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Cabalists
Oleis
Producer EmeritusAdministrator, Immortal
I entered the guild and city meeting process with the intention of doing whatever it took to avoid closing any guilds. Unfortunately, the situation in the Cabalist guild was more dire than I realized. Despite the sincere efforts of the guild's leaders, there is not a feasible path forward for them to regrow their membership and recover. Over the last week or so, I've worked together with the guild's leaders to transition their roleplay and assets into a non-guild structure so that we don't lose the rich history of the Cabal. There's a clear place for the amazing roleplay they bring to the table in Spinesreach, but the guild itself has closed its doors. The class will still be freely available to Spireans and I'll be restoring it to the introduction soon.
I cannot overstate my appreciation for @Eleanor and @Akaryuterra in this process. They've been extremely honest with me, forthcoming with their desires for the future, and willing to work together on a solution that hurts the least. They have truly made the best of a difficult situation, and helped me feel confident in an impossible decision.
I do not intend to leave Spinesreach short a guild. As we work on the Cabalist revamp, I will be monitoring the communities of influence within the city. If enough like-minded people come together, I will present a guild concept with the offer of formation. It would be a relatively clean slate in terms of lore, role, and leadership, but it would be the home for the revamped Cabalist class.
I cannot overstate my appreciation for @Eleanor and @Akaryuterra in this process. They've been extremely honest with me, forthcoming with their desires for the future, and willing to work together on a solution that hurts the least. They have truly made the best of a difficult situation, and helped me feel confident in an impossible decision.
I do not intend to leave Spinesreach short a guild. As we work on the Cabalist revamp, I will be monitoring the communities of influence within the city. If enough like-minded people come together, I will present a guild concept with the offer of formation. It would be a relatively clean slate in terms of lore, role, and leadership, but it would be the home for the revamped Cabalist class.
You say to Slyphe, "You're so freaking smart."
[---]
"^," Slyphe agrees with you.
6
Comments
So I'm going to say that I trust the two of them, and hopefully, this new administration, in the choice that was made. It is my hope, however, that the input of those outside in the insular leadership of the game will have weight in what is to come of the Cabal, @Oleis. We've got a lot of fairly new(ish) faces, myself included, who have wonderful ideas, small- and large- scale.
I look forward to seeing what's to come.
@Eleanor and @Akaryuterra are impeccable roleplayers who offer a rich and diverse playing field of storytelling and lore which is consistent and unwavering. Their loyalties to Spinesreach and each other have shown for years the strength of their love for the Cabalists, and I am appreciative to have been part of that era through thick and thin, they put up with my character and his hijinx through dire times like a disapproving mother and father with an unruly teenage son who wanted to smoke under the bleachers and read the necronomicon to his shrine of Zac Efron in the endless void.
Overall, I know great things will come, but I want to use this soapboax to say I love you guys and what the Cabal represents and I am excited to see where it goes from here..
THE SRS BETTER BE A SOLID THING NOW...
That is all
So, I'll keep things short so as not to press my luck:
I'm hopeful about what the future might bring for the Cabal (in whatever form it takes both in the short and long-term) as well as on Spinesreach as a whole, and that support will be given as needed to help stop things from scattering and falling to pieces.
Cute-Kelli by @Sessizlik.
Having a hard time sorting my thoughts on this as a step for the health of the game out from my thoughts as someone who loved the Cabal and kinda resents that it was chosen for this. I can understand rationally why you took the guild out behind the chemical sheds and shot it, but at the same time this leaves the only real 'scholastic' guilds as elementalist mages with no history of the kind of careful and methodical RP that the Cabal produced. Nothing in the guild list now springs out as somewhere that I would be comfortable playing a morally grey, non-mage scientist character. I'm not personally very confident that whatever comes together from Spinesreach is going to recapture the uniqueness and perspective of the Cabalists and I think that's a loss for the game world.
This is probably just pessimism speaking, but I also really hope this happening isn't an indicator for guilds being 'dumbed down', for want of a better term, in pursuit of activity numbers.
Can you clarify what's going on with the SRS and the Cabalist assets? A few details are floating around but a concrete explanation would be nice.
EDIT: for context I played Yusri, who was Cabal GM for a short period and a member for a LONG period.
Avatar of Fyrren drawn by the amazing Sessizlik.
But the above lines kind of jumped out at me, and I've been gnawing over them. You've stated that the assets, NPCs, etc are turned over to us to preserve the legacy of the Cabal, and then state that you won't leave Spinsereach down a guild. And if (And when) you make this change, the new guild will be a 'clean' slate. How will you both preserve the (Extremely long, rich legacy of the Cabal) while also providing something new, and of a clean slate?
We were very singular in our nature. Kind of neutral in purpose- not inherently evil, or anything. But what made us stand apart was that we were scientists, who focused on the larger scale of planar defence. Not magicians, mystical shamans, empowered warriors. There was always a distinct notion that the Cabalist could do as much as the Cabalist -could- do, within mortal (Human) physical and mental limitations. It gave the work that I did, in the time I was there, a rich, very real quality to it. I was well aware of my character's limitations, as a person, and it kept me (And all of us, I firmly believe) from going 'OP' with the sheer possibility of what the Spheres presented.
I read this 'Revamp' as a kind of 'Get rid of Domination, retool Necromancy/give it a new coat of paint and name, and retool Numerology' type of thing. Could you please inform us, at large, what can be expected from this revamp, so we as a now-lost guild, and any new players who may wish to join our class and cause, can have an idea of what the basics of what we will be will look like?
While I could go into other parts, I understand that Eleanor and Akaryuterra put in a lot of time and as much effort as they could to make it work and don't want to be inconsiderate of this fact. It takes a lot to stick beside something for so long.
Maybe I'm enjoying the Oleis kool-aid too much for the time, but I have faith that he took as much consideration of the situation as he could and, while I'm sure people will have plenty of questions, it will turn out well.
Just so you know, there are lots more Cabalist users out there in the game who long since left the guild and practice in their own internal rp arcs within new, cohesive guilds. This revamp is not solely for the few who were dislodged from their guild. It's for the overall game at large and the betterment of it.
As to my inquiry about the Revamp, I ask for the sake of the guild it is tied to, that is now lost. I'm more than aware there are many Cabalist-users out there, but if Zealot were getting a Revamp, it would make sense for the Illuminai to want to know the details. As it does here, with the guild-now-clan this class belongs to.
Additionally, as far as I am aware you yourself left the Cabalists to pursue your own """special snowflake""" RP, so throwing people who you've never met under the bus because of your own bad blood with the old guild is probably not something you want to be doing in this thread.
Seriously, this sucks for them regardless of one's in-game stance or personal feelings on the guild as a whole. I can only hope that the revamp for the class comes swiftly and offers a chance to give the new guild an enticing and rich background as many of the previous Cabalists helped define before.
Edit:
Such a negative attitude towards the displaced players, it's disgusting.
Maybe I'm misremembering the lore but I always thought the Indorani were the gypsy/voodoo backwards cousin of the cabal. The Cabal stood out to me as that scientific scholar community that went "rogue" (by real life standards). In their pursuit of immortality, knowledge and power - they "fell" by making pacts with demons and I saw them as this fringe group pushing the boundaries of life, the ether and cosmos. I always had a suspicion their experiments and tinkering and boundary pushing would be linked to the Shadow Mother and other wordly invasions like Kerrithrim and stuff.
Honestly, if it weren't for the fact that I adored Knight rp at the time and the class's PvP capabilities were broken/gimmicky at the time, I'd probably have rolled a Cabbie instead of an Infernal all those years ago. So yeah - what was wrong with the guild concept exactly? Lol or was I way off the ball?
However, once I joined, I sortof stopped playing that alt quite quickly. There were no clear guidelines on what to do to progress. You had to come up with your own projects and rp through everything, instead of having set requirements to work on. This threw me off a bit and the reason I ended up not playing the alt was simply because I felt inadequate. @Akaryuterra and @Eleanor and all the other Cabals are just too damn awesome and talented. I felt I couldn't keep up, because I sometimes lack in grammar and I couldn't come up with any good ideas and it made me feel not smart enough. (Which is also the reason Sessi won't be able to join the Sciomancers, with their new awesome setup)
It's sad that not more awesome people joined the Cabal to make them the great guild they could've been. However, I am curious about the new guild that might come and I hope and pray that it's not a combat oriented guild, since the game need more places for someone like Sessi to be a part of. There needs to be a place for us noncoms, the crafters, the bookies. People who like to research, but not necessarily be a mage. (I hate crystals..)
In short, Akary and Eleanor are awesome and I love their talent in almost everything they do. And I am curious about the coming (hopefully noncom oriented) guild.
The way it was done also raises a concern with me. Eocik said "Numerology is bad for the world" and then the guild was disbanded. If my lore is right, then the Shadow element is also "bad for the world," but the Sciomancers wield it anyway. I've always been inclined to believe that Spinesreach pursues "forbidden" or "dangerous" knowledge knowing full well what the implications are, but they do it anyway. With the disbanding of the Cabal for this very reason, have I just been wrong this whole time? Does this mean the Sciomancers could be in danger, too?
I've always been reluctant to accept that "nothing can be done" in matters like this. More was done to save the Syssin after the Syndicate dissolved, and more was done to set the Sentinels straight as recent as last year. If the lore has a definite place in Spinesreach, then what was really the problem?
EDIT: Everything I've read so far is something that I think could have been fixed without blowing up the guild.
You (@mihaketi) do not get to put words in my mouth (or in post) with your continued used of 'Special Snowflake'. I didn't say that, @Rhoynn did. My line is quoted right above, 'Biggest snowflake' and it wasn't in quotes or said in insult or as any direct focus of that sentence. If you took it in a negative way, then you need to recheck your internal emotions because that was not my intent. The guild was structured like how I described, during the time I was in it and the few alts I tried to create and be part of it. There was little if any communication and I was basically told to start a project and maybe someone would join in. I was encouraged to be the most interesting researcher (hence the biggest snowflake comment) so I would attract others to it. Most of those alts are suicided now, because I didn't find purpose to stay. I also still use the class on my shadow-aligned alt.
A guild/org being destroyed has happened before and the people who cling to it so strongly that they can't move on, quit the game. So stop doing that for your own good. It does hinder the class' evolution, with example given to how long people clung to the Priests and Infernal/Paladin skillsets.
If you are going to post angry, think and reread it first. I have the unpopular opinion, but it is my opinion and not something for you to twist to make me seem like a monster. The guild had issues for real life YEARS and no one did anything to improve it. I was replying to a specific person who seemed to come off a bit possessive. He's not the only one hurt by this turn of events.
EDIT: I also don't understand why it couldn't be saved. We don't have the details, so to outsiders it feels like nothing was tried. A world event, a simple retooling of the flavor of the skills (like Indorani got with bonedagger), a new GM, and a bit of divine guidance towards a goal they can sink their teeth into and the guild would be swimming in numbers. Did the guild even get an RP sendout, like an NPC contemplated a complex prime and just detonated the guildhall? (Like good ole suicide mouse that blew up old Ashtan? And Alien-Drek nukes that blew up Ashtan a second time?)
I'm like most people, I have no idea what was happening in the Cabalist. Never really RP'd with Cabbie people, and did my own snowflakey thing, but hey.. if this leads to a Cabbie revamp and the ability to just remake the guild in your own image, do that. You can still have all the old Cabbie stuff, just augmented with the new stuff, right?
Edit: @Seir 'member when Carnifex were being forced into Bloodloch and it got emotionally caustic? (Sorry, couldn't help it, 'member berries) I agree wholeheartedly with that post!
We discussed with @Oleis at length, and we covered a few potential directions, but the most fitting and simplest solution was for the guild to go out in a manner similar to the way it began. Eocik discovered the knowledge of the Spheres, and having watched the guild and its members for 400 years, he decided that it wasn't fit for the greater populace. Being as we have caused planar breaches, have blown out of reality, razed Enorian during the war of night, and assisted in numerous other messy and dangerous events, it really isn't beyond the scope of reason for the founder to say 'you know what, i'm not going to be blamed for this'.
Eocik has always been fairly short of word, and very terse, if not outright dismissive of Cabalists as a whole - including those bearing the title of Conduit. Age scoffs at the inexperience of youth and the folly that comes from it, and we have accepted that as an aspect of his charm for the large majority of the guild's later life.
Longer and deeper events would have dragged out the affair and spent valuable time and resources on a guild that, in the end, was benefiting for a one-time conclusion. The admin resources and time are better spent on the revitalization attempt, as much as it pains me to say. Make no mistake, I wanted more, but reason prevailed when resources were considered.
That said, this is the way the Cabal ends, the Wheel turns.
---
@Seir, @Toz, @Mihaketi, @Runas, @Sessizlik, @Xenia:
Thanks you guys, the sentiment is greatly appreciated. It has been the goal of Eleanor and I for a long time to try and create an engaging environment for those who could enjoy the niche of RP, and had the creativity to pursue oddity.
---
Regarding the Cabal, its direction, and its flaws:
In the end, in the discussion that Eleanor and I had with Oleis was one of that led to a joint understanding. We did talk about ideas for a direction, but it was determined, through the directions/goals given to other guilds that our niche had been delegated to other player bases. The role of researchers of Shadow went to the Sciomancers. We as a guild could have done such, but in the end Shadow isn't our particular concern, and we did not have an entire skillset that was partly dependent on it, so discovering the wholecloth lore and function behind it would be us edging into another guilds' territory.
Being knowledgeable about the world, but subtle about our interactions, and reliant upon exchange could prove troublesome, but the nail in the coffin, so to speak, was probably the guild method of acting. More specifically, we were a reactive guild. As a playerbase, our goal was to react to events taking place, assess them, categorize them, and in some cases lay down safety procedures to minimize threats. That was discussed in the meeting as well.
From here on, trying to be proactive is important for moving forward, and I believe we will be attempting to develop that direction using the SRS. Being reactive was not very conducive to the health of the guild, and this is partly because of a small playerbase/admin pool, which can't support frequent large scale events that the Cabal could attend and take part in.
As a whole, the guild culture was conservative when presented with the world at large: keep things stable and don't destroy the plane we live on, because if you do that we'll have no place to sit.
In hindsight, and after discussion with @Oleis, @Eleanor and I agreed, it was an actively antagonistic direction for the guild to be going, when compared to the direction and goals of other guilds going forward. As a guild, the Cabal should have been more aligned with the goals of power acquisition and other power dynamic altering activities. Easier said than done in some cases, but that's no longer a concern really.
----
@Rhoynn:
The legacy of the Cabal carries on in the form of the SRS, transferred assets, and the restructuring of a clan that will serve a similar niche of RP. On the whole, one of the largest org types aside from a city (a guild) should actively contribute in some way to the goals of the city it calls home. A new guild need not have a wholly similar flavor. In fact, a different flavor with some scientific concept could serve well. Alchemy, mutations, contracts of power, that sort of thing, all has enough to feel somewhat based on reason and experimentation if you play that way. The SRS will likely be the home of the planar stability goal going forward, because it would not contribute to the conflict dynamic among one of the four political powers.
---
Regarding the Cabal and the pursuit of individuality:
@Eleanor and I tried to encourage players to develop and grow character, and to explore the idea of characterization. As experienced roleplayers, we felt this to be fairly easy, and even inherent to playing a game like Aetolia. I sometimes tell people I write 'interactive creative fiction' jokingly, but it's not far from the truth. We all play a game where writing is the sole means of communication with those around us. This goes for mechanic, and nonmechanic, aspects of Aetolia, when you consider how much discussion of class combat and coding goes on in the game.
Our experience over the years has been one of growth, and we found that growth in a guild that played in the grey space of Aetolia. Initially, it was much more akin to the Indorani. Over time, it moved away and distinguished itself. Over yet more time, it refined a direction from a set of players who loved the org and wanted it to succeed at a particular goal. Left to our devices, we did just that, with little oversight, and without the admin being entirely aware of what was built.
We thought to engage our players by encouraging development of a character, and our goals for progression reflected that: characters could demonstrate traits that were suited to playing a Cabalist.
Previous iterations of our guild's learning system included checklists, and small tasks to complete. Ranks were often of little importance to the cabal structure as we knew it, and so our development of the progression reflected that.
Now that I rambled a bit...
Yes, characters were encouraged to be individuals, to develop their own ideas, but I'm not sure I would say 'special snowflakes' due to the often derogatory nature - which isn't to say anyone used it in that manner. Stand out Cabalists DID, however, become apparent by their quirks and oddities, and I don't think that can be denied.
---
The Cabal and it's Lore:
The Lore of the Cabal is both expansive, and deep, and in some cases too much for someone that wants to play a game in their off-time. Eleanor and I have mused in the past about there being a whole lot the lore allows for. The lore of the Spheres is pretty literally 'this is a skill set that manipulates the fabric of existence'. Boiled down to a single sentence: PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWERS, itty bitty elbow room. There's only so much that can be allowed and supported mechanically. That is a flaw of the skillset that became apparent when, time and time again, we encourage our players to exercise discretion and build flaws into their roleplayed research fields.
Some people rolled with it happily - resulting in cheesecake golems, catapult theft, a nearly-realized orchestra dedicated to wide-reaching manipulation, and multitudes of ways in which things could explode, and people could combust. Those who participated fully can attest to the amusement and development space afforded by failure.
The late Cabal was an...extension, perhaps, of one of the early movements, attempting to pull the guild away from domination and necromancy. Neither were taught as dark arts, but rather framed as 'means to an end' and 'manipulation of essence', neutralizing them to tools to be used to nefarious or beneficial purposes by each individual.
Neutrality, space to operate, and a particular disregard for morals could easily describe the late Cabal. Again, not the best for contribution to a polarized conflict. We realize this looking back.
Faulty, I think, is the wrong term. Too flexible without guidance from the admin above? Yes. I think that fits. The depth and uniqueness of the lore is what made it approachable and extremely engaging for some, or alienating for others. To those others, I apologize for having left you to feel that way, as one of the long-standing staples of the guild.
While ICly Kelli was partially disengaged from the Cabalist goings on, I (and she) appreciate you and @Eleanor taking us in and putting up with her moodiness and general unpleasantness to be around and/or work with, and it's with deepest regrets that farewell is bidden to the weird, quirky, and fun place you guys made for your Guildmembers. Your hard work certainly hasn't gone unnoticed.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
And onward to new glories, hopefully.
Cute-Kelli by @Sessizlik.
Edit: I hit spacebar by mistake and it auto posted.
I am glad that the end went smoothly and was properly carried out. That it was suitable for such a great asset to the game and I will look forward to what the future means for the Cabal as individuals, and what comes of it's legacy in the form of something new. I hope the displacement is gentler to all of you than what I've known. So many players have many good memories from their time apart of it. Myself included.
That being said, I feel the loss of the Cabal since it was the guild that has anchored me into playing Aetolia. I loved the rich history and the drama that it had undergone through the years. Numerology especially was a skillset that enabled me to have fun making wild theories and cults around the numbers (Jherza, etc.) It's still my favourite class to use even though you can multiclass now.
The newer path roles of being Spinesreach's scholars and scientists under Eleanor, Akaryuterra and Aarbrok can actually quite interesting (crazy scientists hoping to create successful, ridiculous experiments) but it feels a little sanitised and difficult for people to get into the concept, if they don't actually have anything real or physical to show in all experiments carried out... to me at least.
I know what the struggle is like trying to inject new life and direction into flagging organizations, so I really must thank and praise @Eleanor and @Akaryuterra for going the distance and putting every effort into creating a space for different personalities. Can't wait to hear the new iteration of Cabalists!