After a very extended absence from IRE games, my only previous experience being a four-to-five year stint in Aetolia, I've decided to give it all another go at the advice of a friend.

I've settled on something to do with Glomdoring; I've always wanted to see a forest that wasn't full of happy-go-luckies.

I'm not too interested in monks at present, but the Shadowdancers, Blacktalon, and Harbingers all tickle varies fancies of mine. How are these guilds fairly on the roleplay front, how is their bashing/pvp potential, and do they feel reliant on being any particular races to be useful?

Depends on what you want to play.

Harbs are a good support class, everyone loves the bards for all the passive benefits they give to groups, they're pretty decent 1v1 too. Harbs have Druken, so you should get some very decent RP out of them.

SD's are probably the best class for mobile 1v1 combat out of the three, they also have awesome RP and cool skills.

Blacktalon are for people who like playing defensively, they're also highly liked by the rest of the commune for the defensive advantage they provide within demesnes.

You should enjoy Glomdoring, we don't tend to encourage happy-go-lucky types. Ignore Krin's forum post too, it certainly doesn't suck.

Shadowdancers

We're deeply rooted to Night. The guild occasionally holds a rite where we would all go to Faethorn and bind fae, a hunt to clear out kephera, and our rituals range from the light, "glorify Mother Night" ones to the more brutal "cleansing by death".

Bashing-wise, the Shadowdancers have a range of abilities which help a lot: Drink in Night skillset (passive curing of health/mana/afflictions), as well as the Nature and Totems defenses (Sun, Moon, River, Tree for health/mana/ego regeneration, Nature Torc for magic defense, etc.). Nature Curse and Nightkiss are the primary bashing attacks, with Nightkiss being the stronger but can only be gained at Transcendent Night.

For Player vs Player combat, our abilities seem to bend toward the bleeding/mana drain aspect. Redcap for bleeding (and clotting your blood spends mana), Barghest for paralysis (curing it with focus body spends mana), and then Succumb which is passive mana drain. Stacking these together and you'll get a nice offensive. I'm not much of a combatant, though, so I can't tell you exactly how effective these are in actual battle!



PS I didn't even mention Choke!

EDIT: As for Glomdoring "sucking": I think enjoying Glomdoring depends on the person playing. There are people who enjoy the zealotry of Celest, some the smiles and happiness of Serenwilde, some the Magnagoran pride. Same with Glomdoring!

Oooh, I'll do blacktalon.

While the SDs are kind of vain and elitist, Blacktalon tend to be kind of grungy and disgusting. A lot of our skills involve belching, vomiting, and spitting up pieces of dead bodies for various effects. I've always seen BT as this kind of disgusting flock of bird people that think they are totally normal, while everyone puts up with their quirks because 1) they are the chosen of Crow and 2) they meld and kick butt. Blacktalon teachings are focused around the aspects of crow. Blood Thirst, False Memory, Black Sorrow, and Dark Spirit which you can learn all about in game.

The Bashing is okay, but among the worst in the game. You'll do fine, but you won't be keeping up with warriors/monks/bards.

Demesne wise, blacktalon are generally considered to have the best demesne in the game. It's pretty much a fortress and if you set it up well and know what you are doing, you are very dangerous. You also tend to be the first target, so you spend a lot of time running. Luckily druids have numerous skills to help them run and stay alive. The downside: you are bad outside of your demesne, and absolute crap outside of the forest.

You aren't terribly reliant on race, actually, as long as you don't pick krokani or tae'dae or something equally stupid. Obviously there are more ideal races, but I think druids can get away with less than ideal races better than mages or warriors can.

edit: just some skills for more info:
Spy: peck someone's eye out and stomp it into the dirt to watch everyone that leaves and enters.
Carrionstench: Belch and cause enemies internal bleeding.
Crow spit: spit up stored carrion for afflictions.
crowform: grow feathers and the ability to fly, along with several other perks.
spew: summon a cloud of insects that attack bleeding foes

Good stuff

This is all very, very true, but to maybe tighten it up a bit:

When you have time to prepare, the Blacktalon are among the scariest things in the game. Caught unaware, all you can do is run. In the end, someone had to have the worst defenses in the game, and that just happens to be the Blacktalon. If you're comfortable with running and can operate in tangent with your demesne (both of which are pretty easy), then you don't really notice.

In regards to race, there are two separate and equally viable ideals: fast or not-dead. Fast is pretty straightforward: find something with an eq bonus (or balance for runists). You don't need the details early on, but speed helps more than damage because of the way the skills synergize. Not-dead means you pick a tanky race. Druids absolutely cannot play a race with an eq penalty. It cannot be done. Eq-neutral is good enough, though, and five points of constitution and a handful of good elemental resistances make up for the fact that your guild skills aren't going to help you be tanky.

Just one exception! If you go ecology, you have access to charms which allow for a substantial amount (as much as 40) flexible DMP that you can change according to your preferences. If you go runes or dreamweaving, your DMP is going to be, as Xavius said, crap.

The Shadowdancers did look interesting, but how are they played? By that, I'm asking what sort of role do they fill in the game's story, and is it multi-faceted? They sound interesting but if they're singleminded, I'll probably get bored.

Judging from the specs Alacardael gave, I'd assume them to be EQ based. If so, do they have any weakness/strength in skills that lend them to a particular race? Bashing worth mentioning?

And how tough are they on the wallet before they start being interesting?

Shadowdancers are affliction-based casters with an entourage of afflicting ents. They're vaguely similar to Aetolia's Cabalists, but it's not a real close comparison. Shadowdancers are really defined by Choke, which is a sort of uncurable mutual aeon.

The Shadowdancer canon is surprisingly weak, but the playerbase makes them a sort of aloof, pretentious group. Ideally, they operate based on subtlety and persuasion, but a fair number of Shadowdancers are actually about as subtle as a brick to the face. The reality of it is that they're a fairly diverse bunch with a tendency towards tyranny and uniformity wrapped up in dark velvet and lace.

Investment-wise, they're pretty average, but average in Lusternia tends to be higher than average elsewhere.

For any Harbingers, what's the atmosphere of the guild? I'm having a hard to conceptualizing how Bardic roleplay would interact with the rest of the world.

Are the Harbingers, or any of the Glomdoring guilds, run as democracies, or do have a more centralized leader?

Once again, how's the bashing? Any major weaknesses?

Are bards balanced or equilibrium based?

Someone else is going to have to speak to atmosphere. I made a character there a long time ago in a different world that I only pop on to peek at shiny new mechanics. From the outside, it looks a lot like generic Glomdoring.

The bashing is good (better than Shadowdancers or Blacktalon, not as good as Nekotai, and complicated in relation to Ebonguard), and the PvP is acceptable. They're eq-based (EDIT: Acrobatics is balance, but it's primarily a defensive skillset) and, unlike other casters, require a good mix of intelligence and charisma. In terms of investment, bards are one of the cheapest archetypes out there.

I'm going to say this and save you a lot of grief.

Balance and eq racial bonuses were nerfed to hell and back.

Don't pick a race with elemental weaknesses because it has fast eq, as you won't survive to take advantage of the meagre speed bonus it gives you. Warriors especially will pound you into the dust quicker than you can so much as type out 'raise cudgel', as they can add elemental runes to weapons to shift damage to elemental type and most top-tier warrior combatants do so, coincidentally to the ones you'll probably have a weakness to.

I think it's generally understood that all the Bard guilds with the exception of SS have pretty crappy histories and RP. Individuals may RP just fine, but over all there is little tying the guild together beyond their skillsets.

Well I'm not really "Intellegent" Or "Smart" With how Glomdoring works, but from past experiences within it (and other cities/communes) , it really IS better than any other place.

Its also the easiest to naviagte and graduate. Plus, EbonGuard and BT Pretty much beat every other guild

The Shadowdancers are the 'spiritual leaders' of Glomdoring (at least, ideally). The Blacktalon are in tune with the physical forest, the Ebonguard are the guards of Glom, the Harbingers sing our emo songs (and keep our morale high in times of need!), and the Nekotai links us to the Illithoids and G.Mother Scorpion. Meanwhile, the Shadowdancers are closely linked to the Ethereal, essentially the 'soul' of the forest.

There are three Circles in the Shadowdancers: Death (PvP), Wisdom (rituals), and Binding (influencing and debating). There's also the option not to choose a Circle (not recommended, though), and you can advance in the guild by donating wares to the shop, doing out of the ordinary things, etc.

We're mostly based on EQ and int(elligence), yeah, but as others have said bonuses and penalties on this field aren't that much important as before. Unless you choose a really crappy race (Igasho, for example: 9 Int, -1 EQ), you're going to be fine in bashing.

Wiccans (Shadowdancers and Moondancers) are generally the average in terms of cost in Lusternia (With Warriors being the most expensive and the bards/monks the least).

Glomdoring is the HARDEST of the four to navigate in. You have aggressive creatures sitting in a maze for a forest waiting to pounce on you during your trip to the tailor...

Celest is the easiest, but also most boring, to navigate in. It's a giant wheel.

Dunno about the Collegiums, been too long for me to really remember.

Magnagora probably has the most difficult collegium. Also, our power quest seems to be designed to slaughter newbies but it also gives the greatest rewards in terms of exp, karma and gold. Celest is a cake walk by comparison.
Glomdoring is fairly middle of the road.

Glomdoring's power quest is easily the easiest, but also gives the least rewards (and, hee, spammy Brennan!) which supposedly balances it out a bit. Still a pain for novices in Mag, though.

And the Glom beasts don't hit through innocence, and Glom isn't really a maze, so you've got time to get acclimated.

it may have not been a choice but i think warriors have the best rp in all of lusternia and have excellent offensive and defensive potential.

I fully support this statement.

Hurhurhur.