Questions about city/guild culture

Kehanni

Hi! I'm new to Aetolia (I mainly play Achaea) and am having trouble choosing a faction. I was wondering if people might be able to help/provide input on the culture of different factions. Please forgive me if these questions are silly - I am pretty much a true newbie when it comes to most things in Aetolia, other than the basic commands.

I'm leaning towards joining Enorian but I really like Duiran (especially the Shamans) as well. I've read that the RP environment in Spinesreach is really wonderful, but I lean more towards good or forestal characters personally.

I am not a huge fan of PK and fighting, I can do group defense if it's required but combat isn't really my thing. From the descriptions, it seems like all of Enorian's guilds except the Ascendril have something of a focus on combat - is that impression accurate? Is defense or combat required in Enorian or Duiran?

What is it like belonging to a guild while being in a different city, e.g. people from Duiran who are in Ascendril and people from Enorian who are in Shamans or Sentaari, etc.? Or following Dhar while being in Duiran, for example? Is there a big stigma against it, does it impede city advancement?

I am primarily interested in slice-of-life RP, crafting/designing, helping novices (when I actually know what I'm doing), exploring, and hunting.

What are your favorite guilds in these cities? Which classes are your favorite for hunting? What draws you to your faction?

Aishia

Ah you can GENERALLY mix and match, and excel in any guild with just about any focus or set of talents. You can probably make just about anything work if you have the personality and drive to pull it off. If you want to be a Knight you can probably make of yourself more of a QUARTERMASTER than a HOLY WARRIOR or something. Luminaries seem to spend a lot of time eating lunch so someone must be cooking it all.

I think the time of pressuring anyone into pking is pretty far behind us. There was always a lot of negativity and drama involved with that and it sort of got slowly stomped out by prevailing leadership. It's always looked upon favorably, but no guild will REQUIRE it for basic level stuff unless you want to.

Orders are probably the FREEST thing, I don't think any orgs have any real rules or stigmas about same side/alignment gods.

Some guilds do have rules about cities, but most don't care or have much cause to notice at a guild level. Shamans generally won't care if you want to be in Enorian (Though it might make me scratch my head! Enorian isn't a forest!)

Aryanne

Well, I don't even pretend I can PK or fight... or hunt....

THAT SAID. I slice-of-life it up like no one's business. And really, as long as you look for it, you can generally find that about anywhere in Aetolia.

Like Aishia said, there is little to no stigma about mix-and-matching spirit aligned guilds/cities/Gods/etc, and most of the RP effects of that will come across more from how you play your character (fish out of water, loin-cloth-favouring templar, whatever). As far as I have experienced, you'll find more clashing in that regard in places like Spinesreach. I believe there are guilds on the lifer-end that are still city restricting, but I don't honestly know which.

Neither defense or combat are strictly required in any city. That said, both cities will certainly reward and encourage you to join in. In order of "most fighter-oriented RP", I would put the Enorian guilds as:
Templar (most)
Illuminai (middle)
Ascendril (least)

Kehanni

Thank you guys! I think I'm going to stick with Shamans for now and see how things go - I really love the concept (and, fortuitously, retirement was introduced just a couple days after I made this char so that will help). I just need to find more time to play soon!

Satomi

A bit late, but yeah. Combat, compared to Achaea, is nowhere near as necessary. There aren't really many city raids (though that might change in the future), and the only real conflict that you would be prompted to join in on (also generally voluntary), would be Ylem fights. As to the rest, they got it above.