Sorry if this has gone someplace wrong or I did something else wrong. I'm still not confident with forums.

I just, well, if I may, I wanted to ask... Hmm, perhaps it's better if I explain first.

I used to play Achaea some time ago, and while it wasn't the worst game ever, it wasn't particularily fun. Now, the main problem I had in Achaea was with theft, and it being so widespread. Several bad encounters with theft and thieves eventually drove me away from that game, as it wasn't any fun at all, since I couldn't go anywhere without worrying about thieves.

So... my little question is, are things similar in Lusternia? Is theft even allowed here or? I'm curious on that.

Thanks in advance.

Theft is "allowed" in the sense that the admin won't do anything about it unless you exploit a bug to do it (which gets you shrubbed.)

95%+ of organisations, including the ones with theft abilities, strongly frown upon/discourage it though. The only major thief we've ever really had went warrior recently, though a couple of others have had their share of incidents. While you may have difficulty going anywhere without worrying about SOMETHING, theft is not likely to be one here, you'll be pleased to know.

Not really. There are some, but very few. Selfishness in discipline makes it very hard, the ability to curse objects, having to guess at item numbers (unless you can check invnetories, anyway), that sort of thing, all discourages it. You'll find very, very few ones running around - but curse important stuff anyway, use a non standard storage object (If you even bother), that sort of thing. Vestiphobia is the main problem, and that's because you tear stuff off your body and throw it away without selfish up.

The Vestiphobia that Yrael mentioned is the one most likely to affect you, btw, because you can get it randomly from a standard mage affliction procedure if you go up against one of them in PK. Most people don't use it with the intent of stealing but if someone doesn't like you they're not always above nicking the greatrobes you threw or something after they finish you off. That's not all that likely though.

A week or so ago, I was fighting with a big enemy of my commune when vestiphobia made me rip off my pack and drop it. I happened to have a large sum of gold in there, a number of enchantments, and personal journals and such. When the fight ended, it was gone.

I'm from Achaea, too, and so it was a very pleasant surprise to find that not only was my pack returned, it was an accident that the passerby picked it up at all. On top of that, the person I was fighting was so eager to make it clear that he wasn't a thief that he let us look into his pack to be sure he hadn't thrown mine in there.

There are just very, very few people interested in thievery. You can get away with being smart (read: smarter than I was) and reflex yourself to re-wear the things you don't want to lose to vestiphobia.

I don't think you can reflex vestiphobia to re-wear, as it drops it to the ground rather than just to inv. If you're off-eq or hindered or you just die, someone else might nick it first so you have to be paying attention.

I think that the reason people don't steal here, when they could, is basically peer pressure, you know? Everyone looks down on theivery so harshly that anyone who steals for stealing's sake is chastised by everyone, even their guild and city. I think I've read about some guilds disfavoring habitual thieves, even if they're thieving from enemies. After being yelled at enough (or worse) even at home, I imagine anyone who considers a life of theft reconsiders it.

That said, there's been at least one really successful thief I know of. He was just so good at it. Plus he often gave things back after the fact. Though I think he still had a really hard time as far as facing disapproval from the world at large.

Selfishness, unless it's been changed recently, dumps it to the inventory.

As everyone else has said, theft is pretty rare here. I know I'd get afflicted with vestiphobia but I'd always get anything I dropped back in a letter a RL day or two later (or less).

Unfortunately you still see people like Amaru and Thoros (and I believe Balizar did it once, too?), stealing keys/teleporting into shop stockrooms and taking things. So even though theft is rare, some people will fall into the temptation, so it's very important to keep your things secure. While you don't need to go to the length of protection here as you would in Achaea, re-wearing items and making sure you don't leave keys in your inventory without flame and fists sigils is the basic way to prevent theft.

Theft here also doesn't happen on low-level newbies. The only person I know who's ever actually gone straight for a person's belongings is Yrael. Other people aim for keys or places in to stockrooms, then attempt to break into those stockrooms (which can be very easily avoided).

I only know of Celest/Mag thefts, but I'm sure there's a few scragglers in Seren and Glom. It's good to have basic protection, but you won't need to buy OOC credits to get selfishness.

EDIT: Oh, right. I meant to say, if you steal from people, your life is made that much worse. Amaru was shrubbed before we could really do anything in the Celestine's about him stealing from Athana/Ixion, but he was going to lose his Champ position (and quite a bit of rank). I don't know about Yrael, aside of the fact that he has to ghost a lot outside of Mag. Thoros is pretty much allowed to get away with anything from what I've witnessed. But if you end up stealing from people, it's probably going to be that much harder to make friends. I don't think I've seen Zalana outside of Mag since she robbed Anisu's shop, for example (but she may have been like that before I started playing).

Our only theif is Yrael, who returns stuff. Most of the time, if you're polite, you'll get your stuff back, or even without asking. There was a person who stole $500,000 from a person in his own manse, and he was blasted IG and forums for that.

Edit: Balizar has promised never to do it again As for Thoros, when I dropped my 40k, he returned it (he was Celestian at the time). Just don't be rude, even for the sake of RP, when you want stuff back. Or else, for the sake of RP, they won't give it back

I always made it a point to discourage theft in my guild because of my experiences on Achaea (My client logged me on because I forgot to quit it and I was robbed naked, even down to my shoes, including journals, vials, everything). I think the general opinion of most of Lusternia is that theft is really just griefing someone OOCly.

Ixion is also a known thief. So is Zalana for that matter.

Either Malicia or Amaru used to steal all my spices.

Oh, they bring up a different point above.

Not many people are going to steal things off of you, if only because most orgs are going to ride you hard about it. If someone does steal from you, a message to the thief's guildmaster usually gets things resolved nicely. Robbing a store is a different story altogether, but it's extremely rare that that's even possible.

How/Who curses things.

Enchanters curse objects.

Did I? Eep.

Remember the old Rockholm days, back when it was Glomdoring's first village? I'd be out harvesting and then the pair of you would come visiting-- and back then spices were extremely common.

Thousands of spices would fall the first time you killed me each raid. Poor spices.

It was nice that people were carefully avoiding mentioning my name. Oh, well.

You naughty boy.