lopsided.

And then you have Bamathis courting people on this side of the game. An order that already has a good size, proceeding onward to go ahead and snag people up elsewhere. Aetolia is a polarised game, and it has been for over a decade, but Bamathis doesn't care, and goes after Spirit-tethered leaders to get even more followers. Leaders who are around in large part to direct efforts to fight the other side if and where they can. Leaders who have been told, time and time again, even by this very administration, that the game has two sides, that Enorian and Duiran are meant to oppose shadow, that blurring the lines is a poor idea.

But not anymore! You have the God with the single most administrative oversight and attention showing up and trying to get his worship made legal. You have Gods who have been extremely stringent about keeping Dendara and the Grand Flame pure suddenly going 'ok whatever' when presented with the question of Bamathis' worship. This both goes against established IC characterisation as well as prior OOC direction, and now you have everything pointing squarely in the other direction, all without any given sign or post or header from the administration that things might be different this time.

And, you know what? That's just one org. Duiran isn't my city, they get to decide their own course of action, and I don't have so up close and personal of a perspective on them. The entire situation has caused an entire damn mess for Enorian, and it's one the administration very well ought to be aware of. There is no interpretation of the lore we've had for the past fifteen years, not in any way, that lets us join forces with the opposite tether in such a way and come out unscathed. We've had Gods die that way more than once, we've gotten screeched at far more than that, every single time it's come up the right answer has been not to.

Enorian, in the meantime, has been entirely sidelined. There is no interpretation where we can join forces with Bamathis beyond the superficial; it is, as noted above, how our gods tend to die and our city tends to get blown up. We were not notified by admins about anything new going on, we have not gotten a new direction, we have to work with what we've got. The sole reason Enorian isn't all on its own is because deciding that the tether's lifespan has ended is a terrible move from any meta perspective.

What gives? Why is this a thing? A God with all of Severn's order in it has had people play the role since day one. Since then they have ACTIVELY worked at weakening spirit tether's coherence by working at making his worship legalised. There have been no statemetns, none, zero, made about the future of polarisation or what the plans for the future are. There have been no alternatives, none, zero, added for us to flock to instead. We don't even have regular gods to worship! If I had to describe what's happened to Enorian in a single term, I'd say it is sidelined: a new deity is released, and people predictably flock to it. It is a deity that is emphatically not one of ours, and we do not get an alternative instead. It could've been made clear that this is shadow's new toy, there could've been an update to our lore that lets us worship the actual God, there could've been a deity with actual effort put into such neutrality, there could've been a nice announce or forum post going 'yeah we're tired of polarisation', there could've been an outlet for people who wanted interaction without cozying up to the people we've been meant to fight since forever. None of these have come to pass, and anyone who wants to stick to the direction we've been given can gather dust while people who ignore it completely get to have their cake and eat it too.

I'm curious to hear from our administration here; genuinely, genuinely curious. What place do you think Enorian has in 2020 Aetolia? What should we be doing? What ought to set us apart from the other cities? What should our purpose look like? I'm not sure about any of this anymore, because the firm line on tethers we were told to take just two years ago are getting all blurred up and the administration has been entirely silent on the matter for a while now.

Y'know, I said I wasn't going to get involved in forum drama, said I'd stay out of this... I chimed in on Discord but I figured I'd let forum drama be forum drama... the lies we tell ourselves right?

I had stuff about the fascistic imagery discussion but honestly? That's not going to be helpful here - all I ask is that please be adults about all this. The imagery is there, it's been demonstrated, and nobody is calling you a fascist for not seeing it or even thinking it's no big deal, just respect the perspective of others and don't be a dick.

Now, for the meat of my post which I hope to be more productive:

One of the issues here is how little information there actually is about the Albedi Gods and their worshippers, at least that's my perspective as a relatively new player. Going just by events posts Bamathis looks like a genocidal prick. Talking to players IC does glean more information but I'll be honest - I wouldn't have even gone that far without specific guild reqs prompting me to do that digging. The trouble is I only have PCs that I can depend upon to give some information on it, who would all either have been taking part in the massacres directly or been trying to convert people to spare them. But point is - you don't have a victim's perspective at all. We only have the side of the attackers, only half the story. Furthermore, even if there are NPCs that are 'survivors' floating around, it basically depends on being around at the same time as a volunteer who is willing and able to RP things out and has enough knowledge of the events to RP everything out believably.

This creates a problem because it leaves players to fill in the blanks, and people tend to fill in the blanks with the worst assumptions. We have no reason to believe the nameless masses slaughtered are anything but innocent victims of a monster. So, here is what I think - give us some talkative NPC refugees who can give information, even make news posts to let us know who and where they are. Now, when writing these NPCs make it clear that their old way of living was not desirable for them, but you can add in some nuance. Right now, the question you're asking players to answer is "Is it right to genocide a foreign culture because it appears threatening to our own?" which is... a problematic question because there is only one socially acceptable answer. Here's a question that's topical, has staying power, and leaves a hell of a lot of room for nuance without drawing parallels to one of the worst regimes in history:

"Is military force an effective tool for improving the lives of those in oppressive regimes?" - this can be done by making the Albedi Orders seem... rabid, puritanical, you can draw some inspiration from RL cults and rigid religious authorities (avoid ISIS, those wounds are too fresh even if it did come to mind while I was thinking on this). Make the contrast, but do not shy away from the costs of Bamathis's methods. So you're shifting the parallels from fascism and Naziism which is squicky and hard to do without pissing off a lot of players and shifting it to interventionism and wars of liberation. It's still hard to do right, and still has room for oversimplification and offense, and many players do have strong feelings about these things, but hopefully won't draw the same strong reactions. I dunno what storyboard and framework exists but maybe there is room in there for this kind of shift? Note, I don't know what question this storyline is trying to ask the playerbase, but if it's the first one then the parallels to Nazis or similar regimes are unavoidable for the faction doing the genociding and will piss off people if it's the faction players are expected to support.

The other major issue and probably the bigger one is the fear that opposing Bamathis means org deletion. So I think a big thing to help ease up on the drama comes down to answering one simple question:

"If orgs actively and directly oppose Bamathis using all means at their disposal, do they risk destruction at the hands of the admins/Gods?"

I'm very specific at that last one because if it's players doing it to other players that's just RP running its course. I'd hate to be on the losing side (and let's be honest - with my character's moral compass and how he seems to be in the minority regarding his principles he almost certainly would be), but it's more fun to have to deal with players who you can convince/talk at/fight against than it is to go "well, that God is pissed aaaaand you're dead". Even better if no destruction is risked at all as it makes whatever question you're trying to ask the playerbase one that we're allowed to answer ourselves but ultimately there are a lot of ways to make things fun without having to make people who feel like Bamathis may be fascist feel like they have to side with or compromise with him.

Alright, I'm done, going to bed, and bracing for impact.

Since Tetchta went on the record, I'll also state that I was one of the individuals that went on the record to speak on how Bamathis' symbols, motifs, and imagery WHEN PUT TOGETHER (very clear distinction here) were giving me uncomfortable vibes. As I have told people, I have been the victim of anti-Semitic violence in my lifetime, so I am particularly sensitive and wary when I see symbolism or imagery that can be related to it. I also wanted to state that I advocated for minor changes, and I do not believe that Bamathis' player (who I know very well and know to be a good person) is a supporter of Nazi beliefs, nor do I believe that any of Bamathis' followers are real life neo-Nazis. I merely wanted to express something that was a bit of a concern to me, but avoiding anything that would result in a major disruption or perceived overhaul of Bamathis. I've spoken with players both in and out of Bamathis' Order to make this abundantly clear.

Putting aside the imagery, let me state what my biggest concern is with Bamathis:

He's trying to be a neutral God in a game that does not mechanically or thematically support a neutral God. I understand that you like shades of gray, and I do too, but a God that has been appointed by Daddy V to be in charge and all the other Gods have to fall in line undermines a central point in Aetolia's conflict that has driven it for years now. It makes very little sense that Haern, who has ripped His brothers in half for opposing Him and threatening His charge, becomes meek, docile, and okay with Bamathis worship in Duiran when Bamathis has outright aligned Himself with brothers and sisters that Haern has a long-standing history of animosity and enmity with. If the goal is for Bamathis to be in charge for a little bit only to have an event where Bamathis' actions put him at odds with Enorian and Duiran, that should've happened awhile ago.

Moving further, if we take Duiran and how Bamathis has progressively managed to get some "fingers" into the organization, his affiliation alone should've been enough for Duiran to say, "Thanks, but no thanks" given a decade of established lore and history. Duiran and the Sentinels both have a history of being burned whenever a Shadow-affiliated God comes asking to "work together" or "align in a common purpose". Hell, that's very close to how the Sentinels were founded in the first place in terms of lore. Sibatti has said in other mediums that me saying "out of character" for how I view some of these actions is the wrong word and suggested "anti-character" as an alternative. I think that is my point. A lot of this cozying up to Shadow orders or trying to legalize some of them in Duiran comes across as "anti-character". It just doesn't make sense for a Sentinel to stand shoulder to shoulder in an Order full of individuals that run anathema to the Oath that they've pledged. Here's this God that has talked about how he'll bring both Enorian and Duiran "to heel" if they don't abandon their prejudices and "fall in line". He's trying to be both neutral, yet affiliated with the Shadow tether.

Also, if we get down to the core of the matter, "Albedi Gods bad" is not sufficient reason for Duiran to suddenly go frothing at the mouth and turn zealot along the same lines as the Argent Legion. It is not the first time that Duiran has seen calamitous events unfold when the Albedi Gods have broken free. Duiran has endured the War of Night, the arrival of Heva, Odravh breaking free, and more. But now we suddenly have to be as rabidly anti-Albedi as the Legion. Do note that I'm not saying this because my character worships Albedi Gods. He doesn't and he's solidly Omeiian in affiliation. However, it just doesn't make sense that we'd be as gung ho on purging Albedi influence as the Argent Legion is. I've heard some characters justify it as, "He's charged with defending Sapience!" Technically, all of Varian's children have that charge -- but they also have their own motives and means of how they go about that. Bamathis has his own, as does Haern, Chakrasul, Omei, and others.

In short, my issues stem from the fact that it's a contradiction with years of established lore that will likely result in a rift within Spirit when the hand is finally forced and Spirit folks in Bamathis' Order have to make a choice, thus repeating yet another event trope in Aetolia where Spirit is forced into a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario. Additionally, it's just really "anti-character" for these Spirit organizations to so willingly accept the word of Bamathis when they've been historically burned by Shadow-affiliated Gods. Literally replace him with historical Gods like Chakrasul or Severn and Duiran would've had a completely different reaction if they had come to ask Duiran for "cooperation".

Edit: By the way, none of the above criticism is directed towards the players behind the Gods themselves. I don't expect players to keep everything in mind at all times and Gods are entitled to have lapses in judgment. They're not infallible. I think Bamathis' player has done a fantastic job at making a very compelling character and those in his Order appear to love it. I'm just being critical of what seem like a number of small discrepancies that have culminated in a large issue that contradicts established lore.