How about we replace 'natural' with 'original'? That would fix everything, wouldn't it?

So something like:

"You close your eyes and let your etheric senses reach out to the surroundings. You find the environment here to be forested/infested/tainted/flooded, and so you revert the area to its original state of sylvan forest."

Can someone test what the mesage is in urban, road and constructed underground? cause really, thats the only time that the current message doesn't make sense.

You close your eyes and let your etheric senses reach out to touch the spirit of the ground. You find the environment here rebels against being flooded urban, and so you let its true nature reveal itself as that of urban.

intersting... now its really strange.

If you flood a forest does it say "flooded forest" becomes "forest"?

If you forest urban, does it become "forested urban" and "wyrd urban"?

I disagree. Ethereal = Nature. We don't cause trees to suddenly grow in the ocean, we call an ethereal reflection, like a wavering image, of forest that exists on the Nature plane. I don't understand how it can be unnatural, when our entire purpose is to align the spiritual side of the natural world with the physical.

We don't force an environment over the natural order, we bridge the physical and ethereal realms, which in a superficial sense makes a translucent forest visible from the prime material world. The squirrels, vines, etc are a result of the spiritual world becoming accessible from the physical one - I've never thought of it as magicking up an artificial squirrel army at need.

The current message makes very definitive and irrefutable value judgements about whether that bridging is appropriate, and pigeon-holes every demesne class as violating the natural order every time they use an ability, forcing them to invent some 'greater benefit' that justifies it. In the case of Hartstone, there is no excuse for dominating and ignoring the will of the natural world, at least the parts that are not corrupted.

The same is true in a less obvious manner of flooding, wyrding, and tainting. Floods -are- a part of the natural world, and as the aquamancer magics are in essence restorative, there's no compelling reason that every piece of wet land would rebel at the very notion of being wet. Herbs don't grow very well underwater, sure. However, there has been -great- effort to distinguish the farmlike herbalism from 'serious' druidry. Wyrd and taint I thought were very carefully designed so that in the right circumstances it could be argued that they are improving certain aspects of what they change - and again in some cases the land might not rebel at being wyrded (and it might be too tormented to rebel at being tainted... or something).

The message is -not- ambiguous, nor is it logical or immersive in any sense. Caerulo's message would be a suitable alternative, as long as those two fundamental problems are addressed - spiritual insight and value judgements.

Putting a forest in the ocean, ethereal reflection or not, cannot be called "natural".

If you believe that, then ethereal forest anywhere but Serenwilde and the island in Bondery Bay is unnatural. If it is unnatural, then Hartstone should not forestcast anywhere but existing forest if they wish to uphold their beliefs.

If they wish to uphold your beliefs. I'm a Hartstone and I've never believed anything remotely like that.

What were your beliefs as to Hartstone's purpose? Help Serenwilde at any cost?

Hahahahahahahahah.

I'll answer this after work when I have more time to formulate a decent response.

I thought Auskelis nipped that philosophy in the bud the day Lusternia opened, to make sure nobody held that view from the other IRE druids.

How the hell can you view putting a forest in an ocean, a body of water that does not support trees, natural?

Can someone get a full list of all the different messages that might be problematic?

Ok, this confuses me. Why would Auseklis not want Hartstone to revere the natural order?

Since apparently my views are so bizarre, let me explain them.

- Hartstone is NOT about foresting anywhere just because we can, because we love forest over every other environment, and because we care more about herbs than anything else. I find -this- to more the traditional druid viewpoint, superficial and silly.

- I see Hartstone philosophy revolving around perspectives on Time and Timelessness and how the two must be reconciled. We are devoted to preserving aspects of the past that cannot be lost (knowledge, woodlore, history, the lessons of the Ancestors), but at the same time seeking to find a balance with that which must pass away according to the natural cycles (so the future is assured, so that growth occurs, etc).

- Our purpose is to better understand the natural world, learning through our own experiences and from those who have come before us. Following the teachings of White Hart, we seek to find the truths of the world through both meditative introspection and following that careful and rational observation of the reality around us.

- In general, we revere the Nature Spirits and the purity of the Old World - the natural kingdom before it was influenced by taint and wyrd. We see restoring the original 'balance' to be a worthy goal because we remember so much about what things were like before, and we see the other forces as dangerous and undesireable either because they choose to ignore the wisdom of the Nature Spirits (particularly Hart and to a lesser extent Moon), or seek to forceably alter them to be in their image (obviously something a preservatory guild finds heinous).

If bridging the Ethereal and Physical planes is going against the will of the land, then we are failing in all these respects. We are not preserving any natural balance, we are closing our minds to the lessons of the past in not placing our personal goals ahead of the natural order, and we are not showing any reverence for the sanctity of the wild.

I agree with you wholeheartedly, and think that's the best statement of what the Hartstone believe/should believe that I've yet seen. Except for the last part. I don't believe we're spiritually bridging the Ethereal and Physical planes. I see it as drawing on the power of the pure spirit of Nature in order to manifest a forest environent. That's neither right nor wrong, simply a tool we use to accomplish our goals. Once the Basin is healed, I'd expect we wouldn't need to call forest much, and when we did, we'd clean it up when we were finished. But it's not healed, and everything isn't peaceful.

Also, if we're bridging the Ethereal and Physical, Glomdoring does the same thing.

They do.

Elryn looks at the result of that bridging differently than just ethereal forest though, as he thinks the Wyrded reflection adds an element to that location that wasn't there before. Which is not necessarily true OOCly, it's quite ambiguous thankfully. There's scope for Glomdoring to argue that the land doesn't hate wyrdforest. Thus I don't think they should be getting that message either.

I'd say that putting ethereal forest adds something that wasn't there before, if it's not forest. Basically, though, we seem to be disagreeing on exactly what foresting a location entails. What do you feel that flooding and tainting does? Are they more physical manifestations, or are they bridging the Elemental and Prime planes?

Both.

While I think druids are more about bridging the ethereal and physical without actually corrupting the existing environment (you still have to swim if you summon ethereal forest in ocean, for instance), flooding and tainting is still opening a rift to the elemental planes, but more about drawing something through to your current location. Although, I really don't know the messages for flooding and tainting so they could be completely different to druid methods.

It's always seemed they were both more physical though.