Cloakedsphere

Mawloc Othan, an intrepid Mali’ker wandered off one snowy day with his daughter in tow. Mawloc had dreamed of taking his family on one of his spiritual journeys into the wilderness and although the mother of his child would be absent for this one time, he’d seem content with going anyway. As the duo made it to shore via a boat, Mawloc would take Marzoss up a snowy peak and iced over mountain. Just coming into view as they climbed was a man-made structure, tucked deep away into the wilderness and hidden within an ice cavern. Once reaching the top, the two would stand in awe at the once forgotten village. It appeared to have been deserted long ago, yet the fires that burn in the pits would still smolder. They spoke about the village and searched it yet did not find any sign of any life aside from those fires. They’d then make their way back to the top of the mountain and out of the ice cavern, standing atop a scaffolding that overlooked the sea and neighboring mountain tops. The two would exchange a small set of friendly words before Marzoss had to head back home. Yet Mawloc with a newly acquired map of the area wished to continue on. He would say his goodbyes to Marzoss. Yet little did the duo know what would be in store for Mawloc. As Mawloc left the top of the mountain and trekked to a neighboring range, he quickly found himself atop another cavern. One deep enough to swallow even the largest creature he had ever seen. He would suddenly be covered in chills as his head would begin to spiral from the sheer height of the cavern. Vertigo starting to set in, he would turn to look and step away. As he reached up to grab hold of a nearby rock, he would lose his footing. Sliding along the ice, Mawloc would fall into the deep cavern. On his way down, he would bounce off the icy side of the mountain, crashing and banging off the occasional rock before finally reaching the bottom which had been covered in many feet of snow. It would be sheer luck that the fall had not killed him. Mawloc lays there, lifeless for a few hours. He had been knocked out cold from the fall and the longer he sat in the snow, the worse his condition had gotten. Hypothermia would begin to be a real danger. As the hours would pass, Mawloc would begin to slowly awaken to the sound of an ominous figure making strange noises. The noises would become louder and louder in the deep and dark cavern. Mawloc groans in pain quietly as he’d attempt to move yet his leg would be shattered in multiple places, his face crushed on one side from a blow to the face of a rock and both his arms cut, banged and bruised. The blue ice and white snow would have turned a deep and dark red all around him as he had been bleeding in the same spot for hours. His groans of pain only made things worse for no matter how quiet he was, every sound would echo through the cavern. The ominous figure would then come within sight of Mawloc. He’d raise a hand up to it yet he could not tell what it was. All he saw were deep blue eyes penetrating his own orange eyes. He would then quickly pass out from the immense pain as the shock would wear off. His weak gaze upon the creature would fade into black. The unknown creature would take Mawloc from the snow that very night. Yet where to, not even Mawloc would know. As Mawloc was in his coma, he had lucid dreams of his past. Mostly nightmares of the things he had done to many. Yet between the nightmares were times of joy and happiness. Yet in all of these dreams, he could see the figure that had rescued him standing in the background of every direction he had looked. Deep, blue eyes would meet his gaze at nearly every turn of the head in his dreams. Yet the last dream he had, the figure would have disappeared into thin air. The dream was of his past homes in Leyu’celia and Khel’seth. Spending time with his brothers and sisters, his family enjoying the prosperous times of their people. It’d show him teaching his family and the others how to tame the wild Bokolo. Yet it all came to a halt. He would remain in a coma for the next couple days before slowly awaking somehow at the entrance of Nor’asath. His open wounds would be wrapped with a mixture of mud and wheat mixed into a makeshift bandage. They would be wrapped around his arms with a cotton string. His face, recognizable but only barely as it would be covered in blood, dirt, and ice from the heavy damage it had sustained as he had fallen nearly to his death. The ‘Ker would groan as he laid at the top of the steps. Any passerby would easily see the bloodied man laying upon the stone and groaning for help before passing out once again.

"Two wrongs wont make a right. We are seeing history once again repeat itself with the same clans as before..." Hefjhor would exclaim to himself before shaking his head. "It wont be long before Urguan is once again split."

Hefjhor wonders how all these people from outside Urguan know about a grudge that was presented to the king and not the entire populace of Almaris.

An election for clan father Within the depths of the Doomforged Clan’s halls, several voices murmured in urgent agreement. Their once beloved Clan Father had fallen away from them, cast out from the Clan for violating it’s tenants and aligning himself with the Titan Azdromoth, and finding himself banished from Urguan. Acting with haste, the members of the divided clan met and discussed in great lengths their situation. Keeping within clan tradition the unanimous vote was cast for a new Clan Father, one who would help stabilize the clan and keep it’s members safely within the confines of the Grand Kingdom. As a creation of Yemekar and Paragon Urir Ireheart, our roots and oath to Urguan run deep. For centuries we have served Urguan and will continue to do so. The clan elects: Goddumir Doomforged As the meeting begins to come to a close, they all sign the document to elect Goddumir as clan father. Clan Father, (Written in Crayon)👇

Krag Mintymullet approves.

I'd be happy to speak with you via discord rather than clutter this thread so you can get a better understanding of where I am coming from so no one directly feels targeted. I thank the moderation team for what they're doing. But I believe more can be done in other aspects to help other (struggling) teams.

Which should have the ability and power to pressure other groups to do their jobs and should offer help to the VARIOUS other teams. As both of us are prior GM's, we should both understand that we are all on the same team, even if the title above our heads is different.

I am going to be 100% honest and say that these tasks "in progress" are doing nothing to actually help underlying issues of LotC. I know you're moderation team, but pressure story team into creating more events for the whole server and not just a small select group of players to keep the server entertaining. Cleaning up the forums, Interviewing people for certain tasks, and coup rules are things that need attention, sure, but they're at the bottom of the list in terms of priority. You cant have the server sit for another 2-3-4 months or more waiting for rules to be finished writing and expect people to stick around in game. We need to pressure other staff teams (mainly story team and admin team) to push out more events and more meaningful updates to players in game. Not on the forums. The vortex craze is wearing off. The new-ness of the map is already wearing off. People are already starting to drop here and there. I'd like to see some of these types of problems addressed before ANY of the in-progress stuff you've listed. Thank you though for taking the time to break down what you're doing.

Telanir is the end all-say all for all ideas being implemented. There isnt any layer of bureaucracy. If he has an idea, he can implement it without consulting anyone aside from Tythus. People should be going to TELANIR with idea's and see if it fits in HIS vision for LotC. This is the position of a HEAD admin. Just like people bring up with the idea of "road to 500" players or w/e that was. What ever happened to that idea? Like that was his vision. Where did it lead? What came of it? Where is the foundation for this vision? Its non-existant. I am the first to preach that these guys are all volunteers for their positions. But stop volunteering if you actually have zero desire to make any change. We have a huge amount of lazy staff members starting all the way at the top and going all the way to the bottom. For a server than can only average 175 players on peak times, Why do we need 110+ members of staff? Especially when over half of the members are doing nothing.

Before, yes, we needed Telanir to sign off on the idea of free build. Even though we had a good portion of staff who thought it was a good idea and I even had 2 other admins on my side. Sadly, big changes like that in the past required his approval. It might be different now but I dont imagine it being different at all with the way things are currently running. It is probably why LotC has stagnated a lot because a lot of good idea's are getting stone walled by no response or a negative response by the head admin and nothing being implemented. But its not just Telanir. I put the blame on the whole staff. It definitely starts at the top and works its way to the bottom but staff need to be more aware that they really arent doing much. Nickrocky is the only one who's really contributed to LotC in any fashion since the new map with the release of vortex. Now the vortex craze is dying down, you're going to start to see people leave again. What are we doing? No wars? No bandit groups due to fear of being banned for what? Good bandit RP? No events happening or event lines being held by story team? No new lore? Hello? Has anyone actually counted how many staff we currently have? We have over 40 people in the story team alone. Thats 1 staff team. We should have a max of 40 staff members across ALL staff teams. Not just 1 team in general. What happened? How did LotC become so top heavy? We are easily pushing close to 100 members on some form of staff or moderation team on LotC yet literally NOTHING new is being brought to the table or nothing is getting done. Like, honestly, what is going on here? LotC needs to clean house starting from the top and wiping out all the team and starting fresh again. Go back to forum moderators and global moderators and build from there again. There is just far too many hands in the cookie jar.

Im only going to contradict your edit statement. The staff team in Aegis, although obviously fresh, were about as unbias as they could've been. Since everything was so new, relationships werent built as strong as they were today. Tythus himself is a fine individual. So was everyone else (such as shiftnative, nekodanie, mogroka, etc.) but the issues arose after we left 3.0. We started to see a huge decline in player-staff relationships then when most of the original staff had left. Tythus isnt a tyrant. Nor is telanir. But neither of them want to put any effort in anymore and only 1 of them we currently still need due to the fact he has access to the server funds to keep it afloat. Telanir, although I like the guy, needs out. A new face on the head admin table is what we need and not a pick from the current admin list. I feel as if the entire current administration team could do much better and much more than they currently are with their power in improving a lot of the server. They're all too cushy with their positions and pawn them off on the many other (40+) members of staff. Which is ridiculous in of itself. We dont need this much staff if people would just do the job they VOLUNTEERED for. Rather than VOLUNTEERING for a fancy tag in game and on the forums.

The issues today are that we wouldn't have had to have new discussions on the directions free build should take if we just built and improved on the old system from 3 years ago. Instead of scrapping our original set of rules, guides, and ideas, we should've collectively built off those but its clear the higher ups were hell bent on doing stuff another way because nations complained there were bandit groups building near their nations border (which wasn't against any rules) and that it must've been too hard for moderators to take care of land scarring. Which is an easy fix with tools like world edit and free build. We are now forced to start from scratch. I had to put up a pretty big fight and with the help of the community and polling on yhe forums while I was a GM, we were able to bring free build back. I sadly don't think the current administration team stemming from the very top all the way down have the best in mind for lotc or even care anymore. As I've said, once lockdowns are over for covid, I'm gone again. Lotc has become stagnant due to neglect.

We reinstated free build areas on the map. We took player input on what they wanted and built rules based around our findings and what the rest of the server decided (we had polls running on the forums for a week long period for people to vote on rulings) and somehow when ever staff changes hands, they always think their idea needs to 1-up the previous administration's accomplishments and inevitably fall short. LotC is in an endless cycle of rinse and repeat until someone wises up (ahem, the top admin whose been a top admin for many years now.) and sees that the people we are implementing as admins and inevitably making decisions are hurting the server more than they're benefiting it. As seen by war rules being botched, raid rules being botched, and PVP default rulings being botched. Now everything needs to be redone AGAIN. I was probably one of the biggest proponents about bringing BACK free build to LotC. It was honestly my baby and of course there will always be land scarring with free build but we saw a great increase in player retention off it. We saw settlements get built and destroyed and even some became parts of nations later on. It was easily the #1 selling point of LotC. The ability to come on here, build what you want where you want and build your own fantasy RP setting anywhere on the map. This stupid tile based system requiring mina to hang onto land and land only being handed out to ones who have the mina to purchase it (which, news flash, new players wont have enough mina for it and they're being forced into dead and stale nations) is going to ruin LotC in the long term. I commend @Hiebe for his economy system and the rest of the world team for building a nice world. But the forcing of players into nations to build or RP has never been the answer and never will be the answer. Especially considering the admin team is refusing to let dead nations finally die so a new player and a new idea and a new type of nation can be birthed. LotC is stale. Literally the only thing keeping me here is covid-19 lockdowns and the new vortex plugin which I like. Everything else is just so disheartening to see as a whole and im really surprised Telanir doesnt see it the same way nor does Tythus. Telanir being the head admin for many years now should be the first one to know as an old player from the glory days of Aegis and Asulon that the server is steadily declining when it comes to new content produced by new players and just new players in general. I dont hate Telanir and dont blame him if this is the case but it is almost as if he no longer cares about the quality of the server so long as things are still running somewhat smoothly.

IGN: Cloakedsphere RP NAME: Hefjhor Doomforged CANDIDATE: Durorn Ireheart

Hefjhor Doomforged would sign the document. Yet let it be known that he still wishes to see what other clans have to offer for candidates.

Mawloc Othan would step from his tent and up the short stairwell to the cliffside overlooking the whole city. As a courier had brought him the small letter, he'd read through it with a raised brow. As he'd fold the piece of paper and stuff it into his pocket, he began to speak loud enough for his voice to echo throughout the city. "Once more, brother and sisters, have we an individual wishing to lay claim over our people as a whole. A single ruler to tell you what it is you can and cannot do. What your beliefs should and should not be. Yet claims what he says has no ill intent. Yet... You are not free to challenge the said individual. Nor do you have a choice?" he'd shake his head as he'd pause. "A man, not a prince, wishes to rule over you and I as if we were dogs. Used only in times when others of Atlas need our aid and quickly tossed to the side. This man has failed to see what we have accomplished here. What all other Mali'ker before us have failed to do. We've brought peace among our brothers and sisters. We brought change from being castaways and dogs of petty wars to being a group of prosperity not only for the Mali'ker, but for all who seek it within our walls." he'd merely sigh. "Where was this man when the Valah sought to destroy us? Where was this man when even our own brothers and sisters of the Dominion aided the valah in their attempts at ridding us from society entirely? Who helped fight the hordes of Bortu when the grand kingdom of Urguan had turned its back on one of its longest standing ally? This man was no where to be found during all those times of destruction. Yet wishes to show up in the time of peace? Making claims our people have sunk to nothing? Does that not say anything to anyone? We've prospered from the old ways and this man wishes to put us back. If this man wished for peace and prosperity, he'd have spoken to the long standing Des'nox and the Warhawkes before making all these false claims. This man wants nothing more but to force you all to bend your knees yet again for someone whom has done NOTHING to better our people. A man who's attempting to divide us yet again and destroy all the hard work we've done for our people. If it is peace and prosperity he seeks, then he may speak with the Chieftess accordingly. Rather than make false claims that are not recognized."

Mawloc Othan would flip through his council records, going back many elven months in search of a dominion-warhawke alliance proposition. . . . . He is unsuccessful in finding anything relating to such. "In a society where everyone is considered family, regardless of your bloodline, it is disgraceful to make such acts with nations whom sought past transgression against my people without the consultation of the whole council." he'd think to himself. "And he wonders what he did wrong... Hmph." he'd state softly before leaning back in his chair within the council room.