You are dead. Perhaps you should "Pray for Salvation" or "Pray for Hope"?

You begin to utter prayers for safe journies to a place where you may save yourself.

Your soul is suddenly ripped from your location, to another.

You can see nothing but darkness.

A soft voice echoes, "I see you still believed in yourself, (person)"

A soft voice echoes, "Though, I cannot help but hope you chose the right decision... oh, you're blind. Let me take care of that. I doubt it'll help much."

Blessed sight returns to you.

Hildr's soft voice echoes, "Do you know where you are?"

(ql)
Lake of Souls.
A thick mist floats about the air, making sight nearly impossible. Hildr is here, gazing at you intently.
There are exits leading north, south, east, and west.

(ih)
lake(number) lake of souls
hildr(number) a valkyrie

You say, "Lake of Souls."

Hildr's soft voice echoes, "That is correct. You are at the Lake of Souls, within Erebus."

You ask, "Where is Erebus?"

Hildr's soft voice echoes, "In the Cosmic plane, somewhere between Nil and Celestia."

---

Okay, so, the fun part is you character gets to run around. They can either:

1) Decide to pray for Salvation and give up.

2) Wait for someone to teleport to your dead butt or fly there with an aethership (Cosmic Plane, Aetherspace, by Kethuru), get your soul, and bring it to your body. Only catch is that the Tapestry of Life will not be visible to the living, nor will Lachesis, Clothos, or Atropos. Only catch is the Erebus plane will do major damage to you, unless you have the skill to be on the Cosmic Plane. Only those with Demons and Angels can fight the monsters that the dead do not see. These creatures are there to make sure the souls there are not brought back that are not meant to be, etc etc etc.

3) Search the huge mass of random rooms that aren't the same to find the Tapestry of Life. When you find it, you have to INFLUENCE ATROPOS WITH BEGGING. Should be able to win it fairly easily. In which case, your soul will be thrown back into your body at the Portal of Fate.



Creatures in Erebus
- Valkyrie
- Oni
- Khaibit
- Yama


Other dead souls will be there, and visible. If you try to emote them, you'll get an action thingy...

You reach out to touch (person), but your hand passes right through.
(Person) reaches out to touch you, but their hand passes right through you.
(PersonA) reaches out to touch (PersonB), but their hand passes right through them.

If they're fast enough getting out, they can cut their EXP loss exponentially.

Any ideas, comments, etc?

At least you left the "Pray for Salvation" option.

Otherwise, I was going to say, "Ewwww, Imperian death system, gack."

I never played Imperian. o_o Is their death system similar?

Apparently...

I like it, however. Seems like a good time. Just another dynamic level that Lusternia can have, making it teh BEST MUD EVAH! Vote for us now, people!

Using RL cosmology... no, several RL cosmologies (I see northern Valkyries, standard christian Angels and Devils, as well as apparently asian-themed Oni) in a strictly non-RL fantasy game? No.

Doesn't fit the lore either. Lusternia's dead are reincarnated, unless for some reason the souls are "bound" to the Prime plane - Spectre Island is one example, Chuuchip from Serenwilde is the other.
OFFTOPIC RANT: Dead people don't go to Celestia, nor to Nil. Nil is NOT Lusternia's hell for "bad people". If I ever find someone saying "go to Nil" or "what the Nil was that?" in the game, I will wince and hope for an ability to punch people over teh internetz. If I find someone correcting someone else's "hells" into "nils", I will personally take an effort to find their them and skin them. Then I will make the aforementioned skin a photo and post the picture on the Real Life sobforum. RANT OVER.

Erebus never existed in Lusternia's cosmology. And dead souls do NOT go to cosmic planes. But I've said that already.

That's no catch. Even newbies get that skill.

This sentence:

Heavily favourises guardians. Hell no.

Influencing Atropos with begging would NEVER work. She doesn't cut the thread, but not because of her goodwill, but rather because the character is apparently "speshul" and important to Lusternia. That's pretty stupid, but meh... Achaea's praying is worse.

And finally, I don't really see much sense in this idea. What's the purpose?

What's wrong with "Go to Nil" or "Go to Celestia" if your character finds them to be completely loathsome places?

.........


... well... I'll keep my ideas OUT of the forum and in my head from now on...

... :: Scuttles away. ::

I really liked the death realm from Imperian (except when like you got 20 other dead people there with you). I guess the equivalent here could be like Shallamar?

Nothing in this context. But in most cases, people say "go to Nil" because they want to say "go to hell" and they think it makes them better roleplayers because they use IC terminology. Except that this nomenclature is totally misused! It's like calling PvE "bashing". Unless you're a bonecrusher, if you say you're going "bashing" I will bash your skull in. With my mind.

EDIT: Merging posts.



If you're posting an idea, you have to accept criticism. I pointed out what I didn't like, you're supposed to either modify your original idea to remove these problems if you agree with me, or point out why my logic is flawed if you do not agree with me. Running away or sulking doesn't help anyone.

I'd also like to point out that my criticsm was 100% rational, except of the off-topic rant part which was not directed at you.

Do we actually know anything about the afterlife here? Since Souls can be used by the cities I assume there is some link to Supplicants and Trapped Souls and Celestia/Nil.

Only Fatetouched are guaranteed to reincarnate, IIRC. And...that doesn't mean you don't spend some time in a Heaven or Hell or Spirit Realm in the meantime.

Supplicants aren't "used" - their faith in Supernals and other metaphysical mumbo-jumbo fuels New Celest with power. Trapped Souls are used as a source of power, but that's because they are bound to Prime in the first place - the catastrophy of Old Celest doesn't let them "pass on" without Marilynth's invervention, so they can be caught and used as power for Magnagora/Nil. If Nil was "hell", EVERY soul that went to it (read: every evil soul) would have powered Magnagora. Yet, that's not the case, and moreover I doubt that every old Celestian was evil.

Fatetouched is such an awful term, sounds like Planetouched from DnD. I assume you mean people who don't have their fate set in stone. So... can you provide a link stating that? I believe everyone reincarnates, as this "cycling of souls" (it sounded like DnD before, now it's Legacy of Kain...) allows the shard of the god more opportunities to rise into Godhood. Also, I always had the impression that being "fatetouched" (bleh...) is what lets you not reincarnate after praying.


Except for a lack of proof, obviously. It's like saying "that doesn't mean Magnagora isn't secretely ruled by a giant pink elephant - and because it can, it actually is!".

EDIT: I don't like the whole idea. But it's me, one person. Also, that doesn't mean I am closed to other ideas. Post them if you want.

I think Cuber killed my thread.

More people will post later.

(probably)

Nope. You've gone scared'd 'em all away from posting. They're all scared now, hiding behind their keyboards.

And yet there is a barghest, a roc, leprechaun, brownie, dryad, nymph, banshee, pooka, etc - all of which are references and uses of RL mythologies in a strictly non-RL fantasy game. Having a Valkyrie or an Oni doesn't break the RL barrier - it's a type of creature with a specific design. If you're worried, make clear that the Valkyrie, for example, aren't judging, selecting, then taking souls to Valhalla to be warriors for Odin? Not like that would be the case, anyway, mind.

EDIT: left out the main purpose of my post. I do like this idea. It would certainly add more of a feel for death being part of a journey in the Basin, rather than a pausing point to give your hands a break while waiting for life to return.

Thank you.

To further elaborate... the game ALREADY has angels and "devils", as you call them. Though, I prefer the term "Demons". Case and point, cupids and imps.

I don't believe leprechauns guard big pots of gold or anything in Lusternia.

Don't remember the last time a magickal mushroom circle gave me spores that, if snorted, got me back to that mushroom circle.

Also, I had pretty much said that the creatures would be there, visible to those who are NOT dead, to (for the sake of IG purposes) keep the dead, dead. Perhaps some sort of mini-event could occur with that along the road, where some Organization sets free a soul who just should not be freed, no matter what organization.

I just don't like the idea of death being so... blah... in the game. I understand reincarnation, but instant reincarnation... death loses a feel, then. Besides. A Death realm would be great fun!

Angels and demons exist in Lusternia, but they don't deal with souls. I see no reason why should they stand guard of some quasi-spirit realm.

And this idea wouldn't really solve the problem of lukewarm death in Lusternia. Because:
1. In most cases, you don't have to pray anyway. You die, but with Resurgem, Sacrifice, Ressurection, Vitae, Conglutination and DarkRebirth, praying happens only when you get griefed by a group of people or are a poor, vitae-less novice.
2. You can still Pray for Salvation, and good, because:
3. Because if you couldn't, everyone who died would be forced to find a way out of this Death World, which would come in two variants:
a. if it's hassle-free, people would solve that immediately and be alive in 5 seconds after dying. Death is even more meaningless then.
b. If it isn't hassle-free, it would take a lot of effort and make the game extremely irritating. And frustration is NOT what games are about!

Besides, death actually causes you to lose experience, and something more important than experience - DEFENSES that often take a lot of power. So, while ICly it can be meaningless, because people come back, OOCly it isn't for sure.

There are three ways to make death meaningful in a multiplayer game:
1. Permadeath. Retarded idea, because one killer bug/lag spike/connection loss/another player being a griefing jerk = oops! Your character is dead forever, thank you, come again (not).
2. When your character "dies", they don't die but rather are beaten up and heavily wounded but survive by sheer luck or determination. It can be a stretch, but it's less of a stretch than you and EVERYONE else being so special that the Fates can't cut the thread.
3. Players' characters are immortal by default, because of the game's design.

I don't see any of these three succesfully implemented in Lusternia.

And finally, I find it humourous in a very sarcastic sense, that in order to "save yourself" by "believing in yourself" you have to PRAY to OTHERS (read: higher spiritual beings, whomever they are) for hope. Sounds a bit like trying to be original by finding someone you consider original and mimicking their dress style and way of living.

If you look over the options that were listed for when Pray for Salvation would turn, you could choose to Pray for Salvation, or Pray for Hope. You wouldn't -have- to pick the Death realm.

While it isn't always necessary, it would still add another aspect to the game to make it more of a journey. I did enjoy wandering through Dis in Imperian - though, after a while it became a pain. If that had been optional, as was suggested here, it would have been much better. It added another dimension to the game.

Although, instead rather of Valkyries and such, I'd personally prefer something to tie in the Fates more. Something with a bit more continuity - the Pray for Hope and Death realm aspect would do nicely for that. Instead of Spindle, Bobbins and Skein there could be other varients of the Fate's helpers, in the Death realm. Swift, Fell and Reed, maybe. Take your pick. We have the Guides, we have references to the Tapestry of Life, and the Fates appearing when a new Weaving starts (another reference) but there isn't much else clearly there. Instead of finding the Tapestry in this, it could be you were running over it, and had to do x, y and z, to find your thread and reattach it to you (for some reason, an image of Peter Pan trying to get his Shadow to stick to him came to mind).

I like where Lusternia goes with death by making death-avoiding tools so immensely ubiquitous, we don't ever have to die. I just wish it was even more so. Death is a problem for stories; dying should be a momentous event in any character's life. Making it easier to avoid it (Instead of making it easier or more meaningful to recover from it) would improve the way it works.

I like this idea. Possibly a lesser experience loss if you choose to try to find your thread instead of praying for salvation?