Sporadic

Return of the moss hippies. I like it. Length is good, neither too long nor too short. You write with a lot of clarity, to the point that I didn't even need the recap since my retention reading the original piece was so high. Makes my job a breeze, so thank you for that Mr Turtle. My main note is physiological: The fact that Bryophytes turn CO2 into O2. I'm no biologist, but I learned this is very demanding process which requires cells loaded with chlorophyll and thus a lot of sunlight. It also is a very inefficient process of acquiring carbon and the only reason plants are able to do this/ prefer this is because they are stationary aka rooted. I understand we can be a bit hand-wavey here because this is a fantasy server. However, you explicitly state this as an ability of Bryophytes, thus you open yourself up to the burden of having to explain further. That being said i'd love to see biologically feasible lore on this count. Furthermore I think you and I have a different definition of "slow pace"

Damn Smawton that's one powerful tome you got there. Didn't quite get the link of this and blood smithing but then I read on and now it makes sense... kind of? Are you planning to pull more lore out of that book in the near future? I don't mind but it's good to be prepared. My notes: I really like the power level of this lore. Nothing too insane, everything requiring a lot of planning and preparation to be useful. Very temperate of you. I'm guessing this is independent from any other Muyakelg. Either way how do you plan on monitoring this? Because, effectively, this seems to mean this lore is going to empower exactly one person... I don't suppose there's going to be many first-to-the-finish races to see who goes through the 2 Week Lutauman creation process first. How does this work with the 5-block rule. Because I'm guessing the projectiles are going to travel much farther than that, somewhat nullifying the red line.

This lore is thematically contradictory and overlaps with currently existing lore in a way that makes accepting this a difficult task. You cannot simultaneously be a spirit, genetically distinct and born at random from all of the descendants. If you are intent on pursuing this, I would recommend to begin by starting a player faction: One that doesn't have accepted lore but has the same main goal: to protect the innocent no matter what. And once your faction becomes popular and has dedicated, active backing, you will find it easier to get your lore accepted. You will also have a more thorough knowledge of the LotC lore and community at that point. Best of luck.

Really nice stuff Smawton. I enjoyed it. You tend towards cliche imagery when it comes to describing the process of decay but other than that the work holds together well. I hope this gets accepted, but I do have some notes: If Ixli wants his sanity back, then how exactly does spreading his tome and teachings among the mortals help him at all in this quest? Did I read over this? The Great Mist thematically feels similar to the spirit realm and the link to meditation also suggests it may fulfil a similar purpose. It is also disjointed from most of the other abilities, holding no links to e.g. the "void" Ixli experienced or anything else. Hence, why have it at all? Do you think it is possible, lore-wise, to merge it with the spirit realm? The Miser of Mist, while a logical ascension for a T5 being that is almost fully decayed, doesn't seem to fitting with the other aspects of Dark Shamanism. I see how you tried to link it with the Shaman becoming a spirit themselves, but it also seems like a bit of a tack-on to secure oneself the IG spectre buff. I think you can do without. Also, if there can be only one how is it decided who gets to be the Miser?

Don't really understand your marriage metaphors but I am relatively fine with your proposal for disconnection apps. However, I sincerely wonder who has been given disconnection ability and has been using it so irresponsibly that you deem an app to be necessary. Sure, there's room for theoretical abuse, but a much easier policy would be to only give disconnection powers to responsible players. Now you run the risk of OOC "disconnection app" threads turning into heated arguments: If I were a cleric, no way I'd let such a thread get accepted without me doing my say.

Years ago I always wanted to put in an addition about words of power related to Elven and learning Elven, which let's face it is hard. At the time, there was no LT and the GMs were... not a big fan of me and who I stood for so it didn't seem like something that I wanted to push. My point being I conceptually agree with invocations like this. In fact, I think it is one of the magic types most suitable for LotC. So I've got your back on that count. My only niggle is of course what everyone else has already pointed out: Does it have to be so.... derivative? Thank you kindly and think it over.

I think you and I have a different perception of what is classified as "giant" because that right there is pretty much just Dutch people. I think a lot of the comments above have highlighted the main concerns which are balancing the power budget and the necessity of what seems to more or less just be a very beefy human with a Norse flavor. Not that I don't like these themes, but they are pretty saturated in the LotC universe already and new playable races need a lot of justification before they are implemented.

And here I was thinking here comes another Zarsies novel. Got all ready to spend the next 2 hours spritzing this stuff. Oh well. I personally prefer the blindfolded dudes that have cool fortune-telling powers or awesome martial arts move, but the former of those doesn't translate well into a RP world of unknown future and the latter will get reported for powergaming too often. I suppose this lore, then, is a nice way out for casuals who wanted to play a cool blind dude but don't have the stamina to play Minecraft with a permanent blindness potion effect put on them. And as such, I approve. Cool piece. Unless I find out your character just got blinded IRP and you're trying to weasel your way out of it...

All right. 1) At first thought, seems a bit odd that the physical transformation of Frost Witchdom is to be replicated by an illusion of a non-FM witch. At second thought, perhaps witches can do some cool mind fucks pretending to have induced their targets. Illlusion fits well within the profile of the frost witches so it's probably fine. 2) I mean if people are wanting to be ice slaves instead of a full-fledged frost witch there's honestly no reason to stop them, no? It's not a very OP feat in any sense. Good piece. thank you.

I dunno man, maybe it's the mental image of grass growing out of one's pore that haunts me, but something here makes me queasy. It was all decent until I got up to the "TL;DR" part, but it sounds like you're writing this as part of an arm's race between conjuration and the other magic, where in the end the magic with the most bells and whistles gets the most "users learning it". Feel free to refute that, I welcome your POV on this and I might be wrong, but it's the feeling I got.

Without getting too much into the discussion (I think Caleb made the case from a LT point of view), remember this is now a thing; Which needn't really affect you with the exception that you stated "Can learn 2t4 and 2t3" somewhere in your addition, which breaks consistency with this August update. Do with that what you will.

It's alchemy-based technology so not really.

Woah so we're really doing this...

I feel like it'd be very difficult to play a ""character"" that is so very dependent on another. Specifically, if the armor wearer is offline you cannot do much of anything. You're just an immovable object with very little going for you except faint telepathic powers. Also what if someone decides to put the armor in a chest and bury it? You're now effectively PK'd no? For the wearer it seems like a big boon but again they need to wait for the "armor" to be online to RP wearing it? Do you have people lined up who are actually interested in PKing their char to become magic armor? Otherwise, my main advice would be to change the guideline in such a way that creating the armor requires a PK, but when the gear is created it doesn't require the original character's player to RP as the armor. Instead, the wearer is expected to thoroughly know the PK'd char and RP their worn armor as that character would.

Hate. Overwhelming and incurable hate born from the realization you have to read TWENTY-THREE FREAKING PAGES. Zarsies what are you doing to me? I am joking, of course. Kudos to you, actually. It's a very good read. Often I don't like reading the flavor texts of one's lore in action due to various reasons but your Morrigan bits were actually the highlight of the lore for me. Really great stuff. Speaking about highlights though maybe not make it light green on white next time my poor eyes. It's a very interesting take on the "Nature cycle" theme. I don't often consider the idea that dead animals (plants) wouldn't be at peace with their demise for some reason. After all, nature and the ecosystem is in such a beautiful yet precarious balance of flora and fauna, predators and prey. I love those nature documentaries where they explain how so many species rely on so many other species and every species is somehow necessary (e.g. if you kill the coyotes as humans often do the bunnies graze the land to bits or something). You generally think of the participants, the animals to sort of be okay with that (unlike humans, who resent death and also massively **** up ecosystems wherever they go). This circle of life theme is sort of a core of all Nature RP, Druid RP and Wood Elf RP. You went in a very different direction. Interesting, but you will have to put in 3 times the effort as I'm sure there's other lore this "Hate" idea conflicts with. You already addressed some "obvious" thematic arguments near the end but the above came to my mind. Another one, smaller though, is that I don't quite see the relation between blood and ectoplasm, though your main "material" sort of seems to sit firmly in the divide of the two. Maybe I am just ignorant but why is Wilderblood ectoplasmic in nature? Anyway the powers are all really cool. I'm not a fan of emote length rules and would instead point out the lack of "material needs" rules. Your abilities all hinge on Wilderblood but it's not really denoted how many death animals equals 1 power. Either way since death animals are easy to come by (bunny breeding ftw) the material costs seem very minimal. This might be something good to adjust? Maybe if you do this you can get rid of some other counterbalances. Such as: "Being slain or having the growing body destroyed while performing Transmogrify results in a PK." Red lines like this I've taken to mean the writer knows the ability is too powerful and feels the urge to throw out a really big redline to "balance it" (see also: The Soul Tree lore where some forced-PK clause was recently brought up to discussion). This is great but people tend to "game" the PK clause because it is simply too significant to not subtly manipulate RP for. I would reconsider it. Also I like the shillelagh it's very D&D Druid stuff. It's not useful in most D&D editions but here it's very cool.

All right thank you for writing this. It reads like a rulebook but that's fine; makes my job easier when there's no fluff. Might be bad for you though since the increased comprehension make any notes people have more pointed but thank you all the same ;) Here's some quick notes of mine sorted by ability: 1) Kind of sounds like you're trying to turn a ghost's demanifestation drawback into an ability and also a rather useful one at that as it negates gold-based exorcise of ghosts. AFAIK most ghosts won't need to travel much and tend to stay around their usual haunt: for gravens and apparitions this is mandatory but for all types it's implied. So.. what's the point? 2) I have no issues with this balance-wise. There's a vague concern people with mysticism will get a ghost-guest into their body to act as protection but all right. I wonder more about how flavorful this truly is going to be to ghost RP as it sounds like a very confusing version of possession. But maybe I'm wrong maybe you've whipped up some great RP idea with this. 3) This is nice and flavorful I approve. 4) Sounds like a big overlap with a Wight-specific possession ability? 5) I don't know about this one I just keep thinking about ways this would actually be done in RP and I keep coming back to the emote "*starts walking on the wall!!1" and it makes me laugh but also makes me doubt this is necessary. 6) Like 5 but with balance concerns. The "1 to 5" range is rather vague as it essentially means "5". Is it related to wall thickness/material?

This is more of a total revamp of the profession selection system than it is a racial buff.

> Aegis > Join date April 2012 hmm

I think it's already that way for Kha when they press double shift.

Interesting take, thank you. You will likely not have many people agree with you. This is inevitable. You are suggesting the minority gets buffs and the majority does not. Of course, the majority will not like it. To say a race "earned" their activity is a bit unfair because the activity hierarchy has been constant for 5 years: It is inevitably decided by what race new players are most likely to pick. And in order, these are Human, Elf, Dwarf and then Orc. And this decision is influenced by what race has the most representation in popular fantasy sources, not because one race in LotC is decidedly better run. Orcs did not "earn" their lower numbers nor did Humans "earn" their high ones. But this is a tangent, and a big one. There's other ways to boost activity of the lesser-chosen races beyond lopsided PvP buffs. We don't need to resort to that.

The Remove Nexus Chronicles On bonuses and the races that get them This is my ramblings and thoughts while working on what I believe is the top priority for LotC right now: Remove Nexus. When we announced racial bonuses in '14 the thread exploded. 300 posts or something and a wide array of complaints. Making racial bonuses everyone is enthushiastic about is impossible: Everyone will always want something different. Racial bonuses were of course implemented initially to give each race a distinct "profile" based on lore. We wanted people to feel like encountering an Elf would "feel" different than encountering an Orc, for example. This, however, came at a heavy cost many players were not okay with. And as such, we should not be okay with them either. PvP race bonuses in "Nexus" have proven to be a major source of anger towards the Devs. Their necessity should be reevaluated. While creating distinct identity for the races is important, right now I think this can be done only through racial +xp% bonuses (or at least, a bonus of that nature). Hence this option I am exploring for feasibility (and as always, many things are liable to come up between exploration and implementation). An alternative, oft-suggested by players, is a selectable Persona-based bonus. In short, a pick-your-own-racial-bonus system. Telanir once promised a system "based on the Skyrim skill trees". To me, that seems much too RPG even though it is a great source of character customization. It is important people feel their Persona is unique, but such customizations are best obtained against a backdrop of lore and roleplay. However, because it's something players really like, it is also something that I have been looking into. Of course, doing away with bonuses altogether is the final option, but in my opinion this is a missed opportunity. At the end of the day, plugins do add a unique factor to LotC which can enhance RP in a way little else can. We try to entice new players to partake in LotC, which is increasingly difficult as the lore expands and the complexity threshold increases. We must not forget that most new players will be veteran minecrafters but very new to Role play, and have no idea about "races" or that the game experience is supposed to differ between them. Thus, sometimes something gaudy, even when the veterans object, is the best way to go forward. Let me know what you think.

I am here with my LM hat on the tech point of view we can discuss later.

Oh boy here we go. So normally I would tend to give more feedback on the lore itself but the lore itself, I think, is very straightforward. It's roughly parallel to European technological history with references to previous instances of firearms being seen within the LotC setting. What is obviously the really important thing here is the precedent this lore sets, the massive theme change we end up with, and the various rebalancing we would have to consider for this. My personal opinion doesn't matter much but I do have personal experience of player attitudes being fluid season-to-season. I think a definite, VERY definite risk here is that players will poll to want tech (or magi-tech, at least, judging from current poll status), but will quickly change their mind when the implementation of it is lackluster or not what they expected. If this happens, and it COULD happen no matter how skilled the writers and LMs working on it, retconning becomes insanely difficult. And in that case we opened the flood gates and we're stuck with a theme that doesn't quite work, and many people writing sub-par lore to get a piece of it. But at least the spotlight will of be off of magic for once ;) just kidding... When it comes to firearms ip se, I favor a compromise solution of the 14th century hand-cannon: A triggerless firearm that requires manual ignition to be fired. I think this solution would offer all of the "flavor" that characters require of their firearms: a newfangled technology that is unwieldy but very fun to experiment with, very much in its infancy. On the other hand, it would be much easier to balance and would retain its status as a niche item. The hand cannon, in medieval times, was used by a select few specialist troops of certain cultures (specifically Chinese), while the matchlock would historically go on to become the new battlefield staple that everybody uses. Obviously, in LotC, we don't want swordfights to be outphased by musket batallions.