I've been, for a while now, toying with the notion of creating a clan for the first completely neutral organization in the Basin. I still don't have a name for it, but it would work according to the following principles:

Try to stop as much violence as possible.

Help people in need and generally be nice.

Try to keep bad things from happening.

Try to keep a balance between civilization and nature.

Try to keep a balance by not letting any single org get too powerful. (IE, they wouldn't let anyone take all villages, and make sure everyone has at least one village.)

I'm sure there must be a handful of people who would like that; and an entirely player-run, player-created organization would definitely be something new. It would be a secret organization (Or else Murphy, Narsrim, et al, would start killing us off plane and on the highways). It also wouldn't be made out of just rogues; since it's primary objective is to keep the orgs of the Basin from doing something really stupid, or becoming too strong, it would have members everywhere.

Any ideas? Thoughts? Insults? Silly jokes about why it can't work? Anyone who would like to join such an organization is free to msg me in-game so that we can work on it.

a pacifist org? I don't really think that would work

Just try joining Elcyrion's order?

Actually, in game I have been talking to Isune about creating an Artisnal/Bardic clan to discuss works ingame and make them more IC.


Neutrality only works if you have a purpose outside of the conflct, not just pure opposition to extensive conflict. A peace movment is more viable if your working towards creating the largest flower garden picture in the world, then if your just going around telling people to stop fighting. *silly example for emphasis*

Elcyrion's order isn't neutral; it defends Elcyrion's interests; besides, I would want members from all walks of life, and that means all Divine Orders (Although I doubt Viravain, Lisaera, Fain and Hajamin would let their followers join a neutral org; and I doubt their followers would want to; it's still better to be independent from Elcyrion, so we can take in Lacostian's followers, who share similar opinions, and the people who prefer not to be involved with the gods.) . The point of such an org would be to keep things balanced, to try and avoid the formation of another empire, and to keep any single org from becoming too weak to fend for itself. It would also try to keep the unnecessary slaughter to a minimum. I like to think Lusternia is a fairly free environment where players have a lot of leeway to make whatever they want out of it. (If any of the Divine want to correct me and say that the players are puppets locked in a set behavior pattern that only changes when the gods want it to, be my guest. ). If we get enough players involved in anything, it will work. The point of the organization would be that it would be good, trying to help people and protect the innocent, regardless of wether they're Tainted/Wyrded or not.

As a clan, I don't see any reason why you couldn't create something like that.

Just don't expect that saying the word 'peace' will encourage others to respect your group, especially if you have no real convictions in a very divisive world. You're probably going to make enemies from it.

Nah, it wouldn't really work.

Balance and Peace are not real objectives, they are methods in which to achieve your objectives. Only way for something like this to work is to make an objective that is not currently worked on by anybody, so there is no conflict or terf war over it.

Like a clan for library authors, or for people who like to design manses, or who knows what else.. The smaller and less important but visible the better.


Edit: Balance and peace -can- be objectives if you wish to have aescetic monks who live in the mountains and don't interact with many people.

The way the Basin is run right now, 3/4 of it are my enemy, and your enemy, so it doesn't change much.

Just saying the word 'peace' isn't the course of action, and the org would be a secret society. The method of action would be that, since they'd have members in all communities, and some of those members are reasonably powerful individuals, they'd be able to sway the way those communities act. A very interesting RP idea, from an OOC point of view; whether it would work or not basically depends on how many people would join.

An example: To fix the village situation right now, we'd order Serenwilde members of the organization not to help influencing villages, or to help Celestians; Celestian and Gloms would be told to influence villages normally; Magnagorans would be told to influence only Angkrag, Acknor, Paavik and Shanthmark. With enough members, and a bit of luck, this might end up in a situation where each org has a reasonable number of villages. This would be good both OOCly (The game would be more balanced, more competitive, and therefore more fun for everyone. Also, a neutral org adds another layer of complexity to the game.) and ICly (Those who want to preserve the balance would be happy.) Of course, that depends on having enough people who are commited enough to the cause of keeping the Basin safe.


Taking a cheap example from a well-known fantasy universe, look at the Harpers in Forgotten Realms.

Explain, o wise one.

I have a neutral organization, though we're not passive. Ask Richter sometime about the principle of nonagression. Or just read the book at Roark's fulcrux.

As for creating a large, passive org, that would be hard, if not impossible. It's pretty freaking hard to assemble a bunch of people like that.

so we get the name of this neutral org, ban them from magnagora and tune statues for the walk past.....

cmon, not gonna happen on my watch

I have to agree, the secret politic version is probably not going to work out.

But if you wanted to create a public sort of group that is dedicated to peace, tolerance, forgiveness, etc, I don't see why you wouldn't get at least a few members. Don't be discouraged by the response on this forum either, remember this is only a small section of the playerbase.

Yeah, probably. Although, again, anything can work out if you get enough people. If 75% of the playerbase wants to ban monolith sigils (for example) all orgs will get laws against them. However, I doubt I can get more than 15% of the playerbase involved with that kind of project, and that's probably below the 'critical mass' of people I'd need to be able to really sway things. The original idea was that the organization wouldn't get involved in village influences, only in events off-prime and in neutral zones in the Prime plane; the conspiracy to sway village influences is just a funny example of the kind of thing I would be able to do if I managed to get a lot of the playerbase involved.

However, consider the following 'base rules' for a lighter version of the same idea:

No member kills another mortal in the Prime Material Plane; the exceptions being the Arena, reincarnation, and killing without being suspect, either because the target and you were in a disputed village, or because the target was in a region he is an enemy to.

No member kills another mortal off-prime, which is forbidden, except when defending Ethereal and Cosmic planes.

Killing in self-defense is allowed; however, a fair attempt at incapacitating an attacker and fleeing should be made, when possible.

Whenever possible, members cooperate; trying to harm or hinder another member, for any reason, is forbidden, except in defense of one's community.

Members do not discriminate in basis of gender, race, political affiliation, or membership in any organization; all shall be treated fairly, and tradesmen shall refuse service to none.

Members aid those in need, regardless of who they are; commodities and equipment shall be distributed among members at cost price, or for free, whenever possible. Those who are new to the Basin, the impoverished, and the wounded, shall be given the aid they request, paying only what they can afford. Training shall be given freely to our rogue members; Power, whenever possible, shall be taken from Astral nodes to be distributed equaly among our rogue members.

In their communities, members are expect to support laws, leaders, and decisions that conduct to the general peace and well-being of the Basin; members in positions of power are expected to conduct their communities towards a more peaceful directions, and avoid all-out war with other communities.

...See where I'm getting at?

Yeah, sort of nowhere.
Sorry, I just think it's not gonna work. Lusternia is conflict driven, and while such an enclave of peace might sound reasonable in theory, it will fail in practice.
But oh well, I could be wrong, wouldn't be anything new.

Bear in mind that your 5th and 7th base rules may be in conflict. Organizational laws may work against everyone being treated the same - I know the Moondancer ban against dealing with Tainted is one example.

Without hard concrete objectives and ideals your not going to be able to bring people together for a solid effort. Any goals towards pure personal perfection without hard concrete objectives will fizzle, or grow and shrink depending only on the one person who produces the content.

And I've havn't read many forgotten realms books so I'm not sure what that example was about. But something to remember within Lusternia, is that any secret organization that has an official name or clan will be found out and not be secret for very long.

If you need to build your organization around such principles, instead of such principles being a natural outgrowth of your organization its very likely to fall apart the day the leader goes slightly innactive.

Pretty much. I was going to add a rule about that, stating that guild/city/commune laws have priority over clan laws, but I didn't want to make things even more long-winded.


Not really. The Serenwilde is built around principles. So is Celest. Again, the only thing that really matters about whether this would be successful or not is the amount of people that would be involved. And success is relative; and org with 10-20 people would make a severe dent, while an org with 20+ people, some of which are important members of their communities, would be a force to be reckoned with. I'm surprised with the amount of people who agree with Verithrax's IC opinions every time I voice them (poorly), which is why I estimate that there are some 10-20 people who'd join such an organization; most of them are young or relatively unimportant people, (My theory about it is that stabilished players PK, and PKers don't like reducing conflict.). Also, know that Lusternia is conflict-driven. The point of that organization wouldn't be to reduce conflict, just to push conflict into the places where it belongs (villages in play, the arena, Cosmic and Ethereal planes) and keep it out of the highways, among several other things.

You tell your clanmates in Serenwilde "Don't help serenwilde influence, help Celest instead" and unless you're the only ones in the village somebody is due to report it to their superiors and they would have to answer unkindly questions, even be considered traitors.

You can try to get people to talk in the boards of their organizations about peace and the like, but the moment they don't act as if their only aim was the betterment of their city/comune they'll lose power very fast, and get in trouble.

Frankly, what makes it interesting in Lusternia is that there are no places where the conflict "belongs" - only areas (most of the time) free of conflict are the cities and communes, since they get raided very rarely. The atmosphere of uncertainity that is created because of that makes the game exciting, and if you are afraid that a random jumper might kill you - simply invest in some Vitae vials.
About Serenwilde and New Celest having ideals - true, they have. But still they are focused on conquest and growing in power, their ideals are simply compatible with this leading principle. It might still work though, because your "pacifist" organisation's ideals are not exclusive to the notion of growing in numbers either.

What I do not like in this idea though is its possible outcome. If it fails, all the members will finish like this guy:
http://redwing.hutman.net/%7Emreed/warriorshtm/diplomat.htm

But if it works, we will have a diluted version of Achaea 1.5-2 years ago (I don't know how is it now, didn't play it since then), where even raids are rare and people PK others on such rare circumstances that it does not happen. Maybe if a newbie enemy enters the city and dies to guards. Non-PK organisation conflict includes only flaming each other on the public newboard and stealing orphans from Shallam/Ashtan, which is hopeless because they will be back too soon anyway. Boring.

Short version: no offense, but balancing the game is not the players' job. Leave it to the administration.