There is no such thing as City - Forest conflict and Cities to not hate Forest because they are natural, exception could be Glomdoring due to how it became to be what it is now. Though that again is down to the individual wether wyrd is or is not same as taint.
Yes, Forests historically despise civilization and cities, though think of it this way. You are a Serenwilder, you have a tainted city, something that could warp and destroy everything you hold dear, you have a wyrden forest, which want's to kill your Sprit and then you have New Celest, which seeks to destroy at least one of them. Now, unless you're a zealos idiot which runs around with a banner in your hands, what would you do?

This of course is a simple example, but I think it shows what I was trying to say.

And I completely understood about conversion, aye, though recruiting you mention here is quite different from that in the Broadcasting tower quest. If such option existed, I believe it could find it's supporters, for you would be sending in a converted viscanti to cause mass psychosis among other taintlings and not bradcasting preachings of Taint to the whole basin.

It was a fairly obscure comment.

Also, I didn't really read the last two and a half pages so I haven't really seen the evolution of the discussion, except for Estarra's psuedo-apology.

The "converted viscanti" idea is different insofar as it is a direct attack on Magnagora, rather than a result which benefits one organization at the expense of all other organizations. If the design were parallel to the broadcast centre, Magnagora should also be able to do the quest and benefit, however the story behind it would make it uncomfortable for Magnagora. Note that amoral organizations always benefit, as they only care whether or not it benefits them. Such is the price of morality or hard ideals!


Also, if Celest promotes supporting "converted viscanti" NPCs, won't they also have to support "converted viscanti" PCs?

I actually think it would be interesting if Celest adopted a few "token" converted Viscanti and then marginalized the rest.

Sort of like african-americans in large parts of America.

It would add a lot of verisimilitude.

I think from an objective OOC standpoint it's pretty obvious that the taint is evil and in general a Bad Thing. It outright corrupts the wildlife and animals around itself to be hideous, twisted manifestations of their former selves (Blasted Lands, etc). The Demon Lords it reveres actively advocate betrayal, pain, uncontrolled wrath, etc all of which are pretty clearly bad by most OOC moral standards. It advocates the practice of necromancy and whatever other forbidden arts are necessary to advance itself, and things like the Nihilist skills show an outright desire to cause pain (seriously, read some of the messages for skills like wrack, torture, sacrifice, etc sometime). Few representatives of the taint have ever been shown to have any kind of mercy at all, always being willing to slaughter the innocent if it is necessary to serve their goals (admittedly, some supporters of the Light are also portrayed in this manner). It is actively expansionist and tries to taint the rest of the world, all of which is "natural". It is the direct creation of Kethuru, the greatest threat to the Basin and the most feared being in existence. And it's just plain ugly.

Here is an old quote from an old Lisaera that I like:

I understand what you're saying, but I'm of the RP school where no one except sociopaths/psychopaths ever identifies themselves as "evil". Whatever side you are on is always the good side, and whoever opposes you is on the evil side. The trick is on justification and perspective. Necromancy may be an evolutionary step that transcends the concept of death. The Demon Lords may be higher beings whose methods simply cannot be understood, or maybe they are powerful beings to be exploited for the good of the whole. Pain and torture? Necessary means to an end (just ask the advocates of waterboarding).

My point, I guess, is that one's OOC standpoint is completely and utterly irrelevant.

Well... if a tendency towards "dark" areas means a tendency towards Tainted-oriented-areas, it seems that OOC standpoints are affecting it somewhat. There's a lot of opportunity for dark-areas related to Serenwilde/Glomdoring/Celest as well (the Seren-executioner's an example of this, which apparently caused a whole lot of ruckus in Seren along the roleplay lines Morgfyre is discussing).

Oh, I agree with you on that, but Morgfyre seemed to be saying that the question of whether the taint is evil is a legitimate question from an OOC perspective as well as an IC perspective when it's pretty clearly evil, looking at it on an OOC level from our values standards. (The other things he was saying, however, are.)

I tend to think, OOC for the most part, IC partly, that Taint isn't really evil, just as the Light isn't really good. It is mostly Chaos/Order, or if you will, Entropy/Structure. Yes, I can see how an evil miasma, twisting things is bad, of course. However, I tend to see how people act, and I have seen good people in both cities, as well as bad.

When you are a new player and you are looking at which orgs to join, what do you see? Hmm, here we have Celest, they are all about Light, Angels, and all these Virtues generally considered good from an OOC standpoint. Here we have Magnagora. Demons. Torture. Screaming. All these Virtues generally considered bad from an OOC standpoint. Hmm!

To be frank, while I purposefully try to play up New Celest as not being "good" the angels don't really freaking help If the goal was to avoid promotion of a classic good/evil struggle it is possible that such potent RL imagery should not have been used.

I mostly agree. I joined Celest first, because I was thinking Lusty was like Achaea *hides from divine bolts*

Also, because I prefer to align with water, I am chaotic, and an aquarius

Dunno where I was headed with this, to be honest, so I will shut up now

That moron in the Oval Office just a few days ago vetoed a bill outlawing torture on the grounds that without torture, he couldn't win his little oil war in Iraq. So even in the real world yes, people view the most horrendous acts as "good" when it furthers their goals.

The goal was never to avoid promotion of classic good/evil! I have never stated that nor am I stating so now.

What I am saying is that you need not be bound by any preconceived notions. So what if there are angels and light in Celest or demons and torture in Magnagora? It is irrelevant what these OOC "Virtues" are when looking through the lens within which you roleplay. New players indeed will (and should!) initially be guided by those symbols and imagery, but as they delve deeper into their interactions with other players and what may exist in-game, I think many would be pleasantly surprised to find layers or nuances through diverse interpretations of the Light or the Taint.

It wasn't my intent to say there wasn't more to it than what's on the surface but what is on the surface does play a large role in things. It apparently even plays a large role in Admin's minds when they are conceiving "dark/evil" places/quests to create as those places more often than not have something to do with Taint/Soulless.

I mostly see the Light as "selfless" and the Taint as "selfish," neither of which are inherently -evil- and each have greatly redeeming qualities (our society works today because people are selfish)

I'd have thought that's because society is build around the idea that you can't get around people being selfish, so it has to accomodate for it, rather than because being selfish is somehow a good thing...

Wow, we literally just talked about this in my Liberation Theology class when we discussed Capitalism vs. Socialism. Basically, both are built around the same human failing-- selfishness. Capitalism says that "You are selfish, you are not going to share. Therefore, I am going to make use of that." Socialism says "You are selfish, you are not going to share. Therefore, I am going to make you". Neither is inherently good or evil, and both can be (and have been) manipulated and exploited.

Same thing with the Taint and the Light-- neither is "good" or "evil" aside from people's personal belief in them, and both can be manipulated and exploited.

Serenwilde is Libertarian.That leaves Glom as... shadowy board of figures?

Ha, if only... I tend to feel that Serenwilde is more of an Imperialist culture, though they'd deny it if you asked them. I feel a strong undercurrent of Manifest Destiny in the way they see themselves and others.

So its the gods fault that you screwed up in the past and screwed up a huge chunk of the land and made it tainted? With the history we have, a significant portion of it should be tainted to *some* degree, because of the residual effects of what Celest did. If you want the quest to change, RP it. Maybe when you forcefully take it over, you can work on trying to prevent Globglob from releasing his message, and replacing him with some merian to shout messages of light and good and death to all things tainted and fae instead.

The fact is that virtually anything that you uncover thats been hidden for a while - especially when it comes to quests like this - are most likely to have come from the time of Old Celest, and that means that they should be tainted. Don't blame Magnagora for trying to live with their infirmities that you forced on their entire population as a whole, when they instead try and work through it.

You KNOW ICly that undeath can be reversed, and what was undead can be alive again in relatively short order. You have the manpower to work with that and come up with a resolution that Celest can be happy with, so do it. For all you know he is only undead and taintcentric because he can't find a damned vial of vitae - but I bet you haven't bothered trying to find out.