Why is this the case?

Cause Serenwilde and Celest are both anti-taint, and Magnagora is strong enough by itself. Its a pain though to see celestians defend serenwilders villagers and miners, when their own mines are empty and a pile of dead southgard dwarves are left at the southgard doorstep.

I personally think its horrible RP that they are so closely aligned, I'd like to go back to seeing a cut-throat FFA between the states, rather than 2 v 1.

1) Both weaker nations wanting an ally vs. the unstoppable (POSSIBLY formerly, but we won't know now) Magnagora.
2) Them having to fight the war together, because they would have been crushed else, meant that they stuck together rather a bit.
3) The occasional person like Narsrim or I, who doesn't help by being part of a Celestian order and encouraging people to help them a tonne, and probably vice versa, except I don't know many Lisae.
4) Histories point Serenwilde towards hating the Taint, but although it's apparent some amount of disliking Celest is in there, it definately isn't to the same extent.
5) Lots of little other things combined.

EDIT: ...no, it's not "horrible RP." It's "well, I don't like it, so it must be those blundering idiots screwing up their obvious direction, I mean, those angels eat Faeries all the time and corrupt the forest all over the place." An FFA would be good, but really, the way it is now isn't any worse off for it from an RP perspective.

Well there is they saying, "The enemy of my enemey is my friend".

Murphy is right, anti-taint.

I'd like to see new cities and communes to balance it.

*poke Glomdoring* It won't help the Celest/Serenwilde thing, but it'd help Magnagora get even a bit.

There can never be balance with 3 factions unless they're all against each other.

I miss the anti-city Serenwilde.

Picture a dog. Call that dog Serenwilde. Now, beat that dog with a stick, that stick being named war and you being named Magnagora.

What will happen? Serenwilde with it's tail well tucked between it's legs will retreat to it's master, the master being called Celest. Now, Celest was also bullied by Magnagora. Celest wants to get pay back, Serenwilde is just resentful it got beat up with a stick. Conclusion, the weakling known as Celest accompanied by a Serenwilde licking it's wounds decide to give Magnagora a dousage of it's own medicine... or at least try to ignore Magnagora in the playing ground.

The bully is now nothing more than a lone kid wanting to play dodge ball with another... too bad he is now outnumbered.

See, the thing is.

Serenwilde is Celest's "master".

In that case... Make Magnagora repeatedly hitting the dog (Celest) with punches and kicks, causing severe trauma on the poor animal... Now, Magnagora got bored of toying with the defenseless dog (unknown to him, that dog can bite it just hasn't unsheathed it's teeth yet). At this moment, the dog has gone to seclusion with it's tail well tucked, and Magnagora takes a look at the new kid on the block... poor innocent Serenwilde (). Magnagora grabs a stick (War), and decides to see how tolerant Serenwilde is. Serenwilde get's beat up and goes crying to it's dog. Now, Celest and Serenwilde are together, and know that together they can out-bully the bully.

But yeah, I miss an anti-city Serenwilde, as well.

How quickly some forget that pre-Celest/Serenwilde entente, Serenwilde was considered a Magnagoran bitch-state.

Then Magnagora did a couple attacks on the pretense of Jelani not paying up with Dairuchi's comms, and THEN Kaervas started raising Crow, so we killed all the Magnagorans we found in Glomdoring till he was dead, and the war started, and...yeah, I don't have to explain any further.

True, so true... it was the stick's fault Serenwilde suddenly went sour against Magnagora.

While colorful, Desdemona's little satire doesn't quite come close to the what really happened. At no point were the Celestians masters of the Serens. Shiri summed it up pretty much. Because of that, it seems that many Serens still feel the 'love' where the Celestians are concerned. Not all of them.

Serenwilde is not anti-city at all, they are anti-taint.

True, but the point that was being made was that in the histories we weren't too enamoured with the cities either. We definately weren't so strongly opposed, though, and of course recent events have much more effect than distant history.

The problem is that Celest has no reason to be anti-Serenwilde. Serenwilde can be anti-city and anti-Taint, which should set them up against Celest and Mag. Celest is anti-Taint, setting them up against Mag. Mag is anti-anything not tainted, setting them up against Serenwilde and Celest, but Celest is not anti-nature, which is where the problem is.

Mag is becoming more and more like Mhaldor everyday, I wouldn't be surprise if/when Hallifax and Gaudiguch comes back that they'd team against Mag too.

I foresee Gaudiguch allying heavily with Magnagora, as long as the Taint doesn't become all "DIE". There's even the chance (and theory) that Gaudiguch HAD Kethuru in it, as Kethuru disappeared right as Gaudiguch dissapeared. Hallifax's fears may have been well founded. And Gaudiguch may come back entirely tainted.

Mhaldor seems to pop-up frequently whenever there is a discussion of Magnagora.

Sooo... Seren wasn't Celest's dog. By Malicia's post, I'd say that definately Celest is Seren's dog, so my second example is better. Fortunately, I don't feel the 'love' wherever Celestians are concerned. I simply don't care. I do wonder though, how many of the actual population of the Serenwilde would rather be completely alone (as opposed to allied with a city).

I'd have to say i'm pretty sick of the way some people are completely pro-celest.

My character couldn't give two squats if you're celestian or magnagoran. To him as long as your not a guild or a commune enemy he doesn't really care one way or the other. He also tries to stay away from Celest v. Magnagoran fights. Unless of course he gets roped in by those whose opinion he values. I do have to say though he's been jumped by magnagorans for no reason, or very little reason. Stangmar for example just started wailing on him with no cause and then killed him for no reason at all. Hell I don't even think he struck back.

It's things like that, that make some serens even buddy buddier with Celest. Rambled on a bit, point being my guy would love it if the cities just left Serenwilde alone and Serenwilde only interacted with the cities when there was need.

Edit: I have a nasty headache and my contacts are bothering the hell out of me so if I messed up something in the post or the edit grammer/spelling wise i'll offer a half-hearted apology now.