What Happened To You Today?

Mroxyl

Is there a reason these denizens aren't going off to visit with Ugrach and returning?  The RP seems to be that they are permanently gone, unless I've missed something, and I'm unsure what would have caused permanent death.

Torinn

It's kinda full of handwavium when it comes to denizens and ugrach

Antonius

It's no different to adventurers. ICly there is no guarantee that your next trip to Ugrach won't be your last. He could decide your time is through and that's it.

Obviously OOCly we know that won't actually be the case.

Torinn

That is terrifying just saying.  "Oh god I could be true dead this time maybe I shouldn't let my friend kill me for fun!" Haha

Mroxyl

Okay, we're still getting the city emotes of empty streets and such, so was curious if the background denizens are being treated as if they've permanently died from this.

Antonius

Torinn said:

That is terrifying just saying.  "Oh god I could be true dead this time maybe I shouldn't let my friend kill me for fun!" Haha

I think that and the constant genocide (even if they do come back...) is a large part of why denizens generally consider adventurers to be total maniacs.

Agzohmqueks

Mroxyl said:

Okay, we're still getting the city emotes of empty streets and such, so was curious if the background denizens are being treated as if they've permanently died from this.

I see this as the idea that Adventurers and "foreground Denizens" have been marked as special, given the gift of returning from the halls of the dead (you could call it as being imbued with the flame of Yggdrasil or something to do with the soulbleed Nexus or a number of other things from the mythos).

Any "Background denizens" that may exist do not posess this quality. They are not given another chance when they meet with Ugrach, and so on events like this we can consider them permanently dead.

This matches up with other worldwide events like the sinking of Shallam. Those citizens didn't all just appear outside the cave. They all drowned and died. There were a few foreground denizens who did survive though, as did all the Adventurers. And to highlight Atalkez' argument some denizens "fade into the background" and sometimes their last death may just very well be their last. Think Kosura the child sorceress and others that are killed in worldwide events. Also the same thing can be seen as happening when a character suicides, I guess.

When you "depart this mortal coil" that's exactly it, no more chances to return from Ugrach, going round the coil.

Arin!

Did some gravedigging with @Stefana while listening to @Ryssa sing. I think the scale of the loss is just now settling in for Arin. (Also, Ryssa, that art was absolutely beautiful.) Arin's definitely shifting as a character, which is fun, I just need to figure out in what way. Playful cheerfulness seems out of place in her world now, but I have confidence that she'll find a way to draw it back in while still keeping the horrors and sadness unforgotten and painted in stark lines. 

Babel

The ambient population (aka: the denizens you don't see, the commonfolk or smallfolk of the realm) are generally not always subject to the Finality's mercy in being allowed to return. To an extent, this is handwaved for some things because of course, denizens have to respawn for areas to remain clearable for play,

From an IC perspective, greater phenomena like the Tide, citystate wars or just general incidents of prolonged genocide in general can sufficiently depopulate an area of ambient population enough that even the meagre quantity of people returning from the Halls of Death are no longer enough to replenish it.

This is what happened to Cyrene. For reasons that are likely obvious or can be found out in-game, something in the order of 19 out of every 20 people who lived in Cyrene were either processed, subsumed, enthralled, murdered, drowned or buried in the subsequent destruction to get the city to a point where it is severely depopulated from the ambient perspective, in likely what was one of the most heavily lived-in citystates on the continent.

It is a catastrophic loss of life, likely only matched in scope by the wholesale loss of Shallam during the Worldreaver affair. Even then, many refugees managed to escape Shallam, whereas it seems highly unlikely that any outside of the immediate Resistance managed to flee Cyrene before the Tsol'teth asserted control.

That being said, the fact that Cyrene was retaken and Blu rescued is perhaps among firsts in all of living history in regards to direct defiance of the Tsol'teth agenda, alongside things like the thwarted advance upon Baelgrim. It was hard earned, and I hope the people who participated in that incursion to retake the city keep those memories with them to share with the young of the realm for years to come.

Asmodron

The thing about returning from the Halls has always seemed like a "Your destiny is incomplete" factor. Ever since Maya and then Thoth specifically, you were given the message that you still had more to do and it wasnt your time yet. This gives the feeling that those that return from the Halls, both Players and NPCs are done so because they have a purpose to play still, whether greater or smaller, in the grand scheme of things. It is why I believe during certain events when an NPC is killed and vanished...that their story has indeed concluded.

(As for nameless NPCs and general mobs in areas, I prefer to think that some of them do permanently die to players hunting and are just replaced with others later. Definitely no one is innocent just because more 'spawn' later :P)

Mroxyl

I appreciate the answers on these. I didn't realize the background denizens were treated differently, so thank you.

Melodie

I always love having the veil lifted just a little bit to learn and understand how the world works better! Thanks much for the post (and the kudos).

Synthus

You say with a Theran accent, "Ugrach."
A messenger stares around fearfully, panic filling his eyes.
A messenger exclaims, "Are you insane? I can't get a letter there!"
A messenger hands your gold and an elegant white letter back to you.

>>mail letter to ugrach

The postal clerk looks at you in confusion, not understanding to whom you wish this mailed.

Aww, so the messenger and mail systems do have limitations. I just wanted mail a letter to mister makes-you-kneel... 

Mroxyl

Use the messenger in Delos for Ugrach. They are a bit more courageous

Ayani

I got excited to log in just to check to see if the one Cyrenian NPC was gone for good. Unfortunately Konstantina is still there to complain about the eels in the lake. I was really hoping! 

Keorin

Babel said:

This is what happened to Cyrene. For reasons that are likely obvious or can be found out in-game, something in the order of 19 out of every 20 people who lived in Cyrene were either processed, subsumed, enthralled, murdered, drowned or buried in the subsequent destruction to get the city to a point where it is severely depopulated from the ambient perspective, in likely what was one of the most heavily lived-in citystates on the continent.

So, small request to any admin who see this. Is there -any- way that we could get any basis to know that death percentage ICly? I've been poking and mailing denizens throughout the city, trying to get any kind of census/count going, but I've had no luck so far, and so the extent of the death has remained -incredibly- unclear (I'd assumed it was more like 25-50%, for instance, and that's been comparatively pessimistic compared to most people's assumptions).

I know that the admin are usually loath to get too specific on things, but even a very rough estimate of how much of the city was lost would be -huge-. As things stand, a lot of the city, including some of the leadership, is using the apparent lack of any mechanical loss to justify a very sanguine attitude towards everything, and so a lot of the conversation on how to move forward is getting stuck in a disagreement about whether or not there was much death at all - something that should be really, really damned obvious ICly, but which we have no way of judging as players. I really want to have a conversation about the next steps forward based on a shared IC situation, but that's impossible when everyone is interpreting what happened radically differently.

Synthus

Mroxyl said:

Use the messenger in Delos for Ugrach. They are a bit more courageous

The top one was the messenger in Delos. Even he is too scared to deliver a letter to the curator of death it seems. 

Melodie

Ayani said:

I got excited to log in just to check to see if the one Cyrenian NPC was gone for good. Unfortunately Konstantina is still there to complain about the eels in the lake. I was really hoping! 

Rude! Konstantina was very lovely when she was introduced to the city.

If you don't want her I'll adopt her, you heartless something or other.

Keorin said:

Babel said:

This is what happened to Cyrene. For reasons that are likely obvious or can be found out in-game, something in the order of 19 out of every 20 people who lived in Cyrene were either processed, subsumed, enthralled, murdered, drowned or buried in the subsequent destruction to get the city to a point where it is severely depopulated from the ambient perspective, in likely what was one of the most heavily lived-in citystates on the continent.

So, small request to any admin who see this. Is there -any- way that we could get any basis to know that death percentage ICly? I've been poking and mailing denizens throughout the city, trying to get any kind of census/count going, but I've had no luck so far, and so the extent of the death has remained -incredibly- unclear (I'd assumed it was more like 25-50%, for instance, and that's been comparatively pessimistic compared to most people's assumptions).

I know that the admin are usually loath to get too specific on things, but even a very rough estimate of how much of the city was lost would be -huge-. As things stand, a lot of the city, including some of the leadership, is using the apparent lack of any mechanical loss to justify a very sanguine attitude towards anything, and so a lot of the conversation on how to move forward is getting stuck in a disagreement about whether or not there was much death at all - something that should be really, really damned obvious ICly, but which we have no way of judging as players. I really want to have a conversation about the next steps forward based on a shared IC situation, but that's impossible when everyone is interpreting what happened radically differently.

Think of this from a general IRL prospective though... like, if a country is taken over by another aggressive country, and we can not access that country for a period of time, and when we finally can again, it comes at the cost of countless lives lost. The government is in disarray. Buildings are destroyed all over the place. 

Now, I know Cyrene's government is technically still in place because mechanical reasons and we have to remember this is a game, but I can't imagine there would be any way to know for quite a few years the actual, true numbers lost - and even then, probably only an estimate. I think it's safe to guesstimate at the least in the thousands (my opinion being inserted here), but beyond that? I just don't think it'd be realistic to know for a long period of time.

I see the root here is actually to do with people not taking the deathtoll seriously, though, and that is indeed a problem that is worthwhile of addressing. Frankly, if it's actual LEADERS doing that, you should throw them the hell out of their position by any means necessary (I'd even help! mwhaha). For the rest, that's harder, but leading by example and bringing down the hammer on people being idiots is a good start.

Also not saying the admin shouldn't find some way to make the loss more visceral, either, I just don't think aiming at this from a numbers perspective is the angle you're looking for here, is all.

Keorin

I know we'll never know a specific, accurate percentage, let alone numbers (since the population of city states is vague). But a rough estimation (Half? More then half? More then three quarters?) should be probably pretty obvious to anyone who lives in the city, and should definitely be possible to estimate, I'd think.

The problem is, without any sort of word on what the death total is, every argument about how serious this is devolves into a disagreement on the numbers of the dead. There's a -lot- of people convinced that it wasn't that bad, that we lost the city, won it back, and so it was a temporary occupation where we just lost the guards. There's just a huge difference in how serious you view this outcome, and whether you think that the losses merit action, based on if you view things as a loss of 25% of the city, or 75%. And as it stands, I don't have any way to argue that we -did- lose all that many people, let alone 95% of the city.

And this is Cyrene. If I can get through a debate without a leader outright saying that their reasoning is insane, or pointing to PK rules to justify adventurer combat being morally worse then killing denizens, I consider myself lucky.

Palusa

Spin this another way then: Do people generally shake off lots and lots of dead soldiers in other wars if no civilians died? 

I mean, that is a hell of a loaded question so what I really mean is: is it generally what people would morally do? I could not hope to make a comment on how nations treat their soldiers or don't or anything RL, more just in theory if it was say just guards, that's still people dying for your homeland, that might be serious.

Melodie

      

Keorin

I guess just to tl;dr all this:

As long as the scope of the death in Cyrene is left highly open to interpretation, it will be interpreted in all sorts of different ways. For some, the occupation and its end will be a huge victory, as we drove back the Tsol'teth with few losses. For others, it will be the biggest tragedy in the city's history, all because we can't agree on what the heck actually happened.

Palusa

Well that's more than fair enough. People would do that naturally! People DO do that naturally. 

Shirszae

People might do that naturally, but irl that tends to be -despite- the knowledge of how many were lost, while in the case of Cyrene much of the struggle is -because- of the lack of definite, or even half-definite or even quasi-solid information. Irl there would news, search posters, ongoing counts of the deceased, efforts to find survivors. 

Irl someone can see all of that and still say it was worth it, or interpret it however they wish, but they would still have to do it in the face of constantly flowing information. I think without some of that flowing information in the game, much of the ultimate impact of this event will be absent as people rationalize things in the most convenient fashion to themselves, no matter how contrary it might go to established lore.

Palusa

Well the issue there isn't someone seeing the cost and somehow rationalising it, that's someone basically lying to themselves, which IC sounds like PTSD in an Achaean flavour and OOC is just poor form.

I don't know, to me OOC its pretty horrific, I could see someone IC somehow going "they served and that's the cost" but going "nah its fine its just npcs" is one of those traps to not fall into. 

EDIT: and to credit an important point you made @Shirszae I completely agree, it is important that the information does flow to demonstrate the reality of any situation, that's also just good colour and an opportunity to interact!

Jinos

Guards are still carrying, and depositing bodies.

Anyone within Cyrene trying to debate the mass of lost lives, downplaying the devastation... just has no scope of the situation, or they don't want to embrace the atmosphere.

Which is a shame. Because it's rare to have a chance like this for a character to be immersed in a piece of history. Is it a lighthearted victory? No. Far from it. It's a tragedy. One that should shape Cyrene's narrative for years to come.

And that's why I appreciate all the work people have been putting in to make this an immersive experience. Whether they be admin, ally, citizen, or antagonizing forces. Achaea is a story that is constantly unfolding. Being a part of the forefront of this particular point in the world narrative is amazing.

It is something my character will carry with them forever. Just as it's something that will stick with me forever.

Adrik

D/W Guys.

You have no fear...

Because Eleusis definitely won.

PS: I really fucking love the aesthetic of Cyrene right now.

Frozen wasteland, more-or-less. The fact that there are no actual easy land routes into the city for traders to send wares, etc.. I'm all down for what comes from this event, so long as Targ gets raided.

Asmodron

With that accolade, most definitely :P

Keorin

Jinos said:

Guards are still carrying, and depositing bodies.

As a small note, the -vast- majority of Cyrenians died to the tide, and left no bodies; the body pile actually says that it's almost all guards, because that's most of who was left in the city by the time we attacked. The body pile is made up of guards that were under the litany, plus Cyrenians who died to the initial occupation, the flooding, and Hailqas'an's attack, while most of the death was from the tide consuming people, from what's been said so far.

Jinos

@Keorin

This is true. But seeing other bodies intermingled with all those guards makes it somehow more jarring. A small fragile limb buried amidst the armor clad bodies seems a lot more striking. At least those are the reactions I've seen while people gather to mourn, and help bury the dead. The stench is also becoming worse.

Anyone that can stand around that, and think let alone say the losses weren't that bad. Just don't get it.