Here I propose a most magnanimous event. Every two years, gladiators from every corner of the lands, in representation of their fatherland (Serenwilde, Magnagora, Celest), gather on the coliseum to engage in a challenge of strategy, power, guile and endurance: the Coliseum of Carnage.

Here are the rules:
-Every city/commune forms from their population a group of gladiators, the groups would be no less than 15 no more than 20.
-Every two years, when the Coliseum of Carnage is inaugurated, the teams of gladiators gather on the Coliseum and prepare themselves for battle
-Once inside the arena, the teams of gladiators in a state where they can't attack others, make preperations for their side: arranging demnese, coordinating, relocating, etc.
-After 10 minutes of preparation, the Carnage is begun.
-Last man standing or team, wins the Carnage in name of their fatherland.
-In the last stance that nobody is victorious, or a draw, all gathered gladiators are punished by the spirit of Carnage and die a painful death.

So basically, it would be a battle between cities/communes. In which every side is expected to prepare themselves and try to depend on a given strategy by the selected "generals".

Once the Carnage is begun (after the preparation time limit), the gladiators from every side battle against the opposite side trying to be victorious. After five minutes of Carnage, the Divines release upon the Coliseum the mighty Mountaineaters, the gargantuan and gluttonous ancestors of the rockeaters long thought to be on eternal slumber. The Mountain eaters then could act as predators attacking those gladiators with lower health/most afflicted/lowest power. Along these Mountaineaters, other kinds of pests are released on the lands attacking/afflicting those that come near them. After thirty minutes or so, if no one is yet victorious, suddenly rooms of the Coliseum start collapsing destroying whatever being was inside them.

In the end, once when a side is victorious they become the owner of the Horn of Fortune, a horn that increases the comm production of their villages by the double and gives a power increase yearly. To the losing sides, their respective fatherlands are threatened to be visited by the Great Banshees, harpy like vampires that feast on those who are exposed during the daytime. Creatures of great power, nigh-immortal, and who feast on at least four innocent bystanders every two Lusternian months until the next Coliseum Carnage.

To make the Carnage more random, every Carnage could feature an entire new arena, stopping veteran gladiators from actually knowing the lands. Also, the arenas would be composed of rivers, lakes, forests, mountaints, deserts, etc... sometimes of only one element, as an attempt of forcing every side to completely rely on coordination by their team members.

Like a CTF, but cooler, and people don't have to participate. 15 = way way way too much. 5-9 MAYBE. Also every one year instead of 2. Also not a new one every time, too hard.

Good idea.

EDIT: Wait, didn't read properly. Disadvantage for losing = badbadbadbadbad.
Advantage for winning might be good though. Just not THAT high. I'd see this as a good way to expend violent urges an' stuff!

So you end up with three roughly equal size demesnes.

Then it turns into one side saying, "Hey you guys, come out of your demesne and come into ours!" and they say, "No you come out of yours." and they retort back with a witty, "Nuh uh, you come fight us in our demesne." and so on.

I agree that the benefit for winning may be a bit too high, and that people who don't participate from the city/commune shouldn't be punished for what they weren't involved in. Overall, however, the idea seems really cool, and a good way to promote city/commune unity. I really think this would be fun!

Massively decrease the bonus/penalty for winning/losing and deal with the demesne problem that Tuek stated, and it'd be awesome.

I'd rather just play CTF

This way, though, innocent people don't get caught. CTF's thoroughly pissed me off when I was a Druid. Stupid Marlwolf totally randomly attacking me with those meteor arrows.

What you fail to see, is that the Coliseum has a time limit, and as the Carnage progresses beings that will attack/kill the gladiators will be released. Also, nearing the finale of the Carnage, or better said when the Carnage is nearing climax, rooms of the Coliseum will begin disappearing. This would gradually force people to advance or die. In other words, you will motivated to move, or at the very least wont be able to keep stationed perpetually.

Though, probably the ten minutes to prepare could be too much, so the preparation period could be reduced to simply five minutes, probably causing the groups to prepare more quickly.

Furthermore, to keep enticing the fighters to draw blood, I propose this addition.
The statue of Carnage, the Berserker. Allow me to amplify regarding this statue, as to try describe it and it's function.

Here stands the massive form of Carnage the Berserker, resembling a humanoid with an inferno of flames bursting from his chest and encompassing his upper torso. In his right hand he wields a gleaming eerie looking blade. At the stand, a small plaque hangs, reading the words: "Fire. Frenzy. Fury" followed by the inscription: "If you fail to satiate my blade's bloodlust, my blade shall feast on you".

So, basically the function of the Berserker would be further pressure everyone to start fighting, because if no one dies about five minutes after the preparation time, then the Statue becomes animated inhabited by the spirit of Carnage, and it will start killing people randomly.

On other things, my proposed cypher of 15-20 combatants per team was inspired by my small desire to see mini-war campaigns engaging battle. But I agree, it may be too a large cypher, so the team could be reduced to 8-10 per (whether one team has 8, the other 9, the other 10 wouldn't matter).

Also, I proposed the Horn of Fortune, because I thought that more than people considering it as an honor to possess it would consider it a blessing. That is why the Horn of Fortune (inspired by the cornucopia) came to mind, endowing on the victors with a blessing of higher village production instead of better harvest Maybe the comm production instead of doubled could simply be increased by a percentage, perhaps by a half of what villages normally give. As for the Power bonus feature, it is a yearly feature, probably giving to the victorious city/commune 500 power per year that the Horn of Fortune is stationed.

And the Great Banshees, I think they would be an awesome feature. It would clearly depict the counter of fortune by giving things that could be considered as pestilence, fear, death or meaning complete misfortune. How the Banshees would function is the following:

The defeated sides would each have the visit of two Great Banshees, harpy-like vampires, which would perch somewhere around the city. Every two months, during the following years between Carnages, the Harpies would try to kill four people, to satiate themselves, and would not stop until they manage to do so. Always considering that the Harpies will only prey on people that are outdoors and in their same area (Serenwilde or Celest or Magnagora), meaning you can easily avoid them by going indoors or burrowing. A view of how I believe the harpies could function, probably giving a warning of their approach would be like:

Room
Grubac is standing here

An ear piercing lamentous cry paralyses you temporalily.

You feel a despairing shiver surge accross your body. Darkness begins to envelope your view.
(warning
In which you will be stunned by two seconds. After recuperating from the stun, if you aren't quick enough to move...)

Like a black thunder a ghastly woman-beast dives at you from the skies shrieking discordancy.

You have been slain by a Great Banshee.

In that time, the Banshee would be stationed where she caught her prey allowing others to try killing her, considering that the Banshees would be near-immortal, therefore very difficult to kill (also quite powerful in their attacks). In a given case that the Banshee manages to kill three people during this fight, that would mean the Banshee has satiated and would leave (1 prey+others), until two months have passed. After the completion of the two months, the Great Banshees would revisit again, for a period of two years (the period in-between Carnages). I think it would be an awesome feature.

So, basically, the prize for the triumphant would be something worthy of desiring as a way to entice people to participate, and the Great Banshee as a way to try not to fail.
It would be an interesting event, and in the arena not everyone would be forced to actually fight. You could have healers, or whatever a party thinks would be needed, and every party would probably have some leaders coordinating the team.

So, to reduce the amount of participants to a more realistic number, I propose the cypher of 8-10. Always considering that the end result has to be a combination of Guardians/Warriors/Mages, there can't be a team of only one of Warrior, or all Warriors. The communes/cities would distrubute the teams from a list of volunteer gladiators giving way to the final team, the brave representatives of their respective fatherlands.

To conclude, I proposed the in-between Carnage time to be two years, because I think this would allow the groups to both savour their triumph or defeat, and would also give every party more time to prepare themselves for the battle.


Edit: I wish to stress that the gladiators would be pressured to fight once inside the Arena, because there would be a time limit and as the Carnage progress it will become more complicated with the intervention of NPC elements. In any case that the Carnage doesn't begin, then every party would randomly begin dying, and in the conclusion of no victors, every gladiator that participated would die as a sign of lack of effort.

The penalties for winning and losing are still, again, far too harsh. The losing penalty is hurting people who had absolutely nothing to do with the game. Badbadbadbad. I don't think there really has to be much of a penalty for losing. If you want, you could give the members of the losing teams a two-month truedisfavour from "The Spirit of Carnage", and the winners a two-month truefavour. The winners' prize, also, is rather overkill. Having something that doubles commodity production is just insane, and that city would just get a total overflow of commodities. Increasing commodity/power production is fine, but don't double it like that.

Also, if you want to further deal with demesnes, perhaps demesnes could "decay" relatively quickly if they are larger than, say, 5 rooms in the coliseum? The decay rate can increase for the more rooms there are, so you'd never actually be able to get a really big one no matter how fast you were melding.

But... but, the Banshees.

Okay, maybe having the harpies prey like that would be too harsh, so instead of the Banshees killing four people per two months. They could hunt only one person every... two months? Or two, and um... do you really see it as a punishment for people who haven't participated? I thought it would've been considered more like an exilarating experience... trying to avoid being eaten and all that. But I guess the Banshees could only try to prey on the gladiators that lost. Or, you guys would preffer no harpies?

Regarding the Horn of Fortune... Seeing how many comms a city/commune get will depend on how many villages they possess, at least I think it happens this way. So, this already makes comms pretty unstable, seeing how it can decrease or increase already, depending on whether a commune/village looses or gains a village. True, though, double comms could be too much. Though, I still mantain that a comm/power increase would be a great prize for the victors. If somone has a suggestion on how this prize distrubution could be managed, feel free to post it.

I like Shamarah's demesne idea. Demesnes bigger than five rooms could gradually begin to decay, the decay rate could increase in relation of the size of the Demesne. 6 rooms, in 15 seconds it starts reducing to five and so on.