Puny Mortals
What’s your favorite thing about Lusternia?
Is it the lore? The immersive storylines? Are you a master politico up to your armpits in intrigue and foreign policy? Do you own your city’s stage, making a name for yourself as a playwright? Or, failing all that, are you one of those who goes around smacking people in the head with your sword/staff/cudgel/symbol/voidblaster until they drop?
There’s definitely a place for everyone – sometimes it just takes a little looking. For me, the draw was RP, pure and simple – and I was lucky, because I was surrounded by people who were just as enthusiastic about it. From simply passing someone on the street to getting involved in speeches and rituals and family affairs, you couldn’t swing a dead cat without finding something to get involved in.
(obligatoryephstory) Then one day you might black out, and when you come to, you realise you’ve applied to be an ephemeral. Following that, you’ll promptly experience minor heart failure as Estarra whisks you up to her office and promptly asks you just about everything there is to ask – who are you? How long have you been playing? What’s your favorite thing about the game? The airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? It goes on and on!
Then, when you have just reached the conclusion that you have given inadequate and inaccurate answers to each and every one of these queries, she yells for Scotty and beams you up.
I knew the expectations that were had of me, and was totally ready to crack down, work hard, and prove that I could do this, oh yes. But wait – no mortal? Right. Oh, what’s that? No RP?
WHAT?
Yes, indeed. Becoming an Ephemeral is a grand thing, but the daunting task of learning how to script and work and function in this new role is nowhere near as jarring as the sudden lack of interaction with the rest of the game at large. Once the shock of appearing in the Havens and seeing EVERY GOD EVER STARING RIGHT AT YOU YES YOU has worn off, you might start to miss it. I certainly did. The trick with Ephemerals is that you, as mortals, shouldn’t know they exist until Estarra deems it so – and great pains are undertaken to ensure that that remains the case. I don’t want to make the experience sound banal and horrible, because it’s not, but that’s a long stretch of time when the best thing you have for companionship is Fain singing in the bathtub. So you trudge along, wistful thoughts of your homeland sitting fondly in your memory as you start to work on new projects.
Then, one day, you realize that maybe it’s not so bad. When you’re not directly immersed in the political alliances of the week, you start to see the game with a little less bias. Then – poof – you’re suddenly able to interact with mortals as your shiny little Ephemeral self – only it’s probably not in the org you originally came from.
And you don’t care, because it’s new and shiny and FUN. (/obligatoryephstory)
Even after all I had experienced as a mortal, when I thought that there was no more wonder to be had for me as a player, I was soundly and totally proven wrong. That’s because Lusternia is not some static thing that you can ‘win’ and just stop. It’s always changing and expanding, and while in small part that’s due to the Admin working on new areas and events and ways-to-almost-end-the-world-as-we-know-it, it’s majorly due to all of you. So, hey, thanks for playing and making the game what it is today. You rock out with your mortal selves, and you make it fun for the little ephs and big bad gods, too.
TL;DR – Players having fun and scheming with politics and writing new plays and enjoying the game give us more satisfaction than you might know. You do it for yourselves on a daily basis. We try to help out on occasion – and I can’t tell you how widely I grin when someone gets a kick out of something I’ve made or something I’ve done or said – but, guys, you are what make Lusternia what it is. So thanks, and keep it up!
