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If you could make one thing possible...
Tolas
Kentucky, USA
If you could do one thing, make one thing. or be a Divine what would you do? What would you create?
Here is mine, for the sake of being entertaining, this is just an idea that I had mulling around in my brain and I enjoy this sort of daydreaming:
Amehti, the Feral Mother
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General:
She was spawned on the first day of spring in 475MA.
She is a sum altogether different from Her lesser parts.
She is a Shapeshifter.
She has taken for her mortal shell, Taliessa, a dryad enchantress.
She is bonded evermore to the Great Oak of Duiran.
She is tethered to the heart of Dendara.
She claims Herself to be the source of all things fae.
She has no Consort.
She makes up one part of three of a Divine Triad.
Her den lies somewhere in the Ithmias.
Her High Priestess is Seyshonessa, the Renewed.
She has been known to eat the unwary.
Fame:
She did outwit Chakrasul once, earning Herself Her freedom!
She did fling herself into the fey-fires, being made anew!
She did cast off the mantle of Chaos.
She did come out the Victor, having won a game of Survivor!
She did bring life back to both Feyn'hor and Seyshonessa, rekindling their great love.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HELP AMEHTI
To live is to struggle- such is the very nature of existence. Those that dare to survive learn this lesson early, lest they are consumed by the savagery of it all. This is the way of those that would follow the Feral Mother.
Amehti is a curiosity among the Divine. For Her story begins with the God-beast, Khepri. The world had almost forgotten of Khepri. After all, She was a diminished husk of the Goddess She once was, having become a mere plaything in the possession of the Goddess of Corruption. Yet, the Trickster, would not surrender Herself so easy to defeat. She bided Her time, feigning complacency, until one fateful morning in the early spring of 475MA.
It was with the rising of the sun that Khepri suddenly roused in a wild upstart, taking Her would be handler by surprise! Khepri broke from Her bonds and raced wildly across the mainlands. The two Goddesses did make a sport of the event, Chakrasul relentlessly chasing Khepri, giving the beast no quarter, yet the beast always just out of reach. In what would turn out to be a most fortuitous decision, the God-beast at once banked and headed swiftly for the cover of the Ithmias. She quickly found Her way to the Great Oak, where the beast flung Herself head-long into the massive core, in what would appear to have been a measure to escape Her Sister. The core's flames spurred wildly into the heavens as the last meager dregs of Khepri's Divine essence intermingled with the awesome potency of the core's energy- her form utterly destroyed. All that remained was a tiny whisper of Unfettered Chaos, which Chakrasul greedily seized up and made off with. The core's rage soon after subsided as it licked up the last of the essence it had been infused with and a silence befell the forest. However, this silence was not to last.
A time later, the host of Dendara, its Great Spirits, began to stir. There were murmurs of something felt, something sturring just beyond the veil. A dryad enchantress, by the name of Taliessa, was first to uncover the truth, however, having stumbled into a long forgotten part the woods, deep within the Ithmias. Taliessa came face-to-face with something she could not outwit. The thing snatched up the dryad without hesitation, affording her not but a hurried moment in which she only found time to release a blood-chilling scream. Not long after this, the Mother spoke Her first guttural words. From deep within the woods a Divine voice boomed, "We... No... I! I have survived!"
It was then that Amehti, the Feral Mother emerged. An Immortal of Her own right, forged in the fey-fires of Dendara. She is the unlikely fusion of what little remained of both the One known as Trickster and the long-lost Verdant One.
Loosed upon the Realms, the Feral Mother is a mix of cunning and Life itself. She is the primal force that stands watch over the course of all living things. She is the hardship that spurs the endless evolution of beings onward. Seeing that they either survive or fall prey to something stronger. In this way, She seeks to perfect all living organisms. She is One that did survive a multitude of impossibilities. Her tenets are three: Life, Struggle, and Survival. Her symbols are the oak tree, the grizzly bear, and the endless Knot of Life.
It should be known that She desires the utter end to all things unnatural. Viewing them and those that would spur their condition onward with disgust. She is known for Her ferocity in this, yet for those that would seek to be made reborn, She eagerly provides a way back into the fray of the Cycle. However, it will not come easy, for such is the nature of struggle, survival, and life itself.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I should probably sleep soon... >.>
Here is mine, for the sake of being entertaining, this is just an idea that I had mulling around in my brain and I enjoy this sort of daydreaming:
Amehti, the Feral Mother
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General:
She was spawned on the first day of spring in 475MA.
She is a sum altogether different from Her lesser parts.
She is a Shapeshifter.
She has taken for her mortal shell, Taliessa, a dryad enchantress.
She is bonded evermore to the Great Oak of Duiran.
She is tethered to the heart of Dendara.
She claims Herself to be the source of all things fae.
She has no Consort.
She makes up one part of three of a Divine Triad.
Her den lies somewhere in the Ithmias.
Her High Priestess is Seyshonessa, the Renewed.
She has been known to eat the unwary.
Fame:
She did outwit Chakrasul once, earning Herself Her freedom!
She did fling herself into the fey-fires, being made anew!
She did cast off the mantle of Chaos.
She did come out the Victor, having won a game of Survivor!
She did bring life back to both Feyn'hor and Seyshonessa, rekindling their great love.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HELP AMEHTI
To live is to struggle- such is the very nature of existence. Those that dare to survive learn this lesson early, lest they are consumed by the savagery of it all. This is the way of those that would follow the Feral Mother.
Amehti is a curiosity among the Divine. For Her story begins with the God-beast, Khepri. The world had almost forgotten of Khepri. After all, She was a diminished husk of the Goddess She once was, having become a mere plaything in the possession of the Goddess of Corruption. Yet, the Trickster, would not surrender Herself so easy to defeat. She bided Her time, feigning complacency, until one fateful morning in the early spring of 475MA.
It was with the rising of the sun that Khepri suddenly roused in a wild upstart, taking Her would be handler by surprise! Khepri broke from Her bonds and raced wildly across the mainlands. The two Goddesses did make a sport of the event, Chakrasul relentlessly chasing Khepri, giving the beast no quarter, yet the beast always just out of reach. In what would turn out to be a most fortuitous decision, the God-beast at once banked and headed swiftly for the cover of the Ithmias. She quickly found Her way to the Great Oak, where the beast flung Herself head-long into the massive core, in what would appear to have been a measure to escape Her Sister. The core's flames spurred wildly into the heavens as the last meager dregs of Khepri's Divine essence intermingled with the awesome potency of the core's energy- her form utterly destroyed. All that remained was a tiny whisper of Unfettered Chaos, which Chakrasul greedily seized up and made off with. The core's rage soon after subsided as it licked up the last of the essence it had been infused with and a silence befell the forest. However, this silence was not to last.
A time later, the host of Dendara, its Great Spirits, began to stir. There were murmurs of something felt, something sturring just beyond the veil. A dryad enchantress, by the name of Taliessa, was first to uncover the truth, however, having stumbled into a long forgotten part the woods, deep within the Ithmias. Taliessa came face-to-face with something she could not outwit. The thing snatched up the dryad without hesitation, affording her not but a hurried moment in which she only found time to release a blood-chilling scream. Not long after this, the Mother spoke Her first guttural words. From deep within the woods a Divine voice boomed, "We... No... I! I have survived!"
It was then that Amehti, the Feral Mother emerged. An Immortal of Her own right, forged in the fey-fires of Dendara. She is the unlikely fusion of what little remained of both the One known as Trickster and the long-lost Verdant One.
Loosed upon the Realms, the Feral Mother is a mix of cunning and Life itself. She is the primal force that stands watch over the course of all living things. She is the hardship that spurs the endless evolution of beings onward. Seeing that they either survive or fall prey to something stronger. In this way, She seeks to perfect all living organisms. She is One that did survive a multitude of impossibilities. Her tenets are three: Life, Struggle, and Survival. Her symbols are the oak tree, the grizzly bear, and the endless Knot of Life.
It should be known that She desires the utter end to all things unnatural. Viewing them and those that would spur their condition onward with disgust. She is known for Her ferocity in this, yet for those that would seek to be made reborn, She eagerly provides a way back into the fray of the Cycle. However, it will not come easy, for such is the nature of struggle, survival, and life itself.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I should probably sleep soon... >.>
1
Comments
And seriously. Unlike my joking about Perfumery, or Slyphe, I swear: No departed Gods. If we move them there, it's because the story has moved on.
In Aetolia, Gods may bicker with you, they may get way too chummy with you and then they can outright invalidate you. So you cannot create a belief system with religious tones properly. In a game where Gods are joining "person auctions" and "raffles" it is hard to take them seriously at the end of the day. A high priestess declaring an event in the name of God is one thing, the God being directly involved with them is another. First is religion, second is reality. Reality does not mesh well with dogmatic belief systems.
And if you try to create an actual cult via Society/Clan system with no mechanical backing, it will fall short on interest because majority is not satisfied with make believe systems. They want to play special acquaintances of their meddling God/Goddess, be their chosen and feel the sense of IC importance. And when the God goes "Missing in Action" then the Order goes most of the time silent because most of "the Chosen" of the God/Goddess have NO intention to further the religion or take a radical turn towards creating activity. Those green names are like addictive substances for some people, when they are absent they cause a serious withdrawal in them.
If we want religion, bring forth a cult system where people can band together and create religious organizations. And when they can grow naturally over time, they can have minimal contact with their chosen Divine from time to time.
Also, the word 'religion' is already kind of a tenuous overgeneralization about incredibly broad and diverse patterns of human interaction with the natural world, the supernatural, and one another. If you're thinking of 'religion' largely in the European Pagan/Abrahamic senses, you're shutting out a number of super fascinating possibilities that could be better/more organic than the assumptions we're making about how in-game religion should work.
Those are NPCs, and yet they manage to have a religion fine. You don't need a special clan with mechanical benefits to have a religion.
Perhaps it might be a bit hard to convey for myself the "stiffness" pervading the current system. It is underdeveloped and largely in the shadow of other things (tethers, cities, guilds)
@Shachalai On the contrary I am trying to increase the possibilities with a more dynamic approach. We can all use honeyed words and wear our rose-tinted glasses when it comes to the current system. It will not change the fact it is outdated and heavily monopolized. It is a commodity unfairly distributed within the game. Basically a mechanic to create cults would open room for new interpretations. If it succeeds, then it will bring forth a new fluorishing organization on the table. If it fails, it can be culled.
And in the end it is nothing about Abrahamic/Pagan religions. It is about divide between reality and mysterious. There is no tangible mystery about Sapience gods, nor any potential to create anything cultural. Albedi gods are better but with them at best you can create a clan which will fall into obscurity over time compared to Sapience God competition. Though if we had mechanics to create an Albedi cult and display its blessings, now that is a game changer. Easier to draw interest of people even the God may not be a meddler. Regardless, as someone who has far more experience with ingame religious organizations then secular ones, perhaps I do have higher expectations in that context.
Or in a spirit area, you run into a group of missionaries who really want you to join the congregation of Damariel and give you a small book of holy tenants or something and drain your willpower with their incessant prattling (or boost it if you're in his congregation), or you find a wandering angel who gives you a highfive and increased health regeneration for an hour or whatever.
Also, in regards to the above:
Now that we have entities more active there, sects are becoming a bit more lively and reformed to suit RP better, and are just now looking at becoming more RP-centric.
Moral of the story: Even when you can create your own cult (and anyone can), people much prefer their theological RP when their beliefs are validated by their god - and even then, the common complaint is that for RP, cults don't compare to orders in the slightest (which Imperian used to have, before the original gods died).
That is all.
Cute-Kelli by @Sessizlik.
*This is more a reflection of my play-style than a criticism of IRE gods generally, some of whom I know are great, but I've never been in their order.
I say this because often, as a god, I have no idea what players expect, and I'm sure that's a common experience. There's no manual for how to build an order, and asking for advice doesn't always lead to clear-cut answers(#justsayingnotpointingfingers). If I had to base it purely on my own experiences as a player, I wouldn't have a lot to go on.
So there's that... and also the fact that I have 15 hours of classes, all of which are time-consuming and quite possibly the worst possible combination to take together(math and computer science)... which is a way to say that often, even when I have "time", and want to do stuff on Aetolia, it's too exhausting to think of anything to do. Ideas are the hardest part of being creative. Who knew? Complaints aside, this sounds like stuff you should take up with this Ethne person. I know that if someone left me a plate of ideas, I would definitely not zap them for it.
Anyway. If I could make one thing possible... Aetolian sudoku. I know there are ways to do it, but I'm pretty sure my particular vision for it is impossible for mechanical reasons. Sigh.
For example, Slyphe used to be neutral. For game balance reasons, they got made lifer only. ICly this was done via spear to the face by Omei and suddenly wowzer lifer only. If it weren't for Slyphe's ability to just come slap you, you could have a whole sect devoted to chain pking anyone who tried to say Slyphe was lifer only because 'NUH UH'.
I could claim Dhar loves me most because I kill people and Dhar gets lonely and so therefore Dhar is a dark god.
Open ended sects ruin the narrative integrity because you can do too much, and the world has to have a framework for us to collaborate within, just like PK has mechanics to determine who wins/loses, so we don't just emote knocking each other out in one punch and declare victory. the narrative framework must exist to provide an agreed upon space for people to RP in.
Now, as for sects/different beliefs. The God's ARE human like. They have flaws, some more than others. They can fail, be tricked, be bargained with or swayed. What this means is YES they might call you out for being wrong, they might kick you in the pride or zap you for whatever. But also it means they have wants and goals and you can convince them to see things similar to you. In Aetolia, a sect can exist within a Cong or Order. You can win a God's favor, become a favorite and even be appointed the mortal example of their realm. It also means you can be disliked or discarded for failing to impress.
This ain't the real world where you can claim god punishes people with plagues and we should donate millions to you because she said so and no you can't hear them. Which is good because then everyone is going to claim they're the special favorite.
This is mythological Greece, baby. You favored by one of them and the whole world knows, and you can jockey and backstab and fight for position. If that's not your cup of tea, for whatever reason, fine. But to claim it's too restrictive is silly because there is so much you can do.
There have been any number of Slyphe players, and each of those Celani interpreted Slyphe differently. Meanwhile you're going to have long-running players who remember three or four Slyphes ago and still rp the tenets that way instead of the current way.
Anyone who thinks "there's only one way to interpret an Aetolian god" has never even tried interacting with any god's lore in any meaningful way. They're filled with contradictions and reinterpretations. Heck, there's not even a single definite answer to "what's Chakrasul's favorite color?"
Anyways if I could add one thing, it'd be an expansion of Style scrolls. They're fun, but they're limited to a single line you see when you bash. Similar to how ATTIRE and POSE let you customize what you wear and how you stand, I'd add to Style scrolls so that they reflected in how you held your weapon. So your current active style would be visible to folks, and you would get something more interesting than just "She wields a halberd in her right hand." Maybe even, as you collected more and more of the same style, you'd start unlocking ambient messages that only you could see, reflecting how that style has influenced your character.
If I could add two things and bugs were not a factor, I'd make it possible to change languages in the middle of an emote.
Or something similar, I forget the precise syntax.
In a roleplay intensive game as Aetolia..... if you did the same thing, I am pretty positive that roughly 80% of the players would quit the game entirely because it would kill a large portion of their possible roleplay. Imperian got away (sorta) with this because more people were enjoying the fact that they could just randomly jump someone 50 times a day and never get issued for it because of a strict AM v M v D (even then, about half the playerbase quit once the gods were all killed).
Does the religious system need an update? Sure, I think a lot of us could agree to that. More hands on godshells, more activity of the gods, maybe a new religious warfare system too. But opening up cults and offshoot ideas would be absolutely horrid to the betterment of Aetolia.
Imperian did it wrong, there are other MUDs which did it right. I think the playerbase is about "My tongue is burned by soup, now I puff upon yoghurt before eating it" Understandable.
I should say that I came from a game which had lore and RP far more restrictive then Aetolia itself. Because it was drawing its lore from the books themselves, you could not dispute that. But it managed to let fluorish new ideas and had a proper dosage between Greek God appearance and letting people do their things in the end. One God could be hailed as the epitome of progress and growth somewhere and at another place it was the very core of deception, that would create a unique cultural difference. In Aetolia, Gods are stiff, not too malleable at all.
But hey, I will not dispute the desire for stagnant mechanics. Guess a pot of rat stew will have a blind buyer after all.
Make all positions (including Orders) to be filled by only one person and cull the empty positions instead of assigning same people to multiple positions. So people would have to choose their occupation more strategically and concentrate.
A better way of examining religion for the purposes of figuring out how to incorporate it into our everyday RP is understanding it primarily from a community-based perspective. In this sense, religion isn't something you think or perform, it's something you do, especially with a community of other people. In modern Internet terms; it's a set of memes, inside jokes, particular language, and particular assumptions about the world. It can be as simple as invoking the Gods in everyday speech, or doing small, superstitious stuff.
Heck, using the Gods as memes would make sense to us as players/be a legitimate religious expression; it gets at the same psychological undercurrents.
All that aside, here's what I'd like to see if I could make one thing possible:
It'd be neat if the cities had more of a... calendar to them. Events happening at certain points of year, rooms and items changing around accordingly. For Enorian for example, it'd be neat to see more visible signs of fasting, atonement, purification etc etc during Chakros, especially for Arqeshi. Players can do some of this, but it'd be nice to see some support for it via NPCs and progs.
Roots of religion is not about something you do with other people, that is the FINAL PRODUCT. They are often born within troubled times and shaped due to the necessities of people. You could literally read a variant of "the Great Flood" in many different religions with changing God(s) and main actors in them. The reality is there was possibly a great catastrophical event in Mesopotamia, fiction is that what was THOUGHT and PERFORMED about the event in countless religions. That is a cultural evolution. It is well thought out by those who tried to make their religion the dominant and then they added mysticism via rituals and prayers.
So the divide is fabricated between reality and mysterious by those people. Religion will start to take root and become a part of the cultural life. The warrior who won many battles will be seen blessed by Ares, maybe Ares actually blessed the guy. But you will never see Ares joining the neighbourly sermon and cracking jokes at parties. They leave such stuff to Dionysos. Aetolia has so many Dionysos, that is my criticism. In the end it is a bit of flavor thing. Some people like overly-meddling gods, some people will prefer more indirect ones. So we get to have one style, why not BOTH?
Also, more player-run events. <.<
For instance, within Iosyne's order I never get a sense of chumminess from the goddess. If anything the Iosyne character seems to be possessive, bemused, and apathetic towards her order. The majority of activity is fueled by the order, acting autonomously and secretly wondering if they're about to get punnished for taking too much liberty in their goddess' name. In this specific case, considering Pain is one of the paths, it could almost be interpreted as a challenge to push things until you get punished just to SEE where those limits are and what is achievable.
The problems you describe seem less about the system and more about the approach from the player base at large. It sounds like you're saying you want to see more player initiated/supported actions taking place with religion being one of the tools employed to do so. This is something that changes only when you adapt your style of play and make it accessible to a group of people. It's a long game and not for someone who is unwilling to be flexible or wants instant gratification. It's very easy to blame everyone else for not playing the same game and harder to drop the accusations in order to chip away at and reshape the environment to fit your own desire.
My recommendation: Join an order and prove yourself wrong in how things are done by being influential enough to create what you want!