It was suggested that perhaps we can splinter off the new ideas into particular planes. Since we have a post about the Elemental which seems to be going well, perhaps ideas about the Cosmic plane are in order.

And, of course, I'll throw in the ideas I'm flinging around to start:

1. Make cherubs/imps more useful. Either they can give more power, be used as protection (say, they empower the half-formed, making them MUCH harder to kill as more of them are around, but ALOT weaker if none are around), or have them somehow affect Guardians.

2. Gorgogs. There's some arguments to just get rid of them, but assuming we're keeping them then let's change how they steal power. Instead of some unstoppable event where you see them open a rift and steal power away, have them start a raid on Celestia or Nil (why not Elemental? They should be able to easily find that, thus they should be raiding that ALL the time. Make them have to go to Cosmic to steal and it makes sense that they have to plan/prepare for it). They rush in and, so long as they remain there, they steal power from the city. Removing them means going up there and killing them. Along with the obvious exp gains, this makes the Gorgogs more threatening AND manageable: Have a well prepared army to kill them fast and it's nothing more than a little spice to brighten the day. Can't summon that army at all and they'll be around for a while MUCH to your detriment.

Of course, it also means a well prepared enemy can rush in and raid as well. More insanity. Of course, the gorgogs could attack BOTH sides at once.

And if both sides don't like it, there's always keeping that darn thing closed, so long as the communes don't get involved.

3. A general look into raiding on Cosmic: How hard is it? Is there enough raiding? Too much?

I love the thought of having gorgog-like hostile invasions of Ethereal/Elemental/Cosmic planes. That's a really great idea. It's a hindrance to the organization, but not enough to cause too much frustration and despair.

The power drain, meh, I think the fact they are gonna try and kill everyone is enough incentive to get rid of them, but whatever.

I don't know...
What I dislike the most is the fact that guardians are the only class that can be so crippled because of raids (raids which are encouraged to occur). Why's that? Why do mages, druids or wiccans not have some of their skills removed when we kill avatars or elemental lords?

Wiccans totally do. We lose Maiden/Mother/Crone and Barghest/Redcap/Slaugh if our Avatars die.

Hmm... still, at least half of your fae are safe?

There were suggestions for making the Elemental plane linked to the Mages. Also, here's a question: how effective IS a wiccan without the three Avatars? Having fae still around doesn't matter much if the real firepower is in the avatars after all.

Of course, that all refers to Ethereal and Elemental planes. Assuming we balance the effect out to the other classes in the other planes, would the Guardian link on Cosmic still be alright?

For guardians, we lose pact when a supernal/demon lord is dead. If all are dead, we have nothing to invest so demon is useless, though we can still summon it (for looking good I suppose).
As for wiccans, Shiri says they lose three fae so I assume they just can't summon them. Those that can be summoned work as usual since they're not investable, they just are and do what they do.

If mages were to lose some abilities (demesne effects) when elemental lords die, I suppose it would have to be changed so they have to be resurrected just like supernals/demon lords. But what about druids then?

We have unique abilities as well, might just take away them then.
For Blacktalon, that would be Spiders, Murder and Scarab.
Hartstone, it would be Squirrels, Pathtwist and Darkseed.

But are those abilities connected to the Avatars?
Besides, it'd rather have to be demesne abilities, to keep it fair and balanced with mages.

Well, we don't have them if we don't specialize in crow...

How many times have all five demon lords been slain? Once. How long did it last before one was restored? 2 hours tops? I think you make it out to be a lot worse than it is.

I remember only this one time not so long ago (month or so?).

Still, if I'm left with one or two pacts that have no good abilities in it, it's also rather unpleasant situation.

And there's also a fact that each pact costs 10 power. I've lost at least 100 to repact when they were being slain repeatedly that time.

It's worth to note that not only guardians are the most meaningless class, but also they can be crippled like that. And it's not even the main goal of killing cosmic half-formed.

Mages are a lot more important for the city and there's no way to hit their abilities like that.

Getting gorgogs off a cosmic or elemental plane would be far too easy. If there was a gorgog in every room in the main part of Celestia, I could clean it out in about 20 minutes or less, alone. With, say, 4 decent hunters around, it would take about 5 minutes to be rid of them. Would seem about as pointless as sending orcs into a village.

And I suddenly got a random idea. Guardians should get some kind of bonus on their plane. Its their job to protect Celestia and Nil (I don't really know how forest guardian stuff works), but right now mages are a good deal better at defending them. We have the elemental planes to worry about.

Oww. Perhaps if the gorgogs were grouped up? Say, 2 here, 3 there, 10 on the Nexus itself, and most of them don't wander (too busy sucking, a few would though), would that make for some difficulty? Overall, I want the 'raid' to be killable but last about 10-30 minutes with a powerful group and longer if there wasn't. Then you can have them drain every 5 minutes.

Thus when they attack a well set army the city should suffer only two power drains before they're gone (and the fighters with a good bit of gold, exp, and corpses for the trouble). Nothing extreme, just enough to make it noticable and make you worry about if the Gorgogs came when no one powerful is around.

I like the bonus by the way, but I'm not sure just what to give them. We could just simply make Cosmic undemesnable to all.

Making Celestia un demesneable to all would be bad... because like we have.. what 2 fighters? I know there is Amaru and I am not sure whom else, Atherius...I do not even know, and Amaru has not been around in some time it seems...
It would be nice to have a bonus when on Celestia...as I hardly EVER go there, and I'm an undersec...wierd...

Exactly. Celestia seems to pretty much be for skills and rp (rituals and such, I guess) for Celestines. I don't see them as guardians of the plane. Hell, most can't even be bothered to keep me company when I have Celestia demesned. I have a hunch that geomancers play a bigger role in Nil defense then Nihilists as well.

And Celest is getting more fighters. I see a lot of people getting better, and even more at least trying to get better, which is all I ask. Hopefully before long Celest will be a considerable force more regularly. I was proud when we fended off Daevos from water the other day, even though we didn't have a lot of our more well known combatants.