Well, its safe to assume Id think that Crow's was at least seeing as he was Raven before.

Well, IC, Viravain said that Night was different, but Raven was always a trickster.

Ironically, Phred, what did it for Mhaldor was a good long time with a God who supposedly ruled everything but whose player was inactive, during which time the really excellent player leadership pulled things together.

And this would do it for Glomdoring too. We've all been aware that there's a severe problem for a long time. An easy answer to it would've been to get Glomdoring involved in offensive action (like, say, ally with Celest to go to war with Serenwilde - I still think this is a good direction right now!), but we've not been allowed to do that by Viravain. As a result, we can't attract or retain fighters, and new players who join expecting the "Forest Without Mercy" usually wind up confused or annoyed, and in trouble. Without fighters, we keep being the underdog, which is terrible for everyone's morale, and also makes people leave. (You don't have to get crushed daily to suffer low morale. It's enough to know that you *can* be crushed. Staying out of conflict doesn't solve this problem.) We also can't really keep up the dark RP. How dark can you get, when you spend all day bending over backwards for novices, praying some of them will stay?

So we tried to remedy some of this by cultural means, but really, our population's already too low for that. I have many ideas for plots and rituals... but there are rarely enough people on at once for it.

Just... give us a few weeks and a chance to join in the war and have something to do with the outside world for a change! The worst thing for a place with a small playerbase is the isolationist RP that was forced on us. Of course people get bored interacting with the same five characters each day. We know what the problems are, we've got a pretty good idea of solutions.

Keep Glomdoring as it is, minus the staying-out-of-combat and crushing-dissension aspects, keep Viravain as she was, just let her go quiet and figurehead-only for the while... and I promise things'll pick up at once.

EDIT: Let me add to this essay that I'm a little annoyed that people are saying the Glom novice experience is poor. Novices in Glomdoring are often treated like royalty - unless they happen to come around when there's no one on. We're desperate to keep them, and spend a lot of time training them and interacting with them and teaching them the RP and finding things for them to do. Then they see nothing's happening and disappear... and leave us to go through it again.

I thought she had been inactive for a while.... otherwise why would people think that Viravain had a new player?

No. She's been around, just really quiet generally.

Oh.. and YAY for xenthos and Shayle getting thier positions back!

Uh.. how are mine and Elryn's views different? I said that Gloriana was about Wisdom and Subtlety..how is that in opposition to diplomacy? that sounds like diplomacy pretty much.

I would argue that the most effort toward reviving Mhaldor was during Apollyon's active reign, though since I wasn't part of Mhaldor's leadership, it would be hard for me to tell. Both are true, really.

It wasn't. I was in Apollyon's Order from the beginning. He was cute, but useless And totally just a cool figurehead. Now, the *people* in the order... had had things in motion for a long time before he came around, and the upswing just kept going through the beginning of his reign.

Right, I think saying it is about wisdom and subtlety is fine. I was responding to the ivory tower vs hikers comment by Daganev.

Gloriana - passion, subtlety, diplomacy, beauty, wisdom
Serenwilde - mysticism, isolation, patience, elitism, wisdom
Ackleberry - brotherhood, strength, compassion, empathy, understanding

(in my view)

Other people would say without active worldwide plots, and poorly conceived perpetual PK strategies no other city really wanted a part of, Mhaldor's "ascension" is only relative.

What does Mhaldor really have to look forward to?

Can we PLEASE not turn this into an Achaean thread?

Kill Viravain. Basically, the Commune can't go on while Viravain keeps any sort of real (IE, non-puppet) player government from happening.

And I'm not talking about 'throw her into the void', I'm talking about "Let Morgfyre eat her and dissolve the Order."

You just want to see Morgfyre eat someone.

That would be fun. But then couldn't Mogfyre become the trash can for divine? Once one is used up, here he comes. CHOMP!

Agreed.

I think Glomdoring can survive while maintaining its current ideals and beliefs, with a handful of minor modifications. None of the teachings of Crow, Night, or Viravain are explicitly excluding. It's more the way which people follow them that has caused the commune to being so isolated; the blind, ignorant, and utterly unwavering fanatacism. We could remain the 'merciless' forest while still opening up and allowing more outside relations and creating a better atmosphere for new players.

After all, the wyrd is glorious and all-powerful and all that fun stuff. What better way to grow stronger than by opening up and embracing all in the Wyrd's glory and beauty, yadda yadda, ect. ect. You get the point.

The alternative, which I have been advocating since day three of open beta (*cough*), is for Glomdoring to be a tainted commune. Toss out the wyrd, throw off all the delusions, and embrace their heritage as the perfect culmination of nature and taint. It actually wouldn't be that far a stretch from their current "perfection" roleplay. You could even just keep the wyrd and say that it is the combination of nature with Kethuru's will, just as the taint is the 'contaminated' power of earth/shallamar. This is more just my personal preference though, and it would present a lot of the same problems as the current Glomdoring is facing: Alienation, ect.

Yeah, sort of got off topic! In short: we ought to try and change the fundamentals of Glomdoring as little as possible while still increasing its openness and ability to grow. If that doesn't look like it will work then change them, but the less intrusive the changes are the smoother the transition will be for all of Glomdoring's players.

I actually agree for the most part with Guido. 'Cept for the Tainted Commune, lets not stick with PurevsTainted every time!

Old habits die hard.

"Tentaclessss!" you hiss, sinuously waving your arms around.