Just curious, but is there any other herb that is placed in an equivalent area where it is possible for one commune/city to dominate it? If it were in the main area of elemental earth at least 'duck in duck out' herbalists could risk Magnagoran attacks, but in the mountains of maddness only those with a cubix, prism, puzzle box or Havens can get out easily if attacked. The overharvesting aside (which is annoying but something that can be resolved ic) it seems to me that where earwort has been placed it gives an unfair advantage to magnagora.

As far as I understand it, even Mags are having some fair bit of trouble getting earwort, but to be sure it's got to be ten times harder for Celestians to get a hold of it.


Whoever is stripharvesting it needs to be shot, though.

Actually, Celest has quite a bit more earwort than Mag at the moment, from what I've seen. Mag herbalists have not been able to get any because it's constantly stripped by certain others (mostly bards). ICly and OOCly Mag doesn't really have any choice but to stop allowing anyone else to harvest there. I agree that it should grow in other places, both because one org should not have control over an herb and because there's simply not enough growing for it to be useful.

Maybe that's part of the point -the admins are making bards more powerful by making earwort hard to find.

I've gotten three names on my bounty list so far. One I'm pretty convinced ICly and OOCly is doing it, but I'd be giving out 10 credits a day if I put a bounty on his head.

Merbloom.

And, as has been observed, Mags are suffering as much as anyone else with the lack of earwort.

If it is one of the people I suspect, I would do it for free.

Meh. I don't agree. I just think it should grow faster for a few years until the market is happily saturated with the stuff and people stop being inconvenienced. I like the concept of earwort as it is, and I don't want it changed for crapulous reasons of balance, especially when I'm 4/5ths of the way through a bollocks library book on the properties of earwort.

I also think it should grow faster. In Juliary, earwort's peak, when it was renewed, guarded and growthed the highest amount I ever saw in a room was...four.

Yeah, definitely it should grow faster... I've been in a guarded+growthed room with 10 herbs at midnight the month before peak, and there were still only 10 herbs there after midnight.

Merbloom is pretty useless, except to alchemists... and even then it's not very hard to obtain.

Is it??

And I don't know about you but I'm out of earwort entirely.

I don't like that the most necessary herb is a tainted living mold/snail thingies that you stick in your ear and messes up your brain waves so your normal hearing stops. (You are voluntarily letting some tainted byproduct mess with your brain to achieve some effect; I'm surprised we haven't had anyone RP being mind controlled by the stuff yet.)

Other then that I'm fine with it growing on earth, we've got herbs that grow on water, on the sea, and under the sea, which Celest has restricted access too, for certain individuals in the past. The forests have, as well, restricted access to harvesting on ethereal/prime forestal areas, and village farmland to those known to abuse it.

The problem is the stripping of it, one herbalist can ruin it for everyone, which we have had people on these forums state that they do. We know it happens, it just needs to be stopped forcefully to correct the situation. If Magnagora is becoming a tainted version of a forestal herb guardian, then let them, it'll benefit them in the immediate future, and everyone in the long run.

I just want Nature Guard changed. Make it last longer, like an IC year, and stripharvesting will be much more difficult to do.

Yes. This is more or less the basis for the aforementioned book by yours truly, that I've never got round to finishing. Yadda yadda the hypocrisy of Celest yadda yadda tainted snails ad nauseam. You know the drill.

Merbloom, Faeleaf and Earwort, though faeleaf less so.

I'll have to check out a copy once it's in print.

Regarding earwort striping , I thought in general with all striping of herbs wasn't there some sort of law preventing it and if not why not? There should always be a law to limit the amount taken, and then fined up the arse. This would prevent much from being completely harvested out.

Is earwort really a snail-plant? That is so cool!

Who would enforce it? There is no Oakstone...

find people within the commune to support the law, hopefully both communes could come to some sort of an agreement to not strip harvest.

Don't forget the people in the cities who can harvest. Bards and Warriors can choose herbalism for their tradeskills too, I think. That's probably why a law like that would never work. You'd probably never get all 4 cities/communes to agree to it.