Enyalida:

I don't get this. Players should be part of a role. There should be no 'watch out, you're going against what we want this org to be', as long as people aren't flagrantly being OOC. If a bunch of people legitimately join Serenwilde, and perpetrate a successful conspiracy to change Serenwilde, Serenwilde should be changed! If the leaders of Serenwilde happened to get together and decide that we want an alliance with Glomdoring because they are correct about the Wyrd, why should admins step in and reverse it? Our Patron would rage, then we would make one of our dead gods our Patron.

They have done that in the past and they will do it again. Glomdoring learned a big lesson about that. I remember long ago when people tried to patronize Elcyrion in Magnagora--the beggars rose up and destroyed the shrines. You don't have that level of Freedom. Granted, the admin don't usually force the issue, but I am saying it's not wise to try that. This isn't a game where you get that extreme level of control. If you believe that, based on what I've seen in the past, it won't end well.

Generally, gods coming in and commanding people to do things randomly is met with boycotting that god and ignoring their commands, look at Fain recently!

I have no idea what this is in reference to. But it also depends on the god.

Reading your post, it seems like you were building towards a well reasoned and important point, I'm just not sure exactly what it was... We (at least I) agree that Serenwilde is sort of milling around lost, what do you propose we do about it? Hopefully not just play along with whatever anyone who seems important tells us. EDIT: I guess what I'm saying is that I think that you are calling for railroading us back on course, and I'm not sure why anyone would want more railroading. I feel like that's part of what got us into this mess.

It's not so much railroading as getting the game back on track. Maybe what should happen is when a god comes back and has a strong direction--you follow it, and they kick people out who try to rebel. It may mean some pain but it might work out in the long run, cleaning up the in-fighting and getting things back on track. I notice the orgs that seem to be doing well either have a very strong stable and charismatic leadership, and/or have strong gods.

Regarding alliances, I was thinking in part things should be encouraged so no alliance lasts too long. In this case, I personally think an alliance should never last more than 3 months or so. Maybe there's a way to add that mechancially. I think part of the problem is the long-running Celest-Glomdoring alliance, which (1) is the two strongest orgs teaming up and (2) sort of seems to ignore natural tensions--Eventru vs. Nocht, and Celest's wanting to gather fae for the angels, for instance. Maybe they need to make a few nudges in the right direction. The whole Celest-Glomdoring alliance was originally done to get rid of the constant Celest-Serenwilde alliance, but it might be time to rethink things.

Mostly I'm just throwing out ideas. Interesting enough, other orgs have had a lot of challenges and have risen up a bit. Gaudiguch was in a funk, and with Mysrai and some people moving it worked out okay for them. Hallifax has had a TON of turnover this year--so many charismatic folk have retired--Prav, Daraius, Wuylinfe, Sylandra, Llesevet, and a few others have retired yet they are still strong. It seems those orgs that work well with their own lore, leaders, and Gods are doing a lot better than those that don't. (I'm not sure if Magnagora is in a similar funk).

I think the most interesting thing to me is it seems a lot of lore is getting lost for some reason. It's like the leadership isn't passing down traditions and customs like other orgs have done. Is this a case of too many people retiring or some generations ignoring the lore so the third generation doesn't learn it properly? On a purely sociological perspective, it shows how culture changes, but it seems to indicate a serious flaw in something there. Does the Collegiate teach enough about the fae, Hart and Moon, and the commune in general? Why didn't Lendren get any interest in putting on plays like in the past while Hallifax had a bunch of volunteers? Are they too many people "doing their own thing", or is it something else?

Phred:

They have done that in the past and they will do it again. Glomdoring learned a big lesson about that. I remember long ago when people tried to patronize Elcyrion in Magnagora--the beggars rose up and destroyed the shrines. You don't have that level of Freedom. Granted, the admin don't usually force the issue, but I am saying it's not wise to try that. This isn't a game where you get that extreme level of control. If you believe that, based on what I've seen in the past, it won't end well.

No we didn't. At least, not if you're referring to the Viravain thing.

It got retconned.

If the organization as a whole has a preference (versus a couple of characters instigating trouble), there's clearly something wrong with the current path being tread by the Administration and an understanding needs to be reached.

The Gods kicking out a lot of characters from an organization also is not a great idea as far as player retention goes...

Yes, but the point I was making was in fact, you guys did adapt after that input (and the emergency meeting), Xenthos, in that Glomdoring was no longer as uber-xenophobic, and Viravain still changed from her 1.0 version.

For instance, Glomdoring used to ignore a lot of events back then, and from what I've seen, you guys did take some hints and that's part of why you are a lot more successful today, at least from my perspective. (And IIRC there was some pain involved, you ended up losing a few people like Shayle in the correction process).

Players should have input and roles--but you also can't rewrite the organization by yourselves, either. You're not going to become Gloriana for instance, even if you all vote for it, without admin support.

Serenwilde isn't trying to rewrite itself--it's trying to rediscover itself.

Phred:

Yes, but the point I was making was in fact, you guys did adapt after that input (and the emergency meeting), Xenthos, in that Glomdoring was no longer as uber-xenophobic, and Viravain still changed from her 1.0 version.

For instance, Glomdoring used to ignore a lot of events back then, and from what I've seen, you guys did take some hints and that's part of why you are a lot more successful today, at least from my perspective. (And IIRC there was some pain involved, you ended up losing a few people like Shayle in the correction process).

Players should have input and roles--but you also can't rewrite the organization by yourselves, either. You're not going to become Gloriana for instance, even if you all vote for it, without admin support.

From my standpoint (as a member of Glomdoring), we participate now just as much as we always did; if it's Commune related, the whole Commune throws in. If not, only a handful of people (often just me) show up and do anything, because I like events and did back then, too!

The only event that caused that 'impression' was the Kepheran one, in which I would do the exact same thing today given the same information that we had at the time. There were just a handful of dreams given to both us and our allies which were completely contradictory and left us with the taste that both sides were hiding something-- which they were! Neither was trustworthy.

Enyalida:

If the leaders of Serenwilde happened to get together and decide that we want an alliance with Glomdoring because they are correct about the Wyrd, why should admins step in and reverse it? Our Patron would rage, then we would make one of our dead gods our Patron.

The Wyrd is widely seen to be a perversion of Nature, and in that fashion worse then the Taint, which is merely a perversion. Even if it is only partly Tainted (though I contest this IC, for various reasons), it's still quite evil and quite bad, because all relationships with the Taint are. We've got things like the entire Seren Civil War event to back that up.

To be honest, I'm quite sure Hoaracle would prefer to see Serenwilde aligned with Glomdoring instead of Magnagora. Almost positive.

Enyalida:

Generally, gods coming in and commanding people to do things randomly is met with boycotting that god and ignoring their commands, look at Fain recently!

It really bothers me that people (you) have gotten into the habit of forcing the blame for all of the woes in the world on Hoaracle. He did not 'come in and command people to do things'. He stated that he didn't want members of HIS ORDER defending Magnagoran territories. Why? Because Hoaracle was one of the Triumvirate, and is ALWAYS going to be against the Taint and the Twelve Traitors.

Yes, this keeps people from his order in some cases. Yes, this leads to not always having wowomgawesome war shrines active for every single squabble. But you know what? Sometimes you just really need to set game mechanics and related worries aside, and learn to enjoy what you have to work with. I'm ashamed of the general attitude of Serenwilde, which caused me to leave it. The undue blaming of the one god who has tried his best to keep everyone pleased (while sticking to his role, heaven forbid!) doesn't help anything.

Yet people have the nerve to wonder why things aren't fun for them anymore.

Well put. One "like" earned.

eritheyl:

To be honest, I'm quite sure Hoaracle would prefer to see Serenwilde aligned with Glomdoring instead of Magnagora. Almost positive.


It really bothers me that people (you) have gotten into the habit of forcing the blame for all of the woes in the world on Hoaracle. He did not 'come in and command people to do things'. He stated that he didn't want members of HIS ORDER defending Magnagoran territories. Why? Because Hoaracle was one of the Triumvirate, and is ALWAYS going to be against the Taint and the Twelve Traitors.

Yes, this keeps people from his order in some cases. Yes, this leads to not always having wowomgawesome war shrines active for every single squabble. But you know what? Sometimes you just really need to set game mechanics and related worries aside, and learn to enjoy what you have to work with. I'm ashamed of the general attitude of Serenwilde, which caused me to leave it. The undue blaming of the one god who has tried his best to keep everyone pleased (while sticking to his role, heaven forbid!) doesn't help anything.

I was actually referring both to the entire Fain thing that happened recently and the idea that people are going to come in and just 'set us right'. Essentially all the problems I've got with Serenwilde predate Hoaracle, sorry if it seemed like I'm blaming him, because I really don't blame him.


EDIT: "The Fain thing" being a new Fain coming in and commanding people and being literally told on the logs something like: "Please remember that you do not lead this nation and have no power to command us."

Though I have a different pedagogical method for describing the wyrd to people, inside and outside of the Glomdoring playerbase, it still strikes me as odd that the Serenwilde Nature Force would side with Magnagora, who to most of the free-thinking world is still known as They Who Suckle the Nectar of the Thing That Tainted Gloriana/the World/Everything Good and Decent. The Wyrd, which is cited as a perversion of nature (which is an ideological hodge podge mixture of several different concepts and can't even really be defined at this point in the game) conceivably wouldn't exist if that fateful event never occurred, and though Magnagora sure is sticking to its guns (which seems to be the rationale for the continued Seren/Mag alliance), it's goal will still be, forevermore, to taint everything.

Magnagora taints. Serenwilde doesn't like things that pervert nature. Magnagora taints nature. By this rationale, Serenwilde doesn't mind if Magnagora taints nature so long as it doesn't pervert it? I'm dizzy.

Glomdoring's goals are still going to be to wipe away the taint from its past completely and to spread the wyrd, which the game itself has sanctioned as part of nature. It didn't blossom from taint and it's the lovechild of two really lovely-looking Elder Goddesses.

Proselytizing aside, one must wonder-- are these in-character perceptions about nature an ideological dream inspired by what your out-of-character selves want Lusternia "nature" to be? For instance, sloughing off the Maeve, who, no matter what you say or do, is still going to be the culminating consciousness of the nature spirits (i.e. nature itself), is pretty anti-Lusternian nature when we've been told over and over and over again that the nature spirits comprise (and embody and personify) what nature is in Lusternia. Here's another mind blower: dryads are fae, too, and they're nature spirits-- thus, the trees themselves are part of this collective consciousness.

Which brings me back to the meat of the thread-- the concept design of Serenwilde tradition, while perhaps initially founded upon an ideological notion of what nature is in the Real World (at least according to player understanding of the organization before the histories were revealed), is probably no longer working in the currently understood Lusternian nature paradigm. Since it will be really hard for you to put all of what we collectively know about Lusternian nature back into Pandora's box, it will definitely be easier and more beneficial for you to change how you work within the paradigm rather than for you to expect the paradigm to change because you don't think like there's any kind of alternative. And I will agree that if you rail against the founding principles of what nature means to the whole of Lusternia (the Wyrd and whacky Maeve included), you're probably not going to succeed and you'll still be the preservers of nature (which you don't seem to want anymore).

So why not move in a different direction from all of that altogether? You don't have to succumb to Maeve's every whim. If she tells you to hang out with Glomdoring, you can tell her, specifically, why that doesn't jive with you, and if whomever's controlling Maeve at the time remembers what we know of her during whatever instance it is that she summons the communes together, they'll help us roleplay out her fickle disinterest.

Also, why not find AN aspect, one single aspect of nature that works better for you and worship/protect just that? If the Wyrd truly is some kind of perversion, we're unlikely to get a new "natural nature" substance. It's also sort of not fair at all that you point the finger of blame at Glomdoring for obtaining the Wyrd while simultaneously claiming that you are the rightful benefactors of everything that is natural. You can pick one aspect and roll with it, whereas Glomdoring was always going to be the dorky little brother without any real claim to nature unless something else that was unnatural came along. What someone said earlier on is right-- the Maeve has a pretty good grasp on its duty to actually be the guardian of all of nature already, including that nasty purple goo everyone's so interested in, so why not give Serenwilde a break and let them do something else? Flowers are nice. Worship flowers (I'm just kidding, unless that's an idea you'll go for!).

If something like this is the direction that you decide to move in, whenever ALL OF NATURE OMG is threatened, it will become more natural for you recognize having to come together with Glomdoring because you'll also be laboring under the same "if I help protect all of nature, X will be saved, too, and we love X" pretense. We can't let the flowers die!

The Winter Court idea, which sounds sort of like a seasonal theme, sounds really, really great, and the new spirituality stuff in the Spiritsingers can always be capitalized on in all of this. Why not go for something like what Rivius was alluding to and become the commune that worships the cycle of life and death? That isn't all of nature, but it's still an aspect of it, and it's very different from the conquest lust of the Wyrd. The cycle is PART of nature, so you'll always have an interest in preserving it, the same way the wyrd is PART of nature and Glomdoring will always have an interest in preserving it, but you won't be burdened with the overwhelming necessity to keep tabs on every duck migration, and so on.

I really have a hard time following what you are talking about for the majority of that post, you seem to be disagreeing by agreeing, but I guess I'm okay with that. A few minor comments on things you said, but I get the sense I'm preaching to the choir.

We're looking at different things to focus in on. I like the idea of life/death cycle, with only a few misgivings. Someone has posited that we just focus on cycles themselves, and follow a great native american-y cycle spirit. I have a bit of an issue basing Serenwilde on purely sticking to natural cycles because we don't in so many ways that we would be giant hypocrites, with no real recourse to various methods of ignoring hypocrisy (such as Dark Memory). The life/death cycle is specific enough to escape that, I think. Still a little weird with resurgems and never really dying, but hey.

As far as facets of Nature go that we can really hone in on, one basic one that I think would work out well is just... balance. Nature balances itself out. The classic example is wolves and deer: The deer multiply and expand their population. This gives the wolves more food, they kill deer and multiply. Due to more and more predators, the deer die down. Because there are less deer, wolves die off. More deer then survive and multiple, so on and so forth. This is a totally non-emotional event, the wolf is just as desirable as the deer, and neither hates the other. Then comes in the Native American flavour, with which you use only what you need, because we have the ability to break out of this balance. Doing so is wrong, though.

That stands in contrast to each of the other guiding concepts/forces. The Light would be characterized by Serenwilde as an overabundance of life, protecting the weak too much and blinding Celest to the dangers of fanatic 'goodness'. Taint is change, but over the top. It also just messes stuff up. Being undead is flying in the face of the balanced cycle of life and death. On the other city axis, you need ordered chaos to progress. You can't have absolutly everything ordered and set out in rules and expect nature to progress, this is like making fields of one crop. This destroys the biodiversity of the area, and lowers the health of the land. Pure chaos is kind of the same, if nature had no order and no 'laws' it wouldn't balance itself. The Wyrd is characterized (I think?) as a sort of uber-evolution, that has the Taint-ly property of accelerating change, but molded to make things stronger and more dangerous. Of course, that throws off the niches of true evolution, killing out all the other species irrevocably, throwing the balance way off and lowering biodiversity again.

I am new to Lusternia, and Serenwilde, and still have a great deal of reading to catch up on (literally thousands of news posts) before I'll feel comfortable establishing a position on these matters. Something that I and my character both would find confusing is how the Taint (or the Wyrd) could ever really be considered part of 'nature', except possibly to crazies. My confusion stems from my understanding that the Taint did not actually enter the world until the soulless gods were trapped within, and later when Project Celestial Hope triggered Kethuru's trans-planar assault on the prime material plane. Whatever the Taint is, no piece of game back-story I can remember reading thus far suggests that either the Taint or the essence of the soulless gods can be permanently 'cleansed' - the soulless' essence is so very potent that exposure to the stuff corrupts spirits and even the elder gods themselves. The Taint might not be the same as soulless essence, but it seems to have the similar effects of corruption of the mind and body while strengthening its victims. While the Wyrd might appear to be a different animal, the description of the Wyrd in event news post #42 reads to me as a beautified, more powerful Taint - not some suddenly rediscovered aspect of nature.
I like to think that I can maintain some degree of separation between what my character would believe and what I believe, but with regards to the Wyrd and the Taint being natural - I haven't seen an arguement compelling enough to convince either me or Rau of that claim. Even the entity responsible for creating the Soulless, which were responsible for the Taint as far as I can tell, wanted them erased from existance - apparently she wasn't convinced either.

From that perspective, I also have a difficult time believing that my character would go along with story-arcs which involve working cooperatively with Glomdoring or Magnagora. While not all individuals or groups within an organization share its ideals, these are nations which promote the irreversible corruption of the world - say what you will about aquamancers being able to cleanse tainted regions and the taint being temporary, if almighty Esterra can't remove the taint from the world, I'm not wagering on anyone with mortal roots.

I don't know if Serenwilde really has a problem, from an organizational standpoint. I think perserving the purity of nature is a fine RP foundation to work with and that while it might be time to start thumbing our communal nose at things that our characters can't rationalize (such as, to give an example of something I have a hard time with, the Fae being expected to serve with the tainted Glomdoring and Maeve's acceptance of the legitimacy of this tainted commune) we shouldn't shoot down events we find hard to swallow but find ways to interpret these happenings to generate more roleplay rather than to kill storytelling in its tracks (such as by endeavoring to overthrow and cleanse Maeve after questing for a means to do so, or even overthrowing the 'corrupted' monarchy completely, or what not). Proposing follow-up events which probe alternate possibilities would be a great way of maintaining Serenwilde identity even in the face of destruction. I don't know to what degree this has been tried in the past or the like, being a newcomer, but that's my take on this mess.

The whole alliance with Magnagora (and all alliances in Lusternia really, anybody who's played for awhile should know this well enough) aren't based on ideas but practicality. The enemy of my enemy becomes my friend. From an ideals standpoint, every org can and should stand alone, but that's never how it happens because nobody wants to get stomped into the ground by the other alliance/side.

Once the sides are set, there's not really much of an incentive to change them up short of a huge event or the dedicated effort of a few people to sabotage their side's alliance for whatever reason.

Druken:

Though I have a different pedagogical method for describing the wyrd to people, inside and outside of the Glomdoring playerbase, it still strikes me as odd that the Serenwilde Nature Force would side with Magnagora, who to most of the free-thinking world is still known as They Who Suckle the Nectar of the Thing That Tainted Gloriana/the World/Everything Good and Decent. The Wyrd, which is cited as a perversion of nature (which is an ideological hodge podge mixture of several different concepts and can't even really be defined at this point in the game) conceivably wouldn't exist if that fateful event never occurred, and though Magnagora sure is sticking to its guns (which seems to be the rationale for the continued Seren/Mag alliance, it's goal will still be, forevermore, to taint everything.

TBH the cities are all as bad as each other as far as Serenwilde is concerned and realistically they should not be allying with any of them. This does not work in this game, allying with Magnagora is a matter of neccessity this does not mean that the long term plan to wipe the taint and every last city from the face of the basin changes.

Enyalida:

We're looking at different things to focus in on. I like the idea of life/death cycle, with only a few misgivings. Someone has posited that we just focus on cycles themselves, and follow a great native american-y cycle spirit. I have a bit of an issue basing Serenwilde on purely sticking to natural cycles because we don't in so many ways that we would be giant hypocrites, with no real recourse to various methods of ignoring hypocrisy (such as Dark Memory). The life/death cycle is specific enough to escape that, I think. Still a little weird with resurgems and never really dying, but hey.

Two things:
Every other part of nature, tmk, is something that was reshaped from the worlds essence. Mortals are not as connected to this because our creation is connected through the gods we splintered from and to the cosmic creches. The personal goal of Serenwilde then becomes to connect with the cycles so that we can understand them.

Also if Mother Moon is connected to the cycles then resurgems get handwaved as Mother Moon saying that it was not time for you to die.

As far as facets of Nature go that we can really hone in on, one basic one that I think would work out well is just... balance. Nature balances itself out. The classic example is wolves and deer: The deer multiply and expand their population. This gives the wolves more food, they kill deer and multiply. Due to more and more predators, the deer die down. Because there are less deer, wolves die off. More deer then survive and multiple, so on and so forth. This is a totally non-emotional event, the wolf is just as desirable as the deer, and neither hates the other. Then comes in the Native American flavour, with which you use only what you need, because we have the ability to break out of this balance. Doing so is wrong, though.

This is still the same as the cycles and comes back to your argument against them.

Not really. The problem with cycles is that you definitely can't handwave them away. Serenwilde does fight against its decline, which is part of the natural cycle of things. We do create buildings to shield ourselves against the natural cycle of the seasons. We do like to keep villages for as long as possible. We do engage in quite a lot of very city like things. The way you dismiss those concerns is by saying that it's just a longer cycle, or that fighting against the cycle is a part of that very cycle. That's all well and good, but you then can't turn around and say that the cities fighting against the cycles isn't part of the cycle and therefore alright as well. You can say that it's then our purpose to fight against them fighting the cycle, but then both IC and OOC, you're just playing out the part, knowing it doesn't really matter what you do because whatever you do it's what you were meant to do. I don't really want that.

If the main focus is on the balance of nature and taking what you need as closely as possible, you can escape all of those things we do. Yes, we do all this stuff that turns out to be unnatural, but at the same time, we do some other great things that the cities don't do to protect nature. Our levels of being city-like to survive and our levels of serving nature are balanced.You can explain our fighting against certain cycles as doing so that we may facilitate other, more important cycles. As you said, we are innately capable of extending beyond the cycles, and therefore are capable of deciding which cycles are most integral to participate in. If the base Seren force is "Cycles are the ultimate, we must participate in cycles" you lose out on some of that. YES, cycles are important, but it's the balancing of cycles that is really key.

If it's balance, we also have more call to play an active part in balancing things. The world should balance itself out, and that should be our goal, to restore it to its own power. It doesn't, and we don't know how to get it to do that on its own quite yes. We know that overdoing it with any element (ala mages terrain-ing an area) is a bad idea. We also know that none of the cosmic forces should be allowed to rule. To that end, we can be both diplomatic and warlike. As it turns out, the current gridlock is the best solution short of us dominating and our wise hand deciding what sacrifices need to be made, as no one side (read: city) can dominate completely. What a triumph for us!

And yes. That example is cycles. I was using that as an example of cycles. But the cycle is just the method by which balance is struck! For you Lincoln-Douglas/Value debate folks: Balance is the Value, Cycle fitness is the criterion. You use the cycles as a more concrete measurement of the CV: Balance. What we're looking for here is more of a value. Criteria can be determined by the guilds. Moondancers and Hartstone at least will probably end up using some variant of cycles, but the other guilds may use other primary ones!

Rauhaur:

I am new to Lusternia, and Serenwilde, and still have a great deal of reading to catch up on (literally thousands of news posts) before I'll feel comfortable establishing a position on these matters. Something that I and my character both would find confusing is how the Taint (or the Wyrd) could ever really be considered part of 'nature', except possibly to crazies. My confusion stems from my understanding that the Taint did not actually enter the world until the soulless gods were trapped within, and later when Project Celestial Hope triggered Kethuru's trans-planar assault on the prime material plane. Whatever the Taint is, no piece of game back-story I can remember reading thus far suggests that either the Taint or the essence of the soulless gods can be permanently 'cleansed' - the soulless' essence is so very potent that exposure to the stuff corrupts spirits and even the elder gods themselves. The Taint might not be the same as soulless essence, but it seems to have the similar effects of corruption of the mind and body while strengthening its victims. While the Wyrd might appear to be a different animal, the description of the Wyrd in event news post #42 reads to me as a beautified, more powerful Taint - not some suddenly rediscovered aspect of nature.

That's because the Wyrd wasn't re-discovered. It's what happened when the Taint was cleansed from nature. Just as the Taint was a product of Kethuru, the Wyrd is a product of two Elder Godesses. That's also the claim of how the Wyrd is part of nature - it's nature overcoming Soulless corruption.

The Taint that we know (Magnagora's) is the one from Kethuru; he used it to corrupt Shallamar/Nil, Earth, and Prime Magnagora. Kethuru and the Soulless are excoroperditio, and as far as we know, the Star Gods (and all that came from them: flora and fauna) are divinus. That's why they're incompatible. One of the Elder Books stated that the fae are 'cousins' to the Star Gods (essentially the same essence, only thinner), and so we assume that's why the fae are (were!?) also incompatible with excoroperditio essence. The creation of the Wyrd changed this such that fae essence can now overcome the excoroperditio force, due to the combined divinus powers of Isune and Viravain.

Rauhaur:

I like to think that I can maintain some degree of separation between what my character would believe and what I believe, but with regards to the Wyrd and the Taint being natural - I haven't seen an arguement compelling enough to convince either me or Rau of that claim. Even the entity responsible for creating the Soulless, which were responsible for the Taint as far as I can tell, wanted them erased from existance - apparently she wasn't convinced either.

The Taint isn't natural, but the Wyrd is (since Maeve incorporated it). Also, both Soulless and Elder Gods were made by Dynara. The difference is (note: this part is me piecing together stuff) that the Soulless were made from excoroperditio force, but when the Nameless Son came into being, he taught Dynara to start making things from divinus force (the 'soul').

Rauhaur:

From that perspective, I also have a difficult time believing that my character would go along with story-arcs which involve working cooperatively with Glomdoring or Magnagora. While not all individuals or groups within an organization share its ideals, these are nations which promote the irreversible corruption of the world - say what you will about aquamancers being able to cleanse tainted regions and the taint being temporary, if almighty Esterra can't remove the taint from the world, I'm not wagering on anyone with mortal roots.

I recall reading a piece of in-game lore (maybe it was a player-written book, but it was convincing!).

It concluded that the Taint's overwhelming corruptive influence was most potent back when Kethuru had his will in it (remember his consciousness being shaken off when Hallifax and Gaudiguch ripped apart time and space?). That's why Shallamar/Nil, Earth, and Prime Magnagora are uncleansable - they were corrupted by Kethuru himself. When mortals now wield the Taint, they only do so temporarily, and it can be removed by other powers (pure forest, wyrd, aqua water, etc.)

Rauhaur:

I don't know if Serenwilde really has a problem, from an organizational standpoint. I think perserving the purity of nature is a fine RP foundation to work with and that while it might be time to start thumbing our communal nose at things that our characters can't rationalize (such as, to give an example of something I have a hard time with, the Fae being expected to serve with the tainted Glomdoring and Maeve's acceptance of the legitimacy of this tainted commune) we shouldn't shoot down events we find hard to swallow but find ways to interpret these happenings to generate more roleplay rather than to kill storytelling in its tracks (such as by endeavoring to overthrow and cleanse Maeve after questing for a means to do so, or even overthrowing the 'corrupted' monarchy completely, or what not). Proposing follow-up events which probe alternate possibilities would be a great way of maintaining Serenwilde identity even in the face of destruction. I don't know to what degree this has been tried in the past or the like, being a newcomer, but that's my take on this mess.

Here you show the inevitable bias-ness, because after all you're a Serenwilde player and you're exposed to pro-Seren lore of Lusternia. Understandable! The most enjoyable experiences I've had in the game were when I went around and read About Lusternia from the different organizations, see how each view and interpret the same object in vastly different ways.

1) Glomdoring isn't Tainted - it's Wyrded!

2) The fae are expected to serve Night due to the tah'vrai.

3) Maeve isn't simply Queen of the Fae - she's their collective consciousness. So overthrowing her won't be such an easy task! Believe me, Glomdoring and Serenwilde both (and practically anyone who's had to dealt with a grumpy Maeve) have plotted many, many times the revolution which would topple the crazy old queen and the installation of Dandelion Sweetpaste as King of the Fae.

I think it's a great idea, to interpret the many events (some of which will contradict your beliefs!) a little bit differently to suite your needs (it's what Glomdoring does, ehehe). That's the privilege we players have!

Saran, yes, Maeve is the collective consciousness of the forest fae, and as you like to put it, she's "just the forests, and not nature." Perhaps you could define what 'nature' in Lusternian terms is?

Saran:

You are being entirely unhelpful and seem to have little grasp of why Serenwilde might not use a force that is going to corrupt nature.

You completely missed the point. I wasn't referring to Serenwilde using the wyrd. I was suggesting, as Enyalida seems to have picked up on, that Serenwilde cannot possibly continue down this path of serving "all of nature" as a timeline. You're showing clear and obvious signs of burnout, and so are a lot of the people posting on this thread who think massive alternations need to be made by the Administration. I'm keeping my stance in my previous post when I suggest that if you pick one aspect of nature - which Enyalida has suggested could be a balance theme - you are free to move away from the overwhelming and completely unrealistic task of being nature's sole guardian.

Enyalida:

If the main focus is on the balance of nature and taking what you need as closely as possible, you can escape all of those things we do. Yes, we do all this stuff that turns out to be unnatural, but at the same time, we do some other great things that the cities don't do to protect nature. Our levels of being city-like to survive and our levels of serving nature are balanced.You can explain our fighting against certain cycles as doing so that we may facilitate other, more important cycles. As you said, we are innately capable of extending beyond the cycles, and therefore are capable of deciding which cycles are most integral to participate in. If the base Seren force is "Cycles are the ultimate, we must participate in cycles" you lose out on some of that. YES, cycles are important, but it's the balancing of cycles that is really key.

If it's balance, we also have more call to play an active part in balancing things. The world should balance itself out, and that should be our goal, to restore it to its own power. It doesn't, and we don't know how to get it to do that on its own quite yes. We know that overdoing it with any element (ala mages terrain-ing an area) is a bad idea. We also know that none of the cosmic forces should be allowed to rule. To that end, we can be both diplomatic and warlike. As it turns out, the current gridlock is the best solution short of us dominating and our wise hand deciding what sacrifices need to be made, as no one side (read: city) can dominate completely. What a triumph for us!

And yes. That example is cycles. I was using that as an example of cycles. But the cycle is just the method by which balance is struck! For you Lincoln-Douglas/Value debate folks: Balance is the Value, Cycle fitness is the criterion. You use the cycles as a more concrete measurement of the CV: Balance. What we're looking for here is more of a value. Criteria can be determined by the guilds. Moondancers and Hartstone at least will probably end up using some variant of cycles, but the other guilds may use other primary ones!

This is the conversation that should continue. I still contend that it's a huge and sort of unrealistic job to be the self-proclaimed champions of nature, but then again, so too does Glomdoring. Glomdoring has an easier time of it because it has selected one reason--or one value--to spearhead the campaign, which everyone in the commune can rally behind. It makes the wyrd lust seem even more altruistic because why WOULDN'T the Basin want to be purple?! The idea of rallying behind a natural balance sounds really neat (and Saran, before you freak out, I mean that it's better to have one sovereign goal in mind instead of purifying/protecting/serving/defending/hugging everything that is incorporated into the nature paradigm, which has yet to be sufficiently defined). It also, as you suggest, allows you to be really selective when you have to be.



I also want to bring up the self-identified new player's perspective from above-- compare Rauhaur's understanding of all of this to the older players'. You'll notice a discrepancy. Glomdoring survived its dark period because the new players took over and ran with a few of the smaller, developing plot lines, but it doesn't seem like anyone's on the same page.

Druken:

After rereading my last post, I can see how it'd be confusing. I was trying to respond to the several different philosophical renderings of what nature is that were going on throughout the thread because of the above quote.

You can't attempt to define nature to suit your argument every time you make one! That's called an appeal to authority, which, I'm sorry, is not just a Serenwilde authority anymore. Even city folk have a hand in what it means to be part of (and even sometimes defenders of) "all of nature." Heck, whenever a new big, bad tentacle thrusting monster comes to town, everyone is trying to drive it out of the Basin for purity's sake because no one wants tentacles.

That the cities or wyrd help out with tentacle monsters isn't a sign that they care about maintaining the purity of nature. All they really care about is ensuring that the tentacle monsters don't destroy them as well.

You completely missed the point. I wasn't referring to Serenwilde using the wyrd. I was suggesting, as Enyalida seems to have picked up on, that Serenwilde cannot possibly continue down this path of serving "all of nature" as a timeline. You're showing clear and obvious signs of burnout, and so are a lot of the people posting on this thread who think massive alternations need to be made by the Administration. I'm keeping my stance in my previous post when I suggest that if you pick one aspect of nature - which Enyalida has suggested could be a balance theme - you are free to move away from the overwhelming and completely unrealistic task of being nature's sole guardian.

This is the conversation that should continue. I still contend that it's a huge and sort of unrealistic job to be the self-proclaimed champions of nature, but then again, so too does Glomdoring. Glomdoring has an easier time of it because it has selected one reason--or one value--to spearhead the campaign, which everyone in the commune can rally behind. It makes the wyrd lust seem even more altruistic because why WOULDN'T the Basin want to be purple?! The idea of rallying behind a natural balance sounds really neat (and Saran, before you freak out, I mean that it's better to have one sovereign goal in mind instead of purifying/protecting/serving/defending/hugging everything that is incorporated into the nature paradigm, which has yet to be sufficiently defined). It also, as you suggest, allows you to be really selective when you have to be.

Balance has the issue with, as mentioned in the reasons for why, that technically the cities can be considered to balance themselves out. Yet at the same time, like every other org, our RP end game is to wipe every other org from the face of the basin.

I am not sure how "what is nature?" is ill defined it's simply that for many players they think that nature = forests and never go further than that, which in turn makes Maeve = nature. There are many more natural locations in lusternia other than serenwilde.

I also want to bring up the self-identified new player's perspective from above-- compare Rauhaur's understanding of all of this to the older players'. You'll notice a discrepancy. Glomdoring survived its dark period because the new players took over and ran with a few of the smaller, developing plot lines, but it doesn't seem like anyone's on the same page.

--Had to submit because battery was low.

My main issue with new players just taking over and running is that... well you get things like the leaves being made into laws or books of rituals just being removed from libraries. When glomdoring was revised it was still relatively new and the wyrd was an excuse for any major changes, there wasn't what... seven year old facts about an organisation simply being rewritten.

The suggestions and end goal for me are to create a banner under which Serenwilde can unite and focus itself, saying that we are going to focus on maintaining the balance of nature will eventually come back to it's actually just us.

The actual suggestion which Enyalida has misinterpreted as Serenwilde simply being about the cycles, was to actually state that there was an entity behind such things, every aspect and facet of what is natural being a part of it to the point that this entity is actually nature and what is natural is defined as what is part of it. The cycles of nature are one way in which we see the work of this entity, they result in a balance, being disconnected from this entity is not a natural state and thus something that should be rectified.

EDIT: There is also the possibility that there is no such entity, but simply a construct that the ancient people of the forests believed in. But it is vague enough to simply attach things that are already within serenwilde to, tying things together into a coherent concept. For one, Farella allowed the people of Celest to die, there may have been balance in that act somewhere but, more simply, they rejected nature, and so, do not receive its aid.

I think the problem, then, is that you--Saran--have a very real definition of what nature is in your head that several people (including other members of Serenwilde) do not share, but because you've been a member of Serenwilde "from the beginning," you have some sort of right to perpetuate the idea that's in your head.

This is dangerous, because as lots of us have stated, nature--and the game itself--has changed over the 7 some odd years since Lusternia's beta release (which I, too, was part of!). The new players who are attracted to Serenwilde are probably hooked by some of the new-agey ideas that are germinating from the newer influences of prominent players like Hiriako and Enyalida. Trust me when I say that as a self-identifying old Glom, it's difficult for me to let go of the things that made Glomdoring "understandable" or "real" in my mind, but I cannot say that it's going in a bad direction because the Glomdoring players are happy and comfortable with what we have now.

Which isn't to say that old-glom, or the "toxic Glom," was full of unhappy people. There was a huge contingent of people that rebelled against a lot of the changes that were made during the Glomdoring Renaissance because they saw nothing wrong with the mythos as it existed. Again, see above.

This leads me to my next point:

You also have a very weird understanding of the "Glomdoring revision" that you can't really cite with the sweeping authority you have because you weren't really there. Though I try desperately to follow neutral, unbiased news sources that look at real life goings-on away from the American soil, I would never dream to speak from the perspective of an Iraqi villager because I'll never truly know what happened; I can only read the accounts of people who were involved and who were affected. This isn't meant to be a harsh criticism--it's just a game historian pointing to the testimonials of people who were involved in the point in game history that you keep bringing up as true-to-form fact, rather than what you've pieced together from a Serenwilde perspective. I'm only bringing this up because the events that led to the current state of Glomdoring keep coming up as a potential lesson that Serenwilde can learn from. Rather than assuming you know what's what, why not listen to the people who actually made it happen?

I'm also probably not going to respond to this thread anymore. I'm under the impression that the people who are actually interested in instigating change are going to do so with a mind to solve some of these problems. I just hope that the majority of Serenwilde's playerbase can rally behind an idea that will be a catalyst for positive change and not the pessimistic voice that curses the Glomdoring playerbase for pulling itself up by its boostraps.

Everiine:
Lunalo was an example of taking it way, way, way, way, way too far. Take the end of her last post, for example:

What the hell? You must've mocked that up, nobody is that annoying.