And why is that? it's not a big deal to just find another way up to astral. The key here is Balance, terenas dear. Think objectively

It's not a big deal for you because your Nexus links directly with the Elemental Plane. I don't have a ship, nor a Cubix, please tell me aside from asking a city-dweller every single time to take me to and back through their Nexi how I'm able to access the Astral plane? Not to mention you'll be making the Cosmic plane even harder for the communes to even touch because they'll be forced to go to Celestia/Nil through the Nexi from Astral, which wait, we can't access in the first place if you removed the archways.

I have not been able to read everything, however many moons ago I had welecomed and suggested the idea of Archways between the 3 sections of the Ethereal plane.

To me, it would make most sense to have EtherGlom and EtherSeren be as seperate as Celestia and Nil. As far as I know, you can not teleport from Celestia to Nil, you need to tesseract or some thing. If I am wrong ignore this.

What this would mean is that while you are in EtherGlom and type WHO you will NOT see anyone in Faethorn or in EtherSeren. If you are in Faethorn and type WHO you will only see people in Faethorn, and to pass through the archways would be the same as transversing to a new plane.


Once you do that, remove guards and totems save at the nexus in EtherGlom and EtherSeren.

How would that fix anything at all?

You're still only 2 archways away from raiding a place without any defence except at the Archway that you don't have to go anywhere near.

its the same situation you have with the Water and Earthlords, no?

Actually, no.

To get to the Tide Lords, you have to pass by the Pool of Stars.

To get to the Earth Lords, you have to go through the Mountains of Madness, which is not particularly fun.

So that is at least some defence.

However, the Avatars are NOT the Elemental equivilents. The Aspects are. The Avatars are the Supernal/Demon Lord Equivilent.

Yeah, I don't get how Daganev's suggestions will do anything to address the problem Estarra mentioned.

No you don't. From Faethorn, just wander around the Great Starry Sea pressing "down" every time you move a room until you find the hidden exit. That's how I'd do it anyway.

So now we know who has been killing the Tide Lords!

I said that's how I -would- do it. Not how I HAVE been doing it.

odd that celest has such an advantage in that area. with things like tracking, getting to the earthlords are not that difficult.

But if that is the problem, then have the archways that go from faethorn to EtherGlom/seren be moved to the Nexus. Once your making the archways another transverse point, where they end up exactly in the EtherGlom/Seren section doesn't really matter.

The issue I have seen most with ethereal is the fact that you can "scout from behind enemy lines", and under the right conditions, even attack. I think the most important thing is seperating the three sections so that they are as seperate as water is from earth and Celestia is from Nil.

I have never heard of Celest sitting in Celestia attacking Nil, or preparing to attack nil. However, sitting in EtherGlom preparing to attack EtherSeren, or even faethorn is very common.

If people want to reinvent the wheel, fine, but if they do I really hope they take all the past RP into account.

Also remeber that the avatars are MUCH closer and easier to get to than the Supernals and Demon lords from the respective nexii.

If the totems and guards are gone from the avatars, I also hope that thier abilities and the support they get is beefed up.

As for fae, I think making archways and the like require the equib loss from transversing, will limit the kill and run techniques, and it would also hopefully get rid of the ability to raid and spore out.

We seem to have gotten a bit off topic, so I'll throw some of my ideas/observations on the proverbial table.

Con-
The first big hurtle I see is that the quest, in it's present status requires hours of work stretched out of weeks to accumulate the Ladies/Daughters needed to win a battle. If the moon/night swayed fae, as well as the Ladies and Daughters were in faethorn there would be little to no way to protect them. The moment any showed up in Faethorn the other side would eliminate them, and fae would just be converted by silver/shadowy honeycakes. It would be a FFA with the end result being the communes inability to sustain any champions in the quest.

Possible solution-
Even though there are comparable fae/aspects/avatars on the elemental/cosmic planes, the only thing comparable to the Champions of the cities is on the Prime plane, the turtles/sea wolves. The aforementioned enemy, and have avenger protection for defenders. As such placing the champions in the prime forests, while completing the other proposed changes(removing guards/totems on ethereal) would even out that part of the quest.

I dislike my own solution here however, because it removes these beings from their area of influence, how can the Ladies/Daughters vie for the sway of faethorn if they aren't there to sway it?

I'm not sure about everyone else, but most of the Serenwilde calls them by the following names. Aspects=hart/crow Avatars=moon/night *cowers in a corner trying not to get by Estarra*

In any case, having them on an aetherbubble would present 2 challenges, one for defenders and raiders each.
1) Getting there in respect to getting to other places.(Just a minor problem for raiders of organizing a crew, it might effect it, might not )
2) Watching. It's much easier to sit at a nexus on ethereal/elemental/cosmic and keep guard then it is to stick it out on some aetherbubble in the middle of no where.

Then again perhaps those challenges would shake up our current system and that seems like a good thing.
Interesting, perhaps if each Moondancer/Shadowdancer was able to make a bond with a certain Avatar of Moon/Night, and instantly teleport to them there-after(solves the RP side of it). Limit it to just the Wiccans, but make it like teleporting, not spores, so that other commune defenders could follow them. That would be similar to what happens to the warriors in respect to their Nexi.

I do love the idea of spreading more things out into aetherspace, it decentralizes the conflicting zones, and gives bigger chances of aetherspace battles. The next hurtle I see in relation to this would be that if fae still needed to be handed to the Avatars to be swayed, would the bond-teleporting be enough? Also, where would the fae/champions go once swayed/summoned?

Any thoughts on my various questions in this post are welcomed, as we’re all just brainstorming.

What exactly is the problem that is causing this discussion?

I'm slightly confused on that.

Is the desire to redo everything, or to solve a specific problem?

That except against the likes of Narsrim (who has Serpent and a bugged flying mount), EtherGlom and EtherSeren are virtually impervious to raids?

I still see the biggest problem to just opeing up the etherforests is the fact that you can interact with them so easily as they are right now. The cities can prety much block the forests from attacking thier cosmic planes if they are working together, but the forests really can't, especially with Shallach.

That is why the guards/totems should be left, and the archways simply removed. That would, in my opinion, fix most of the issues. You'd still have protection there, but people could actually get in.

Mag has killed the Moon Avatars back when we could bond ALL the totems. It should be cake for them to do it now, if the Archways were just removed.

The Envoys think that there is an imbalance between raiding City Avatars/Aspects and Commune Avatars/Aspects, and they are right. (Ignore for the moment we have no comparable defense on prime, since that isn't the topic here, as much as I'd like it to be.)

The main problem in doing this, as I see it, is that the Avatars/Aspects/Champions/Swayed fae are all grouped together into one area. If you decrease the protection in that area so that the strongest, the Avatars, can be raided at leisure, then you are exposing the weakest, the Champions/fae, to all sorts of frustration on the part of people attempting to do the long-term Faethorn quest.

Until all corresponding aspects of that are solved we'll still have someone or another disgruntled. I think moving one part or another of that group, perhaps moving the avatars to a special aetherbubble as Estarra suggested, might be the best course of action.

It would make more sense to just move the Champions/fae to another location, and then reduce the rest of the overall security for the Avatars/Aspects. However, where would you move them to? The only logical area that makes sense RP wise is faethorn. This however would be the reverse of the intended outcome, as both parties would be less protected there.

I guess I'm stumped for the moment, most likely because I'm hungry.

Wait, people are actually arguing that all the totems and guards remain? It may be possible for us to kill an avatar under those conditions, but that hardly makes it balanced. It's possible that if every one of Daevos' swings was, let's say, a room-wide instaskill, he could be taken down through sufficient hindering, but would he be balanced? No.

ahh, with that in mind, it seems the easiest to change from RP perspective, and everything else would be the aetherbuble idea, with a comune(not just wiccan) ability to teleport there.

This aetherbubble would be well explained as Maeve's private court where we can see and learn more about the greater spirits, and everything fae. i.e., Maeve calls the avatars to come to her side to show the unity of the fae, or something.

However, I still see a large issue with the glom and seren able to attck eahchother on a fullmoon/new moon.

I don't really want Moon and Night Avatars to be part of Maeve's court. Then it would be harder to lop her evil, tainted head off and justify it to the Moondancers.

Are there any negatives to removing the archways and replacing with regular exits? If not, why not try that first?

Removing guards/totems will involve a lot of recoding/rebalancing on the part of the admin, and there are a lot of problems that will need to be addressed. Reversing the archway change wouldn't appear to be anywhere near as difficult or as problematic for the communes. As far as I can see, anyway.