That's from a Serenwilde perspective, remember. They've come to hate cities because of what happened with the Taint.

I would also like to point out that it is my firm belief, and I am sorry to the Divine that work so hard, but they are a big cause in why History is ignored.

Estarra spent a fair amount of time, evidenced by the detail of the history, in creating a base for RP. In writing out what happened, and giving everyone a role to work from. The Help files for cities/communes, the supernals/avatars/demonlords/spirits. The back stories provided by denizens all over. Everything to establish Organisational roles.

Then the Divine constantly turn around and either ignore the Histories themselves, or tell us/hint at us, that we don't have to pay attention to anything that was written or said. Well I have news for you. History is what shapes the world. There is a reason Atomic is a bad word in most circles. You don't determine your existance by the perceptions of tomorrow. You determine them by the facts of yesterday.

EDIT:: Just to clarify something. Not all Divine do this. Some of them are very good about reminding us of our history and what our roles traditionaly are.

DOUBLE EDIT::

Just to try and elaborate my point. There is the old argument that we should have listened to Auseklis. That he said how nature can take care of itself and we don't have to look after it. This statement is false. It is only true in an ecosystem where balance is maintained. Mortals have no natural predator in any manner, therefore they are the tip of the scale and balance is lost once they are introduced. The Communes were based on the very fact that nature could -not- take care of itself. That it was in fact dying after the Divine wars, that the Soulless were poisoning the nature spirits. Elindel and Glinshari formed the three great communes for the exact reason that proves Auseklis wrong. Nature cannot take care of itself and needs an outside source to balance mortal against mortal harming nature.

Now if we say history should not be listened to, the beings we view as our wisdom should be ignored, then what should our Role be? If the very principles that shaped our existance are to be cast aside for our current player conceptions and OOC influences, then why bother creating this indepth world at all? You could have simply opened the doors on a giant map with 4 orgs and said "you two over there are cities, and you two over there are Communes. Have fun and tell us if something breaks." I prefer however to look at what the Administration has given us and play within the world they created.

Most of the people I've talked to and seen argue, rarely say the Taint didn't HAPPEN - they said it happened, they say Raven was hurt and so was Night and their tree. The cities wove illusions of the Taint, after it was gone - Viravain cleansed the Gloriana, if not the entire Basin, of the Taint. Just Magnagora is too blind and has succumbed to the illusions, as has celest and Serenwilde. However, Raven wants to be called Crow, and Crow wants the Gloriana to be called Glomdoring - why, Viravain doesn't know. But he does. And she loves her baby - so why deny him something so simple?

Crow doesn't want his children to see Taint. Thus, he allows them to see through His eye as they follow His totem - and through His one eye, one cannot see Taint, only what Crow wishes them to see. Crow is all about false truths and shadows, lies and deception - it's amusing, to an extent. However, after that amusement wears off, it leaves such a pounding headache that I'm tempted to gut myself in an uber cool ritualized way.

To be fair, not everyone views specific characters (Elohora, Methrenton, Rowena, Hart, Night, Moon, Meleris, etc) behaving in the same way. I remember the amusement of the Nihilist's teacher - every time he spoke, it was with a different accent. There's lots of gods, and lots of characters - not every god controls every character every time. I'm sure they have some mutually accessible notes on how each character behaves, acts, talks, etc - but it's all perception. And, no offense to any one, but some gods are just better at it than others.

And we all have our off days. Over all, though, I think they're pretty good about it. Could be worse. Like Aetolia (although I hear it's supposedly getting better). Or Achaea.

We'll give you 1/3 our RP for 1/3 your guild members and Ialie.

So BT druids are know how to rp crazy. Bravo.

Its sophisticated crazy. And dont be all bitter

How does 'so-called civilization' and 'jaded by civilized ways' mean that serenwilde is mad at cities because of the Taint?

Because the hatred is deeper than the Taint releasement. The cities follow their higher beings, creatures from planes that shouldn't be explored, half-formed beasts. They follow their ambitions, totally disregarding Nature and the Spirits - Spirits that forewarned what Cosmic Hope would do, Spirits that predicted it down to the casualties. So yea. Taint is just one example - the Ballach Swamp and the Gorgogs is another.

It's written all over the histories and help files.

Communes don't hate cities, they get along just fine.

Modern Serenwilde hates cities.

I posted this up under Elryn's poll but I'm moving it here too since it relates to this topic and is reflection of my thoughts once again on all this...

Been over this alot of times.. while I've admitted I kind would have liked to see Glomdoring be a more Ithaqua like dark forest instead of being tainted I also have to admit the only reason Glomdoring being tainted is such a bad thing is because people refuse to drop their prejudices. If Glom had come out in the beginning same as Mag and been able to define the taint in their own way it wouldn't be a big deal, especially because Glom doesn't embrace the taint, it is in no way reflecting in any of our guilds or skills and merely exist as mainly the device by which Glomdoring was formed. But instead since Mag has been the -cough- evil -cough- force in the Basin the taint is defined as evil corrupting force and whatever Glom does is basically ignored.. a shame..

That being said I think once an Ackleberry comes in and perhaps even Halli/Gaudi that things will improve alot.. I put more emphasis on Ackleberry however because they will likely be in a similar situation to Glomdoring, where the taint has irreversably helped shape their Commune and I likely figure they wont embrace it in the same fashion of a Magnagora, simply acknowledge its forever apart of things and love their forest for what it is, same as Glomdoring does. The only shame about Glomdoring is that people refuse to see that about Glom but instead just call it tainted and evil.

Also I still retain Shikari said it best when he described the taint as the footprint left by the Leopard. It shows the Leopard was indeed there at one point but it in no way shapes the land around it to what it is today.

Now, I am going to reply to this once, since Auseklis is not here to defend himself, and not go into further discussion since that would probably result in a major hijack.

That said however, I sincerely disagree with your opinion that "nature can't take care of itself, only under certain circumstances." What you say is true, but only partially, let me explain. The situation that you describe sees nature as a stagnant ecosystem that has reached the pinnacle of its evolution and no longer wishes to change, and while this certainly fits man’s perception of nature, it is not really what nature is. The beauty of nature is that it always stabilises itself, no matter what you do to it, it is a very dynamic balance of an innumerable number of facets that all shift according to how the environment acts and reacts.

Let us take a look at a very simple ecosystem in order to expand on this statement, let’s say we have a field with some mice and a bunch of owls, the owls prey on the mice and they are the owls’ only means of sustenance. Now, if we look at this system, man would say it is incredibly fragile; if we killed some of the mice, the owls would no longer have enough to eat and would die, therefore having harmed the “fragile balance of nature”. However, what would happen then is the surviving mice would reproduce and with the lessened number of predators around would quickly reach greater numbers until (In case of complete extinction of the Owls) the field could no longer support their numbers and they would stabilise.

Now, this is an extremely simple ecosystem, if this were to be anything like a system one might encounter in your everyday biology, some other predator would move in and take the niche that the owl had left open and thrive like the owl once did. This means the owls are now dead, but at the same time, some other predator is thriving in its place, giving sustenance to animals that otherwise would not even have had a place in the world. Is there a difference? Yes. Did animals get killed? Yessir. Did nature get hurt? I would dare say no, it is different, yes, but who are we to judge that the owls were what nature really wanted in that spot? Why would this animal and this configuration be more “nature” then any other animal doing the same job?

Now, of course people will argue that this does not apply when “man” comes in and releases the “taint” upon the forest. Again I dare argue; sure this does apply, in exactly the same way. The changes are bigger, the effects more profound, but once again, who are we to judge one configuration of nature is better then the other? This argument goes all the way, even if the entire earth was to be completely eradicated, nature would realign itself to the new configuration, it would be barren, it would not sustain much life at that point, but it would still be nature. And another evolutionary path later, there might again be countless species, some maybe even more intelligent then we are now, and if we had never been eradicated, these species would never have existed in the first place, who can judge which one is better? I most certainly can’t.

Of course, one might argue that we are just trying to conserve the current ecosystem, this however, is the same pitfall, because nature changes all the time. Glomdoring is an excellent example of this, it has adapted to the presence of the taint, it is very different from the Serenwilde, but at all that, it is still nature, just in a completely different configuration. Serenwilde at this point could of course just argue they are attempting to restore Glomdoring to its original state, by which they mean the Gloriana, however, again, this is a void argument, completely dependant on perception. Perceive what would happen in the following scenario; let’s suppose that before there was a forest on the place that serenwilde occupies, there was a vast plane and just like the forest now does, this plane has protectors. Now, one of these protectors comes to the now and starts to attack the Serenwilde commune saying “this place used to be a plain, it has changed from what it once was and I am just trying to set it back as it belongs.” The Serenwilde commune will obviously disagree with him trying to turn their forest into a plain again, and with right, for who is he to say that his version of the Serenwilde is better then yours?

Now people might of course argue that both plains and forests are nature and that a tainted forest isn’t, but is instead a corruption of this nature. Again I say this is not true, if we look at the places we all come from, originally, the earth was a vast primordial soup, which only supported primitive live forms such as for example bacteria. None of these bacteria could survive in today’s Serenwilde, since they are not adapted to that environment, they are much more different then anything the taint could ever do to the Serenwilde. Does this mean it’s not nature? Of course not, it’s just a completely different system that in time altered itself again and again and again until it ended up in the current configuration, providing an environment with the capability of sustaining us.

To those of you who are still reading; kudos.

As I said, this is my opinion and in effort of keeping this thread from degenerating into a complete hijack, I will not be posting further feedback, feel free to state your own opinion though.

Nice post Kidaen

Kidaen, although I agree with you that Nature doesn't usually need intervention to adapt, you didn't address the healing of the Fae.

I also feel that to say the taint is not detrimental to nature is somewhat nonsensical (at least as nature is defined in modern popular thought as a vibrant living ecosystem - interpreting tainted nature as a superior but incompatible force is perfectly acceptable, akin to your soup idea) . It does corrupt nature spirits and they all view it as a Bad Thing.

Survival =! thriving. Nature will LIVE without us. However, with us, it thrives and flourishes. That's our purpose!



and to get rid of the Sicklings. DIE.

Excellent post Kidaen. However, I was not discussing Taint at all. Taint can be said to be just an evolutionary process, indeed. RP-wise we can argue that one all day. However, my statement was based pre-taint. It was based on the Divine Wars. Where the history states and allow me to quote.



Now, Taint aside since it does not have any bearing on this conversation at all. We see evidence that in Lusternia, not in the real world where nature spirits dont exit and nature does not have its own consciousness, that Nature cannot always take care of itself. That the Communes are there, and in fact created, for the express purpose of looking after nature. Nurture, heal. Whatever you wish to call it.

Your statements while true in many respects regarding the real world, and even in part regarding the taint in Lusternia, are not fully accurate as you leave out a very important factor. History.

EDIT:: Upon checking my facts, I find that I am wrong. Taint does have bearing on this conversation. However, the Taint you refer to is not the same as the taint that originated the need for the Communes. Below I quote Abeytu on the matter.

I would even go so far as to make a supposition that the reason the Taint of Kethuru did not kill the forests completely, was due to the Great Trees. Trees that were created in order to quicken the healing of the forests. Thus causing a sort of anti-viral agent that the Taint could not corrupt fast enough, and it is common knowledge that viruses adapt when they cannot do what they were originally born to do. Therefore the mutating aspect of the Taint caused Gloriana to become twisted, instead of outright killed.

Edited for more accuracy. Glomdoring was the result of the twisting, Gloriana was the forest that was twisted.

Well, for all my good statements, I appear to have failed myself in that I am coming back on my original intentions to make a brief point.

Gregori, your argue that my reasoning does not apply to nature and evolution because of the histories, however, what you fail to take into account is that we are talking about separate things. When I talk about nature, I mean the ever-changing evolutionary path of ecosystems where one system is no less nature then any of the other ones. As I understand it, when you speak about nature, you refer to the “current” ecosystem as it exists in the basin and beyond (the planes).

I agree with you when you say that this particular ecosystem cannot “look after itself” any more then any other ecosystem in existence. And the communes have been called into creation to try and preserve this particular system. However, doing this is not natural, man is part of nature in the same way that everyone else is; they are alive (I.e. they breathe, metabolise, reproduce and die, as most of us will know viruses lack at least three and arguably all of these requirements and are thus not actually alive.). Man is trying to create a niche for himself to live in that is not compatible with the current ecosystem, as such, the ecosystem is realigning to try and rebalance, it might succeed or it might not, however, both instances are still nature even if one of them most likely doesn’t feature man.

Now, this said, you argue that my reasoning does not apply to lusternia because the histories mention the fragile ecosystem. I disagree, what is outside the basin is no less nature then what is inside, granted it is vastly different, granted it is not capable of sustaining complex life forms such as you and me, but there is life there, even if it is but the odd colony of bacteria. We could of course argue about this, but that would be rather pointless because at this point, it is merely a matter of definition; by my definition, it is nature, by yours it is not.

To come back to the original of this statement though, I still dare say that Auseklis was correct in his statement; Nature is perfectly capable of taking care of itself and save the third coming of Kethuru, there is no force in the basin strong enough to alter nature to a point where it would no longer be able to sustain the mortal races. Whether the reason the communes is here is justified depends on how you look at it and how you wish to interpret their motives.

All of this said and on a more personal note; I strongly believe that Auseklis’ original meaning referred back to the nature communities we see in other IRE realms, generally referred to as the “nature freaks”. In the more brutal climate of lusternia, there is no room for a commune that goes “Oh! Poor little plant, did someone step on you sweetie? Don’t worry my dear, I’ll get a doctor, you’re going to be fine, little coltsfoot plant, don’t you worry, momma druid will take care of you!”.



Actually, I must admit I don't really see how the fae fall outside the nature I described, I feel that like Gregori, you refer to nature not even as the "current" ecosystem, but the "current serenwilde" ecosystem. Nature does not care about individual species, they die out all the time, however, they are also constantly replaced by new species which will eventually provide a different but no les feasable nature. There is no reason whatsoever that I can see why the fae should be placed outside these rules. (Which in a sense, would also state that the Fae are not part of nature, which I am sure will cause high and mighty protest from the direction of both the Seren and Glomdoring.) I also stated that yes, the taint does corrupt things and yes, the Fae would be different if they all were to fall to the taint. However, once more, this is no more or less nature then the current fae are, just different.

(Well, so much for a short post)

Another fine graduate of GwylifarPosting 101