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Strigae - Children of the Unseen


Esterlen
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Just now, Matt_dew said:

 

We do not care for the Cloud Temple Monk lore. Both esterlen and I are very opposed to and ignore it regardless. Strigae are cursed, and will remain cursed, no matter the remedy. It is a consensual process, and so I doubt the player will be seeking monks to aid them.

 

Being opposed to the lore for monks doesn't matter. This is how their lore works unless an LM gives special privileged otherwise. 

 

But thanks for the reply. 

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2 minutes ago, Evocress said:

 

Being opposed to the lore for monks doesn't matter. This is how their lore works unless an LM gives special privileged otherwise. 

 

But thanks for the reply. 

Perhaps I worded that wrong. We ignore them, but it is irrelevant. If that is truly how monks work, than it will be so. I merely mean to suggest that we will not be doing so personally, and that we doubt any player will either.

 

But if it possible, then it can happen.

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7 minutes ago, Matt_dew said:

Perhaps I worded that wrong. We ignore them, but it is irrelevant. If that is truly how monks work, than it will be so. I merely mean to suggest that we will not be doing so personally, and that we doubt any player will either.

 

But if it possible, then it can happen.

It's possible to say that the curse is an immediate, irreversible change to the soul. In that way, any monks attempting to 'heal' away the curse would be met with failure.

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Just now, Gladuos said:

It's possible to say that the curse is an immediate, irreversible change to the soul. In that way, any monks attempting to 'heal' away the curse would be met with no change.

It is. I'm not sure how monks work as I protest them at every opportunity. 

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Just now, Matt_dew said:

It is. I'm not sure how monks work as I protest them at every opportunity. 

If I could add further, it may be possible to say they have no souls at all. Souls are where mana is regenerated, and one cannot cast magic without mana. It would also make monk magic completely useless with them. Just a couple suggestions. :]

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Just now, Gladuos said:

If I could add further, it may be possible to say they have no souls at all. Souls are where mana is regenerated, and one cannot cast magic without mana. It would also make monk magic completely useless with them. Just a couple suggestions. :]

 

That just seems like it'll lead to over-complications.

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1 minute ago, Heero 阴 said:

 

That just seems like it'll lead to over-complications.

 

I don't know. Perhaps it would. I believe it was the explanation as for why homunculi couldn't use magic though.

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13 hours ago, Evocress said:

In the lore you state that the "Strigae" (Am I spelling it right?) is irriversable. Which is correct! If it wasn't for the monks. You have 1 week to decide to change back to mortal or not. Reguardless of any curse.

 

I'll be honest and state that I haven't even really thought about this part. I haven't participated in monk RP since around 2012 I think, and so I really am not an authority about any of those matters. Do we have to abide by these restrictions or can an exemption be made? Is the change-your-mind clause codified into rules? It's a process that would require OOC consent, and so it's unlikely that anybody would change their mind. I think people who want to become one of these creatures will be completely understanding of the various restrictions imposed on them and so I don't really see the necessity of such a rule. But if we have to roll with it, we have to roll with it, I guess.

 

13 hours ago, Evocress said:

Second. How will other dark magics effect this? 

Such as necromancy, you say they're immune to diseases but what about ones magically created?

Also Soul Puppetry, are they non-effected by it? (SP works if they get any type of SUBSTITUTION of blood).

Also would blood magic have an effect on the Strigae?

 

Again, this isn't something I know a lot about nor have I thought about it for that reason. I'd suggest that they weren't immune to magically created diseases, but would probably have some resistance to soul puppetry and blood magic. But I really don't know. If you can come up with some suggestions as to that, post them, because magic's a topic I know barely anything about. You'd be better to take that up with Matt.

 

13 hours ago, Evocress said:

Also Shamanism, elementalism/witch doctor. Will the curses they inflict hurt those cursed with Strigae?

 

I mean again, I don't know the nature of these curses but I don't see why not. Unless we're running the risk of creating characters who are a layered trifle cake of different curses. What do you suggest?

 

12 hours ago, Mithradites said:

Quibble 1, Witcher References: Not the most explicit aping of a popular fantasy universe I've seen on this server, but it's a little on-the-nose. It's mostly just in the names, but I can't help but think of Geralt and his stupid haircut when I read most of it. 

11 hours ago, Birdwhisperer said:

This was a good read and excellently written, however it's also completely plagiarized from Witcher 3: Blood and Wine. I know you guys are capable of creating something good and original, why copy other works?

 

I love the Witcher and the world of the Witcher. That's obviously very clear, and I've been inspired greatly by Sapkowski and CDProjekt's works alike in writing this lore. With that said, the key word here is inspired. You're doing me a massive disservice by insinuating that things are 'completely plagiarized' or a 'carbon copy' because if you read the post, nothing could be further than the truth. Yes, tropes, influences and themes have been taken from a variety of different sources, predominantly the Witcher, but also historical folklore, Warhammer and even the Underworld movie series (Even though Bill Nighy's gone down the drain lately). Does that make anything copied and plagiarized? No. Every word of the original document is my own or Matt's. We are not using anybody else's work and trying to pass it off as our own, even if we are references other forms of media.

 

12 hours ago, Mithradites said:

Quibble 2, Quotations in the Fluff: I'm not too fond of quotes that never occurred in RP. I understand why you did it from a narrative standpoint, but it still irks me a little. Also, what's a 'ruahdrel'? Is that Elven? If it is I'm impressed. I don't recognise the words in it myself, and I've gone over that stupid dictionary a dozen times during my server history.

 

The answer to this is simple: We did this because we thought it was cool. We thought it added some cool flavor, you know, and saw it as a way of including a wide breadth of historical characters and personas in our lore. This lore is inclusive by nature, not exclusive, and I've always adhered to that principle. With that said, if anybody doesn't want their character being used in this post, I'll take them out. I don't have much right to use them without your permission, after all, I just thought it was a cute nod to various prominent individuals of the server's history. As for the ruahdrel - consider it a placeholder name. Find me a translation for 'blood-sucker' or something of the like and I will sub it in post-haste!

 

12 hours ago, Mithradites said:

Quibble 3, Anything involving Aeldin: The wondrous human utopia/exodus-retirement-village triggers me. But it's okay, because I know you're unaware that my gender is elf, and how it effects me. I forgive you.

You know what us human players are like! Alas, it can't be helped. If it's an issue to the LMs or the general playerbase, we'll change it. Location is not the most important part of this lore by any means.

12 hours ago, Mithradites said:

The origin of the Strigae with the 'Unseen' and the blood ritual would also raise some flags, I'm sure, with the super-grounded LMs who prefer all things to have a classification and source. I messed around with bizzaro, unknowable horrors myself when I was LMing back in Athera and I wish you luck.

SupremacyOps sort of raised this when we talked to him about this. I think the conclusion we came to is that the original document of this post was chiefly reflective of IC belief and not necessarily canon. The Unseen are probably aengudaemonic in nature and from our world - nobody really knows in-character. It's a mystery. If we have to come to an OOC canon, then we'll do just that. We just thought it makes sense that some lunatic sorcerer who accidentally summons them came to the (Probably erroneous) conclusion that they were unspeakable demonic horrors from another plane. I'm not really sure what to do with this as again it's something I'm happy to compromise on, so if you have any suggestions that would make things more acceptable to the detail-stickler LMs, I am all ears!

 

Thank you for your kind words though, father Michael. Of all people your criticism is valued immensely. 

 

12 hours ago, Jistuma said:

 

So, I'll just have to point out the difference of strengths and weaknesses between these creatures and other playable creatures. First off starting with the strigae:

 

I've already responded to this in a prior post, quoting you directly. Please, please read it and respond to what I've said there, for the sake of my sanity. It's very easy to manipulate information (Especially strengths and weaknesses) in a particular way that serves your agenda. I can do it as well. You need to look at things from a much more critical viewpoint instead of just falling back on lore orthodoxy and conservatism. I'd expect somebody who pushed through 'mud maiden' lore to be infinitely more open-minded.


Regardless, I'm prepared to add more weaknesses to achieve the balance that you want. Offer me a few suggestions, and I'll consider them. I think you need to stop looking at lore from an adversarial, challenger's perspective (This should be denied because of x) and instead of evaluate things based on merit alone, especially in a circumstance such as this one where I will happily compromise.

12 hours ago, Master Khen'aum said:

Add a weakness to sunlight (perhaps the legend about the sun being an aengul is true?)

11 hours ago, Harrrison said:

Perhaps try a weakness very akin to what I face as a Darkstalker player, one that's been suggested already: the sun. Although, don't go for straight up burning in the sun, that's just retarded. How about agitation to bright lights or direct natural sunlight? A simple brimmed hat or hood would be enough to stop the annoyance, being something that'd eventually grow to be a known staple of them - thus becoming a weakness.

 

I thought about this and I thought it was too cliche and impractical to make sunlight intolerable to strigae. Given that night lasts only what, 20 minutes on the server, I just don't consider it viable. But a weakness (Diminished capabilities) in sunlight is something I'm willing to think about, definitely.

12 hours ago, Master Khen'aum said:

maybe add the fact that they don't like acrid smells (make up a few, tell a few others about it, and then shut up about it) to act as a sort of vampire repellent.

No, I actually like this. I'll consider a few options about things that can act as 'vampire repellent'. 

 

9 hours ago, Eranikus said:

Also, what happens if they opt to pursue animal blood as a substitute for the blood of the descendants? Does it work like certain vampiric lore where it sates them for a time? Does it work the exact same as descendant blood?

 

No, they can't really do this. Blood is like alcohol to them, and they're all inherently alcoholics. It's technically not necessary, but it's damn hard to go cold turkey - and why would they? We could easily say that there's something (Genus?) present in the blood of descendants that they can't get from animal blood. It's an intricacy that again, I'm open to suggestions for. 

 

12 hours ago, Birdwhisperer said:

As for the lore itself, there are some other issues. The completely unkillable thing, for one. That's actually not too bad, there are other 'unkillable' monsters on the server, though there's usually at least some way to PK them. (Liches, for example, are unkillable unless you have their phylactery. I'm not sure if there's been new lore on how to PK a wraith but there is at least one method I'm aware of.) You'll need to elaborate on how it works when put into practice on the server, however. You say 'with enough time' but you need to elaborate what that means. You'll also need to elaborate on how this works with the memory loss rule.

 

Think of it through the lens of a lich's phylactery. I believe I mentioned in the original post that the minimum time for regenerating a new body once the brain has been destroyed is 9 years - that's 9 solid weeks of not having a character combined with absolutely no use of the Monks under any circumstances. I definitely think that's a decent drawback, combined with the concept of being too weak to even walk for the first few years in a new body. But I want to make it clear that the time it takes to regenerate might have a minimum but is usually more depending on how a striga has died, on a case-by-case basis. If a pyromancer turns you to ash, you can expect to be out of action for the greater part of a real-life year. Similarly, if another striga doesn't help you regenerate for whatever reason, you can expect to stay dead. If you're killed by another striga, you can expect to stay dead. The memory loss rule still applies in all cases. I agree that it practically needs to be elaborated on a tad, but that's something that wouldn't require more than a few lines of clarification. The body's destroyed, the ethereal spirit lingers around, if another striga finds that spirit then over the span of a nine year minimum period they can regenerate a new body. I think it's not much different to lich lore in terms of being 'unkillable', in fact it's more difficult to cope with because of the time restriction.

 

12 hours ago, Birdwhisperer said:

as ironic as it sounds, you're going to have problems with all of these weaknesses. Those who have experience playing monsters/evil characters can attest, everyone has everything necessary to kill you.

 

I was thinking this: the counter is, you're not meant to be found out. Obviously this is the same with frost witches, but the foremost aspect of striga RP in the lore we've written is that they're masters of deception and hiding in plain sight. I don't think we're going to be that under-powered. 

 

11 hours ago, 吳憾戰士14 said:

 

I'd consider it a little hypocritical for the LT to not accept this lore on account of it being heavily based on something from the witcher, because they themselves are known to do something similar with something that rhymes with Bark Shoals.

 

10 hours ago, Will (TauFirewarrior) said:

Everything on this server is inspired from something else. If we didn't use inspiration we'd probably have a lot less ideas to go about. 

 

^^^ I agree completely.

 

11 hours ago, 吳憾戰士14 said:

provided these super powerful creatures don't rambo into major city centres with the intent of causing as much mayhem as possible, hate it when special snowflake creature RP amounts to nothing but a glorified boss fight without any lead up.

 

13 hours ago, Sagwort said:

What would these vampires be doing on a day to day basis?  Would the "tone" be there or would it just be monsters running around and attacking people and not much more complex than that? 

They won't be running around attacking people and causing mayhem. They'd be blending into society trying not to draw attention to themselves, or alternatively living on the fringes of society. They are supposed to be masters of subversion and not destruction. I've always held to the principle that this kind of lore should have an OOC vision of providing RP and dynamic RP enrichment to others, often to the detriment of those playing the characters. You subordinate your own interests, plans and often your enjoyment for the benefit of the greater tapestry that is the community's story. If prospective striga players cannot accept that and want to simply cause as much chaos as possible, they will not be playing strigae. Strigae are inherently secretive creatures who don't particularly want their peace disturbed by mortals paying excess attention to their kind. This lore is for the server as a whole to develop roleplay out of, not simply a small minority. I think people feel disillusioned with frost witch RP because they don't perceive it as following this OOC vision. 

 

10 hours ago, Jacko said:

On another note, little confirmation, do they come from Aeldin? I had seen it mentioned but I believe the lore focus' much more on a narrative that it seems overshadow their geographical origins and which makes it a little vague.

 

Originally yes, but this is changeable and unimportant.

 

10 hours ago, Jacko said:

I was also curious as to why Vampires cannot use something like Necromancy or other dark arts? Was that because of the limited source material? Or because of the need for restrictions to appease the staff? I would also like to know a bit more about why they cannot use the dark arts from an RP sense. If I've in fact simply missed the explanation could you point it out to me?

 

Basically, we thought it was ridiculous to have the boons of a striga combined with those of any sort of mage. Yes, it's a restriction to appease the staff but also we personally feel it'd be too unfair and unbalanced to have things any other way. We could attribute this reasoning to something like their greatly diminished ability to naturally produce genus and mana. Exerting themselves through the use of what tiny amounts of mana they have latent would just kill them, for example. 

 

10 hours ago, Jacko said:

Thirdly I was curious on whether you plan to add anything further to the lore once the lore is inevitably accepted? Maybe from other sources perhaps? Minor touches spanning a few different attachments to further flesh out the more cultural side of the Vampires, rather than an explanation and establishment, which is what this seemingly is?

 

Yes, I'd love to do this. I'm a massive fan of any cultural development. I'm already even in the process of it now, but if this lore never sees the light of day there'll be no point. You're welcome to help me if you want! 

7 hours ago, Gladuos said:

It's said they only devolve over time by overindulging in blood, but I believe it'd be better for it to be the other way around. By devolving from not drinking enough in a certain amount of time. Giving incentive for players to NOT do this type of RP in a certain amount of time is incentive for inactivity.

We did talk about this, but I thought it would be detrimental to the general feel of the lore and just result in unnecessary drama if we put players in a position where they are forced to cause as much conflict as possible. It'll get to the point where nobody finds it enjoyable. An issue I have with frost witches is that they're always forced into a particular archetype because of the constant necessity to prey on mortals. I want striga to be diverse - I'm not advocating for 'vegan vampires' here, but rather a diverse range of striga characters whose individual approach to their addiction to blood is different and calculated, as opposed to 'well we'll just sit in a tower and try and lure some people in to eat them'. Not trying to bash you here, frosties, but this is another difference. 

 

8 hours ago, zaezae said:

Question, can they shift their appearance to be any that they desire, or do they simply have on appearance apart from their beastial that cannot change?

There are only two forms and neither of them can change. A bestial form and a mortal one. A mortal form is what you looked like prior to transformation, with a few differences such as paler skin, green-yellow eyes and slightly sharper teeth. A bestial form is the true form and is still humanoid, save animalistic facial features. Neither form carries any real benefit except arguably longer teeth in the bestial form and the ability to blend into society in mortal form. Talons can be grown in either form. When agitated, emotional, feeding, hunting, fighting or exposed to massive quantities of blood (A battlefield) a striga is forced to assume their bestial form. 

 

4 hours ago, TeaLulu said:

Anyways tl;dr: more spooks but like, human-style urban-center fashioned spooks. +1 seems like the humans would benefit from a type of "evil creature" roleplay that they, in general, seem to be interested in.

Lulu's made effectively all the points I have, and better at that. I implore you to read her post.

 

4 hours ago, Eileen The Crow said:

Balance is an important aspect of magic and creatures, Aerial. That is why it is brought up in most threads. Because the power balance on lotc is delicate, if not already imbalanced. Like Jistuma said, any big strength should be counteracted with a large weakness or drawback. This is critical for player characters. Event creatures, Antags, etc, get a pass because they exist to push the story forward or in another direction. Player characters exist to add to the story, or participate in it. Something very powerful can affect that. And as it is in this current state, it is unbalanced.

Refer to this post and my prior ones, specifically my immediately last one where I compared strengths and weaknesses of a striga and frost witch. I don't think things are unbalanced. Super-strength is a myth - I never said anything about it. But if that's the general consensus more weaknesses can be added. Advocates with bias and a political agenda have endeavored to manipulate and omit strengths and weaknesses so as to prove their point, but I can do that just as well. 

1 hour ago, Gladuos said:

It's possible to say that the curse is an immediate, irreversible change to the soul. In that way, any monks attempting to 'heal' away the curse would be met with failure.

I'd be in favor of doing something like this. Unfortunately I know nothing about souls and the lore submission post told me to stray away from ever mentioning them. 

 

I think Matt has already addressed most of your concerns, @Dohvi.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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When it comes to night/day, should I engage in something like an RP fight or whatever, I'll let the other person know that I'll be counting it as whatever the initial time of day was throughout the entire fight, unless it goes un for something like an hour and we loop the sun/moon three times.

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OMFG I LOVE THIS 

 

+111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

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Is it possible to limit these to just event team creatures? They seem a tad too overdone for normal players as it currently stands.

 

That or test it as an ET only for two months or however long and then decide to spread to the eyes. Though if the testing fails then the lore is denied?

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22 minutes ago, Evocress said:

Is it possible to limit these to just event team creatures? They seem a tad too overdone for normal players as it currently stands.

 

That or test it as an ET only for two months or however long and then decide to spread to the eyes. Though if the testing fails then the lore is denied?

If you would read the rest of the thread, you'll find they are not "too much". There are much more powerful creatures out there free to other players.

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23 minutes ago, Evocress said:

Is it possible to limit these to just event team creatures? They seem a tad too overdone for normal players as it currently stands.

 

That or test it as an ET only for two months or however long and then decide to spread to the eyes. Though if the testing fails then the lore is denied?

 

Its stated on the lore that RP would be engaged and then they would have to follow through with a Creature Application. I also as the Event Director believe these creatures are more than capable of being portrayed by players. Golems, Frost Witches, and any other creature have their own players that apply and work with. Strigae have definitely more than enough weaknesses to be playable by anyone on the server and even yourself.

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I suggested a test by event team members to see if they work. Which I suggest with any creature lore being added. Not anything against this lore.

 

ps: I've read every single post

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I believe a test would be excessively redundant. Players that apply should be trusted like any other creature. There is no need for it.

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