mother

okay it's actually good you can stop baiting in discord it's gonna get hijacked by slice of life rpers tho just like last time I'm calling it

God I've been inactive uhhhhhhh Yeah, it doesn't work. The most interesting aspect of traditional centaurs in all forms of fantasy they're encountered in is the "drunken party bandits" aspect, but that makes for horrible RP on this sort of medium. So you did scrap it out of necessity, yes, but you're left with...boring horse people who add nothing and accomplish nothing. Well, unless you'd call splitting up playerbases further and giving most of the people who'd play these things alts they'll barely use an accomplishment. Not trying to be rude, but you've written boring horse ERP bait. If you want me to elaborate further on why centaurs can't work on LotC, I'd be happy to.

DSE, you're better than this, please don't compare the enlightenment to a mineman server.

((Microphones do not exist. Remove this.))

DragonsRoost. I am not trying to antagonize you or otherwise attack you. I’m giving you advice – like a friend, despite the fact we do not know one another. And like a friend, I’m honest. Your writing skills are poor. I have seen 7th graders write better than this. Know that I am not accusing you of this to just dunk on your writing skills and call you out for the sake of it – that would be redundant. I’m here to help. Below is a rewrite of what you just wrote – I tried to salvage what you’ve written here, with the hope you’ll learn from it. Be aware that I do not know of your original in-universe intentions for the story, so some things may be shifted around when compared to your vision. It’s meant to be an example, after all. Everything burnt to ash in a matter of seconds - floating in the air, the last embers of the lives that once stood there. Remnants of memories, dreams, desires, hopes, ambitions. The figure ones this. He wasn't immune to empathy, despite what he tried to tell himself. His blade dripped crimson blood. These lives, though snuffed, left a mark on it, just as they had on its wielder. He took no pleasure in the atrocity he had committed. Yet as each drop of blood hit the ground, he tried to hide this shame. They deserved it. I has no other choice. It was my duty. It was my duty. Duty. Yes, that was what it was. It would have been an atrocity to leave them alive. To leave but a trace of their existence here was a crime. That is why they burned. What greater a crime than to expose him? To threaten his own duty? Nothing could be left - to trace him back to the silver city would be the end of it. That could not happen. He would be hunted. His family would know. To bring such shame would hurt them. They had no part in this - yet his brethren would turn their eyes to them first. To put those he cared about in danger out of neglect was unnecessary. Not to mention the threat those same brethren would pose to his purpose if they knew. He began to wipe his blade, sitting down and watching what lay before him be consumed by the flames. They roared in response, sweeping upwards into a great bonfire, as if they agreed with him. Nothing could be left. Only ashes would remain. "My job here is done." He muttered quietly. "May their gods look over them..." He paused. Duty. "...and send them to Iblees himself for their deception and betrayal." When writing an evil or otherwise morally unjustifiable character, it is important to humanize them. Give them real concerns, motivations, thoughts, ambitions, etc. It’s why many find evil characters so interesting. It’s why Milton’s Satan is so well regarded. But be careful to not overdo it, lest you end up with unnecessary angst. Symbolism is good. Incorporate it often when trying to convey anything complex – but don’t overdo it, lest you confuse the reader and make the symbolism more complex than what it’s actually trying to portray, because the purpose (usually) is to make the ideas easier to understand. Keep it concise, yet detailed. Personification serves the same purpose, but is even easier to pull off. Learn these techniques and your work will benefit immensely. And of course, you may want to have others proofread your work before submitting it to any audience. Please, for your sake and others, take this advice to heart and apply it. And do make sure to post more here and wherever else you wish for your work to be seen – practice makes perfect!

UH OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH the trash is back

we all know you'll be back within a week

Okay, here we go. You’ve got some ideas here that work. You’ve got a lot of ideas here that do not work. At all. They’re dumb, no offense. Positives I like the idea of this cult-like organization that venerates the Void and seeks to spread its influence in the world. That has some great potential – really, it’s actually ******* cool, kudos to you for that concept, it’s fun to work off of and has some real potential for RP. You got some cool fluff pieces – void gardens, the body being altered by the void on a fundamental level (which isn’t new at all, but it’s always been a cool idea, at least aesthetically), it’s, again, cool. Your post is well-written, bravo. If I could give you a sticker for it, I’d give it to you. HOWEVER, I don’t fall under the popular server attitude of “if it looks pretty, it must be good”. I like to look at the core, the meat, the substance. And that’s where the problems come in. Negatives Oh my god. Endgames are bad. We’ll expand on that in the end, but I’m gonna leave that here because it’s quite important. It’s possibly the most important thing I’m going to bring up here, but I’m going to dive into that last. Just keep it in mind. “There may only be ten Guardians at time” – I see where you’re coming from. I really do – you’re trying to restrict it so that it doesn’t grow too widespread as both a power limiting measure and a measure to keep it from becoming so widespread that it’s downright annoying and detrimental to everyone’s experience. It’s completely understandable; however, there’s a big hiccup here. This opens up the very, very, very plausible and very likely event of this creature group being a sort of… Well, Thomas, I don’t mean offense to your or anyone you associate with, but it opens up the possibility of these guys being “Thomas and his OOC mage friends get special powers”. Again, I don’t mean offense, but it just seems like it’s set up and easily made into (by any clique whatsoever that has 10 void mage players present) this “me and my friends get special powers, yippee” kind of thing. It’s a little hard to articulate without sounding more rude. It seems abusable, basically. Any creature group that happens to consist of players that are friends with one another can already restrict access from people outside their circle, I know, but this just seems like actual lore-justified reinforcement of the act of doing so. Again, no offense to you. Just seems abuseable, is all. Now to get to the meat. This is endgame lore. Endgame lore is bad, because LotC is not a vidya RPG, and it’s not a TTRPG, it’s a combined roleplaying experience. The goal is not, and should be, to “achieve endgame” – sure, your character probably wants to do something like that. Everyone seeks to master their trade, their skills – but endgame creature lore has always felt like a step further, because it is a step further. It provides a predominately OUT-OF-CHARACTER goal for a certain type of character. It feels game-y. If it feels game-y in this sort of roleplaying environment, it is not good. This is not WoW, this is not Pathfinder, this is not Elder Scrolls, this is not DnD. This is a combined roleplaying experience with the goal of simulating a fantasy world through combined roleplay elements. It’s theatre, really. And why do I call this an endgame? It’s a buff. Regardless of what flaws they possess, the Iylderi are a buff to powerful void mages who qualify and have the connections to achieve such status. There would be no need for a player limit if they were not a buff. These guys, like Archons, are a form of “leveling up” that isn’t organic – it’s not characters becoming naturally better at their trade as time passes and they actively hone their skills with it out of IC motivation, it is this boring endgame nonsense. Hell, that’s what it boils down to, anyway. It’s boring. Even though it’s a sort of “support class” (if you want to call it that, but it’s so game-y that it makes me nauseous), it’s still “my character is a badass special creature now, and now he has a big glowing weak spot scar, what a great flaw!” Good characters are made good by their flaws. A big glowing physical weak spot (unless it is some form of symbolism for a character’s deep internal flaws, which it is objectively not in this context) and weakness to aurum, and all sorts of other physical flaws are nothing. They’re boring. They’re dull. It’s mechanical – not just from an “RP combat” or “this is how you kill him” perspective (because that’s perfectly fine), but from a character standpoint. The only interesting thing here is the motivation of the group OVERALL (this fascination with, veneration of, and deep connection to the void) with and the genuinely cool ideas like void gardens. Solution You’ve got some good ideas here. You’ve got some dumb ideas here. The dumb ideas ruin the overall proposal. So do you fix the overall proposal? Simple, you just cut out the dumb stuff and home in on the good stuff. The idea of a cult that venerates the void and seeks to spread and strengthen its influence and application amongst existing sorcerers is a neat concept, ripe for really rich roleplaying. You might think that it’s just a guild, at that point, but in order to see the concept fully realized, it requires lore behind it. Behind its members. What if the Iylderi were a society of powerful void mages with a common fascination with, veneration of, and deep connection with the void, BUT they weren’t “Archons 2.0, Support Edition” What if they were twisted in both mind and body in their pursuit of growing closer to the void and expounding its importance within the lives of the Descendants at large? Made into pseudo-void horrors of sorts, with some strengths giving them an edge over existing void-mages, maybe with the already existing focus on support, but a wide range of flaws both physical and mental that ultimately outweigh this and don’t amount to “look, I’m weak to commonly anti-spectral stuff and I have a big glowing weak spot”. Where the lore itself isn’t to provide a creature – it’s to supplement that organization. It fluffs them out. It might not even provide much on the “special creature” side, with only marginal differences from normal descendants outside of the aesthetic attributes. That has potential. Oh, and get rid of the cap if you’re going to do that. Hell, get rid of it in general and just start punishing players who act out of character and start spreading this all around willy-nilly.

Doesn't change the fact that the ooc drama that was occurring was a debate between "quality over quantity" and "quantity over quality", which should never be an argument to be had between users of a magic that's supposed to be held to a higher standard than others (like all dark and holy magics and all creatures that require a CA).

I do agree with your point that the creating necro has to be involved, by the way. So I agree.

Hunter, with all due respect, I see little reason why you wouldn't support a proposal that helps with ghoul moderation that doesn't at all hurt the magic. The only ooc agenda it supports it's curbing the amount of ghouls, which it probably wouldn't even affect in any major fashion, it'd just provide the option for necromancers to actually regulate their ghouls in a way that allows them to remove bad ones themselves (rather than placing that on the MT/MAT), with the window open to reverse said removals. Not only that, but you yourself are opposing it because it might impact your own ooc agenda, that being the creation of a necromancy driven player antag (which is what I've heard from certain individuals and seen from certain screenshots and anecdotes), which, to be entirely honest, this writer thinks you're doing in the wrong manner.

I'm not meaning to degenerate this thread into some pointless argument that only ups animosity between players (because that never goes well for anyone), but given the fact that you just increased the amount of morghuuls being created after this thread was made, and given how many ghouls and necros have been created recently, it seems like you might (inadvertently or not) be trying to make the mat's job harder and create a void magic situation. By "void magic situation", I mean that void magic is apparently hard to moderate due to how widespread it is, creating a situation wherein blacklistings only occur in the most extreme of cases. This means that mediocre to bad void mages are not uncommon, and aren't dealt with efficiently due to the sheer amount of them. It doesn't help that most players aren't willing to put up reports and stir drama when they see bad void mages about (unless it's an extreme case). Now, given the steep increase of ghouls and necromancers recently, it seems like this problem is on the threshold of extending to magic that was never meant to be as common as void magic, and to a special creature, which should by default be held to a higher standard. When you're mass teaching and recruiting mediocre players, metabuddies and pvp goons, it seems to me at least that you're trying to make the MAT's job of moderating magic users of your category harder. So no, just asking the MAT to "Do their jobs" isn't a solution.

Necros probably won't accept a full on purge to curb this issue (given the change in management that promotes quantity over quality), so something like this at least addresses part of the issue.

This seems to actually be better than that. What you're describing is simply forcing a bad ghoul to act "okay" (which likely won't work, because bad ghouls are an ooc problem on the fault of the ghoul player), whereas this effectively removes the bad player in question from the equation, with the potential of easily bringing them back into the fold should they prove to redeem themselves.

Given the certain category of players who have appeared to take an interest in this rewrite, I'd recommend them never becoming playable by anyone but ET, lest we have disaster.

An okay job at updating Ratiki from "boring" to "interesting". ...Of course, they can never be as glorious as true skaven, squeak squeak.

>When nobody gives a **** about a rogue immortal spirit ending the map because orcs and their general existence are ignored by most RPers on a day-to-day basis due to teen drama rp taking more precedence than orc rp and thus void magic becomes a highlight instead Yes, in order to communicate with spirits effectively, one requires the use of old blah (although not old blah alone, since it has been shown that spirits are perfectly capable of speaking other tongues), and traces of that need to be added to this lore submission (as I said, the fluff needs some editing). However, other aspects, such as them being able to learn other magics, and a spirit being jealous of another deity...well, given the nature of spirits, there aren't as many problems as you seem to believe. For example, when it comes to other magics, I see little reason a spirit would find it disrespectful if someone using abilities derived from them also used other, non-spiritual magical abilities in conjunction. However, there are obvious red lines here. A spirit would definitely get pissed if a follower were to use magic from completely different type of deity (thus, no other deifics), or if they used an ability that reflected what they represented without actually being derived from them (for example, Skatach would get pretty pissed if someone with fire elementalism also practiced fire evocation). However, otherwise, the spirit probably wouldn't be too dissatisfied. This is further supported by the fact that the current ruling that "spirits get mad at followers when getting ANY OTHER MAGIC" isn't as much done out of IC reasoning and more as an OOC measure to prevent orcs from practicing other magics. As a former orc player myself, I can certainly recognize the ooc reasoning behind it, but in practice it needs revision. As for a spirit being jealous of a non-spiritual deity: All spirits desire power. Hence why they grow jealous of one another, war and ally with one another. Now, since the proposition that the spirit realm is in a vacuum separate from every other celestial or otherwise nonphysical group of deities is just flat out S T U P I D in this writer's opinion (since a bunch of deific **** existing in separate vaccums only serves to drive cliques further into seclusion) and everything should be somewhat interconnected, I see no reason why a spirit would not envy a deity more powerful than itself unless it was in service to said deity (as is the case with greater and lesser spirits). Spirits as a concept need to extend further than mere variations of shamanism and shamanistic creatures, and as stated before, a revised version of this lore could set the standard for more things of this nature.

Surely we shouldn't try to expand on spiritual influence throughout the setting in order to enhance and deepen the setting's fluff, and keep everything in the hands of the shamans/dark shamans, yes? Let's just keep something with great potential all confined to a small group and never let it become a potential highlight of the setting. In all seriousness, the piece requires some edits, but otherwise might set a standard where the spirits (And the spirit realm) are more utilized in the fluff than they are currently.

I'm unsure where the misconception of tendrils being related to mysticism comes from, when in fact shades are the spooks that possess edgy tendrils. Maybe a mystic who possessed illusionary void magic could cause the illusion of tendrils (similar to what's described), but that could be applied to anyone with illusionary void magic. Your logic seems quite odd.

What the hell is this Where the **** are my skaven dagnabbit

Your argument against them is quite literally "My knowledgeable character has never heard of them, therefore they don't exist111!!!!" It's as if you're complaining because you've never heard of them IC. As for what they add, they appear to (from what I've seen and heard) be quite simple: It adds an interesting creature that can spice up roleplay in small doses. Same as striga and frost witches, really. They're not some tacked on "lol SPESHUL SNOWFLAKE" creature (along the lines of the former incarnation of spider-people), nor "lol MOAR POWER" (along the lines of archons) creature. They appear to fill the same niche as striga and frost witches. An argument /can/ be made that having 3 creatures that fill the same general niche is bloating the niche a bit, but personally I'd say it's more on the breaking point. If /another/ were to be added, there'd be an issue, but as it stands, they appear to be doing no harm and, in some cases, actually adding to roleplay.

Better than Hou-Zi +1

Although your post is relatively well-written and nice enough to look at, this is not needed, and the server would be better off without them. Apologies for being harsh with this post, I mean no offense to you personally. This is designed for the sole purpose of winning fights, not to spice up roleplay. It's unadulterated cheese (https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Cheese), so much so that from here on out, I shall refer to the stones as Cheez-Its. If a voidal mage finds a cheez-it, they get the power of universal 2 emote casts. This is incredibly unbalanced, as it can effectively supercharge void magics such as lightning evo (which is renowned for having a quite high emote requirement coupled with incredible effectiveness against most targets), which, as an example, would be capable of pretty much instakilling most flesh targets within two emotes. This would cause mages that possess these Cheez-Its to become even more powerful than archons, a creature that already needs revision, nevermind this. Not to mention that blood mages can summon the things (although admittedly with an extremely long cooldown), which is ridiculous. The IC side effects the stones can have are nice, but they don't nearly compensate for the power they're providing. It's cheese. It's WAAC. This isn't going to enhance RP on the server, this is only going to drive it further into the abyss of the server letting players focus themselves solely on being the best, instead of providing RP for others. Imagine a clique of voidal mages all chipping together and getting their hands on the Cheez-Its. They'd be unstoppable. They would steamroll all opposition through contrived buffs. Sure, they'd be insane and fucked up IC, but the problem persists. I highly recommend you extensively revise this be less geared towards a win-at-all-costs mindset (as a tip, the individual downsides of the Cheez-Its are fine for roleplay and any revision should expand on that), otherwise I can't endorse this. -1 Edit: Upon examining the lore and wrapping my head around it, I've noticed that it only reduces emote casting time by 1. This is nowhere near as bad as my initial read, but the issue remains that the benefits of these stones still far outweigh any drawbacks.