91st

Another note was attached to the missive; In league with my contemporaries, I also insist that the debate be replanted without the looming threat of war or political manipulation. As Tilruir'maehr, I have a vested interest in the continued progress of knowledge - and while one may argue a millennium of patience be the price of purity, Descendant kind has not had peace enough to even offer purity to further generations as our homes last only a few hundred years at most. As our numbers dwindle, as more leave Haelunor and the teachings of Larihei, as we debate meritocracy or birth; we must not abandon progress simple because some were given the virtue of nepotist luck. Allow Mali kind to be brought back into the fold, at least with the consideration of a debate. As one of those experimenting with the procedure, and one with the golden blood, it is my duty to declare some bias in my endeavor - but a bias should never discount the platform outright. I welcome to see our newly appointed Maheral do what is right, and bring this to the people as a whole. In the interest of polishing silver; Tyrael Vaelreos Current Tilruir'maehr and acting Okarir'maehr of Haelunor

I'm a very new player on LOTC, so I'll express the perspective of a new writer. Start with the good; I think LOTC has tons of potential, and the people can often be super welcoming and nice depending on where you go and who you talk to. There is a vague sense of 'don't talk to me I'm doing my house RP', but generally if you have some goal in mind heading to an RP most people are welcome to write back and forth with you for a bit. The magic systems, while very restrictive, are actually very interesting - and the history related to how magic has affected the world is doubly so. I often find myself reading up on in game lore books just to read about the voidal horror event that occured two continents ago. Events have been interesting, world lore is great, and alot of the stuff that is currently in use is v engaging - and I'd be lying if there wasn't some magic envy going on for those magics I don't have, or those items I wish I did. Now, with the bad; There is a weird sense that staff are trying too hard to cater to every type of group - from MRP'ers and CRP'ers, and they can't manage to make either happy because the systems they implement for both are so shallow and unfun you're picking the poison of grinding endlessly for leather so you'll survive a raid, or gambling on a d20 regardless of your character so you don't spend 4 hours lawyering up who would logically win a fight. The systems just fundamentally fight against what LOTC seems to want to be, an RP Server. After PVP was turned on, RP instantly dropped because people were so focused on camping their mining nodes and cow farms as an example, which seems odd that an RP server would implement a system that encourages people to not RP. As far as gatekeeping, it is definitely an issue, though I assume because there has been such harsh punishments to entire systems for the failings of single people. Like, it is atrociously hard for a new writer to get things like magic - and despite what people claim, if you're not instantly a useful member to a faction, you're probably not going to get a lot else either, alchemy included. Is there a way to fix that? Maybe, some executive action to encourage people to write things they want, but maybe thats best left to LOTC's culture. The last big issue, which is even super prevalent in this thread and so many others, but LOTC has literally zero respect for one another. These forums are full of 'witty one liners and comebacks', but it reeks of teenage salt over a game about blocks and their cool self inserts. Players openly comment on applications for staff, lore, items, or anything else with atrocious comments that have no bearing on the issue or subject at hand, and just to insult people. Worse than even that, but I've seen threads where staff come in and lack any iota of professionalism to pop off for likes. There is so little moderation on keeping up friendly behavior, the entire server culture has slowly descended into an absolute mess of toxicity and stupidity because there's nobody skimming the sludge that floats to the top without some grievous issue. Here's an example that occurred to me when I first joined - I got 'hired' into a group of RP'ers doing some crusader nonsense. I thought it would be chill and joined, but I quickly found out that they didn't actually care about the RP, only cared about PVP and harassing people on the road. They spent alot of time hiring new people fresh off their applications, and then doubly encouraged them to hate LOTC from the get go. These people openly talked about how RP is cringe, that its stupid to do it, and more often than not they refused to do anything RP related unless it consisted of attacking Randoms. That's all their LOTC Focused stuff, but in their discord itself it was even worse - they openly had old men talking to teenagers about how to make their privates larger through a course they had. Absolutely atrocious nonsense, and there were multiple members that were on staff teams, or knew vaguely what was going on - and apparently, that isn't even that uncommon for this stuff to just pass. So when you have groups that outright think of LOTC as a place to just break and harass until they have to do their ban appeal for being too toxic, how do you think LOTC is going to go in the long run? Bloated staff teams, poor design philosophy, and no focus on the mission statement LOTC itself references leads to this amalgam of confusion and weirdness nobody likes, and it very well won't get better until someone puts their foot down and starts cleaning up.

A lone man walks a worn, cobbled road. Wrapped in tight leathers and a burlap cloak, he holds no home to return, no place to call his own, and few reservations left to hold him back. His stomach grumbles at the thought of a hot meal, his hunger grows. Greed, like a cancer, has began to fester in his heart - he needs money. With none but the snow to hear his promise, he declares that he will never go hungry again. He will never suffer as he has - no one will stop him from securing for himself a good life. No matter how many men, women, and children he has to cut down. None will hold him back from a warm bed and the comforts of fine life. Like a security blanket, he grips the handle of his blade ever tighter, even as the wind drives tears to his eyes. Just one more step, one more town. His next job was on the horizon. --- OOC: Hi, I'm new here. I'm looking to see if anyone is interested in hiring a guard, assassin, mercenary, general laborer. Generally, just looking for an easy way to ease myself into the community and get used to the RP with a few characters (assuming this one dies), and then going from there. Simply, Vyktor has no issues with any crimes, commands, or issues. The only downside, is he's obviously a man who's loyal to minas more than any specific ideology. With that all said, I'd love to see who might be looking to hire a down on his luck, rather bad human with little morality! Discord: hatemailpersonified (because I forgot to put it in here)