I don't think Magnagora's motivations are of any relevance to this discussion.

However, I don't agree with the statement by Shiri that Celest and Serenwilde have no real ideological reason to oppose each other. In fact, I refute that statement and make the claim that Celest and Serenwilde have just as much *ideological* reason to oppose one another as do Serenwilde and Magnagora. The Light is clearly just as destructive to the Fae as is the Taint (the Nil variety), as both convert fae into cherubs/imps. Further, the Aquamancer demesne is just as destructive to nature as is a Geomancer demesne. Ideologically, both the Supernals and Demon Lords have the more gung-ho warlike evangelists, and both have the more reserved entities.

That isn't to say that the actions of Celest haven't been more friendly towards the Serenwilde than have Magnagora's. In more recent years, they indeed have. However, the ideological divide between the Commune and Cities is identical.

There is no way they're identical. Light is not nearly as ideologically harmful to the Serenwilde and so forth as Taint. That said, last time we discussed this it ended up with Daganev and Desdemona throwing out circular arguments and inaccuracies for about 20 pages, so let's not go down that route again.

That is simply not true. If you look purely at game mechanics, they are identical. If you look at the attitudes of the Demon Lords/Supernals, both have equivalent ambivalence towards the Fae. The only reason I could see to support your claim is the false association of Kethuru-as-Taint with modern-day Taint: the two are not the same, nor are they related any longer.

...-snickers- And this is why I shouldn't make big posts, everyone skipped over the fact that people side with those they get along with better/like-minded even if the agreement/similarity is to defend itself against the schoolyard bully.

So you want them to just get rid of Glomdoring Elryn?

From what Ive seen of them, it seems that the Supernals/Demon types really just don't give a rat's fuzzy behind about the fey, other than the fact that they do exist and, hey, they could be used to create more cherubs/imps! Lets do it! Idealogically, neither the Light or the Tainted care about nature or the fae beyond their immediate use to further their goals and desires. The cities themselves, though, are obviously not idealogical. They help Serenwilde because mean ole Magnagora is attacking them, or they attack Serenwilde because Serenwilde is annoying or something.

No, obviously after all the work the admin and players have put in that is unreasonable.

I want to see Glomdoring start embracing a more appropriate role. Either they are tainted and hence seek to spread taintforest across the basin, destroying the living wilderness and replacing it with twisted, vile and unnatural horrors, or they find a way to become untainted and exist as an evil nature commune. This second option could involve them taking up where Gloriana left off, or better yet, something like rejecting the ways of the old Gloriana in favour of insanity, or the ideal of dominating the weak in order to cull them from the strong, or so on.

Is it going to happen? Not likely.

Nokraenom has the right of it.

I promise not to use circular arguments and inaccuracies if you care to post why you feel he mistated the relationships between Nature, Light, and Taint.

As Cron likes to say.. Get over yourself.

I'm sorry not everyone's RP isn't black and white enough for you.

How about... -gasp- GLomdoring does BOTH! and Lives a nice interesting life.

The truth of the matter, atleast in my Egotistical point of refrence is that the way the conflict is set up now is all because of the cult of Fain.

And no doubt it will, as ridiculous as that is.

I will continue to lament the richness of immersion and history that Lusternia once had. I'm not asking for black and white RP, I'm asking for a world that feels real and consistent. Of course this is only my opinion, that's the usual point of posting in the forum.

I have no idea what you are referring to in Fain.

From an ooc point of view, the light is just a philosophy that can be disregarded. You can't convert trees and rabbits to kindness and loyalty to the light. The taint is an actual, physical force that corrupts body and spirit of everything which it is forced upon.

Of course, the things that the light encourages its followers to do may be a threat to Nature, and this may one day be a valid dispute between Serenwilde and Celest. At the moment I don't know of any tenets in that philosophy that are directly harmful to forests/fae, but one day perhaps.

The Raziela fae quest is something I've not investigated to any great degree yet. I'm not sure if the Fae are harmed in the process or if they are simply brought to a higher vibration of themselves. One that is obviously undesirable for the forest communes since they no longer contribute to the health of the forests, but perhaps one that is not that destructive and corruptive. The same for the Gorgulu fae quest, I'm not sure what is involved.

Mechanically, the two cities are equally opposed to Serenwilde.

Edit: Actually, having said that, I suddenly wonder if the nature of Glomdoring's role was intended to balance that inequity? That by saying, 'look! taint is fine, still nature, honest!' the admin were attempting to decrease the antagonism most of Serenwilde bears against Taint (Magnagora), back to a level comparable to the antagonism it bears Celest.

Hmm, if so, I think it was the wrong way to go. Increasing the reasons for hostility between Serenwilde and Celest up to the same level as Magnagora might have kept organizational roles more unique and consistent.

You've hit my chief lament. As ideological extremes, the Light and the Taint are fine balances to each other. However, one has palpable effects, and the other does not. The result is that the Taint is seen as physical effect, while the Light is just philosophy. It would be well if both had a physical manifestation on the Prime.

I agree something could be done to make the Light less of a philosophy and more of a physical force, but what sort of solutions would you propose?

I think it's easier to see in the case of the Taint because the Geomancer demesne is typically viewed as "Taint" and not "Tainted Earth." One benefit of the emergence of Glomdoring has been the arrival of the "tainted wasteland" designation. Perhaps, in the future, it will come to be that it is thought of more as an Earth-based demesne than as a Taint-based demesne. That is doubtful, though.

Speaking in purely objective terms, the Taint doesn't corrupt anything: it just changes and mutates the evolution of it. Subjectively, however, it is easy to adopt the view that it is corrupting or evil.



I think the histories indicate fairly clearly that the creatures of the Light (e.g., cherubs) are not, from the perspective of a Commune, a "higher vibration." The Spirits of Nature and thusly the Fae sensed the impending catastrophe that was Project Cosmic Hope. The creatures of the Light (and those of Truth/Shallamar) sensed no such thing, instead being blinded by their very nature. The Spirits, and their servants, clearly have what is illustrated as a far superior connection with the land and with the gifts of prophecy than do the Cosmic entities. It is indicated that both the Night Coven and the Moon Coven received indication that the project was highly dangerous and should not proceed. We see that the Emanations embrace the project (and one can infer the Supernals do as well by the enthusiasm of Celest), and the only warning signs from Shallamar/Magnagora are from the Fates (who are not creatures of Shallamar, but are there by choice). In that sense, cherubs/imps are destructive by their nature to the Great Spirits when they are converted from Fae.

The quest hasn't been done in some time by either Celest or Magnagora, due to the outrage it would provoke in Serenwilde (and now Glomdoring), but the potential for highly damaging action is still there on behalf of both the Taint and the Light.

From everything I see about game mechanics, Glomdoring is due to be opposed to Serenwilde. Their avatars fight, they compete for the faes...
No matter if it's taint-light or nature vs corrupted-nature, they're supposed to fight. Saying "but we're cute and nice and luv you, we just want to feed hart to our Crow" won't help much.

Of course, as long as Glom ends up snuggling with Magnagora Seren will end up snuggling with celest, because nobody want to be into a 1vs2 conflict.

Also, regarding tuek, munsia and whoever else might be taking actions against glomdoring, last time I was in Seren they had a politic of not very hard laws, freedom for everybody, we're a commune not a city and we use COMMON SENSE. So how can anybody tell Tuek or Munsia to stop killing the ones that slave Faes (in the case of Tuek who was a moondancer last time I saw him) or belongs to a forest that wants to kill White Hart (in the case of munsia). For both of them, their common sense tells them to burn glom to the ground I guess.

The problem is that the Geomancer demesne (the physical force of the taint) is linked directly to the Taint, whereas the Aquamancer demesne does not have such a strong linkage. I don't really count the fact that it sparkles or shimmers as a sign of its bond to the Light.

"The corrosiveness of the taint sickens the land" has nothing to do with the Earth element of the Geomancers. I think it would be highly beneficial for the demesne to change to reflect more the Earthen element of it. Even changing it to something as simple as "The corrosiveness of the wasteland withers the arid land" would be a far more elemental-based demesne. The problem, I think, lies in the Taint dominating the Geomancy abilities and demesne, not just fundamentally altering it.

The game was obviously designed with conflict to revolve around the Taint, we can't go stripping that from it now and hope we all find other things to fight over.

Ooh, ooh! I've got one! Foul fumes rise from the tainted earth. And in the forests? The tainted earth withers the foliage.

You shouldn't, necessarily. The aquamancer demesne is created by the mage being in tune with water, the heart of which began before the Supernals were rediscovered. Once they were, the ones who considered themselves the purists of the faithful redirected their study to Celestia and became priests. So in the chronology of the knowledge of the aquamancers, the sacred waters came first.

I imagine the logical discrepancy with Geomancers comes from the fact that they were warped by the Taint after their magic had already come about, hence it is even more Taint than elemental in some of its incarnations. It also is the reason for one of their more prominent personality traits.

I think what Elryn wants, is the specialized shadow faeling race to disappear, replaced by specialized mugwump or elfen, and normal faeling to be upgraded even more than they already are, since they can no longer be specialized now!