enlightenment is used to check if the person has a blessing or not.

4.17 ALIGNMENT

Your personal alignment is entirely what you make of it. The people you
associate with, the guild you are a part of, the city where you live in, all of
these things and many more are indicators of your personal alignment. Take
heart in your actions, as alignment is as much a perception that others have of
you as a perception that you have of yourself, and the actions of those around
you will often be dictated by how they perceive your stance in relation to
their own.

Occultist enlighten (not enlightenment, which is the devotion ability) is the one that causes those shouts, yes. Basically it takes a lot of setup, and results in the target having several uncurable afflictions.

But I'm Lawful Good damnit! says so on my character sheet! Where are the cheetos and the mountain dew?!

Not to mention, even if we wanted to hard-code alignment, the system we have now is out of date, given the generally accepted system of four "alignments" we have now.

Asara would argue that the arbitrary categorization of the Pantheon into an uncanonised system, albeit well-intended, and the assumption of alignment as somehow an inherent function of Divine reality is misleading and erroneous. The categories in themselves assume a linear classification and a dichotomic scale that force interpretations of Godly motive and being into a pre-set reference that undermines our worldview and understanding of the Gods. Theologically, Divine realms in and of themselves are unique facets of Creation that are fundamentally (but not exclusively) independent and equally pervasive in their own ways, and whose definitions should not be pictured as subsets of only two (Good and Evil). The preoccupation of Good and Evil categorization (and the insertion of levels in between) would therefore be as misleading as, say, asking where other Gods' realms lie on the basis of other arbitrary two-ended spectra, i.e. why not ask where things lie on a scale of Chaos and Order, Sea and Sky, Sun and Moon, War and Peace, etc.? Thus the Pantheon would be best understood more as a non-linear sum of multiple parts that are neither necessarily nor exclusively fixed, defined, or interpreted by specifically biased ideological terms. It is in this consideration, therefore, that the complicated nature of Godly spheres can at least be appreciated in such a way that it opens the doors for other avenues of insight, inspiration, and means of verifying actual truth.

I dunno, but I kind of like it. Your dreams changing based upon alignment has always amused me. I'm not sure how necessary it is anymore but I think it's a fantastically fun perk

Alignment as it currently is forces you be either Good or Evil, and the dreams go along with that. They don't really make sense in some cases. It'd make a lot more sense to have dreams based on what city you belong to or something like that, though that still wouldn't capture the complexity of actual alignment, especially in neutral cities.

That's a really nice thought, Asara, and would probably be a fun conversation in-game, but Achaea is split among four main alignments: Good, Evil, Chaos, and Nature. Your notions about labeling gods solely by these alignments might be correct, as Miramar wasn't exactly a 'Good' goddess, and Keresis wasn't really an 'Evil' one, but they do fall under their respective alignments.

Either way, this discussion was really centered on the concept of personal, and the remnants of the game mechanic alignment, not the classification of the Pantheon. Again, I think the only reason that the alignment line is still in your score is because the code for it may have been too intricately woven into the game to easily take out. It was probably easier to change all the abilities that dealt with it and leave it where it couldn't influence the game outside of dreams.

That's a really nice thought, Asara, and would probably be a fun conversation in-game, but Achaea is split among four main alignments: Good, Evil, Chaos, and Nature. Your notions about labeling gods solely by these alignments might be correct, as Miramar wasn't exactly a 'Good' goddess, and Keresis wasn't really an 'Evil' one, but they do fall under their respective alignments.

Reply

Reply

I think you're both missing the the clarification of "four main alignments". Phaestus and Neraeos, for example, both operate outside the four common factions, but that doesn't disprove or lessen the fact that the four main factions/alignments/ideologies/whatever are the main forces that drive the storyline in Achaea forward.

There can be as many unique ideologies as there are colours, and that can and has created a rich world around us, but to try and trumpet the idea that there cannot be any classification of divine or individuals into the basic 'alignments' is at least as erroneous as trying to classify every divine or individual into such. Just because some gods exist outside of the commonly recognized factions, or that the gods grouped together in one of them might believe in different specifics, doesn't mean that such classifications are entirely inaccurate or unjustified.

Phaestus and Neraeos, for example, both operate outside the four common factions, but that doesn't disprove or lessen the fact that the four main factions/alignments/ideologies/whatever are the main forces that drive the storyline in Achaea forward.

I disagree with the bolded, hence my posting. Personal alignment follows from Pantheonic classification because it, the former, is defined by exclusive Divine Realms and lends to erroneous categorisation. It is my hopes that given Quoren's implication of a hard-coded four alignment system and my aforementioned reasoning, we would realize said system as equally disappointing.

Neraeos' "faction" doesn't drive the storyline forward. Sure, he's an active Divine in game, and a wonderful boon to the environment, but his particularly in game organization/ideology has basically no bearing on the in game drama or storyline.

[...] you are quite well aware that I dislike too many Nereian-related events reaching the forums. Based on this reply, I bid you reconsider your thoughts on this.

Apologies, but I think you've misinterpreted my point. I was not bringing up the outdated nature of our current alignment system as an argument for updating and revamping it, but as yet another argument for its deletion. I don't like hardcoded alignment, either.

However, it is a fact that the four main factions which are currently driving the plotline of Achaea are Chaos, Evil, Good, and Nature, and they are the four "alignments" to which I referred. They are not the -only- four alignments or factions, but they are the largest four and in most senses of the word the main four. Not all Divine will fall into those factions, let alone in the same ways, but that doesn't change the fact that these factions are the driving forces behind our storyline.

He's sort of like Clementius. Sure, everyone thinks he's great and enjoys his influence to the game, but he had no effect on the plot.

I'm sure Neraeos wasn't somehow claiming to be a relevant divine in the grand scheme of global politics when he made that statement.

The fact that he says that things are generally low-key and not broadcasted openly even admits that his realm has little to do with the Achaean world as a whole, as opposed to the other four main domains(Good, Evil, Chaos, Nature)

Sure, we don't hear about everytime he goes "OT Hi guys" into his command line, but what he does isn't very relevant in general to the main powers in the Achaean world.

He's sort of like Clementius. Sure, everyone thinks he's great and enjoys his influence to the game, but he had no effect on the plot.