The "Vision", as you all call it, is beyond my grasp. I'm familiar with it, from my interactions and time as an administrator, but if I don't feel as though I'm intimately familiar with it to a near unsettling degree, I won't speak to it.

I'm looking to change staghide from cold, or give it some sort of variable dmp mechanic that is appropriate. It's not terribly high on the list, though.

I'm struggling with Serenwilde. I mean... all of the other Org's seem to have an associated damage type. The cities are easy, related them to their elemental planes AND degree of excorable or divinus. Not sure sure about the communes. Glom gets away with the whole poison association. What about Serenwilde? What's their cool damage type?

I remember reading something back about an underlying theme of each Org. That writer proposed cities were based on traditional D&D alignment: good, evil, chaotic, lawful. And the communes based on the four seasons. To me, that thinking was applicable, but a creative stretch.

IF you were to associate each commune (even the unreleased ones) with a season... can you necessarily also associate a damage type? Yeah, Ackleberry = Sun = Fire. But what about Serenwilde and Glomdoring from an elemental standpoint. I suppose Seren would be cold (esp with all those frost hags or whatever they are). Not sure about Glom from an elemental standpoint. Does this make any sense?

Were this a discussion in Havens, I'd point out that the Moon is also often associated with mental ailments (ie 'lunacy'), so psychic damage-type may not be far afield.

Since it's not, I'm just going to point out that while Serenwilde does have a heavy wintry theme (spirits and hags associate with winter), it also has aspects of every season within it. It's important to note that the White Hart and Mother Moon are very cyclical spirits - there's not 'beginning' nor 'end', there's only a repeating nature (For Hart it's life - Fawn -> Buck/Doe -> Stag -> Fawn -> Buck/Doe -> Stag -> Fawn, etc. Or, birth, life, old age, rebirth, life, old age, rebirth, so forth -- meanwhile Moon runs through her many faces, which also are very seasonal. You've Spring/Early Summer for Luna , Late Summer/Early Fall for Selene , and Winter for Albion .)

Such themes, while they may have previously existed in Gloriana, seem more or less to have fallen away in favour of... "shallower" themes, I guess. Beauty, Domination, Vanity, Madness, (almost uncontrollable) Growth, Pestilence.

Whatever seasonal scheme one could derive for the communes might speak to them thematically, but it wouldn't be too grand or predictive, I'd think. All of the communes have aspects of every season - they're a part of Nature, IE everything moves in patterns and flows. If Serenwilde were forever in a state of Winter and Ackleberry just got stuck in Spring forever, it'd be a wild imbalance and cause untold chaos on their respective environments.

Also, on that point, I note "Ackleberry" != Sun != Fire. Because Ackleberry's spirit isn't Sun.

Trying to equate a given forest with a given 'element' is a broken and, ultimately, an inherently flawed approach because elements associate with cities, not communes. Communes associate with the Ethereal Plane, which is far closer to Prime than the Elemental Planes - and is, itself, a reflection of the Prime Material and Nature. All elements exist in Nature in some form, already.

I'll also note that, for a very long time, the communes had 'magic' and 'cutting/blunt' - they aren't sophisticated, high-level mages nor guardians. They're, for lack of a better term, barbarians. They live in the woods, they talk to animals and commune with spirits. Depending on their spirit associations, their damage types change. Glomdoring isn't associated with "poison", Night and Crow are (and, because of their association with Glomdoring, it has that reputation). If we suddenly swapped out Night and Crow with Bear and River, it wouldn't make much sense (in so, so many ways, but you get my point) for poison-type.

Staghide protects against the cold because... That's what a stag's hide does for the animal. If it suddenly protected against, say, fire, it'd probably be negative DMP (IE be a malus), because several in Havens are terribly fond of grilled deer.

Glom is definitely associated with Poison, Eventru, even if that association is through their Great Spirits, particularly Crow and the psudo-great spirit Scorpion.

Ebonguard have access to both Night and Crow, Druids have Crow, and Shadowdancers have Night. Further, Nekotai have strong associations with Poison and Grandmother Scorpion, and even Shadowsingers have song effects based around Poison.

Glom has a stronger association with Poison than Mag does!

Mag "elements"= Hunger and Disease.

Jojobo is Sun, right? Ackleberry would be the River spirit...so cold/water damage. But then Icewynd would definitely be cold o.0 So that's like three forests for cold >.>

Would love extra poison resists though!

If you removed the Spirits from Glomdoring, there's no association with poison. Like I said - the association is through their spirits. Without the spirits, Glomdoring would be left with trees and animals - there'd be some poison left, yes (wasps and the like), but most of it would be tooth and claw and vine and thorn. You're missing the point of my argument, however. There's no 'element' associated with each commune.

And, I note, Grandmother Scorpion is /not/ a Glomdoring spirit. She very likely wants nothing to do with Glomdoring.

But aren't the Spirits so tied with the forest they protect (Night/Crow to Glomdoring, Moon/Hart to Serenwilde, etc.) that they're essentially one and the same?

And while Scorpion isn't a Glomdoring Great Spirit, she's still revered by the Nekotai Guild (as the original teacher of their skill). I suppose, though, it's perfectly within Admin jurisdiction to create an event that erases and/or reverses a considerably wonderful and probably not-easy-to-do RP set by players which was left alone for some years but was surprisingly met with antagonism from the Administration in recent times.

The argument isn't about associated elements; those are made clear by each city's relationship with an elemental plane. This argument is about associated damage types, damage types that are particularly common wither as abilities or DMP within that org.
Looking at it this way, it is clear that, with the exception of Glom, no org has a particularly overwhelming association with any given damage type. Archetypes do, particularly mages, as is appropriate, but for the most part, I don't feel that it is appropriate to associate damage types with orgs.

Poisons existed before the Soulless, IIRC. Viravain had a reputation for making them, didn't she?

If my knowledge of the histories is correct, Soulless existed before Viravain. Further, the Poison damage type IS NOT in any way the same as poisons harvested through the Poisons skill. The Poisons skill makes use of natural and quasi-natural poisons. Poison damage type makes use of the destructive effects of the Wyrd/Taint.

Certainly, and the elemental planes are so intertwined with the cities they're core to their identification as well. My point was that people were looking for 'elements' for the forest, which is flawed (Janalon saying 'ackleberry = sun = fire'), and then they were trying to tie them to a particular season ('serenwilde = winter'), which is similarly flawed.

As I've said before. Glomdoring's welcome to worship her - it's not the first time they've insisted on something that's not actually true (all of which is perfectly fine). All I'm pointing out is that, from an OOC standpoint, it's not actually true. Scorpion is not a Spirit of Glomdoring - Glomdoring did not learn Nekotai from Scorpion, they learned it from the illithoid (who learned it from the Scorpion Cult). The Cult, particularly the Spirit herself, want nothing to do with outsiders. That was the entire reason they aligned with the illithoid - to avoid detection and keep people away. They may, from time to time, be willing to provide some small assistance, but they don't like anyone.

Glomdoring can worship her all they desire, just as some Serens can worship Bull or Snake or Wolf or whomever they please. The reality is that if they tried to directly interact with her, she'd likely run away. She wants nothing to do with anyone - even her Cult was formed as a favour to her only friend, Tzaraziko, IIRC, by taking in some of the survivors of Alin'dor and Lacenti. When Hallifax, Gaudiguch and Celest stumbled upon the Cult, Grandmother Scorpion freaked out and turned their troops into horrific monstrosities. Some Celestians took things a step further in response, and the Nomads and Mesa utterly despise them.

I'm not going to get into the 'Nekotai can revere Scorpion all they want, she wants to be left alone by everyone' -- 'OH GOD THE ADMIN ARE RUINING OUR RP ON THE FORUMS' affair all over again. I'll be backing out of the conversation, as it seems to be circular.

I feel like, let's back up off Scorpion talk because that's not going to end well, and will only serve to derail this thread to an extreme. Glom people get defensive about Scorpion (Rightly so, because whether anyone likes it or not, Scorpion has longstanding admin and player forged history to Nekotai. But additionally because of Eventru's relative superiority in regards to Lusternian Lore, his word has a tendency to be taken as law. Both of these combined = No One Wins)

Oh, I wasn't saying that they are the same. My question was in reply to Eventru's post. Mainly, this one:



See this quote from the Book of Elfenehoala:


Does this quote not prove that venomous/poisonous creatures were already created by Elders even before the Soulless came to ravage the Basin and even before the Taint got released?


Also:



I believe she lost her hand in Haradan.

I've never said 'all poisonous creatures were the result of soulless taint'. For example, seren's tree frogs. However, I have said that many of them (gravediggers, widows, scorpions, vipers, astral critters come to mind) were created or transformed into what they are now using soulless energy. Widows were originally (relatively) harmless gossamer spiders, for example. Likewise, Blooredi's creations and animals he mutated using the soulless energy (scorpions, for example, and probably spitting lizards and potentially some snakes - not sure there) were often venomous (he was renowned for it, IIRC).

Perhaps I should rephrase - poisons are a common and development in animals and entities transmutated by the excoroperditio energies. These poisons also tend to be far more efficient than anything that existed before them.

Why? Who knows. It's quite possible it's simply the destructive nature of the Excoroperditio - it encourages mutations that produce and enable killers and destroyers.



It's possible. It's been 3 or 4 years since I read the books associated with Tzaraziko - I just remember that Tzaraziko lost it in a fight with Kethuru, and it was written at the same time as the books detailing Alin'dor etc were. As well, the author mentioned pyramids and the like. Mind, I might just be confusing Alin'dor with Haradan, too.

(Or the book I'm thinking about ended up never being released, and I'm saying things I shouldn't be.)

Edit: Ah, I found it. Yes, it appears you're right - though Haradan is located near the ruins of Alin'dor, so it's all the same general area.

I'm a but confused why everyone think Glom has super poison dmp, we have garb which adds 17 dmp (this is nice yes, but not OMG WTFAWESOME), but other than that, there's nothing that no one else but Glommies has access too. I mean Serenwilde, the forest opposed to us has access to snake which is 25 poison dmp off the bat. I guess I don't think poison is really any worse off than cold/electric etc. in terms of protection. I'd be fine if there was some sort of 'poison' purg that gave 10dmp or something like frost/fire/galvanism.

Crow cloaks?

More poison dmp might be nice, but also keep in mind that Geomancers do very little (in their primary) other than big poison damage, and are balanced around that.

touche, but that's just crow users(others can wear it, but don't get the dmp), I didn't realize it was more than just being able to speak to the dead -noobiedruid-



as an aside, Asmodea was able to hit me for 2.5kish cold damage when the new SS song came out, and that was as a fully deffed up Night EG (with affinity and attune to boot). I realize she may be an outlier, but heavy hitting damage at easily the same range as staffcasts/wasps/lightningbugs can be achieved.

Be that as it may, there is certainly an undeniable hierarchy when it comes to damage types. We want to know whether that is intentional, or something to be balanced.

Another, moderately related question: How does Psychic type damage harm the target? What mechanism does it use? It it a purely mental attack, or does it somehow manifest physically?

You also have snake with is 25 poison off the bat... On top of the 17 from garb, and another 30 from cloak.

Edit: the construct that helps poison dmp is the garb business.

EDIT: And that's not how we've seen Hart Aspects for a long time, there hasn't been any rebirth fluff written there for... as long as I can remember or can read back in our records. A while ago (quite a bit before me) someone went through and destroyed a lot of our rituals and the like, but I don't think that was ever the direction we went with that.