Well, actually, I wouldn't have a problem with you quietly being a pacifist in Celest (particularly if you gave out astrology blessings! ) but just don't try to proselytize to the fighters that they should be pacifists too. That's when it gets annoying.

Just remember kids, when the City or Commune is having raid problems dont go on and on about world peace and how we should all lay down our arms and hug and snuggle each other. To do so probably will grab the attention of the main fighter in the City or Commune and most of the time it never turns out well.

Friendly warning handed out by your friendly teenager. Ta ta!

if i was in any city or commune, anywehre and someone started spouting love and peace during a raid, i'd kill them straight out no matter the consequences.

I'd probably enemy them too so they had to pray.

With a place dubbed as the Necropolis and kinda like secretly worship a Cthulhu like god I pretty much thought that in the first place... I wannna know...

I can make a psycho


and about the pacifist... yeah.. I won't make a hippy water hugger who's all about peace and love... he would just try to abstain himself from fighting.. that is personal PvP... I can still work on the back in a "raid"... giving blessings and spitting on the casual geomancer

Pacifist Magnagoran. You know, it CAN actualy work, but it would be somewhat difficult.

Magnagora's chief concern is "productive" as far as it's people are concerned. Until you've proven yourself to be a productive member of society you aren't worth our time. This is why Rank 1 folks have a hard time, especially vs superiors: If you havn't earned the right to not be spit on then you can't complain when you're spit on.

Combat is the #1 way of proving your productivity, since the city is at war. As such, fighters get the easy path to Respect. Now if you want to be a pacifist, go ahead, but Magnagora will ask "What makes YOU who won't fight as useful to US as a fighter?"


So you can do it, but it'll be tricky, and a little unsettling until your character can solve that problem. It can be done though.

Mmmmh... that's nice, but..



no one but ferlas helped me there (and she/he didn't help much at all)

EDIT: added question. How many credits are necesary to trans a skill?

297 credits to trans a skill

Celestines preach the five Supernals:
Raziela - compassion
Japhiel - justice
Shakiniel - protection
Methrenton - crusading
Elohora - balance of the other four
They can be taken in any direction from peaceful to preachy to zealous. Different people have done each one, though I certiainly wouldn't go the zealous route if you can't back it up in combat. Any Celestine should work to protect Celestia, etc.

Nihilists preach the five demon lords:
Gorgulu - devourer of souls or something
Ashtorath - rage
Nifilhema (sp?) - pain (?)
Baalphegar - deceit
Luciphage - corruption or something (I think)
Obviously I'm not as familiar with the demon lords as the supernals. But... I think it's pretty obvious that the nihilists are dark-priesty guys, nasty and ugly and stuff. But I'm not the best person to ask about them.

Geos are tainted earth mages... not sure what you want to know about them. They're supposed to be largely insane because of the taint warping their mind but the only one I've ever seen actually try that was Ravin and he doesn't play anymore.

Astrology does several things. You can give people afflictions based on their birthsigns, you can give afflictions based on the current positions of astrological bodies and the constellations, and you can give blessings/curses for each sphere depending on that constellation's orientation to the sun. The blessings are what everyone likes, and the curses are extremely nasty (blessings/curses add/remove stats for a good while and are impossible for a non-astrologer to remove). But... it's not a very reliable skillset because the skills always change. Hopefully it'll get upgraded with the envoy reports though.

Dood, you are the king!

100 cool points to you

How good are both aqua/geomancers at bashing and being a supporting class.. do they like give good help or stuff like that(talking about the whole deal, elemancy, dream, runes and psionics)

Aquas/geos are absolutely essential for team combat in Lusternia as it stands.

Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is a constant topic of debate.

If you take Psionics/Telekinesis, they can be very good bashers. In addition to the lesser defensive abilities granted by basic Psionics, Telekinesis has an ability called Forcefield that turns health damage into ego damage, and ego is much easier to come by for mages than health.

Regarding Murphy's "people don't remember your race" coments:

Of course they don't. If you treat your race as the sum of its combat statistics instead of an essential component of who and what the character is.

I hate reincarnation, and have no respect for the business of bopping from body to body. Maintaining the illusion of physical reality in a MUD is hard enough without constant shapeshifting going on.

As for myself, I've been an aslaran since day one, and no one who interacts with me ever forgets my race.

I chose aslaran purely for role-play reasons. My own natural personality is like a checklist of feline personality traits, and everyone knows and responds viscerally to feline body language, so it's easy to make yourself memorable.

Cwin is absolutely right about the dos and don'ts of developing a role-play persona. Choose what suits you, don't saddle yourself down with frivolous bells and whistles, and be ready to let the character evolve as you play, because you never really know what works for you 'til you're up to your elbows in the game.

If MUDing turns into an enduring social hobby for you, your characters will evolve with you, and you will evolve with your characters.

Exarius, for example, is the sum of every cat-man I've ever played online. What started out to be a Klingon-esque stoic warrior (of the sort I'd played to great effect in paper RPGs), quickly evolved into a flirtatious rogue, and more gradually into a lordly figure of hedonistic tastes and indomitable will: the Raja.

I couldn't have planned the "Raja" personality if I'd tried. I couldn't have dreamed I would enjoy it. But a decade of evolution and actual experiences have created a signature character more distinctive, alive, and fun to play than anything I could have invented whole cloth for myself.


P.S.: If you still want to know about aslaran culture, look me up. No one in the game has put more time, energy, or resources into it than I have.

Athames aren't more powerful than Talismans; Wiccans bash with Mother/Redcap or Drawdown/Nightkiss, if I'm not mistaken. But mages and druids get the best bashing with cudgels and staffs.

As for your roleplay, you don't need to be obsessed with your racial RP. I changed race two times (Although most people think I only did it once, since I started out as human and went merian before getting very far, and went elfen when I moved to Serenwilde) and will probably hop into a Lucidian or Trill or Dracnari body if and when Hallifax or Gaudiguch come back (Although I'm not going furrikin if Ackleberry returns, I still have some self-respect ). And every time I changed race, I carried some cultural characteristics along - Verithrax is versatile and a bit of a rogue thanks to his human upbringing, but he was of merian descent even before I reincarnated, so he's extremely arrogant. Being elfen means he now likes to be an arrogant in a forest. Much like Exarius, Verithrax evolved from being a fanatical follower of the Light, into an eccentric scholar, into a typical forestal, to become a pacifist, and none of that was planned. Even now he's changing, losing a bit of his quiet, scholarly side to turn into a bit of a rogue, an extravagant leader that does everything with rousing speeches and lots of special effects.

The best thing to do is start out with a character that isn't very well-defined, and let him grow up into a complex persona. And, please, please don't create any character with an obvious accent, birthmark, scars, disfigurements, quirks, any form of insanity (Unless you're sociopathic, which most characters are any way since they show no compassion while they're hunting sentient beings.)

Incorrect, athames are in fact stronger than talismans. Just not much.

It's more widespread than you might think. Ixchilgal was getting quite seriously insane before he went (temporarily I hope) inactive a few weeks ago... Aiakon has periodic hydrophobia.. varies from distaste to gibbering madness depending largely on how energetic I'm feeling.. which varies... and many people in the guild have their periodic attempts at insanity. It just is.. a sodding pain in the arse to roleplay madness on a constant basis.

Tis a shame, I think that along with those lists of Demon Lords and Supernals, we can't list our 4 Tidelords and Earth Lords with their attributes.. We've been working on that a little.. how about on your side..? Do they have any individual RP significance?

Actually I think Athames are more powerful simply because you raise your skill in Nature when you get one.

I dunno. There's a commune that just pruned out the people who couldn't follow the absolutely irrational RP set up for them.

Right, but it failed so badly that the gods had to actually intervene and insert some facts into Glomdoring's side of the argument.

You realize by the point this was done, most everyone who didn't understand it was gone, right? That's not really a failure, to me at least. It just gives us more to show to the rest of the Basin, it didn't really change anything internally.

So you live in a tainted forest but don't believe it's tainted.. fair enough. You only have to RP a ridiculous viewpoint to the outside world, everyone in Commune agrees with you. RPing mad means being odd and irrational the entire time to everyone. Very very time effort-full.

Meanwhile, back on topic....

If you want to be an Astrologer, you'll have to be a Guardian (Celestine or Nihilist - these are city classes) or a Wiccan (Moondancer or Shadowdancer - these are Commune classes). Astrology is a great support skill, I don't think you'll find too many people complaining about you using this. Guardians Rituals are also fairly decent support-wise, in that you have Puella to heal health and Laetitia to heal ego.

If you pick up a Tradeskill as well, such as Enchantments, you'll do very well both in terms of making money, and in being useful.

As long as you aren't preachy about peace, I don't think you'd have a problem in either the Celestines or Nihilists. I'm naturally biased towards the Nihilists, but I'm the Guildmaster, so take that into account.

The bit about the Demon Lords was somewhat inaccurate, so here's some info on them:

Gorgulu, the Devourer of Souls: He's a big amorphous blob that grows psuedo-apendages at random. He was the most touched by Kethuru of the Demon Lords, and so he's really a reflection of Kethuru. He, like Kethuru, has an insatiable hunger that knows no bounds. He's so warped by Kethuru that he isn't sentient in any form that we could recognize. Nihilists who follow Gorgulu tend to be considered insane and unstable, even by their fellow Nihilists.

Nifilhema, Queen of Insufferable Cruelty: She considers pain and suffering to be the highest aesthetics in art, and devotes herself wholly to new and ingenious methods of torture. She has little to no concern for anything outside her "art". She was once married to Gorgulu before they became the Demon Lords, and is still in love with him despite his present state.

Baalphegar, Prince of the Web of Despair: He's a spider-like Demon Lord that is the "historian" of the Demon Lords. He believes in plotting secretly against others to his own advantage, and is physically the weakest of the Demon Lords. He's also the most intelligent, prefering to work behind the scenes.

Ashtorath, Duke of Inescapable Damnation: Ashtorath is consumed wholly by rage, hatred, and malice, revelling in brute force and destruction. He's the embodiment of wrath, and wants nothing more than to overthrow Luciphage and rule over Nil in his stead, with Nifilhema as his queen. Patience and forethought is not considered an admirable trait, as he prefers direct, immediate and spectacular action.

Luciphage, the Midnight Dominator: The Supreme Master of Nil, Luciphage is the chief of the Demon Lords. He's charming, cool, and calculating most times, but also cruel and demanding equally. His chief virtue is patience, and he will wait however long is necessary to see his goals carried out. He is adept at using misdirection and subterfuge as much as brute strength to dominate others.

Nihilists grow in power by making pacts with the Demon Lords. The first pact formed with a Demon Lord is seen as an indicator of the general path that Nihilist will travel throughout his or her life, even if that person subsequently forms pacts with other Demon Lords; thus, the first pact is generally made only after a much consideration and reflection by the Nihilist. These pacts cannot be broken, barring the unlikely fall of the Demon Lord.