Esterlen

Goran Goldhand smirks quite dwarvenly. The human clergy, high on the ecstasy of their covenant with Dungrimm, Anbella and Yemekar, now aligned themselves fully with Urguan’s chosen people. Soon, the Temple of the Brathmordakin would be in full communion with the Church of the Canon. All was going to plan.

“The Urguanites may be perfidious, but there are none as faithless as the men who serve them. They are race traitors, and they will be damnatio memoriae - their names forever dishonored!” A quote attributed Emperor John I, progenitor of the Johannians and the House of Alstion, who conquered most of Urguan in the 16th century (c. 1540).

The merchant, Goran Goldhand, knew precious little of human succession laws. However, he did know that he would get his revenge on the Duke of Azor for killing his trusted solicitor, Carapolla, and taking him captive. Fat fingers gripped around the wrought iron bars until his knuckles went white - from within the cage, the dwarf screeched at Azor, cursing him in the name of the Fidei Defensor.

A lowly acolyte hails the Prince of Elvenesse, green book in hand. "Aspects protect our Oranor!" he proclaims, saluting.

Thank you for this. It was very frustrating to amateur genealogists like myself how what was originally such a cool open-source project devolved (in the last year particularly) to a haven for all sorts of bad behaviour and surreptitious editing. Great work on tightening the leash!

George Kovachev, marooned on the southern continent, examines an abridged copy of government-gazette from within a Sutican coffee-house. He is most intrigued to hear of the development of fiscal policy among the Elvenesse, swearing to commit further time to research when returned to Providence.

“The Elysiumites have been dragged into this war by the cruel Nordlings who lord over them. They fight us and die in combat against us, and to what end? The mad geopolitical ambitions of the Burning Bush?” offers the Surveyor-General somewhat rhetorically.

Ah, but this is where the nodes come in – when it comes to these abysmal material prices. By introducing a sense of scarcity and limitation to resource gathering rather than unlimited resource pits at the Cloud Temple, the market will be far less saturated with these items and so their value will increase, allowing them to be sold at higher prices.

Thankfully, as the value of mina increases (When it is removed from the daily voting reward) it can be expected that prices on everything in terms of tax, etcetera will go way down. For me that is really the highlight of this announcement – actually stopping the hyperinflation and giving us an economy again! +1

You are a powerhouse.

I love it! Very proud of those who worked on this project for getting this ball rolling. +1

This really took the words out of my mouth, AlphaMoist. I think it is really interesting that the same voices here who are putting forward this myth of ‘it will ruin the balance in combat! It will be powergamed! Look at these historical examples!’ are simultaneously the people who are contending ‘well we don’t have to match up completely with real life’. Yes, of course we don’t have to match up completely with real life! So what’s the impediment to having guns as a purely cosmetic feature?

At least you’re honest about it and don’t try to veil it in faux concern. This should be held up as the stock standard attitude of many of the people who are against lifting the techlock, because it is really telling and pretty selfishly insidious.

How? Harold, you can powergame using a medium-to-large pebble if you want to. Ban powergaming and abusing, not different flavours. The essence of your argument is ‘don’t like ‘em’ and you’re coming up with these pretty flimsy and easily refutable reasons to hide that. That’s something that really bothers me about the opposing contention here – it boils down to nothing more than ‘don’t like ‘em’. Well, there’s heaps of things on this server that I don’t like and even the majority don’t like. If guns were introduced they would be a solely cosmetic introduction, and a heavily regulated one at that. That’s all anyone in the pro-gun camp is actually arguing for. It is the sort of thing other player-bases have readily available to them (the ability to choose their own creative direction, within reason) and nobody bats an eyelid. You do not have to engage with guns any more than you’d have to engage with crossbows which presumably you don’t have a problem with, and likewise I don’t have to engage with the myriad of abysmal lore on this server, nor do I even get a say in it.

“We don’t want guns because they’ll ruin the fantasy theme!” [Names countless other fantasy worlds where guns are present in a fantasy theme.] “Well we’re not those worlds!” Seriously? It’s pretty clear that the point is that guns can co-exist with a fantasy theme. There’s manifold examples of it being done. So why are we still on this false narrative? No, we obviously don’t line up our timeline with the real world’s. But I don’t understand how this is even an argument against introducing guns, so I think that you might be missing the point. No, we don’t have to line up with the real world’s...but after nine IRL years of RP, of course it is fair to say we should have some technological progress. It’s completely ridiculous – we have countless over complicated demigods, creatures and bizarre niche magics that nobody really understands or has any interest in. Nobody consulted me before introducing them. It was a slow drip of addition after addition. Why now is the right of players to have their particular view of the server (Whether that’s LotR, etc) preserved suddenly sacrosanct? So as for being like Lord of the Rings or Elder Scrolls, that’s your opinion, not the actual reality of the situation. Everybody has a completely different view on what we are ‘like’ – why does what you want it to be take any precedence over someone who wants something more like Warhammer Fantasy?

Okay, let’s take mechanics out of it and take this only in respect to CRP. Still no more powerful than a crossbow. And I’m sure, if guns were introduced, that the ST would add in all sorts of provisions for CRP with them – no pre-loading, a minimum number of emotes to ram the bullet down the barrel, etcetera. A lot of the magic RPers who are incredibly hostile to this idea (And who are particularly vocal on this thread) fundamentally misunderstand the reasons why most people who want firearms want them. It isn’t to get an edge over people in CRP. I don’t know how many times we have to make that clear. It is simply a matter of people wanting a different flavor for their RP. That’s it. It is purely cosmetic – there is nothing utilitarian about it. If this was any other purely cosmetic topic where somebody wanted a different flavor to their RP, detractors from that would have no real right to complain. All they could really do is take a policy of avoiding and not engaging with it. But because it’s this hot button firearms issue suddenly it concerns everyone who has a forum account. By the way:

Ryloth, I love you man, but this is one of the most pathetic arguments I ever hear about this topic. I’d rather people who are anti firearm just be honest and say ‘I personally don’t like them’ rather than try to wrap that fact in these pseudo-altruistic justifications. The ‘theme’ of the server, or rather the world that people join the server to partake in, is almost entirely in the eye of the beholder. That is largely because the world of LotC has no consistent theme anymore, and it hasn’t since 2011. As a creative platform, people have gone so off in different directions that a unifying theme is practically non-existent. The idea that introducing gunpowder will upend some carefully curated ‘server theme’ is bizarre – it doesn’t exist! Everybody has a different idea of it and despite what some people would claim, there is no ‘orthodox’ theme. You can’t pin down something as abstract as that. People do largely what they want, according to what will motivate them to create and build. As a community, we tend to have this quasi-pluralistic ‘live and let live’ mentality towards different communities and player-bases. If they’re not affecting us, they do what they want. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous or ‘not on theme’ something is (Obviously there are general boundaries – boundaries which firearms are well and truly within!) – if you don't like it that much, you don’t engage with it. One of the things that upsets me the most about this debate is that this is a courtesy extended to every RP group on the server, no matter how objectively horrific, but is one that is never extended to people who want a different type of flavor through firearms in RP. I don’t get a say over the fact that you role-play a bipedal, talking cat, no matter how much it might break my immersion or be misaligned with my view of the server theme. PS: I can name a dozen fantasy universes where firearms co-exist with elves, armor, swords, dwarves, magic, pixies etc. At this point, this is completely void. We know that all of these things can co-exist in a balanced world with firearms – almost more of them have firearms than don’t. So why are we beating this dead horse as opposed to tackling the substance of the matter?

What a beautiful build! How do I contact a real estate agent? Regards.

A bewigged Harrenite official wipes his moistened brow with a frilled handkerchief. “God save the Emperor,” he murmurs to a colleague at the Ministry, “A lesser man might have abdicated his duties at the sight of a Nordling invasion. Not he. To another half-century of his good health!” @elerossi

I think very much that this is the precursor to that – and hopefully the end of forced city-states!

A wonderful first step. +1