Does it count as magical movement? Can you force someone to smack their hamster? Can you leave land in a room for people to trip over? If you can convergence someone, can't you just gust them?

Depending on how all these are answered (though all but the first are answered: No, No, Yes), I can see a case being made.

EDIT: Oh well, hmm. I guess it's okay then, if you have to actually be killed/hunger/alcohol attritioned. When it throws you to astral (though you are already there), will that screw things up?

What case is there to be made?

Estarra already said: There's no restriction on forced movement or skills.

Reality is forced movement, done deal.

Edit: No, it shouldn't mess you up, it treats it like you just teleported within the same continent.

Estarra:

There will be no shrine powers.

You must stay on astral and on ground elevation to hold the scepter. You also must be alive, conscious, not be under grace, and remain in phase (not out of phase or ghosted, etc.). Also, if you are not at an astral node, you will eventually lose the scepter. There's no restrictions on forced movement or skills.

Is teleporting / pyramiding / etc. ok? I seem to recall last year that there was some confusion on that, though at this point I do not recall exactly what it was.

As far as I can tell, magical movement or distance movement does not cause the Staff to drop - you may be confusing this with the Chaos Hamster, which does integrate into the movement routines themselves. Instead, the Staff of Ascension checks every 1.0 seconds that the holder is in a valid location for the event and is in an acceptable state.

Estarra:

There will be no shrine powers.

You must stay on astral and on ground elevation to hold the scepter. You also must be alive, conscious, not be under grace, and remain in phase (not out of phase or ghosted, etc.). Also, if you are not at an astral node, you will eventually lose the scepter. There's no restrictions on forced movement or skills.

So... fling/raise cudgel/hoist/seize/etc = byebye staff?

I vaguely recall some issue about transporting the Staff around last year. Are we allowed to use dirigibles/delivery pets to give it to our chosen Sealholder?

Estarra:

Consciousness has been a prerequisite for all Ascensions! Insanity cannot be avoided by circlet or construct, etc. and I should note that maze is disabled.

Healing skillset insanity healing? If we're blocking out the other insanity avoiding methods, I would hope so. It seems only just.

I'm pretty sure you can't give the staff to mobs, or order mobs to get the staff or anything else like that.

I think what Estarra was saying is that passive protection against insanity (Gaudiguch construct) will not slow insanity during Ascension. AFAIK, DARKCHANT TRUTH/healing have always worked during Ascension, and I haven't heard of that changing (though someone can certainly correct me if I'm wrong).

If Gaudi's construct doesn't stop them from getting insanity, I really hope Mag's construct won't make it possible for them to lose insanity...

Yeah, it seems like sort of an odd split now. If you're fortunate enough to have a lot of healers, or an active means of losing insanity, yay. Especially since illuminati cannot take healing, it sort of leaves Gaudi out in the cold for ascension reduction methods.

Even moreso if darkchant truth works, Mag being the only other org unable to produce their own healers.

You can only be healing reduction-d once per x amount of time anyways. I forget if it's an hour or a day.

And doesn't healing only redistribute the insanity anyway? I.e. what the healed person loses, the healer gains? That's how I think it was explained to me way back when I asked, at least.

Yes, that's how it works in both cases, but being able to move insanity off a more essential person is quite sigificant!

True, but being able to completely remove half your insanity is even more significant :P

Remove all skills save the common ones.

My god. Can't you people just enjoy yourselves?

No.

I have to cry on the forums until the admin change things.

Bawww.

I don't currently plan to participate in the Ascention at all, myself, unless plans change :P . To much headache for what it's worth.

EDIT: How mature. I guess this kind of contradicts the message, but really.

Bawwing has historically worked, so I'd like to see this Truth situation sorted out!