frill

one shot per powergamer cry

full paragraphs and drink whole glass

thought the vintasian diet was orc toes says big al baden

12 hours ago, Corporatocracy said:

Word of the Pax Orenia’s plans had drifted back to the Targoth with haste

??

"the emperors father did what" says al baden

“god bless this sweet illiterate man” says al baden

An illness-striken Ide Haraccus seems to have his spirits lifted at seeing the familiar name, signing the papers!

To Cardinal Lochlan,

I write to you in defence of John de Balain.

I believe he who is met with the most human end of marriage, as is the death of the spouse, lives sadly and injuriously as to be no longer beloved is the greatest injury to a gentle spirit. 

There is no need to annul a marriage in which a spouse is dead.

Of the many evils stated upon the imperial arch-chancellory, the first and greatest is that most absurd and rash accusation of common adultery instead of the humble enjoyment of a blessed, valid and now-ended matrimony as seen by the eyes of GOD and the Canon church. The parting of the claimed wedding occurred at the pronouncement of death of the wife by yourself, Cardinal - for it is not just to keep men wed to their spouses long after their spouses have been declared dead, nor is it expedient for any practical purpose to insist it upon them.

How vain it is, and how preposterous it is to all vows and teachings of the binding word and law of the Canon, to seek to ignore such provision made for the death of a spouse in the matrimonial vows - this death was declared by the yourself as a member of the clergy of the same Canon who duly through the blessing of the matrimony of John and the affirmation of the death of his wife brought forward and summarily ceased this disturbance. 

This disturbance is solely the matter of a now-dissolved marriage and the languishing of the wife who, having been declared dead by the clergy, still complains of faux marriage to the same church which declared her life as no longer. He who wishes to part from a marriage due to the most human of reasons holds no sin upon it, highly honouring the married life until his wife’s life were to be taken from him. The spirit of the marriage is in the lives of the bewed. With a life declared no longer lived, the spirit is gone, the marriage is ended.

From the office of the Archchancellor.

Alain Baden feels the ambient warmth of the empire grow ever slightly, the amount of letters being thrown into fires surely means he can cut down on stoking his hearth for a few days.

Ide Haraccus makes the face of a man trying to solve a really hard puzzle as he reads the missive, musing on the idea of the archchancellor - and not the Lord Justiciar - calling a man to trial, with some of the charges levelled having no mention in the book of laws. If it was not for the acts against his Kadarsi kindred, he would have gladly helped the men of Lorraine wade through the filth of obvious subversions of the courts of law. But this is not an empire of processes or legal culture.

last sentence says it all +1

Many nobles in the Holy Orenian Empire would have this letter stuffed haphazardly through their letterbox, even being delivered to some shops, market stalls and places of trade! Printed in clear, easy-to-read typeface, it looks like an important piece of mail and certainly not junk.

                                      URGENT BUSINESS ASSISTANCE

Attention Beneficiary

Due to the fear of seizure by the Phoenix Mercenary Band and Goverment of Brannby [Guise]  the rare famed crown of the Holy Orenian Empire, the Johannian Crown have been moved into safe deposit abroad through the Land border, Can you assist Me? Kindly revert as soon as possible to declare your willines to partner with me in this project. 

We deposited a trunk box containing the crown of the Holy Orenian Empire yesterday evening, the Johannian Crown - that which had not been recovered from abdicant Johannes Achilius, ready for onward delivery via mighty strong and trustworthy Olog courier to the palace of Helena without further delay, the box weight 260lb and it was declared as Writing Materials and Personal Belongings for sake of secrecy.

Do reconfirm this below information's.

1: Your Name & Address

2: Your Age & Occupation

3: Your next Of Kin

We warned the Helena Constabulary that the consignment should not be inspected by any guards when bringing the consignment to you and never let them know the true content of the box to avoid Diversion or even a theft.

To allow this safe shipment I humbly request a safe deposit of two thousand (2 000) minae in unmarked envelope to my address below to allow the shipment safe transfer and to feed the Olog so it does not anger.

Yours In Service,

Honorable Orenian Mr.Alain Scorilo de Baden

1 Owyn Avenue,

Brannby.

7 hours ago, Fnik said:

“The Emperor can do as he likes with the titles He and His Crown please, as it is He who bestows upon a LOYAL vassal such titles, not your inbred bloodline’s lack of reasoning.

"dont think emperors can decide whose son is whose but cheers." says big al baden between mouthfuls of his yummy breakfast pork pie.

35 minutes ago, Valaryon said:

Me reading this post.
 

 

suicide is a pk

“Sounds like a crock of heeby-jeeby shite to me.” Big Al Baden tugs the silly missive free from the wall of the Brannby brewhouse, folding it into quarters and using it as a barmat for his half-full pint of Brannby pale ale. Don’t want to go staining that bar-top, it’s just been varnished.

Ide Haraccus sharpens his quill, preparing to write a letter pledging legal support for the trial should it ever occur!

1 hour ago, Temp said:

Unfortunately, I’ve never seen this happen. The defender typically maintains the ‘hero’ persona with little to no regard for the IC situation and legitimate odds. People would rather outright leave than roleplay on the defensive and faltering leg. Those that wish to remain often fall back into the rules of the server and claim that they’re being OOCly targeted, that the RP around the encounter was bad, etc etc etc. Alongside this, there’s little to no incentive for leaders to press for agreeable terms to defend their citizens and quickly bring the conflict to a close.

If both parties refused to work together before, during or after a conflict arises then they’re throwing their right to cry about rule-lawyer or mala fides pvp clicks into the flames. The onus is meant to be on both parties to create the atmosphere, and if one is acting so aggrieved in so far as wanting to lawyer and manipulate the rules in place to protect them to be a weapon against the other party, that needs to be nipped in the bud by whichever staff-member is handling the tickets instead of being enabled by them. There should be no incentive for leaders to press for agreeable terms; the purpose of the OOC discussion is to define a via media in which both parties would want to step into conflict, and these terms need to be reached without any carrot-stick artifice beyond having something fun to rp.

The spirit of direct conquest and RP bulldozing still remains, as we’ve seen in all of the previous wars that have crept up since the reveal of the new wars, and it’s a spirit that means that there is no room for negotiation between either party because they see no “roleplay reason” to move the terms, consequences et al. into a situation where the conflict would be seen as an enjoyable mutual enterprise for the people behind the screen.

When people’re threatening to void wars because the victim-group don’t consent to full, unabated, steamrolling, PRO-losing conquest, there’s a clear lack of “let’s just have fun roleplaying this out” from anyone involved.

2 hours ago, Temp said:

Once again the best that we can do, at least from my perspective is assess the IC logic of the encounter against set requirements that are deemed as ‘fair’ as the server can allow.

The rule-sets are for people who take pretend knight roleplay less seriously, and can flit through IC logic with a wink knowing that they’re not causing an OOC conflict by starting an IC one. With the factionalism and unabated vitriol that people throw at each-other at the national level, it’s very hard to get this subtle smudging of role-play circumstances to keep people enjoying things on both sides. Instead, you have people mobbing Nation Leaders in hour-long discord calls where they state that they demand to have absolute OOC control of a settlement so it’s no longer a “threat in roleplay”, and that it’s either handing over the keys OOC or being bulldozed.

The system is idealised, and would work well, for a different set of people. The staff and players are relatively incapable  of following the new rules if an issue comes up every three days from a rule-set that is meant to fuel mutual, respectful conflict for the sake of jus’ fun RP :3c and prevent conquest bulldozing of entire nations.

“too right. you tell em tunkrak” Big Al Baden declares aloud as he reads the news in the Elven newspaper delivered to his door! He makes a scribbled note in his pidgeon-scratch handwriting on the paper’s masthead to the post-boy, who’d obviously delivered his copy of Arcas Futbol Daily to some poor Elf in a paper mix-up that would be found comedic by a man possessing less refined tastes than the glorious game.

Big Al Baden stares to the rolling mud-plains where the mysteriously disappearing Barony had stood until a saint's day prior, one of the few remaining pints of Brannby pale ale in his hand. He waves the missive to a peasant rollicking in the raked field of muck and packed clod dirt where the town had once, days prior, proudly stood. "Aye pal, d'you know what tae **** they're invading?" Is his lone cry to the dirty-soaked reprobate.

3 minutes ago, Kaelan said:

Especially when one considers that there will be no action and that the current state of staff will continue or decline even further until you go back on another hiatus. 

tbh as most of the abuses of the system were from your blacklisting of players id like to thank you for helping stall the staff teams decline by resigning from it

cheers.

1 hour ago, Telanir said:

A favourite quote of mine got me thinking recently and it comes from @frill on the conflict faq post. The key to sincere and enjoyable roleplay really is in the backstage wink and handshake. How can we acknowledge the fact that a respectful OOC handshake can benefit our roleplay and LotC general experience—if the moment we witness meta we reach for the ban trigger?

O poor Prince Myshkin, at least you tried.

The implied sanctity of this backdoor agreement formed the backbone of your system because you deemed the new system to be less about OOC malice and conquest and more about creating and writing cohesive roleplay stories as a wholly cooperative effort of storymaking between all parties involved. The staff being hands-off would be a boon to the avenues of roleplay and story that could be explored and give players welcome relief from staff they deemed too totalitarian in applying rules verbatim when broken. It would give the staff more room to work on other facets of the server while also giving players some welcome freedom - and hopefully, earn back some of the respect that you feel the players no longer held in the staff.

By their own admission, staff interventionalism continued to exist even when you created a system to allow roleplay to continue autonomously, and the staff continued to nanny roleplay and have an overarching presence in conflict. Further, the rules further meaning to give players this welcome power to adjudicate their own roleplay conflicts acted as the cudgel they were beaten with as staff liberally applied the punishment system to situations that were agreed on and approved by the players and the players alone.

The key to sincere and enjoyable roleplay really is in the backstage wink and handshake, but you need to respect that mutual agreement as existing. The staff should not strong-arm their will past this agreement if the agreement exists, otherwise you're admitting that the players do not deserve the right to self-govern conflicts and that the staff presence is still a necessity with your new system.

Maybe you should have your staff team read the rules you wrote, buddy. It's a good system but it isn't quite there yet.

SCRIPTA MANENT

Imagined Emperors of Oren.
OR;

A Chronicle on the Strife and Dissension within the united Empire.

As so orated by Ide Haraccus I from the Southern Isle, who in fear of death at the hands of the Orenian government did author this work.

***

I ask: what did rapidly subvert and transform the powerful empire into the rump-state and sovereigns? Certainly the indignation of God will be provoked by multiple injustices against Him. I have seen during my time numerous men meddling with the sanctified offices of the princedom and the empire and rashly setting them upon their shoulders beyond their God-given right. I have seen others of my own nation consign my own books of the laws to the flames and are not afraid to tear them apart if the laws or canon-scrolls fall into their hands.

During the time of Emperor Augustus the Imperial laws were ordered from the empire and all the men of his realm bound by them, the letter of these laws by the appointment of God and the sanctification of the Canon, the law was rendered all the stronger in its virtue by those who in their sedition endeavoured to impair it. There has been little stability since these days of unity of man and man, man and God, common and noble. Each conflicted debases the next.

The apex of this disunity and the fulcrum of the swinging blades of conflicts that had plagued humanity since the war of the two emperors was within the palais Helena itself; for the blood of Oren, Carrion and Sarkoz took to arms against each-other, swords drawn towards oath-sworn brothers and comrades, to reach for the crown of Boy-Emperor Johannes as it dropped from his grasp.

Who among the many thousands desiring to rule wishes to be like poor Johannes Achilles Cascadia? Who wished the law and the will of the masses to be dominant democratically, as per the Vessian tradition, over himself and the people?  Yet all men who sieged upon Helena ought to have been satisfied with that which Emperor Johannes sought for his people, that is, if he acquired for himself only a few bare coins from the booty. 

For if these usurping men of Sarkoz and Tiber and Carrion blood took care to order those things which the law declared, the people would acquiesce in obeying to any of them so readily that there would not be iniquity and dispute in the community; and the emperor ought certainly to satisfy the people of his emperor. This wishful equity would never be reached by the choosing of a new emperor as among his newly appearing subjects, if but only due to the clawing proclivities of those of feudal stock.

But what of these men of feudal stock? Those craven beasts of capricious blood who grip and grip again at the station of political office are exactly those good men of governance should seek to dismiss. The depth of their fidelity and faith is as thin and lipid as the water of the wombs they so blasphemously defiliate themselves from. Their own surreptitious deposing of the rightful king of Helena is the case in point of their blasphemous sedition if but only by being an example of only enforcing the will of the emperor when it can so benefit themselves; and to the loss of good Tiber, his divine right to kingship as proclaimed by the emperor provided no such boon.

Godspeed you imagined politicians, you privy council of phantoms. Let your confederacy of nobodies be as strong as it is ambiguous. Let this stranger’s gallery of previously unseen courtiers who so represent nothing of the people of Oren try to twist the limbs of their boy-emperor puppet into some semblance of public spirit, for an emperor who is not serving of his people - as only a man chosen by them could be - is but a crowned ass.

GOD RESTORE TIBERIUS

Ide Haraccus I, Serene Prince of Ves, Jurist of Law Imperial and Foreign, paterfamilias of the Rassidun, man of letters.

Haraccus seems to take the missive as a joke as he reads the name of imperial bastard John Arkent, letting out a wheezy chuckle at such a good punchline.

“The very praxis of my written words. What beauty.” A fire-side Prince-Exile Ide Haraccus mumbles to himself as he scans the missive, eventually curling the papers into a ball and tossing the god-be-damned document into the flames.

It’s very telling that the administrators would rather silence dissent rather than address, assuage or hopefully resolve any problems put forward by the community. This isn’t some political diplomatic skill that should needs to be trained into them, but a basic social skill that is expected of the players – hence why it is a really sad thing to see when acted by the administrative team overseeing them. Forced silencing doesn’t beget silence nor fix the issues that’re raised, it just means the administrators, moderators et al. don’t have to see the problems that they need to address.

It can only be expected that this issue will continue to be brought forward in the future; if not by the people who’re effectively shadow-banned through the posting-throttle of the forum content moderation system or newer faces being pushed back by an ineffectual staff team that refuse to engage with, and in some cases actively punish, members of the community when problems are publicly brought against them. 

godspeed mr h

and free med

Ide Haraccus paces the streets of Helena with his chest puffed with pride in his fellow man!

Truly the emperor-groom he so humbly talked with mere hours before coronation is beginning the first fledgling steps of an age of unity and peace among men.