RP Ephemerals are positions that are populated by volunteers and exist solely to possess mobs, do world emotes, and do other things to facilitate RP and run small (and large) events. I (and others) have asked for these positions several times, and have been repeatedly told that it's impossible for varying reasons, foremost among them being that they're just don't work (for instance Lisaera's comment here). Yet when I opened todays IRE newsletter, I find a comment saying that Imperian has re-opened Docent applications to expand the pool of player-based roleplay directors. As the remark is quite glowing, it appears quite evident that there haven't been such "spectacular failures" at Imperian to kill the program; instead, the admins seem to think it is a positive enough development to merit a few precious sentences in their paragraph in the IRE newsletter.

When can we expect such positions?

Sorry, we have no plans to implement such a system.

Dang.

EDIT: Why not? It would potentially add so much flavor and dynamicity to a game that is in desperate need of some RP freshening-up and would reduce the workload on the admin population as a whole. What are the drawbacks that would prevent such a system from being just as positive in this context as it is in Imperian?

That is a shame, especially considering the rarity (at least that I've seen) of active gods in Lusternia. Ayridion seems to be doing a good job, though, so perhaps future Ascensions, or something similar, will occur in the future.

Amarysse, I don't really understand how you can say there's not many active Gods in Lusternia. Terentia often shouts at mortals and turns them into maggots. Charune and Viravain are around often enough. I have to admit I don't see a lot of Fain or Morgfyre, but I'm pretty sure they are around a lot. And Elostian, especially. He likes to stay hidden and ask questions at the worst moments (and is wonderful for RP). There aren't many Gods to begin with, but they are all active from what I've seen and witnessed. They don't need to get involved personally with people's characters (and very well should not). Ayridion I've seen the least of them all (aside of Mags gods, but Aison is not in any hurry to come face to face with them).

Aside of all... I'd like to state something very clearly:

You do not need Admin or Divine involvement to have an enriching and fulfilling roleplay environment and/or experience.

Taking such things as your clothes or jewellery into account is always good RP. Complaining how itchy your shirt is or how your shoes are too tight, or saying how you need to buy more regenerative potion to heal your newly pierced navel is always good RP. Going on about the soft pelt of a fox or pegasus, or emoting your character more in-depth (Aison has a custom emote of a clumsy curtsey, though she attemps grace). Picking a favourite food or colour is a good step, but making it so, say, Merians are more graceful in the water instead of out of it is sometimes better.

Yes, it is very nice when a denizen will reply to you or have a conversation with you. There have been times when Aison has sat in the Celestine guildhall having a conversation with a newbie and would tell Torili to stop saying stuff about learning and how to learn (his 'trigger' word is 'learn'), and Torili replied, "Sorry." with a blush. Yes, it's nice, but no, it's not something I'd like to see often.

If you need help with roleplaying a better character, you can always write something about them. These are usually long and complicated because, naturally, your character should be complex and more than one-dimension. Such as:

Aison is roleplayed as a very humble but very ambitious and extremely dedicated servant to the Light. She realises the lack of positive feeling in material possessions (such as manses or certain clothes and jewellery), but also how they enhance a mortals life (as such, she wears clothes are rather upper class, and rings/jewellery given to her as gifts). While her goal is not necessarily to be the 'best' at everything (as I'm worried a lot of people will see her as), it is to serve the Light. That's the driving force of everything she does. Absolutely everything. You can ask her why she wants to go hunt the swamp and she will give you an answer that tends to end with something like, 'it helps me to serve the Light.'

She works constantly and hard and there's very, VERY few occasions where she is sitting still and relaxing. It was quite a challenge to get her ready for ordainment so soon into starting the game. She doesn't have a selfish thought in her head and she is rather reluctant to admit to being anything above a servant to the people around her. Some people will think that, although she intends to learn certain skills, she only learns as much as she needs to and makes as much as she needs to, and then she stops because she knows she has done enough learning to appease the Supernals and the Gods who teach of the Light. That does not make her selfish by any means.

I try to roleplay Aison as being somewhat of a martyr. She doesn't mind death because she believes there's no shame in dying for the Light or for her cause. While she won't go out and do stupid things and she -will- avoid death as she can, she won't get upset when she does die.

But, in all of Aison's roleplaying, there's one thing that I'm rather proud of, and that's the fact that Aison is not beautiful. She's not monstrous, but she is very plain. She looks normal. Sometimes I dislike how every Elfen Aison comes across is beautiful, or how every Aslaran has the perfect colour to their hair or how every Faeling has the most unique wings. Aison is plain. She has blue-green skin, she is fat around the middle from young age, her fins haven't developed fully, and she still possesses skin like a mugwump because her scales haven't grown in, and it isn't attractive. Her lips are too big for her face and her face is too thin for her body. Her limbs are much too long and they make her incredibly clumsy unless she's in the water. And since I am planning on purchashing a cameo sometime in the future, I do plan to make her look plain in every race she takes on, except for ones with fur and perhaps human (she will be incredibly ugly in some, and strikingly beautiful in others, depending on certain factors of her personality).

Anyone can do that and be different by being plain, not by being exceptionally beautiful. I'm disappointed that Elfens are basically Sirens in Lusternia; they have so much more potential than that. It must be dull playing such a beautiful character. Aison will be having a rather fun time trying to make herself look beautiful and up to everyone's expectations (she is mostly nervous about her fiance's mother approving), for the wedding, because there really is nothing beautiful about Aison. Not physically. Somehow she managed to creep in a charming quality, though. That was unintentional.

While I wrote her description plainly but with detail, it's there clear as crystal:

Soft featured and smelling of the ocean, she is nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary.

But people -still- insist on calling her pretty. It pretty much irks me because Aison is not pretty by any means. She just has nice curves, but that's just because of the all the activities she does.

But, I rambled. My main point is this:

Roleplaying is up to the roleplayer, not someone who can hardcode stuff.

On the other hand, I think the communes will go crazy if Queen Maeve issues even MORE contradictory orders due to being possessed by yet another person who has a different idea how to RP her.

yes

i reckon it'll mostly be Serenwilde going crazy, since half of the Glomdoring won't take notice of her anyway

A good half of Serenwilde doesn't take any notice either...

Not that one would be able to tell if they did, much less her.

She's fae, isn't she -supposed- to be controversial?

There are quite a few of us active. I'm not at liberty to say who as it is not my place to give out that information, but people outside of Glomdoring are likely never to know I exist. The same can be said of each of the gods. Their primary source of RP is within the city/commune to which they are attached. That isn't to say we won't venture out and RP with mortals outside of our orgs...Elostian's a huge fan of it as it's part of his character persona, but it's not just not part of Viravain's persona to care about anything outside of Glomdoring or Wyrden environments. Amarysse once expressed an interest in a tour of Glomdoring and Viravain then showed a genuine curiosity and interest toward someone outside of her forest for that very reason.

I am always a willing participant in any RP with which people need help whether in person with the Viravain persona or behind the scenes. You need only send me a Forum PM, Email(viravain@lusternia.com) or Message in game detailing what you need from Me IC and OOC. The only times I won't assist is if it messes with pre-set histories and storylines that have been pre-setup.

Example: Turning Crow back into Raven won't happen, but I'm willing to play along if you're wanting to do rituals to contact Crow, try to heal Crow(which also won't happen), etc. It's the RP of the attempt that makes it entertaining.

Has anyone said you're awesome? 'Cause you are.

I do see the gods around quite often, at 3 and 4 in the afternoon (PST). My thing is that I'm generally only logged in during the wee hours of the night/morning 12 hours later, I rarely get to see much of the Gods, since they all have lives too and I really don't expect them to be up at 2 and 3 in the morning (later if they're anything east of PST), but it does make me rather sad as my characters have been in search of gods to talk to for whatever reason. It's pretty frustrating, because I know that the players behind the gods are likely to be asleep when I'm logged in, and I can't blame them. Thus, I can see why some people might want RP-only ephs, because that'd be more people in more places, and thus covering more timezones.

Just my thoughts.

Yes. The current Maeve is just about as close as you'd get to a 'real' fae. They care for themselves, mortals are just an amusement.

(Maeve had decreed she may sometimes want to watch combat in Faethorn, so if she doesn't say anything about people fighting she doesn't care. But if she doesn't want it, best to stop. That moment.)

What Aison said... the only way for Divine to foster a rich roleplay environment is for there to be roughly one divine for each five to ten players. Players need to take care of their own roleplay.

I was wondering why there were paintings of Astral creatures scattered around Tosha, and the painting of astral critters at Quettle bore the mark of a certain inconspicuous Goddess...

That wasn't really Viravain's doing.

Viravain only created a painting of all the critters to respond to a little contests of mine. I offered 150,000 gold to somebody who could draw all 12 astral creatures for me. V decided to show off and give me a bonus. Shorlen ended up getting me the paintings.

I wanted to exhibit them somewhere, likely the villages, but communities get a little testy when I post them in territories they supposedly "own", so Tosha seemed like the best choice.

Kudos to Aison! I'm always harping on people to give the Gods a break, in any incarnation I take across the Iron Realms, because it's really not Their job to facilitate EVERY facet of roleplay. Though Druken is generally a stuffy, self-righteous hermit without a lot of player contact, the people that I interact with are usually of the self-involved variety and sometimes draw him out of his confinement. They take the game into their own hands and do something with it, rather than sitting around at the Ravenwood hoping a war will begin.

Shayle, for instance, is incredibly germaphobic. Whenever I bring someone into our guildhall, she forces me to do a cleansing ritual in all of the rooms that they entered- from the ceiling down. Arkzrael has this thing she does with her spectacles whenever I tell her to be our meeting's scribe, and Valarien has this way of peering over his nose at Druken with a carefully applied smile whenever I start questioning his motives.

The Gods are fun, but They exist to give us the tools we need to make Lusternia enjoyable. Not the other way around!

Yes, sometimes I feel silly by mortals shouting and rather than blowing them up I play along.

Actually, all the monks are really Vira's pet puppies and she's teaching them the ways of the astral creature such that they can emerge from their hermitings and conquer the basin with their wyrdy goodness. Glory Be to Glomdoring!


I need to get more sleep....

I wasn't complaining!

I loved what you did!

I was just making sure Shou didn't think you spent your days in Tosha painting things!