Agreed, and I believe this is probably where most of my issue stems from.

It's rough if you want to tell a guild that it can no longer worship Scorpion, when that has been established for years now. But it's especially wrong if the players are just told its wrong with nothing to replace it from the administration. My fear is that the Nekotai have managed to make a very in-depth culture around Scorpion, and that what replaces it (if anything replaces it) will not be as engaging for players. Or the fear that it'll be very linear and players won't be able to make their own interpretation of the culture of their own guild.

It is kind of interesting, but the Admin have recently really been trying to remove freedom of choice from their game. I think this is a huge step in the wrong dirrection.

x 100

But we've already begun integrating Scorpion into the commune as the fifth totem animal. What the heck? We've given deference to Scorpion in all of our public rituals, for...the last year. As far as I know, this was approved by Estarra...

From the new temple:
The Scorpion's Nest. (Glomdoring Forest.)
The bright sun shines down, blanketing you with its life-giving warmth. Dense blackthorn trees crowd close together here around a small clearing. The ground is littered with dries curled leaves, ranging in colour from dark greens to browns, to faded lavender and red. The air here is warm, almost stifling. Among the leaves and along the tree trunks crawl fat bodied scorpions. Hunter green and vibrant purple carapaces glisten wetly in the dim light. There is little movement among the resting animals. Occasionally the soft sound of a clicking pincer breaks the stillness of the confining place. A wary guardian stands poised at the north side of the clearing. The pale granite statue of a robed illithoid, nekai crossed about his chest, stands watch. A rowan sapling clings tenaciously to the ground here. Casting darkness all around, a shadow totem thrusts up from the ground, chilling the air.
You see exits leading south and northwest.

We're aware the Scorpion is reclusive, a bit of an outsider -- we've actually used this affinity to account for the seeming separateness or 'tacked on' feeling of Glomdoring's monk guild. Why would you even throw out something to imply that we're not supposed to be incorporating this, after we have had a whole event (scorpion caverns opening) for the guild to include it -- and why so late in the game? Nocht and Viravain are incredibly hands off in terms of how things in general run in the guilds and commune as a whole. Players have been the driving force for creating a lore for the guild, more or less left to their own devices. If something has to change -- then I feel that it must be on the preconception of the administration. This is a dynamic world and players have taken the ideas given to them and run with them. It is organic. This is a best cast scenario.

I think the Nekotai are among the most successfully integrated of the new guilds because they have had Scorpion to build with. They've made it work. Please - be less cavalier with the words you throw around implying that all of this effort might be undone.

Agree, Agree, Agree, Agree. I agree with all of this.

Just for clarification, Nekotai aren't all about ScorpionScorpionScorpion all the time. It's a HUGE part of the culture, but not all of it. I talked with Veyda once and his stance boiled down to, 'We're wyrden, always were and always will be.' Yes, I think we could do more about teaching Crow/Night, but to just have Scorpion reverence be a no-no is ridiculous.

In Talan's post, she mentions the Scorpion room in the wyrden temple, which was a huge relief for me, since I felt that the admin were behind having Scorpion and Nekotai really integrated into Glom. Like any cultural integration, the exchange is two-way, not just Scorpion/Illith monks abandoning their origins and going straight Crow/Night.

Fain edit here.

Again with your subtle puns. <3

Omg what happened? I went to take a nap for 2 hours and the Nekotai have turned upside down.

Let's keep this civil. We are watching this thread very closely (for obvious reasons) and will only allow this thread to remain open if it remains constructive. I.e. devoid of sarcasm, personal attacks and similar. Thank you.

Yeah, that was my bad. Sorry. Feel free to edit that away if you feel it's entirely out of place.

On an slightly divergent note, I think someone mentioned they don't quite know where shofa came from. I was going through the fungus gardens, and ran into this:



No clear indication as to whether they came down into the undervault from the surface, or if they came up to the surface from the undervault, but hey - here's at least one mob that has one without being a guild guard or member of Serenwilde.

I'll be paying attention to how this turns out, considering I have a guild that worships not one, but three non-commune spirits in some way.

I sympathize with the Nekotai situation. I don't have much else to say about it specifically, but I find it interesting how this is almost the opposite case of the Tahtetso, who formed its own philosophy but has ever since been trying to figure out how to integrate and be philosophically accepted by Celest. Though I never felt it, apparently there are/were Celestians who thought that the Tahtetso didn't really follow the Light, and truth be told, the Light was never a prominent part of the guild philosophy...

Letting players develop their own philosophies will inevitably lead to the admin needing to tweak many things, whether it be on their end or on the players' end...

Having everyone in an org be devout followers of that orgs ideals is unrealistic and trying to force it just makes people angry. It also leads to nice tension within an org you can play with. We don't need Celest to be a monolithic follower of the Light, or all Serens to worship Moon and Hart to the exclusion of all else. It would be a cool idea for maybe one org, but not all of them. It makes me sad that Affinity and now this change in focus seem to really flatten out the ability of people to RP within an org.

This thread is my first reading of whatever this issue is (I've been really swamped with other matters), and I understand people seem to have their feathers ruffled over much ado about nothing. Since I'm the alpha and omega of all canon in Lusternia and in the interest of laying this issue to rest, I'd like to share my insights.

It is perfectly reasonable for Nekotai to include Scorpion in their culture or for Shofangi to include Bull. It's in their astral links and there is historical bases to support it.

Every commune is bound by two spirits per the histories. This was an ancient binding during the Elder Wars. In Serenwilde, it is Moon and Hart. In Glomdoring, it is Night and Crow. All power flows through these spirits, and all guilds based in those communes draw from their power. Guilds that turn their back on these spirits risk having those spirits turn their back on them--and thus the power that flows from them.

So while guilds may develop their own culture, it would be wise to include a certain prominence towards the main nexus powers. This, of course, includes Demon Lords in Magnagora and Holy Supernals in Celest. Every guild depends on these primal powers associated with their nexus, for that is where their personal power is drawn from. If a Magnagoran guild, for example, were to actively turn their backs on the Demon Lords in favor of something else, it would be logical to expect the Demon Lords to withdraw their support of that guild (i.e., skills that require Megalith power).

In any event, I have no issues with Grandmother Scorpion being honored by the Nekotai and her teachings sought. I wouldn't advise that Crow and Night be neglected, however! In any event, Scorpion cannot become a power in Glomdoring like Crow and Night, even if she wanted to (and there's no indication that she has any desire beyond being left alone). As for Bull, well, the same can be said of him, even though not much that has been released about him ... yet!

I wish I had noticed this thread much earlier.

Estarra already summed up everything nicely. I'd just like to say not to panic over anything. Nobody was saying the Nekotai's RP is completely wrong and needs to do a complete turn around. I'm certainly not going to pull everything out from under the Nekotai, send them to burn all their scorpion literature and leave them without anything.

Viravain and I are really hands off when it comes to things, and that's only because it seems to work for Glomdoring. It's certainly not because we're disinterested or unaware. If any changes are made, they'll be gentle pushes towards or away from whatever we think is appropriate.

Thank you!

Is there any chance Lamella's response to "Nekotai" can be restored, simply because that does make for a nice little bonding experience between older Nekotai and younger ones getting into things (here, we can do this quest, and even learn a bit about our guild doing so!)

While other people have mentioned some things that are part of it, I think ultimately the single biggest thing that did it is simply waiting for people to expect us to be around because we had been for a while and had become useful. We're still not part of the commune in the way the the Moondancers and Hartstone are, and no doubt never will be: we have no denizens that even know we exist, we have no particular mission, we have nothing to protect or promulgate, we're not part of any quests, the Great Spirits and their incarnations don't acknowledge our existence, no part of the forest needs us to do something to stay strong or healthy or productive, etc. We're integrated only by virtue of the consistent efforts by individual members of the guild to be present and active and useful, and the collective activity of the guild, getting to the point where other players started seeing us as part of the commune. Lots of little things helped: places where one of our skills or our guards plugged a gap, for instance. But the big things people point to when they talk about guild culture (like our links to the ancestor spirits, which some say we "stole" from the Hartstone, or our association with culture and the stage, or our ultimately-failed efforts to become seen as "keepers of lore") really never got us any acceptance. We just outlasted the problem, to get to where we are.

Our "culture" has always been laid back and friendly and simple to sum up: we don't do "requirements", just encouragements that facilitate personal expression; and we don't do much "ritual" and similar formality, we have more party-like gatherings, to help distinguish us from the other guilds. That doesn't come from our skills, or our patron, or our tutor: it comes because me and Ialie decided it would be a good idea, and it worked out well enough that everyone since has gone along with it. The important lesson here is that we took an intentional contrast to the tone of the other guilds.


I hate to say this, but "krin has a point". There, I said it, did the world end?

That's a lot better to hear than Eventru's hinting that it would be very bad for the Nekotai to continue following and adhering Scorpion.

I think that's what set off the wildfire, was Eventru's "something bad will happen" post. Not to point fingers or lay blame really but honestly you say something like that people will snap to attention and start throwing all sort of ideas/concerns/etc around and turn things into a freaking mess. I'd have worded that a little different imo or atleast not so ominous sounding.