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Next, a Haelunorian enters the room and angrily protests, "Our Sohaer is Calathân an Naedwylm."

A hastily written letter, alongside the delievery of multiple old wines and drinks would be delievered to the Grand King, with the letter reading. "To the Grand King THURGRIM SILVERBRAID, I must pen you a deep apology out of embarrassment for the mistake carried out by the penning of the name upon letter and I must profusly apologise for such a mistake made. It is reassured to the Grand King that no such mistake should be made and he may enjoy the gifts of apology delievered to himself. Signed, The Office of the Legate."

The diplomat Sergius Merentel shed a tear upon being fired by Kristoff "I guess I will have to look for another job."

Kristoff fires the diplomat who had miswritten the Dwarven King’s name. “Idiot,” Kristoff pens a letter of apology to the Grand King himself.

Bon'Ox Flat-Zniffa, the newly converted & then un-converted goblin squints at the missive. He remembers seeing the Queen on the battle field, fighting along-side her. But he did not notice her fall. The one-armed goblin sighs - he wished he had ask about her time serving in the Coalition War with his father before her death.

melee weapons still take 2 emotes to draw and attack, and 2 more emotes if you're disarmed at any point. the emote factor beyond that point isn't incredibly huge in the scope of CRP given how much of an advantage bows would still have. bows guarantee that you can attack from a distance, and thus cannot be disarmed while still having the potential to deal crippling damage no matter where your shot hits. so all of my previous points still apply here, zero regulation in every area outside of emotes with all of the benefits. you'd be surprised what situations people will try to use bows and arbalests or w/e in, ive seen players just blast arrows and bolts into tightly packed crowds trying to hit the single enemy in the middle

Howdy. I’ve become a bit more involved with villainy/raiding activities for the first real time in my LotC career in the past couple of months, and, in the process of this, I’ve come to experience some of the server’s lesser-known mechanics - specifically, what I wanna do on this thread is prompt a discussion among Mod Team and players about redstone doors. This is just gonna be a quick little post I’m writing while making lunch, so I’ll blitz through the key points below. What is a redstone door? Also known as a hidden or Dwarven door, a redstone door is a mechanic not everyone on the server knows about. It allows you to make, as the name suggests, secret doors involving redstone/pistons built into walls. They’re operated via a secret switch (which appears invisible on an assigned block), so you can only really locate these with prerequisite knowledge (someone told you about the door), intuition (i.e., a dead-end hallway might suggest there’s a hidden door here), or by accident. When you interact with a hidden switch for a door, you get the following chat prompt: All redstone doors have a ‘key’ - this can be any item that exists in Minecraft. The player setting up the door (I won’t go into the mechanics of how you actually build a redstone door for this thread; this is just explaining how everyone else can interact with them) places this item in a frame on the other side of the switch-block, and the door will only operate if you use the correct Minecraft item on the hidden switch block. If you do, you get this prompt: This will trigger the redstone, causing the pistons to open a secret passageway momentarily. Pretty cool, right? There’s no denying this is a cool mechanic that adds an extra layer for thievery, heisting, and defence - as a result, you most commonly see these kinds of doors for nation vaults or CA lairs. For the purposes of this thread, there’s a few key things we need to note about how these doors work, though, and those are as follows: 1. These doors can technically be brute-forced. In theory, you can your buddies can fill your inventories up with every accessible item on LotC and try them on a hidden door until you figure out which one is the key. While this can take up a large amount of time, you are technically guaranteed to be able to open a redstone door if you put enough time into it. 2. In balancing out the above, the owner of a redstone door can change the key item at any time without any cost/drawback. 3. A location/build has no limit on the amount of redstone doors that can be installed. 4. According Mod Team precedent (as of 5th May), redstone doors cannot be lockpicked, either with the /lockpick command or the Lockpick item. The Balance of Access Before getting into the meat and potatoes of the thread, I think it’s important to understand a key facet of how conflict/villainy rules work on LotC. I’m going to list some rules below; see if there’s anything in common about them. - Raid ladders can be used to ascend 20+ blocks in a sheer line, allowing you to climb most town walls and buildings. - Lockpick items exist to boost your odds at breaking down Iron Doors. - Iron Door spam is disallowed; in most raids/heists, Mods will open all remaining doors if you manage to open 2 or 3. - Bolt-Cutters allow you to bypass Iron Bar windows. - ‘Keys’ can be taken from an incapacitated persona for temporary access through nearby locks. What these sampling constitutes is a rare show of consistency in LotC rules - no location on the server should be impenetrable. Whether that’s for heists, raids, or whatever else kind of villainy, there’s a clear commitment to the roleplay dynamism that - if someone commits to it - they can break in somewhere. Obviously, busting through a few Iron Doors to a gatehouse is a smaller undertaking than heisting a nation’s storage room, but that’s a proportional scaling. Barring raid ladders (and redstone doors themselves), lockpicking is balanced via RNG - while Lockpick items improve your chances, RNG might not end up on your side and you might jam a critical door. So, where do redstone doors fit in this meta? At first glance, they seem to gel just fine. Like I said, it is possible to brute force redstone doors without any RNG element, unlike Iron Doors, if you’re willing to put in enough time to figure out what the key item is. Ergo, the tradeoff for RNG (i.e., the balancing factor) is time. So, with that in mind, it seems pretty fair in the system. At least, it would be pretty fair, if that was the end of the story. Easy, Free & Everywhere This is where some of the key facts I mentioned earlier come into play - namely, the fact that you can place several redstone doors in any given location and the fact that the key item can be easily changed. While the lack of RNG gives you a guarantee to be able to force-open redstone doors with enough time, let’s consider how that plays out in the following scenario. - You’re the rightful lord of House Poopsburg. Your conniving half-brother, though, has usurped your claim and driven you from the realm. Eager for revenge, you conspire to steal Fartsteel, the ancestral Thanhium blade of your House. - You spend a few days staking out your brother’s keep. Iron Doors and gates, you’re willing to take your chances with, but there’s a problem - the treasure room where Fartsteel is held is guarded by a hidden redstone door … - No matter; the true heir of House Poopburg is nothing if not resourceful. Your stakeout efforts continue, until you spot one of your half-brother’s retainers heading towards the treasure room, and he’s holding an emerald! Later that night, you steal inside the castle once more, and slot an emerald into the hidden door to open it! Huzzah! - You quickly look around the treasure room, but … wait, this isn’t a treasure room; all the chests are marked with “wood” or “stone” -- this is just a normal supply room. Well, no matter, Fartsteel has to be somewhere in the castle. You do a little more searching, and find another hidden door deeper inside the supply room; surely, this must be it! - Alas, with no clues as to the key, you have only one option: you’ll have to bring an assortment of items with you on your next break-in, and hope for the best. - So, you do just that. Eager to claim Fartsteel, you grab two close friends and embark upon a heist! Somehow, fortune smiles on you, and you’re able to get back to the second hidden door, and you get even luckier - you happen to be carrying a Pufferfish, and the door opens! … But there’s an Iron Door right behind it. Well, no worries, you can just lockpick it and - … oh. Door’s jammed. You’re forced to retreat. - Always next time, right? Except your half-brother has seen that the doors in his keep have been lockpicked, and he decides to change all the locks on the hidden doors immediately. You now have to figure out the locks again for both doors … not an impossible task. You manage to brute-force the first door on your next attempt, but not the second, because you can only carry so many items in your inventory on top of your weapons, lockpicks, etc. When your half-brother sees the lockpicked door signs, he simply changes the hidden key every time. You get the idea. Your odds of succeeding in a scenario where there’s both hidden doors and Iron Doors become tiny when there’s multiple hidden doors. Since the locks can be changed so easily, there’s no real value to doing investigation RP (i.e., maybe spying on or capturing people from the keep) to figure out what the key is in roleplay, because unless you succeed in a break-in in one fell swoop (bypassing X Iron Doors and Y hidden doors), the owner of the location will know someone knows the key by virtue of the signs left by lockpicking a door, and can change it freely and as many times as they want. If there’s multiple hidden doors (which is perfectly possible) then the chance of BOTH (a) brute-forcing all hidden doors, AND (b) succeeding on every necessary door lockpick makes trying to infiltrate a location nearly or virtually impossible in some cases. Mod Inconsistency The above is compounded by the fact that different Mods have taken wildly different interpretations on how redstone doors work in the rules, which, in some cases, have made them astronomically broken. I won’t list individual Mods who gave the verdicts, but I’ll list the verdicts themselves to indicate the extent of this issue and exemplify further how redstone doors are imbalanced as are. I’ll also flag that these verdicts seem to be standalone and inconsistent, so you could get a completely different response depending on what Mod you’re dealing with. - Some Mods have ruled that you’re not allowed to brute-force redstone doors. - Some Mods have ruled you’re not allowed to search walls for redstone doors. In both instances, an individual Mod verdict like the above would effectively make redstone doors impassable by any means whatsoever. Raiding? No way. Heisting? Now how. Obviously, I think it’s probably clear to most people reading this that these verdicts are pretty absurd - it absolutely ruins the heist system. But the fact these verdcits have been given in the past is pretty indicative of the dysfunction of the system. Rebalancing Redstone Doors Based on the above, I’m of the view that the current use of redstone doors isn’t really in the spirit of the rules. All other forms of locks allow a balanced way of bypassing them - Iron Doors can’t be spammed, and can be lockpicked, with better odds afforded by acquiring the Lockpick item. Iron Bars can be bypassed with Bolt-Cutters. Walls can be scaled with Raid Ladders. Glass can be smashed. Fences can be broken. Guards can be killed. But Redstone Doors? While a given Redstone Door can be brute-forced or figured out, this doesn’t mean a whole lot if there’s multiple of them and their key can be changed on the fly, with no RP, and no consequence. So, what am I proposing to fix this? I actually have a few solutions in mind for balancing out Redstone Doors, and I’ll run through these below. A. A single location - such as a castle or building - may only use one Redstone Door (this is a simple matter of build regulation). B. The key to a Redstone Door may only be changed once every two-weeks (I say two-weeks specifically because this is what a Heist cooldown is; this solution would require either Redstone Doors to be coded with a cooldown (unlikely to happen) or for Modreqs to be required to change keys). C. Redstone Doors may be lockpicked via roleplay, using the same roll metrics as a Wooden Door (i.e. you would modreq to request to lockpick a Redstone Door - the rolls are for a Wooden Door because you’re trading the security of an Iron Door for the secrecy of a Redstone one). D. For the purposes of “door spamming”, a Redstone Door counts as an Iron Door e.g. if there are three Iron Doors behind a Redstone Door, players will only be required to bypass the Redstone Door and the first Iron Door. So, that’s that, really. I think these changes would work to bring the use of Redstone Doors in like with all other forms of locks and preserve a balance of security and access. As is, the combination of multiple Redstone Doors with the ability to change the key at will practically makes things such as Heists impossible. Thanks for reading, and leave your thoughts below.

"Yeh focken pile o shoites, he was King loike e focken' century ago." Grumbled the old Khenarlum Doomforged, awakened by his kindred to make angry comments about Orenians once more!

Changed Status to Under Review

Attack once every round (melee) VS Attack once every two rounds ONLY after you've already "connected" to your bow all magic-style. By simple action economy melee is still better than archery and there are still situations that 100% call for melee weapons (enclosed spaces, your enemy is right in front of you, etc.)

Narvi, squints at the letter and ponders aloud “Are they tryin’ tae insult us?” He muttered, grimacing at the fatal error.

Andromeda of Ba’as, Queen Mother of Balian, tenderly lit a solitary candle as the heart-wrenching news of her beloved daughter's passing reached her ears. Despite her diminished regard for Balian since relinquishing her throne, her maternal love for her children remained unwavering. With a solemn prayer on her lips, "May Mirtas watch over her precious children and bless Balian," she gently blew out the flickering flame and found solace in the seclusion of her chamber within the hallowed halls of the Hand of Horen.

GRAND KING THURGRIM SILVERBRAID squints at the invitation bound for Urguan, reading and re-reading its designated recipient. Then, looks to the dwarf courier at his side. "... Are we receivin' letters from nearly three decades ago?" The courier shrugs.

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MC Name: Smmer Discord: Smmer Image: Description of Image: Baby Brutes Crayon Self Portrait Dimensions: 3x3 (landscape not portrait)

No

The Queen’s Royal Funeral 3rd of Sun’s Smile of 112 B.A With the Passing of Her Royal Majesty Queen Sybille I of Balian, the heir apparent, His Highness Alexandros Casimir shall ascend to the throne of Balian. King Alexandros the Second of his name declares a three-day mourning period for all residents of the realm after the late Queen’s passing. A Funeral shall be held on Horen’s Calling of 113 B.A. Friends of the Queen and realm, who displayed unwavering faith and stood by her side throughout the length of her reign, are duly invited: TO THE REALMS OF CANONDOM His Holiness, Caius, High Pontiff of the Holy Mother Church. @MadOne His Royal Majesty Ivan VIII, Dual King of Haense and Ruska, and his noble pedigree @indiana105 Her Royal Majesty Nataliya Leopoldina, Dual Queen of Haense and Ruska, and her noble pedigree @kaylacita His Apostolic Majesty John I, King of Aaun, and his noble pedigree @Ramon Her Royal Majesty Adalia I, Queen of Petra, and her noble pedigree @mothsthetic His Royal Highness Alfred I, Prince of Reinmar, and his noble pedigree @Gandhi His Royal Highness Leon I, Prince of Reinmar, and his noble pedigree @BuilderBagel Her Royal Majesty Tar-Caraneth Aryantë, Queen of Númendil, and her noble pedigree @AstriaS Her Royal Highness Ramona de Pelear, Sovereign Princess of Hyspia, and her noble pedigree @_mady07 His Grace Ser Sterling Blaxton-Whitewood, Duke of Barbantine, and his noble pedigree @_RoyalCrafter_ HONOURED ALLIES AND FRIENDS Her Grace Ashwýn Sythaèrin, Sohaer of Haelun'or, and her advisors. @Asutto His Grandees, Thurgrim Silverbraid, Grand King of Urguan, and the noble Clan Elders. @CharlestheDwarf Her Royal Highness Idril Sylvaeri, Princess of Amathine., and her noble pedigree. @JJosey His Royal Majesty Ellenore av Eiriksdóttir, King of Norland, and his noble pedigree @Elennanore Her Royal Majesty Reine Medea Amaranta Viola De Astrea, Queen of Vikela, and her noble pedigree @JTMedea Her Royal Majesty, Lenora Jusmia, Sovereign of Vortice, and her noble pedigree. @Bethinwonderland Signed, His Royal Majesty, Alexandros II, by the Grace of GOD, King of Balian, Prince of Providence, Duke of Helena, Reutov, Sunholdt and Lorraine, Count of Pompourelia and Kositz, Viscountess of Eflen and Anatis, Baron of Renzfeld, Brucca, Valens, Malenos, Montcoure and Ciavola, Lord of Portoregne, Atrus and Monterosa, Warden of La Costa Rubinissima, Keeper of of St Lothars Hold, Protector of the Heartlanders and the South, etcetera

Damn - my goblin converted to 'Xanism' turning the event and made a little song 😭 Very fun however, enjoyed it a lot. Surely, with paladins of Xan gone - the shamans will finally get a buff now right? :3

Finally voidal magic is worth while again.

The announcement came with a mixture of disbelief, shock, regret and anger. Elianos had taken to withdrawing to the Palace for much of his free time nowadays. He had become reclusive, despite his recent marriage, his sisters marriage, Ari and Xanders children being born- there was just no happiness left, he felt. He had been angry when he had last spoken to his mother properly. She had met with Ophelia and himself as they had argued- some family squabbles relating to life choices. You know, that sort of thing. He had dismissed Sybille and refused to explain. At least now she does not have to worry about it, he thought. Elianos took the missive in hand. He had already been delivered this inheritance her farewell letter had spoke of. A banner he would truly treasure forever, for the memories it held. The letter she had left struck an unspoken cord in his heart- and some fury rose before it dispelled quickly. Now just wasn't the time. But what time was it? What did he do now? Did he seek out his siblings, his wife, or set off to explore and be free? Be free, he thought, was something he had fought for as a child. To sail the seas and to adventure. They had wanted to be pirates, after all.

Baby Brute Smash