We’re all familiar with the usual routine - Mhaldorian dons veil, proceeds to mass exterm with gleeful abandon, sleep-deprived and mildly irritated forestals lagging in their wake. All recent conflict seems to be a variation on the same theme. Mhaldor can, on a whim, create an endless amount of menial labour for forestals. The problem is, forestals can do very little to retaliate. (Disagree?)

I admit I am ignorant of the finer points of Achaean mythology, so it's likely there are some major problems with this proposal. This doesn't really matter, the primary aim of this post is to generate discussion of ways to stimulate this stale conflict.

For example -

Mhaldor is shrouded by a dense cloud of noxious gas. Not knowing the origin of the gas (history buffs?), I can’t explain how – but say something happens and the amount of gas in the atmosphere is dramatically increased, firstly causing radiation type sickness (yes, recent monotony has driven me into the arms of F3) eventually becoming fatal to all mortals within the area. Mhaldorians, with the assistance of a divine, implement a way to regulate the amount of gas in the air, magical or mechanical, within the city. Forestals subsequently (attempt to) throw a spanner in the works, so to speak. Perhaps, reminiscent of Shala event (sans totems), a cyclical quest could be implemented, to disrupt the workings of the ‘filter’, or perhaps, á la icons, direct assault could disable it – shrouding the city once more in fatal gas. Mhaldorians face a rather unique problem, being deprived of the safety of their city for a month or so (prompting possible amnesty agreements, however the city leads decide to handle it)

A little further brainstorming:

-things don’t have to be all doom and gloom for Mhaldor, if the raiders succeed in disabling the machine, a die-hard citizen can enter the city, become infected, and (racing against the development of the sickness & eventual death) distribute the contagion throughout other areas, transmission relying on player-to-player contact (animals/denizens could also be susceptible).
-Alternatively, an infected corpse could be the method of distribution - the infected eventually succumbing to an excruciating death, comforted by the knowledge that their corpse’ll take any unfortunate passersby with it.
-Forestals could have a rite of cleansing to.. er... cleanse the area.

The possibilities are endless. With the high number of fighters resident in Mhaldor, I can’t see why the notion of defending something would be abhorrent. Discuss.

edit: spelling, ugh.

The red fog is , from what I can understand, Divine essence left over when everyone helped Lord Sartan escape from under his massive rock (now Mhaldor). I think it has also been noted by the Admin that the fog will never ever ever be altered in any way shape or form because of something todo with code? (I dunno I tired)

There was a point to this post but I forgot waht I was going to say.
I'll get back to you later maybe.

Something about novices.

duly noted - so fog's out of the question.

But honestly, Mhaldor's a riot of weird gasses and smells, surely some other poisonous substance wouldn't be much of a stretch.

what about plague vermin? It's so brilliant I don't know why anyone hasn't thought of it befo-... ohyea.

I'm sure the nature-affiliated'll have plenty of ideas, but I'm equally confident that there are Mhaldorians out there hanging out for their 'You. shall. not. pass!' defender moment.

Most of that comes from the Bathory Chalet

Nothing can really be done to the Fog or the island itself. The fog was a manifestation of Sartan's (Now Apples and Shaicton's) essence/will. They control everything that goes on on the island. From raging deamon hordes to the weather itself. It never rains or snows on the island. Ya that's right Cyrene, NO BLIZZARDS! The only way you'd ever see plague rats or noxious gasses killing off the city is if Apples or Shaicton gets bored and/or pissed off at us.


If you want to Hurt Mhaldor you could try doing something crazy like raiding and killing the cities guards or attacking the icons. Anything that makes the city look bad generally results in a smack from above.

We have been trying that...we raid and attack guards and attack totems. It just results in more fires being set and huge raid groups when most of the tough people have qq'd for the night.

I do agree with the OP that it would be good if there were more tangible ways to act against Mhaldor somehow besides just raiding. But any such thing implemented would either be a vastly less significant way of harming them than they get against us, or a vastly easier one to prevent. It would basically have to be. Mhaldor is just a city. It isn't some huge proportion of the game world with rooms scattered widely across the entire game world including off the main continent.

And if they did manage to invent some way to allow us to do something just as annoying just as easily to Mhaldor, that would be satisfying and all for a little bit, but really it would just make the game suck more often for larger numbers of people, and equal-opportunity making-suck is not that much of an improvement.

So, I agree the OP would be nice, but more important, I think, is fixing the system from the nature side so the deck isn't so absurdly stacked against us when people are exterminating/infernoing.

Here's the thing though. Eleusis raids mhaldor. There is a modicum of damage that can be inflicted to the city because of city structure, guard placement so on and so forth. The same can be said of eleusis, as in only certain things can be done to the city itself because of city structure, guard placement etc.

There is nothing that Eleusis can effect outside of Mhaldor itself. We tried shrines, you just rebuild them within (usually) minutes of them being taken down. We tried raiding. (see above) There is nothing palpable that eleusis can get its hands on to attempt to effect Mhaldor outside of the city, whilst the city of Mhaldor itself has every forest and garden that they can take vengeance upon. That is quite possibly the biggest complaint that the forestel community (within Eleusis) has. We can't do anything to strike back other than raid which, as you might agree to, amounts to absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things.

We had the event on Shala, and that turned out to do nothing, even though countless hours were put in on both sides to try and bring some type of outcome. But even with that, there was nothing there that would effect Mhaldor outside of the city.

I think that if there was something else that eleusis could do outside of the boring day to day raid, the city would be a lot happier, as it would give them some type of goal.

There are still some Mhaldorian Icons left standing, you know. You certainly have more than enough reason to go after them due to the history between Evil™ and Nature™. You could go and hunt Mhaldor's allies - Blackrock dwarves. Raids from any faction do little damage outside of guards (if possible), totems, or slain denizens. Raids are not exactly the best instrument to do damage or make lasting changes. As far as I know, both factions have some OOC complaints against the other: ours is Oakstone and yours happens to be the lack of damage you can inflict in a similar manner.

Eleusian/Oakstone supporters managed to cause several of our own citizens to quit, threatening that they would get enemied to the council of Oakstone for resurrecting forest enemies, being Mhaldorian, etc. It was somewhat effective as we lost a group of forestals to that. The power to enemy someone to the council of Oakstone is not that light, either. Not everyone is a Greater Dragon and can take the continual damage the forest puts out and whomever happens to be going after them. I will not get started on enemy status with the council of Oakstone since that is whole other can of worms.

The point I was making in the previous paragraph is that there are still several ways a faction may lash out at another. No, the same approach will not work with all of them due to whatever IG beliefs and ideologies that characters/organisations may have. In a similar thread, in a sub-forum not that far away, there is some resistance to hard-coded incentives and benefits to raiding. As some individuals have pointed out, RP and storyline are what is necessary. The only problem is getting everyone to agree on what RP and stories happen to be acceptable - something I do not think we will get full agreement on here, either.

Killing the Icons, hunting the Blackrock dwarves, none of it causes the amount of work required of us when an inferno is done. Yesterday was awful. I have NEVER qq'd because of conflict before, but that THEN the raid was too much. I was unable to do ANYTHING except stand guard. Every time I tried to do anything, I had to go back to the defense party. This wasn't a 30 minute raid, or a quick bashing trip. This wasn't even an Icon war. This was random acts of destruction that we couldn't stop, at all. I don't like Oakstone either, I think it's a puppet organization put up to make us feel like we are special even though it really can't do much. Herb prices aren't regulated anymore, people can get away with SO much before getting enemied..RP is needed, yes. However, what is also needed is for people to quit trying to "win" Achaea. You can claim RP for all of what happened yesterday, but the baiting (infernoing then running to the highway to gain cause) infernoing in Eleusis and the grasslands where we can't take action against you, etc was totally uncalled for and caused players to not enjoy the game. It would be nice to have a God to help regulate things, but even on an OOC level, we are people. Most of you are older than I am, so I think we can all act with some maturity and decide "Hey, this is probably sucking for the other team!" and stop..so how about certain people begin to exercise said maturity?

Destroying an Icon used to take far more effort than it does today. It still takes a substantial amount of effort to pull off, though. Especially if both sides are fully awake. It is also a substantial investment down the drain if it is successfully destroyed - 2,000,000 gold sovereigns, I believe? Two million gold sovereigns, or whatever the amount is in case I recalled incorrectly, is a hit to any organisation's pocketbook.

I do not claim anything since the most I can personally do to harm a forest is emote about taking an axe to the trees or emote trying to start a fire with my tinderbox. I am not even sure I was present at the time that this was going on. It sucks for both sides, however. IG, Mhaldorians are incensed with Eleusians/Oakstone and have orders to conduct raids, as has been mentioned before in a previous thread. IG, Eleusians also hate Mhaldor for the Red Fog™ and a whole host of other complaints.

OOC, some of the actions described seem a bit over the top, but that still goes for both sides. Some people may be operating under the philosophy of "If it needs fixing, we'll break it until someone notices it". I've received OOC messages from Rangor about what you described, but am still considering an appropriate IG solution.

Yeah, I agree both sides over-do it at times..I dunno. Just feels like it is this cycle of "You started it, so I'll do it back!" that goes on and on and on with both sides thinking the other is worse.

Simple way to stop the infernos. Stop replanting. I'm sure Mhaldor will stop it as soon as their rifts start running low.

I already talked to some people about that..apparently when someone suggested it people got all mad and ran out and replanted anyway.

We need to get the Heirophants on our side, last time they opposed it or so I heard.

You need to get active Hierophants, too.

I suppose that would help, and we need to reel in an active Nature divine that will stay.

You're not scaring them away, are you?

Yes, please. Lupus HFs anyone that offers to him..Mhaldorians included, at least from what I've seen. That is slightly..counter productive.

Can't be me, I don't do anything, too lazy!

I'll do it.

I was referring to me scaring them off Boz. If we get an active Nature divine, please don't scare them off.

I thought you meant you didn't want to be the Nature divine, so I volunteered.

I have enough ginseng and goldenseal that I am not concerned about running out.

Other forest herbs are inconsequential.

That may be true for you, but what about others? If herb supplies drop in the other cities, they won't be too happy, with the exception of the Crown Merchants in Hashan who will be making a mint.

Maybe something will develop along those lines, then. Like I said, there is more than one way to harm a faction.

Are you a real person?

That is a strange thing to say. afaik, necromancy extermination is almost impossible on the main continent. Do you know why we have different ideas in this situation?


baiting does not generate cause due to the provocation clause in 'help pk'. Attacking someone who is exterminating/inferno'ing/holocausting a grassland does not generate cause due to the provocation clause in 'help pk'.

I was warned several times to stand down because they were simply after cause and would jump me later for it, so I did. Necromancy is not what the threat was, I stated before it was inferno. Inferno is a skill that starts a fire and requires only that the flame be built up. So, how do we stop a veiled infernoer attacking an area then running to another? We can't read their mind, so how do we know where to guard next?

Who ever said that was wrong. They may attack you later, but they will not have cause from the incident we are discussing.

That clears that up, then.



I don't know.

I don't know.

There are plenty of ways to hurt mhaldor that don't require hard coding. Do something that causes Shaitan to be pissed at Mhaldor (anyone remember the year without guards?)

That was because of two years' missed Sacrifices and a miserable CTF performance. Though there are plenty of things people can do to ensure encores, I'm sure.

Has anyone ever tried to raid Mhaldor during a sacrifice? It's not like they change the dates.

If someone did this I would hunt them to level 5 for the sole fact that the Sacrifices are buggy as -.

Yeah. Mhaldor called lame when they got raided with no guards. The QQ was fairly incredible. I just quit for the week or whatever cause I'm a -.



Raiding Mhaldor during a sacrifice would be fairly pointless. They are already grouped together, and the leader is ready to lead a raid/defense most of the time. All they need is a 'follow me, target x' and they are ready to go.

Still, it makes Mhaldorians incredibly predictable for the duration of the sacrifices. That's always useful in combat.

The sacrifices last about 5-10 minutes, out of a 25 hours period.

Have fun!

But you know the exact 5-10 minutes in which it occurs. During that time, you know exactly where every single member of the enemy force will be, and you know they will all be in the same place. I never said it would leave Mhaldor as vulnerable as a newborn babe. I just said it would help tip the scales towards anyone attacking the island.

Uh, no you don't.

Genius! Why is this man not a general in Shallam? A travesty!

Don't they occur on the exact same date, every year? Or is it randomized?

Even if it is only done on the first of Sarapin, that's 60 minutes, not 5-10. If it's done anytime in Sarapin, it would be 25 hours, like Gorlasintan said.

They're done whenever the person who is taking care of them does it.

Or in your case, doesn't do them.

...I do just about every Shayatin sacrifice. What are you on about?

I hate to cut in, you two, but getting back to the point - suuure, we reserve the right to whinge royal about exterms, yet they are a legitimate and necessary part of the conflict.

Arguably, Mhaldor has nothing at stake. I was hoping to see some ideas from members of both communities for some fresh conflict RP, maybe a little (shockhorror) ooc cooperation. It's a game, but logging on to mass exterms, endless hours of guarding/replanting with very little prospect of some good ol' retribution feels like clocking on to work.

I'll keep thinking on it, any other ideas?

edit: I'm intrigued by the proposal of a -ed off divine.

The hard-coded idea was just a possible solution, I'd prefer one which involved RP. Just because reaching consensus is [really] difficult, doesn't mean the issue should be buried.

Nor do I. However, that is what happened in a subforum not so far away. There was some vocal opposition to the solution that was submitted there.

Destroying an icon requires a house to have an icon of its own. None of the houses that oppose Mhaldor still possess icons, and considering Mhaldor's penchant for breaking things, none are interested in wasting the gold. As you said, it's a costly investment.

Mhaldor will never be on the defensive when people like Sabiru lol-grief-inferno the forests when nobody is around. Oh wait, that's fine because Apples told him to do it. Lul.