It's just so cliche, I think it would be so much better if Light and Taint weren't pictured so stereotypically as equivalents of good and evil. But oh well, it's rather clear that they are.

If lusternia is so boring because its glom vs seren and mag vs celest... and it's so straighforward, take a radical position IC, make something happen ya know... Ahhrrr Pee, said the pirate

Achaea tried that with Chaos vs. the Church from the start, but it didn't work out so well. Players didn't quite get it and so pushed it into a good vs. evil thing, which of course caused lots of in-fighting with those that didn't see it that way and wanted to do things properly. Thus the painful series of events with the Infernals being disbanded, Mhaldar being created, and making a whole new skillset for the Occultists. One reason we opened with these two cities rather than, say, Hallifax and Gaudiguch is that we wanted to avoid that sort of confusion and the inner turmoil that it results in.

Wheras we have good vs evil now, Hallifax and Gaudiguch also seems to be the 'other' opposites of law versus chaos, the way I see it. That's going to be very interesting when that comes about for sure Law and Good are not the same thing. It'll be tough to get that law/chaos thing set up just right (assuming that's what you actually want to achieve of course ), and would have been nearly impossible to start with. Everyone's pretty content with good and evil.

As for the main topic of discussion, yea.. Lusternia's conflict is a bit too high. There's nothing stopping some people from mass cubix-raiding of Nil or Celestia, just glad they're holding back now. I've found that areas where conflict just builds up out of no-where to be more exciting. Example... A long time ago, Alger was randomly defiling Isune's shrine on Gemini. Eldanien and I are close and we jump him and kill him. Then a team of Mags jump us, then a team of Celestians jump then and... suddenly there's a bar brawl in the middle of no-where... heh.

The amount of opportunity for combat is high. There's always targets just waiting to be hit. Tough to regulate that. Things are doing all right now anyway. I just want to sit down and get to roleplaying

However, I've heard that in Imperian there's no good and evil but pro-magic vs anti-magic instead, and it seems to work fine for them.

But at least here in Lusternian universum, the whole good & evil isn't totally set in stone. We have some basis to argue about that in game and even out of it. Not going to repeat any of this but there were many threads here about what Taint and Light are and what they are not. Propaganda in game is also quite intense, which creates some opportunities for roleplaying.

There are shades of grey. Magnagora helped to heal tainted fae girl. Celestians killed fae and tookover Acknor, which causes internal strife within New Celest I believe (seeing all those posts about it). Bloodthirsty and power trippin people exist in both cities.
But at the end it's all pretty soon reduced to 'Taint bad, crush kill & destroy.'

About Hallifax and Gaudiguch. I disagree with law/chaos. Unless you use it as a mental shortcut, but even then it's not really correct. If I wanted to describe their philosophies and ways in few words, it would be cold logic and cautiousness for Hallifax and hot-tempered and daring for Gaudiguch. Law/chaos reminds me of AD&D and it's a poor concept. It simplifies it too much and doesn't even go along with how they were pictured in the histories. Illuminati had ranks and chain of command just like any other organization. And do you think their army was a bunch of barbarians without any leadership? Of course it wasn't. Also, I don't think law was the most important concept to Hallifaxians, efficiency and logical choices were. It doesn't mean they all always agreed with each other and never went against the rules. Rarely, maybe, but not never, especially that it's gonna be player run city hopefully and it wil happen.

Chaos is misunderstood. It is not anarchy.

Law is not the opposite of Chaos.

Disorder and Order have nothing to do with Chaos.

And.... erk, sorry, I'm channelling another deity....

(BTW, if anyone is a Babylon 5 fan--I mean really into the grand story arc--you'll understand Gaudiguch and Hallifax a bit more.)

Bad Eris! Back in the box!

Imperian has magick and anti-magick... but you should see how many ways you can divide that... I'm not even sure whats considered magick anymore.

Oh, that sheds a lot of light on it, actually. I hadn't considered that.

ooOOOOOOOoooo...now I can't wait for them to come out. And Gwyl's right, that does make things make a bit more sense to me. *glee*

After much pondering, I decided that the org that has to move to get that to happen is Glomdoring. Magnagora waves its taint around everywhere it goes. Celest and Serenwilde don't really appreciate taint much. Glomdoring could choose to go the route of the victim/survivor of the taint and just be rabidly anti-city. All we'd need then is a gentler conflict on the Ethereal.

I assume that is what the faethorn treaty will do... What you said would be good, is exactly what I think they are doing right now...