Forces of Good - Report!

[Satoshi]

Good evening, Sundren.

Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration, thereby those important events of the past usually associated with someone's death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, a celebration of a nice holiday, I thought we could mark this past one year anniversery by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being PM into Admin inboxes, and men with bansticks will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this virtual country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high deity, Bane. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last night I sought to end that silence. Last night I almost destroyed Sylloven, to remind this virtual country of what it has forgotten. A little more than a year ago a great citizen wished to embed the idea of good and justice forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this growing Banite movement remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow the time to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight, outside the gates of the Temple of Helm, and together we shall give them a holy war that shall never, ever be forgot.

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If that didn't get your attention, then nothing will. Clerics of the the 'good' deities (namely the Triad and Helm), Paladins, concerned citizen players who have ties to the prior two - lend me your ears, your arms, and your blazing spirits! PM me with your primary character name (please don't bother with alts, unless you play them as often as your main), a brief paragraph about how or why you wish to be involved with the Church(es), and what you hope to do with your character in the future.

I'm going to begin trying to make the inner workings of the Churches and militant forces more apparent, and show that evil isn't laughing in the face of good and deftly dodging every dastardly act of justice. There are two sides to this ever-growing war - and, by the Gods, we'll show Bane, Talona, Shar, Talos and the Furies... all of them that the forces of good will not sit idly by as they plunder, pillage, and perverse this good land!

[Blue_Wyrm]

Well, allow me to start with my thoughts before I will answer as required about my character's intention (because I will answer), there is something in the presentation of this post that kind of unsettles me. Simply put, I don't think IC and OOC should be mixed this much in a thread that invites to PvP. In my very personnal opinion, and please do not take offense from this, as these are just my feelings, this well-written invitation to war against Bane should have been in the Roleplay/Rumors section. I understand that you want us to speak openly OOCly of our character's standing towards Helm and the Triumvirate, but it's the OOC "us VS them" that I don't like...

To take an real exemple, Undeadsteak and his wanna-be "vampire" made my Drado borderline insane (he dived into alcohol instead). I was stalked by him for around 2 hours of play, as his character kept whispering promises of horrible things if I didn't fear Bane. This was outstanding RP, but at the same time, very difficult for me to withstand, as I was almost "god-moded" for that whole time through my reactions as there was no way I could beat 35+ Bluff checks at level 4. BUT I am certain that if at any time I felt this was enough, I just had to nicely Tell him to pick another target, it was clearly only RP stalking, and well-played at that (kudos man). He could've killed me in a split second, instead he just did scary RP things like using his personnal favourite spells like Wall of Fire and such. So I believe this is an exemple of outstanding "PvP" fairplay. He's level 69, I'm 4, so he uses psychological warfare. Win.

Where I'm going to, is that if you take the Good VS Evil on a OOC field, the PvP might get nastier from unrealized personnal vendettas and a bit too much uncouncious metagaming. I am not sure what you were proposing in the start of your post, but I'll keep my comments on what I said above. I think opposition between players should stay strictly in-character.

Sorry for that lenghty parenthesis, to answer your question, Drado is still quite new to the deities commonly worshipped by humans, coming out from a secluded, hidden gnome settlement that barely cared for any of them beyond Gond and the gnomish pantheon. He has already found cheerful, trustful allies in two priestesses of Lanthander, but finds that Helmites, while worthy companions, take themselves wayyy too seriously. However, he has been psychologically tortured already (this is my first week-end lol) by a servant of Bane, and if he HAS to make a stand, he will undoubtedly be against them. But the gnome ways focus more on avoiding all-out wars, and just vanishing from sight when things go real bad... Maybe will he have strong enough friendships amongst human to step up and protect them? Who knows. I guess it depends how they will treat him.

[Xiantium]

((((This reminds me of a movie... i once watched V! lol))))Stupid people and thier foolish gods. Be prepared to be crushed by the black hand of bane.

[undeadsteak]

Yay. Us evil players need some fun once in a while... And yeah, i guess the bluff checks weren't too fair, Drado :P. But, its more of my cha + beguiling + feat That gives me such high bluff checks ^^. I rolled a 51!


The thing i don't really like is that it might end up in lots of PvP like Wyrm said, though yes, the good forces have to make a stand sometime. So then, when Bane wins, you all feel sad.

[Satoshi]

As a response to Blue Wyrm - Everything from before the dotted line is actually, as Xiantium guessed, an inspirational speech from 'V for Vendetta', albiet altered to deliver the message to Sundren. It was all in good fun, and I'm not attacking the evil playerbase OOC. I am, however, reminding the playerbase that good versus evil, epsecially in the mostly black and white realms of Dungeons and Dragons really is 'us vs. them', though I cannot and will not ever condone the transition of an in-character grudge out of character.

Basically, this is how it is. As a good number of the evil playerbase knows, Bane and the gods that serve/ally with him are largely entrenched in Sundren. They have DM events specifically for them involving religious significance, and delving deeper into the lore of the world. I am simply doing the same for the good players - as, traditionally, players are more inclined to good than evil (whether you know it or not). In fact, a lot of the 'evil' player base is actually 'evil lite'. Thinking bad thoughts does not make you evil :P.

All in all, I'm just trying to collect a ledger of who I need to start watching more intently and give deity-themed lore and challenges to. Overall, I think this will be enriching for all of us, and can only be hindered if you, the players, allow it to. There's always a choice in the matter, and when things start to get out of line, we DMs are there to make sure it doesn't.

[Aux]

As a side note, id consider 2 hours of stalking someone with such a level difference as griefing, rp or not.. just not fair. Though thats probably just me.

Deity driven quests and lore is a good thing though. Theres a few gods that are very overlooked, but all in good time i suppose.

[undeadsteak]

stalking somone is grieving? It was all rp, i never attacked Drado at all.. Grieving would be killing him over and over. He didn't seem to mind my char messing with his head.

[Blue_Wyrm]

I mentionned Steak above because he was to be commended for his fair-play. I had no doubt that he'd have stopped if I asked in a Tell, I reacted strongly to his RP as a sign of encouragement to continue. Don't worry Aux, it was all fun and games, making Drado feel suchs strong emotions allows me to perform slight changes to his personnality. It actually sheds a bit of his gnomish innocence off, and he will be better emotionnally prepared to deal with such things the next time the occasion presents itself.

Back on topic, I didn't know this was a speech from V, i just watched the movie once when it came out (aye it was awesome). :P If I might add something about good deities, I'd like to make the suggestion of adding a temple to Mystra anywhere in the lands, it could be in Sundren or on a pretty isolted landscape, whatever. She, like magic, is everywhere, and my character would certainly do all he can to finance its construction if there still isn't in Sundren while there's Helmites and Triumvirates everywhere. :P It could also be that you plan to release this kind of spellcaster-related content at the same time as the Hand of Mundus faction content, if so nevermind this.

*Edit: added stuff and fixed some typoes. i'm such the lunatic typo'er

[Aux]

No, i mean using incredibly high skills on him for a long time, you know he cannot win.. not really fair. No worries.

[Machiavelli]

Theres a few gods that are very overlooked, but all in good time i suppose.

Erevan Ilesere for instance , but I think that includes about two players .

But, bringing some more emphasis onto deities sounds good to me (and unless I read my Wiki wrong, I thought Helm was big in Sundren, and that the Triumvirate had come to crusade against evildoers and so on).

[romeo_longsword]

stalking somone is grieving? It was all rp, i never attacked Drado at all.. Grieving would be killing him over and over. He didn't seem to mind my char messing with his head.

I have experienced a repetitive killing spree by a character of undeadsteak's; together with another fellow lowbie adventurer friend of mine.

She has been:

1) repetitively killing us.

2) Lay out area offensive spells around us, and in occasion, pushes our characters on to them. The action of undeadsteak's character were not "role-playing" suggestions, they were forceful bullying.

You would find, the way she has been placing the offensive spells such as the purple firewalls; were tightly surrounding our characters, and she would cast the spell over and over, giving my character no chance to move.

At first, I have tried to role-play along, then, until the point I realise the person was NOT ONLY interested in role-playing. Throughout all the time undeadsteak's character has been stalking our party (approximately one hour), I have been ignoring her, and until the point she started killing us, over and over again.

Role-playing takes interaction between the two parties socially, however, her applications suggests bullying otherwise, and to claim that her motive is purely RP based is just an excuse for her to enjoy her bullying instinct.

Player as such would exploit the idea of role-playing, and expect to get away with anti-social behaviours is not uncommon, but it's still not acceptable in my view.

I am glad that there are reasonable DMs around to prevent such development of dark heart within humanity. And that, apply to both the player and the character I think.

[Blue_Wyrm]

True, Mystra certainly doesn't get more than crumbles of popularity left behind Helm and Bane, but what I meant is that there is actually no faction nor deity established for good arcane spellcasters, and that it might be a good idea that will give a sense of identity to quite a few players (as far as I've seen, we're a quite a bunch of low-level wizards). They are good friends, but I just don't see a funky gnome in the Lions or in the service of Helm...

It could even easily be put into the opposing conflict of the churches, just pitting a mystran church against an enclave of red wizards, and voil?, you've got deals struck between thayans and banites. :P

EDIT: I am sorry for having opened a gap in the thread by using what I thought to be a harmless example. If you feel there is inadequacies with the way a player has interacted with you, please speak directly to the DMs and not publicly like this, this is bound to hijack the thread.

[Aux]

The wizards and such will get their 'organisation' eventually i think, with the Sundren sanctioned guilds etc.

[undeadsteak]

I have experienced a repetitive killing spree by a character of undeadsteak's; together with another fellow lowbie adventurer friend of mine.

She has been:

1) repetitively killing us.

2) Lay out area offensive spells around us, and in occasion, pushes our characters on to them. The action of undeadsteak's character were not "role-playing" suggestions, they were forceful bullying.

You would find, the way she has been placing the offensive spells such as the purple firewalls; were tightly surrounding our characters, and she would cast the spell over and over, giving my character no chance to move.

At first, I have tried to role-play along, then, until the point I realise the person was NOT ONLY interested in role-playing. Throughout all the time undeadsteak's character has been stalking our party (approximately one hour), I have been ignoring her, and until the point she started killing us, over and over again.

Role-playing takes interaction between the two parties socially, however, her applications suggests bullying otherwise, and to claim that her motive is purely RP based is just an excuse for her to enjoy her bullying instinct.

Player as such would exploit the idea of role-playing, and expect to get away with anti-social behaviours is not uncommon, but it's still not acceptable in my view.

I am glad that there are reasonable DMs around to prevent such development of dark heart within humanity. And that, apply to both the player and the character I think.

..., First off, take this to PMs. Second off, I attacked you once. I didnt cast firewalls near you at all when you were in battle. And I havent repeatedly killed you. I even healed your friend after i attacked. Your char pretty much ignored my whole chars RP, even ask the elf who was with your group. He did not feel grieved at all after it alked to him, and he said my char was totally RPing. You simply decided to ignore my char throughout, And one hour? I was with your char when you went to the spittlefist caverns, and after you got to the second level, i left fromt here.

[Rhifox]

It could even easily be put into the opposing conflict of the churches, just pitting a mystran church against an enclave of red wizards, and voil?, you've got deals struck between thayans and banites. :P

Ooh, some more life to the Thayan Enclave would be awesome. (also wondering if the Red Wizard there will ever get the new MotB Red Wizard robes <.<)