Lore questions.

Aarbrok

Part of me wants to do Cabal lesson on Essence.....but I wont forum RP.

Serrice

HELP ILHAVON, 12.12.7, does not exist anymore!

Serrice

If the Dreikathi have such a continent's worth of resources, why don't they just mount an aerial assault and bypass the geographical land-based defenses protecting Delve?

Ishin

Delve is Under The Dome.

Haern

Serrice said:

If the Dreikathi have such a continent's worth of resources, why don't they just mount an aerial assault and bypass the geographical land-based defenses protecting Delve?

There's a couple points here to address, First, the Dreikathi have expended a great deal of their economical and military resources for staging an assault on Delve and, of course, it's all been attempted; assault by land, sea, and air. Since those ventures some eight hundred years ago and being repelled (I wonder what caused that!) the Dreikathi have attempted to assault Sapience in a mad grab for resources. So, the question remains--why us?

The Dreikathi have drained the vast majority of Albedos of its resources, which led to the invasion, with a society built on the back of magic as the greatest commodity, not metal. Magic was something never woven from the air on Albedos. It took some fairly archaic refining techniques that the Dreikathi monopolized. After draining the leylines and mining what little precious metal was present on Albedos, their alternative led to their first massive loss in some thousand years of wars at the hands of Sapience's armies and city-states.

They limped back, cried a little, and some pretty important people were brutally murdered for their failures. A civil war has been raging since the Year 375 MA and the first news of it came to Delve in 400 MA (yay, Celebration of the Stars) with no end in sight. Anarchy reeeeigns.

In short: the Dreikathi's got a lot of things on their plate to deal with rather than worry about the craphole of a port city known as Delve.

Areka

What happened to the fancy scroll Arion had the Seluno brothers sign?

Serrice

Are their any skills that inherently induce 'evilness' into someone? For example, Necromancy looks pretty horrible, but you could always make an argument that it's not 'evil', it just looks really shady.

Are their any skills that are a product of an external power, rather than training? For example, old school clerics and paladins in DnD that gain their power as a result of a deity's grace.

Damariel

We try not to make a specific statement on how skills affect people, or sway them toward 'good' and 'evil'. There's the certain, inescapable objective facts of some skills - i.e. Shapeshifting pulls you toward madness, Deathlore pulls souls out of the Underhalls - that might imply a certain moral character on the part of its users, or at least a willful ignorance or justification, but there is no skill that absolutely and inescapably makes someone evil. That's up to you and your RP to decide.

Damariel

Also, while training is necessarily to utilize most skills in Aetolia, many of them do, indeed, have external sources - Necromancy uses essence, which you either passively or actively absorb from other sources. Deathlore uses the souls of the dead. Devotion also uses essence, though the source of that essence varies - sometimes it's God-given, other times it implies a more secular connection to the power of life itself. Sciomancy and Elemancy rely on connections to separate elemental planes as a source for power. Everything Consanguine relies upon blood - and probably life essence, by extension - that's drawn, even if indirectly, from something once alive.

Serrice

I should rephrase that question: are any skills explicitly only workable because of another sentient's entity's will.

For example, I have heard it said that Syssin abilities (some of them) are a result of Severn's benevolence, and He can take away those abilities as He desires.

Areka

Yes. Severn has taken abilities away from Syssin before, and the Ascendril were caught off from the Spirit Plane after the 'Indorani' Fiasco.

Dhar

Way late but..

I like to think that the Carnifex pull souls from the Abyss - which is still a part of the Underhalls so there's still a conflict between Dhar and the Carnifex. The Abyss is (mostly) unsecured and infinite, so it makes much more sense for the Carnifex to be casually pulling souls from there. If all the souls were being pulled from the proper, secured Underhalls at the rate the Carnifex go through them.. what the heck is Dhar even doing? I think getting into the proper layers of the Underhalls and corrupting it all should be the ultimate goal for the guild.

I'd like to see the Carni's get more AbyssRP in the future. Kinda left you guys hanging.

Toz

Last time we tried for the Abyss, it read like something out of one of those anime. Tentacles everywhere.

Sarita

I also remember events involving spirituality where people lost the ability (or parts of it, maybe) because they'd RPed doing bad things with their angels. The angels got taken away.

Moirean

Abyss makes more sense, for sure. However, Carnis have kinda strayed away from the OMG OUR PURPOSE IS TO DESTROY DHAR thing, partially because it's such a focused and hard to enjoy arc and partially because a lot of it is really revenge-focused, reactionary and looks backwards (the whole revenge for Roan stuff). It also relies heavily on admin interaction and it's hard to see success and achieve goals, which make it hard to push as a prime goal to keep players engaged, at least from the GM level. Carnis are more of an army, now, focused on standing against world-destroying stuff - but we use some pretty nasty stuff to do that. Deathlore is presented as this super awesome route to power, so we aren't neglecting it, but the conflict with Dhar is more of a "we could be stronger IF..." thing. The guild, abstractly, definitely wants to take over the Underhalls, but it's more up to individuals to be fanatics about it. That being said, I would love for us to have more ways to chisel away at that.

Sarkis

Is it Lore safe to question a divine about previous actions (not like "Did you think that was a good idea?" but more "What happened there?") even if the person now playing was likely nowhere near them at the time? Would the Divine even still remember, given how many iterations and changes they go through in their cycle of existence? I'm trying to iron out some bumps in history and it's difficult because of how hard primary sources are to come by these days in the game.

Ignotum

Sarkis - you can certainly go right ahead. If the Gods don't want to give you answers or they can't, they'll just tell you or invent a reason why they can't.

Eleanor

Or maybe they'll lie to you! The gods can do that too.

Aarbrok

Everyone trusts the Gods waaaaaay too much, gonna bite ya in the arse.

Sarkis

Well, Sarkis doesn't really trust the gods at this point, not since Lady Lleis sacrificed herself. It's just that Sarkis, insane little history buff that he is, wants to fill in some gaps in knowledge and a lot of it is pretty ancient, sketchy stuff. Like House Valyar, which has more or less been written out of the history books as it is.

Hadrak

Aarbrok said:

Everyone trusts the Gods waaaaaay too much, gonna bite ya in the arse.

Ciarelle

I fret about the little things. What writing implements are our characters using?

Obyn

@Ciarelle Ink and quill, most likely, but there are probably other implements out there! It's all up to the player. Just keep in mind the level of development in the world. I.e. there's not going to be markers or proper pens.

Ghend

Ink and quill/brush or charcoal are the methods available for purchase in-game, but really it's up to you. If you want to describe it as being burned into the paper with a poker, more power to you!

Areka

Sticks of charcoal, quill, and little nib pens are what I've RP'd. Reka usually just makes a face like she's about to pass some gas and draws lines with her sooty lil' finger.

Trigru

THE BLOOD OF YOUR ENEMIES.

Serrice

Was the Great Oak just a regular ole' oak tree that just got REALLY REALLY BIG or was it special? (this is all before Dendaric supercharging)

Obyn

Trigru said:

THE BLOOD OF YOUR ENEMIES.

BLOOD AND OIL

Hadrak

Serrice said:

Was the Great Oak just a regular ole' oak tree that just got REALLY REALLY BIG or was it special? (this is all before Dendaric supercharging)

The Great Oak was (and continues to be) special. It was a key link to the Druids for their Metamorphosis and a veritable font of power for Duiran's people as a whole.

Serrice

In HELP GODS, the gods are divided between Spirit and Shadow. Is this just an in-lore philosophy thing, an in-lore essence thing, or a byproduct of the OOC tethering thing?