I'm not saying 'you're wrong, you're right' - frankly, I read very little of the discussion - I just saw a few key possible points of misrepresentation and offered my own opinion, from observation and what have you.

Nothing more, nothing less.

After having a full read of Arcanis' post....

He is an Adherent of the Hidden Temple in the Templars.

He is a graduate of the Ancestral Glade of the Moonharts (honours) and the Order of the Secret Flame (honours).

Before the opening of the Eternal Flame and the founding of the Gaudiguch, the Illuminati were known as a sect of primarily dracnari mystics. Their inner teachings were closely kept occult secrets, guarded zealously by a subsect known only as the Guardians of the Hidden Temple (the 'hidden temple' is often regarded as a metaphor for their spiritual teachings rather than an actual structure).

You have to do 'tasks' just to join the 'secret club' to get to the backroom of the collegium for the rest of the tasks.

You can optionally do a task to gather packages from the dracnari hidden in dark robes around the city to gain the trust of another 'secret group' for the Epic Quest.

Illuminati historically are a secret cabal

Templars historically were a secret order after they were all ordered to be executed.

No, there isn't anything that is secretive, cabalistic, or cultist in Gaudiguch... except just about everything.

The only thing you have done, Arcanis, is prove, time and again since you joined, that you haven't the faintest idea of what Gaudiguch is about, what the Illuminati are about, or what anything else is about.

As for the taks for the cityfavours, that isn't there because of "finally getting around to" that's there because if people are going to be so generally lazy and then whine that they are not getting favoured for it... well let's give them the bare minimum of work and see who can even do that and give them a favour for it. The ones who want to help the city will continue even after CR3, the ones who don't won't. As it stand now, the only people who are working to help the city are the same ones who were doing it before the favours were offered for it.

Anyways, this is turning into tl;dr. I will close with saying, feel free to contest me if you think you know what Gaudiguch is all about, cause I can gaurantee you the Krins, Dowapaas, and Traces of Gaudiguch are not going to get you far as your support structure.

You are just taking small examples out of things and trying to build your own picture. Also Eventru pretty much said what I was trying to say. The Illuminati (and I guess the Templars if you want to throw them partly into it) are mystics of the city, and they are the spiritual core of it, but also the city is that of a freedom. You continuously state that you hate people who think "we are free, we can enjoy life by being crazy here", even though some can be annoying about it, it is part of Gaudiguch's culture and you will have to deal with it if you want to be leader. Don’t think it is part of Gaudiguch? Read the Histories.

I could just grab little examples here and there to also show you that Gaudiguch is both a free and mystical city (heck mystical is everywhere) and not a "cultist secretive group that try to play behind an image", but I cant be bothered with those types of childish discussion. If you want to change and mold Gaudiguch because you don’t like what part of it is about, then sorry but I doubt you would go far trying to change the people before having a revolt on your hands.

I don’t mean to try an attack others by posting (unlike some people), just stating it how it is because I don’t like it when things are twisted around.

Anyway we are getting way off topic here, pretty much done responding concerning this.

I'm pretty sure Gregori knows that Gaudiguch is a city of freedoms. However, it's not one-dimensional, and so it is ALSO about secrets and mysteries beneath the surface.

Eventru's post pretty much contradicted anything you had to say about Gaudiguch. You tried to claim that it wasn't cabalisitc or culty or secretive and his post completely corrected that. Illuminati are not free and crazy mystics out to have a good time and do wild and crazy stuff.

I have never once said Gaudiguch is not about having fun, in fact, I encourage people to have fun and be whimsical. What I do not encourage is the concept that Freedom = Do what you want and damn the consequences. I do not encourage Freedom = be as stupid as you desire and cry when you get told to smarten up.

As far as small examples go.. Sure, if by small examples you mean... just about everything in Gaudiguch.

I get the picture of Gaudi being a place where if you go to a party and aren't having secret notes slipped into your pocket you're just kind of a tourist there for the booze. Having secret cults and societies maneuvering for wealth and power in the city under the surface glitz of parties and craziness seems so much more fun and in-depth than just "We're FREE!".

Yeah!

^^ This

Any other nails you want to hammer in place? Right on the head.

I oppose the drunken party stereotype. I quite enjoy the nice quiet lack of partying that has set upon the city as of late.

There are crazy drunken parties, elegant cocktail parties, balls, masquerades, parades... all sorts of things that could be done without being drunken frat party style.

But when they're held for pleasure, they're the balls that I like best...


Sorry... I couldn't even help myself... I love that song and Sylphas made me think of it!

Unfortunately we have the group of people that read one history excerpt about a party Gaudiguch had where there was craziness going on, we were opened up with an NPC that was "you can't join unless you get high and drunk and party hearty", and lastly (though this is not an attack on the admin or the character itself) the only words we generally hear out of our Patron when she speaks is "you don't have enough parties. Why are you not drunk?". So you put all this into the perspective of people who have shallow pool RP and what do you get? Gaudiguch is a frat house.

I do take partial blame though for allowing the wet tshirt contest, which instead of just being a fun thing, further cemented the frat house mentality.

Yeah. I admit that at first I joined because I thought gaudi fit Arix's personality at the time, but now that I've killed the Boozemaster and dumped the body in the river, I'm hoping Gaudi moves into something like Sylphas described. And it doesn't hurt that one of the more vocal advocates for 'do what you want and damn the consequences' is currently spending time as a potted plant.

See, the thing to remember about Frat Houses though is that the best ones also have secret societies. Skull and Bones anyone? Think they don't have keggers? Sure they do! But, they also plot to take over the world and have creepy ceremonies with.... well, skulls and bones.

The point is, nothing is ever just one thing! Or at least, nothing good is.

Gaudiguch is interesting to me in the sense that I see the City as one whirling dervish. Though the tenants of bona fide Sufism are ascetic rather than indulgent, consider that a Sufi whirls in their frenetic dance in order to reach a heightened state great lucidity and clarity, of closeness with the divine. If you look at gaudiguch as a whole, the drunken revelries, wanton carnality and smoke filled tents are not unlike the spinning skirt of the dervish, an exterior expression of losing oneself in physical exertion while the more spiritual center is hidden within.

My take anyway.

You should totally have let Elostian compete in that.

Skull and Bones is a fictional entity. It absolutely does not exist, and you'll not mention it again if you know what's good for you.

Of course it is.

People actually take that as a statement of what Gaudiguch should be? She's been espousing that everywhere, always.

And I definitely get what Kaalak is saying. The Charge of the Goddess in Wicca states "All acts of love and pleasure are my rituals." Voodoo and many other traditions routinely have liqoured up, cigar smoking spirits that take offerings of alcohol. Plenty of cultures have rituals where you dance until you reach a trance state. It's as valid a method for reaching beyond ones mind as asceticism can be, if you look around the world, but taking that to mean things are just for fun and anarchy is really a slap in the face to all of the inspirations for Gaudiguch as well as an assertion that one-sided, skin-deep RP is acceptable.