CountJuno88

*waves his hand towards the most recent speaker. "It is like this individual has suggested. Do not call upon us to satiate your hatred. Go and fight your own battles outside of our borders and leave us in peace. Your war-mongering shall no longer be welcomed amongst these lands. Involve us in your devious ploys no longer."

*points at the hooded figure. "Ah. She hopes by avoiding the real issues that she shall win you over to her selfish cause. She fails to address the true heart of the matter. She immediately turns your gaze back to her desire for -vengeance-. She plays upon your emotions and stirs your bestial temptations. You are above this! I will not avoid the true matter. Answer me, betrayer of our ways, why should we rally to your selfish cause in order to satiate your hunger for revenge?"

*Taking a deep breath, Birch slowly makes his way towards the stairs as the hooded figure begins her descent. As he passes the figure, he gives a solemn shake of his head and mutters something to himself. As he ascends the step, his ordinary coat of browns and greens ruffles slowly in the breeze. At the top, he turns to face the crowd, his face portraying a look of deep concern. Extending his arms out to his side, he shouts over the crowd: "Is this the way we behave in this day and age!?" He keeps his hands extended as if he awaits an answer from the crowd, but his penetrating gaze hints that his question is rhetorical. "Do we, as Elves of our proud and noble Father, go about war-mongering and spreading fear and dissent like beasts filled with blood-lust!?" At this, Birch lowers his head and lets his arms fall to his side. After a moment, he shakes his head and lifts it once more to meet the gaze of the crowd. "My friends. My brethren. There are those among us that would have you believe that war, hatred, and violence are the answers to many of our problems. Those that declare war are not your friends, nor are they your brethren. They do not carry the well-being of our ancient and proud nation as the ultimate good of our people. Their hearts are filled with hate and they would have that hate satiated at the price of the precious and irreplaceable lives of our race. Believe me when I say this! The curse that lies upon our people should not be taken lightly when considering acts of warfare. We are not easily replaced and with each Elf that dies, a bit of our proud history and the wisdom of our people dies with them. No! War is not the answer! Death is not the answer!" *Birch gazes over the crowd with an intense fire burning within his eyes. He waves his hand over the crowd before continuing. "Do not believe those who tell you war is the only answer. They wish to use you as pawns in their own devious schemes. I, however, wish to free you from the ignorance that has been forced upon you. I desire that your eyes be opened and that your minds be truly enlightened as our ancestors' were when they walked with Malin. We are a proactive people, not a reactionary one. We do not let ourselves be controlled by the trivial events that happen outside of this forest. Believe me when I say this, if we continue on with this course of action, we shall forsake the memory of Malin, himself! Malin gave the forest to us, and it is in the forest that we flourish and endure! I implore you, my brethren. Do not let your fate be decided by those who wish the destruction of our race, for even if we do win in whatever battles they have planned, we shall forever destroy the legacy of our people and shall be Children of Malin no more. Will you sit idly by and allow this to happen? I think not, so I invite you, no, implore you to rise up and claim your heritage. Join me in my resolve to restore our people to the dignity, pride, and nobility deserving of the name Elf. Let our weapons be wisdom, philosophy, and knowledge and let our shield be the guidance of the Aspects. Together, we shall reclaim our inheritance. Together, we shall flourish once more. Together, we are the Children of Malin!" *Extends his hands towards the crowd and beckons them to respond.

As it stands now, nothing changes for the Halflings. We are currently in the process of getting everything in the Wiki sorted, but we are only human and there are only so many of us and we are cursed with short lives. (chuckles) You may continue to RP as you have been, good Halflings. Stuff your pantries, smoke your good tabac, and hoard away your secrets to throwing the best party in the hill. Besides, Halflings shouldn't have a problem living a long time being that the only thing Halflings might suffer from is high cholesterol. Carry on, good sirs and madame's!

I do believe that we should cease this level of discussion on the open forums as it is only serving to confuse the topic further. The different levels of Aenguls and Daemons are not considered canon, yet, so let's get back on topic, please.

The human blessing is actually a lot less cryptic than you think. *chuckles* It meant that Humans were blessed with the spirit of adventure. They are driven by discovery. Their short lives are filled with discovering the wonders of the world. It explained why they were usually more involved in the affairs of the world more so than the other races.

This whole page of questions could be answered if everyone went and read the end of the Ancient History. All these answers lie within it.

My real question is what necessitated the need for Andunian players to live so long?

Solution: don't play a human or don't start a fully developed chatacter at the age of fifty. All these complaints can be easily avoided with a bit of foresight and planning. The lifespan of humans and the way time progresses gives players -plenty- of time to play a fully fleshed out human if planned properly.

There comes a time when we, as a collective, must decide between what we want and what the server needs in order to maintain a reasonable continuity. If we kept changing things on a whim as we have come to feel like it because we want it to be easier on ourselves, then that's when we begin to lower a standard. In this case, I stand by the clarification. We need some laws which govern the types of characters we can play in order to uphold the spirit and integrity of the history of this server and its role-play.

Then it seems "a ton of characters in Oren" have been trying to use the Half-Breeds to their advantage in order to have the excuse of being long-lived humans. A risk they chose to take when creating such characters. <Edited to avoid double post> "Perhaps if someone was to write up a lore post on the effects of the curses and Blessings together, and to put it up for review this particular piece of lore could be rewritten, as so it seems, no one has really followed it up to this point anyway." One only has to study the history of the server in order to find the answers they seek --> Ancient History<-- Click Link <Further Edit> And just because "no one has really followed it" does not mean it is a justified reason to bend the history of our server. This is what happens when players do not carefully study the universe of Lord of the Craft and the laws which govern it and then plan their characters accordingly.

Let us not, as we so often do, try to revert the changes in order to serve our own individual purposes. Let us, instead, turn to more creative means with which to explain the longevity of these "unique" characters. This is why you must take great care in creating "unique" characters as the laws surrounding their existence can get rather complex rather quickly.

As I stated earlier, I am not aware how your group came to be, but when the decision was made, said GM must have had a different interpretation of how the curses function. The Lore Staff has made a definitive decision on the matter, so you shall have to inquire with the LMs as to how you should proceed. Every decision that we ever make will affect a group in one way or another, but for many, this is merely a clarification. You will need to communicate with the LM's, however, in order to make the Andunians adhere to these new standards in such a way that will prove beneficial for all parties.

Everyones' character is special in their own eyes, but you must look at the bigger picture, always. It is not just about our one character, but how that character interacts and influences the server as a whole. All of our actions should be geared towards the role-play of the many, not the one. If your character is destined to die in glory on the battlefields, then it shall be so. If your character, like one of mine in the past who happened to be one of my favorites, must die so that others might live, then it shall be so, as well. There are many complex, dynamic, and memorable ways for our characters to reach their grand finale, insofar as it is a natural progression geared towards the greater story. As long as you do not restrict that progression, then you shall have a successful character.

This is what characters should take into account when planning their characters. I suppose the Andunians were created without first getting the clarification pertinent to their age limits, but that is neither here nor there at this point, but still, we must understand and accept the governing factors of our characters before making that decision. If you want to live a long time, play an elf. If you want to play a human, then you must understand that you will age faster and, possibly, die eventually. In this, be sure not to roll an old character. Start young. All these things can be avoided with careful planning and a clear understanding of your racial lore and its limitations.

This makes logical sense given a thorough read of the Lore. It seemed that Half-Breeds had come along for the sheer purpose of skipping around the curses, anyway. As to this: Any type of role-play should be "worthy of your character" as any type of role-play is important for said character's development. If you have already -pre-planned- your character's glorious demise, that doesn't leave much room for character development, does it? It seems, by my observations, that the players against this clarification want their characters to be special by living outside of the standards placed upon all characters in role-play. It's a sad and unfortunate turn of events given that not everyone can be the grand, triumphant hero like in all the video games we have these days, but a lot of us still want to be said character, and so pre-plan much of their characters life in order to lead them to said glory. It isn't power-gaming, per se, but it could be interpreted as a self entitled attitude, which is what has led to, in my opinion, so much 2-dimensional role-play these days. Plan only the important details, but then grow as your character adapts to the story happening around them. That's what organic role-play is all about.

The wrong people were forced to step down today. Gravely unfortunate.

As we are now doing twenty different simultaneous things in order to get things back to normal, information shall be made available when we are able to release it. Just because we have had a setback, does not mean we are going to rush to create mediocre projects. In the meantime, we request your patience and your continued community support. There are many things to do on the forums from contests, to role-play, and games. Us here working on getting the ball rolling on many events to come shall be watching the forums to find promising prospects to help us make all the great plans we have coming up into a reality. Keep on trucking, LotC. We have work to do.

Nonsense! I am only submitting an attempt at the Introduction. There are already so many good ones for the racial recordings that I dare not compete against them. We have so much hidden voice talent within this community. It is quite a treat for us to be exposed to it. Thank you all for sharing your talents with us!

By request of a dear friend, I have decided to lend my efforts to this cause once more. My submission may be found here: http://soundcloud.com/countjuno88/lotc-introduction

I must say, Tornado, your human recording has quite the bit of potential. I thoroughly enjoyed your read through, but your recording software and/or microphone do not do your voice full justice. If you could try to find a way to clear up some of that distortion, you would have a solid entry for sure.