An agonizing psionic cry echoes across the whole of Lusternia as the Eye of
Zenos perishes beneath the attack of the Forsaken and the Piercing Needle of
Transcendent Ice, ridding the lands of the ravenous Kigaru Wind.
Estarra's voice shatters the cosmic equilibrium, "Congratulations, mortals!
Zenos has been vanquished!"
Estarra's voice shatters the cosmic equilibrium, "Since the ice tower has been
destroyed, never again will his power be able to be amplified as it was, though
I assume there is a mystery how they were able to construct an artifact that
held the power of the Elder Gods."
Estarra's voice shatters the cosmic equilibrium, "Enough chitchat."
Estarra's voice shatters the cosmic equilibrium, "Be warned, that meddling in
the past has its own consequences, and the ways remain ope and more mysteries
lie hidden in Icewynd."
Estarra's voice shatters the cosmic equilibrium, "One consequence of this
intrusion by even a portion of Zenos and the direct result of his mangified
power is that the Nine Seals have been weakened!"
Estarra's voice shatters the cosmic equilibrium, "Thus, once again, we must turn
to you, mortals, to choose one among you who can wield the powers of ascension!"
Estarra's voice shatters the cosmic equilibrium, "The Ascension challenges will
be coming soon, so prepare yourselves, and choose your champions wisely."

Of course.

Though I wish people would be a little less cynical and OOC when they're talking about how "Oh, well, time for ascendancy" in says. (before Estarra had even announced)

It just seemed cheap and like it broke character a lot.

Unfortunate case of Apathetic Citizens towards the reoccuring Apocalypse How. Sorry, non-Tropes people, but it's the easiest way to explain it. It's really a case of Genre Savvy (no link, I think that one is pretty obvious. It's also linked in the other two.). Nothing is really to be done about it except stern looks at the perpetrators.

I don't think it's so unreasonable to think that people might start noticing the Seals get messed up every 30 years or so, when the world nearly ends... >.>

Out of spite we're just not going to break the seals.

Or break them, but heal them our damn semselves.>


>:|

Impossible! They're made from mortals, not magnificent beards.

Most TV shows have one year per season -- you can tell because they have one Christmas episode a year, for instance -- and many shows follow approximately their airing times, which means their season finales tend to happen about once a year around the same time each year, and yet their characters never notice the pattern. We can easily fail to notice the timing without straining credibility.

What's really hard to fail to notice, though, is that the world is so often on the brink of disaster and then barely saved. More to the point, it's impossible to react to the imminent demise of everything by noting, "Oh, no big deal, we know how to fix that, we've done it before." The thing about ascendance is that someone is going to win, so it is going to work. There's nothing even in-game establishing a chance that it might fail.

(The other part that's a little hard to not shrug off is that the proper reaction to "Oh, no, the world's about to end" is "Don't worry, I can help save it! Excuse me while I go design a new cookie. No, really, that's an integral step in saving the world!")

Lendren:

stuff

Eh. The seals seem to routinely weaken every 30-odd years; something that I feel characters should notice; my character even has a bard-wank explanation for it (music of creation enters the correct harmonies every 30 years). Further, it seems a bit difficult to be truly WORRIED about it; Avechna and the Elder Gods have the whole Seal Champion/Staff of Ascension plan that has worked six times so far with the biggest hitch being the Gnafia. If the Soulless eventually caught on to this plan, and actually endeavored to stop it, then there might be reason to worry. Until then, the seals weakening is like a surgeon performing bypass surgery on a heart attack patient; there is some danger of failure, and consequences for that failure, but the operation is routine and practiced and there is no reason to panic.

It still really ruins the mood of these events when everything's storming and people are dying and a novice asks "What's happening?!" and someone goes "Oh, the world is ending again. No big deal!". Even if you've sat through these kinds of things before and find no reason to panic, you could at least try an appropriate reaction to a ravenous monster trying to eat the world?

The only thing the admin could really do is perhaps change the Ascension times each year, make it a surprise, that way people don't know when it's going to happen. But that would have other issues IMO.

But honestly, the key is attitude. If you as a player are jaded and cynical, that's fine, but don't carry it over to your character (unless your character is jaded and cynical). You may have watched, say, Star Wars 1000 times but for somebody else it is new and it's very bad form to do MS3TK type meta-commentary when somebody new right there is watching.

Rivius:

... you could at least try an appropriate reaction to a ravenous monster trying to eat the world?

For the seventh time now? He seems to be pretty bad at it. Ixion and Fillin could attempt to eat the world too, and probably be just as effective.

I still feel that the hardened veterans of several previous ragnaroks should feel more jaded towards the event IC. My character was born during the previous Ascension, so she plans on playing this up somehow (still working on it.).

I personally would like to see the Soulless actively attempt to interrupt the event; attacking during Seal trials and such.

Doesn't really matter if they do. Previous-year sealbearers instakill kethuru-mobs.

This is completely untenable, but it'd be awesome if we failed one year. That would subvert some goddamn expectations. Kethuru or Crazen or whoever ends up breaking out, two or three mortal races get devoured, and all of the survivors are forced to emigrate to New New Celest...

Jack:

This is completely untenable, but it'd be awesome if we failed one year. That would subvert some goddamn expectations. Kethuru or Crazen or whoever ends up breaking out, two or three mortal races get devoured, and all of the survivors are forced to emigrate to New New Celest...

Hey, Gaudiguch is outside the basin. If he breaks out, we're last to die.

Unless they go from the outside in. Then you are first.

Why would they do that? Just meager shielded pickings out here. Lots of villages to devour over that mountain range.

Because everyone loves playing with fire!

Idea: During the Knowledge Trial, every once in a while, a Soulless slaps Eventru away from the contest and asks a ridiculously difficult question, and kills you if you fail! What do you mean it would be annoying?


I'm serious when I say some actual opposition from the Soulless would make the event more interesting though.

Lendren:

Most TV shows have one year per season -- you can tell because they have one Christmas episode a year, for instance -- and many shows follow approximately their airing times, which means their season finales tend to happen about once a year around the same time each year, and yet their characters never notice the pattern. We can easily fail to notice the timing without straining credibility.

What's really hard to fail to notice, though, is that the world is so often on the brink of disaster and then barely saved. More to the point, it's impossible to react to the imminent demise of everything by noting, "Oh, no big deal, we know how to fix that, we've done it before." The thing about ascendance is that someone is going to win, so it is going to work. There's nothing even in-game establishing a chance that it might fail.

(The other part that's a little hard to not shrug off is that the proper reaction to "Oh, no, the world's about to end" is "Don't worry, I can help save it! Excuse me while I go design a new cookie. No, really, that's an integral step in saving the world!")

This depends on the shows you are watching, the majority of the shows that I watch do not follow what you have said.

A show like Doctor Who, provides a christmas special and sometimes links to the fact that it is modern day but the show itself could take an entire year as easily as it could day a month.

Sanctuary does not reference the passage of time all that often and the links between seasons are more likely to be within days of each other (Season 1 was a first season, 2 lead up to the big thing which was expanded on/resolved in 3, which in turn lead up to multiple big events which were in turn dealt with over 4)

Merlin tends to have a tight series of events followed by long periods of nothing. The latest season dealing with a plan that Morgana had and there was no significance on the time of year that it concluded, it ended with the resolution of that plot line.

I believe Stargate ran somewhat similarly to sanctuary, with a bit more actual time between seasons. Warehouse 13, True Blood, Torchwood, Bones if you want something away from fantasy/sci-fi, while buffy provides an exception though this could be argued as more that where there was incidental timing is was more for the metaphor.

Glee is a show the comes to mind that is actually tied to the general time at which it was released, but there is a tendency there to deal with plot-lines in their own episodes. Or something is started that might not be resolved that season.

So for these shows, simply because ooc things are happening at the same time, does not necessarily mean that ic things are happening at the same time. The avoidance of tying yourself to an external date actually makes sense in that it would prevent questions like this.

In lusternia we have an event called the solstice, you could even argue that the characters would notice the anniversary celebrations. There is some form of occurrence referred to as the solstice that occurs roughly every x years. They know this, they can expect this, after seven solstices that have been followed by an ascension it is almost surprising that the solstice does not inspire fear in the hearts of lusternians for being a harbinger of doom.

It could even be handwaved in a rather intriguing fashion.

Kialkarkea:

Why would they do that? Just meager shielded pickings out here. Lots of villages to devour over that mountain range.

The Basin was the least-ravaged place after the Vernal Wars. So clearly, Gaudiguch has got it comin'....