When I was talking about Kethuru, I really had in mind the Astral planes, but I figured that would get its own rant on its own, because very few people care about the IC histories regarding Astral.


And Anarias, I really don't care what IC views you have become completely attached to, they have no bearing on what opportunities the game designers have given the players to make various alliances.

That is true of every organization.

Celest - light
Magnagora - Taint
Serenwilde - Nature
Glomdoring - Wyrd

I think Glomdoring just does the best at sticking to that.

Whammo-bammo! Hazar's Plot-O-Matic Machine has discovered how to run a giant campaign/event/month that demonstrates the common ground between the communes and how they can unite.

The action begins as Crow sends word to White Hart. Due to the recent offenses of the cities against nature, the two spirits put aside their current antagonism for their ancient friendship and the sake of nature. Wyrd may not be what Hart wants to preserve, and Serenwilde is not within the Wyrd - but both communes clearly recognize the other as better then the spiritless cities, who have nearly extinguished the spirits of water and earth.

A few months later, a mysterious ritual in the Inner Sea provides a rush of power to the battered spirits within (want canon? got canon. 35). The embittered water spirits rise up against New Celest, battering them and turning their element against them. Meanwhile, a similiar ritual in the mountains empowers Old Man Rock and his fellows, and they begin a like siege of Magnagora and the Earth Plane.

While the cities struggle with these problems, however, the communes have little time to gloat over their success. Under the mercurial eye of Queen Maeve, the negotiations over what form of nature to spread over the Basin reaches a fever pitch, and the parties split. As the cities find rituals of their own to quell the rebellious spirits, the communes are left to ponder what has happened.

Good.



Surely you can find a better way to argue the general gist of your point without pissing about with semantics?

Well, technically the players can contribute to the "canon" of history if approved by the admin. We need to remember though that this is based on Estarra's own old D&D campaign, and she has a vision that hasn't been implemented in full yet. We need to be patient. I consider her and the admin the editors of the shared world we all contribute to.

As far as self-made culture players setup for themselves, well, things can change. Look how Christianity changed over time. From Pistic Christianity came Orthodox and Catholicism, then came all the Protestant and other denominations. Similar things can happen to the Moondancer and Shadowdancer culture. Not to mention the fact that a lot of the old history was lost over time. And politics too--Republicans vs. Democrats in the USA. Just because the original players decided to found things a certain way doesn't mean edicts and laws have to remain that way.

Canon changes happen "in real life" too. We once thought that there was this Dinosaur, I think the name began with an "I", that had a "spiky thumb". But after time passed, we discovered that it was actually a horn on his snout. We discover more things about the universe everyday. We once thought all cholesterol was bad, but we found out the HDL part is "good". On a similar level, why can't there be more discoveries from Nintoba or the Great Viscanti Houses or the Supernals we didn't know about before.

The same can happen in game. If a situation changes, things can evolve without disrupting things too much.

Heh. Funnily enough, I've always felt like Serenwilde and Glomdoring COULD be closer to each other with regards to being pissed off at the Fae than they are about hating the cities and cosmic planes, except that in front of each other we both pretend to still like the sods for the purposes of being self-righteous.

@Tully: That's an Iguanodon, and I'm afraid it still had a spiky thumb.

EDIT: Looking it up, apparently they thought it had the thing on its nose first and then discovered it was a spiky thumb, so I guess your point still stands, but backwards.

Semantics was the point.

I say "was" because there's no better cure I know for points than this forum.

At least we agree we couldn't care less what the other thinks.


On a semi-unrelated note, I wanted to post something someone else wrote about the comments and ideas brought up on this thread. It pretty much sums up what I've thought too. None of the words after this sentence are my own.



This thread brings to life a rather interesting issue that has puzzled me from the beginning. Many people from Glomdoring have felt since day one that Serenwilde should love and adore them – that common ground should be found and that the two Communes should rejoice together in some celebration of nature.

However, I find this notion to be about as asinine as they come in Lusternia. This argument –always- boils down to someone from Glomdoring outright rejecting and denying the many events that led up to Glomdoring and after it was formed where Serenwilde was urged on all levels to despise, loathe, and seek the destruction of Glomdoring.

I’d like to go through some points made about this “common ground,” as I think it will outline Serenwilde’s past motivations, which more-or-less have carried over into the modern IG years:

+ Auseklis has/had a disdain for cities, for outlined rules/regulations that governed members of organizations, etc. Serenwilde, as a Commune, rejected this. Auseklis was replaced as Patron. A set of laws (the Sacred Leaves) were created with the help and endorsement of Lisaera. Lisaera also urged Serenwilde to act in its best interest to preserve and maintain what it held sacred – and if this included using a city (ie. Celest) as a resource, it was acceptable. Lisaera was even a member of the Ethereal Star Alliance (a formal treaty organization between Celest and Serenwilde). Thus, any argument that Serenwilde has common ground with Glomdoring regarding cities is mistaken given actual events.

Serenwilde seeks to preserve and maintain itself. If it can do so with the assistance of cities, it will use them. It has always done this using both Celest and Magnagora.

+ Serenwilde’s position on cosmic planes is more-or-less that so long as cosmic beings reside outside of Serenwilde and her territories, they are fine. It has never truly developed past that. While there is an inherent implication that Serenwilde is dislikes angels/demons/etc, we must always keep in mind:

Lisaera specifically urged the Moon Coven to focus upon the evils of Mother Night and Brother Crow, naming them as far more dangerous to the Fae, and Lisaera specifically said in a Moondancer post that if She had the power (and wasn’t bound by codes and guidelines of the Divine), She would storm Ethereal Glomdoring Herself and restore each shadowbound Fae, granting them each safety within Her own argent divine fire. At no point did Lisaera ever imply She had that much hatred or disdain for angels or demons. She likely didn’t care for them, but She never threatened to storm Celestia or Nil.

+ Serenwilde does not revere Mother Night or Crow. Yet again, Lisaera specifically outlined to the entire Commune in various discussions that Mother Night was insane. She was still a part of Nature. She was still needed in some small part, but She was dangerous to the Fae, and Mother Night needed to be kept in check. Furthermore, look at a moonhart totem. Dare to guess what two sections seem to be left purposefully blank?

+ I’m not even going to waste space (this is getting huge) about a dislike for Kethuru. That’s about as moot of a point as they come, and I think actually gives reason for displacement not common ground given Serenwilde was the only forest commune to survive the Taint Wars.

+ Mother Moon, her Avatars, and Lady Lisaera (the awakener of Mother Moon) have all told Serenwilde at various points in time that Mother Night is a perversion of her former form; insane; and dangerous to the Fae.

+ Glomdoring originally slew Fae. Whether Mother Night now cares for live Fae or not, at one point in time she wanted them dead.






==============

As for all this garbage about canon, Lisaera wrote many posts about Her beliefs and the beliefs of Mother Moon regarding Glomdoring, Mother Night, and even Crow. Serenwilde truly has no reason to accept Glomdoring. While it is possible that players can roleplay X in the present and future to perhaps change that, the structure of various events; discussions with Mother Moon and Lisaera; and various other ordeals (such as Glomdoring initially murdering the Fae, starting off a Tainted Commune, etc) have always pushed Serenwilde otherwise.

True but is everything always canon? There might be an event in the future that portrays Lisaera as evil, who schemed and twisted truth and laws for her own good. Thusly everything she has taught Serenwilde is false and no longer canon.

Nothing is static. Change or be left behind.

This basically sums up the response to what Anarias posted.

Lusternia is not a static world. Lisaera had some opinions of the Glomdoring, but Viravain had completely different ideas. How can we say that Lisaera's word is canon unless we also say that Viravain's word is official canon, which leads to a whole mess. Lisaera is not (and never was) the Serenwilde - just because she believed something does not mean that it was the forced RP for the Serenwilde. We can think and work outside of the box. It is actually okay to disagree with a divine. She was playing an RP role just like everyone else.

Basically everything you listed is one possible RP choice for the Serenwilde, and even then it does not very clearly reflect the truth of it all. Serenwilde uses the cities when it has to, but nobody there trusts the cities at all. They refused to allow Magnagorans to help even in defense of the EtherWilde, and it was near impossible to schedule cooperative strikes with them.

I think Daganev's point is not to stress what has been true historically, but what the game designers have left open. Reasonable people could argue that the cities are acceptable, and that Glomdoring should die first. Reasonable people could also argue that Glomdoring is the lesser evil, and that they should work together against the cities. The designers left it open for either choice, it is the players who decide which way to go. In this case, the players will decide how to interpret the change to saplings - the change does not inherently reflect any RP agenda; it is simply a change that can be interpreted.

Your posting seems very anti-Lis, I think we all have to remember that Lisaera was never originally going to be a RP god, she stepped into that when Auseklis left, and I think the Seren would be in far, far worse shape now if it had been godless between Auseklis and Charune (around a year or more irl). Also, She mentioned that She and Her brother did have a deal of City Vs. Commune issues they had planed out, but due to the circumstances never got around to.

The Seren's never had two active gods to play off of each other for any long period of time, and I think it would benefit from it, but there's only so much you can ask from volunteers. On the same issue, I also dislike how any divine interactions cross-nation are so often ignored in content (which is the important part to me) and stripped down to either ‘hostile’ of ‘friendly’ by the nations involved.

I've got to give to any and all divine who put up with it all to make Lusternia a better place.

I guess I must have missed something, but what exactly is the change to saplings that this topic is about?

There was an additional recovery time added for hartstoners when breaking a glom meld with a glom sapling in the room. There is also the same recovery time for blacktaloners when breaking a seren meld with a seren sapling in the room.

@ Arix.

its about uh... hmm.. I dont really know... Hey, wanna bake some cookies or hunt astral creatures?

@ Wesmin

More like changing the RP of people because of an OOC change in mechanics. I wont bother anymore. I'll just go play the game and let the people there decide. Its a lot less stressful that way.

But it never needed to be.

Broadly, your point was that players can't set up their own explanations/beliefs because the Divine can change them. I said that that was a risk you just had to take. You argued that you had 'said' canon, and this didn't fit the definition of 'canon', because 'canon' had to be static. Since then, people have made the point that Lusty is moving and you need to go with the flow - which doesn't really provide a solution to the problem, but is nonetheless a fair point.

In any case, a thread argument follows along lines laid by the people who interpret it. Trying to maintain that subsequent argument is invalid because it isn't exactly what you meant only has a very limited value. If we have chosen to interpret 'canon' in a different way to the way you have intended it, it is because the subsequent definition more closely fits the concept under discussion.

I would just like to say, that I don't know anyone in Glomdoring right now who ICly wants to allign with Serenwilde.

I am just trying to point out, that if people wanted to, they could.

From my point of view it really looks like certain people in Serenwilde would more prefer to not be forced to hate Glomdoring more so than people in Glomdoring ever thinking that anybody is forcing them to do anything.

And Anarias, I didn't say I don't care what you think, I said I don't care what your character thinks. I hope you know the difference.

Not only isn't this what I said, if I sat down and tried to think of how to describe exactly not what I said, it'd come out to being almost exactly this. You are not merely wrong, not merely ridiculously egregiously inexplicably wrong, you are definitively wrong. That's why this is about semantics: because apparently some people don't know what "dictionary" means and can't figure out where to look it up. Until you work that out, don't bother to post, and I won't bother to read it if you do.

(Gods, considering Gwylifar's legacy, I can't believe someone's actually telling me I mean that players can't set up their own beliefs, with a straight face. Someone please tell me Aiakon is just trolling me and isn't serious.)

canon
1. an ecclesiastical rule or law enacted by a council or other competent authority and, in the Roman Catholic Church, approved by the pope.
2. the body of ecclesiastical law.
3. the body of rules, principles, or standards accepted as axiomatic and universally binding in a field of study or art: the neoclassical canon.
4. a fundamental principle or general rule: the canons of good behavior.
5. a standard; criterion: the canons of taste.
6. the books of the Bible recognized by any Christian church as genuine and inspired.
7. any officially recognized set of sacred books.
8. any comprehensive list of books within a field.
9. the works of an author that have been accepted as authentic: There are 37 plays in the Shakespeare canon. Compare apocrypha (def. 3).
10. a catalog or list, as of the saints acknowledged by the Church.
11. Liturgy. the part of the Mass between the Sanctus and the Communion.
12. Eastern Church. a liturgical sequence sung at matins, usually consisting of nine odes arranged in a fixed pattern.
13. Music. consistent, note-for-note imitation of one melodic line by another, in which the second line starts after the first.
14. Printing. a 48-point type.

I assure you that I'm very clear on what 'dictionary' means. I'd also venture to say I know what 'canon' means. And egregiously. And I thank you for that inexplicably since it would imply that I don't fall into the camp of the dictionarily ignorant. But neath the bluster.. is this not a post told by a Gwylifar full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?

It's markedly Ixiomatic: a strongly worded suggestion that I am wrong, a direction to post no more, and little wholesome explanation.

I think there's a misconception here between the two sides of the argument. You are taking the content of Lisaera's beliefs as canon, rather than the beliefs themselves. The distinction is that where Lisaera said "Mother Night is an evil pervert and we should kill her almost dead" you assume that the canon is "Mother Night is an evil pervert and we should kill her almost dead" rather than Lisaera said "Mother Night is an evil pervert and we should kill her almost dead." If it was later revealed that Lisaera was a lying, manipulative bitch, that would not change the fact of what she said. So the canon is that Lisaera believed that Night was bad, not that Night necessarily was bad.

For further clarification, I consider canon to be the inherent structure of a given universe. In a fictional setting this can be defined as the events that actually took place within that setting. The Star Wars franchise is a good example, because the works of many different authors are all considered to be canon. So in any given book the characters all have the capability to know of the events in any book that is also considered canon.

I'm starting to lose my train of thought here, so I might come back to this when I'm more focused. However, I want to say that the people who keep saying "Lusternia is a changing world, just RP with it." need to realize that you roleplay within a structured world. If the structure of the world changes without a plausible, or even a token explanation then you get continuity flaws. Think of it as when they replace an actor in a serial TV show, but not the character. So you have a completely different person, but no one acknowledges that this person has suddenly become three inches shorter and grown a third breast. Eventually you become accustomed to it and the show moves on regardless, but it still throws off your immersion for a period.


Edit: I think my point might have been that while the tenets of the various Gods can change without destroying the consistency of the canon, because what they said is not necessarily true, mechanical changes upon which players have based a certain role require an explanation to prevent the shock of a disrupted continuity.

Side note: I have no vested interest whatsoever in this particular change, I just like to argue. I also want to mention that I don't fault the Divine at all, especially since a) this was an Envoy change and Estarra already offered to roll back the change. I don't feel it is the responsibility of the administration to ensure each mechanical change doesn't affect anyone's chosen roll. However once requested, it would be nice if the Tree spirit could give a sermon about why things just changed.

@Aiakon: I love reading your posts dearly, but did you perhaps mean axiomatic? I even used the dictionary, but I have no idea what ixiomatically means.