So I leave for a weekend concert series, and I can't be a priest in Cyrene anymore?

Melodie

Mithraea beat y'all to that claim by about 5~ years. Get on board the blame train, choo choo!

Edit: Ducking out of this thread now though because I promised myself not to get invested into arguing any of this.

Aldair

Aminah said:

I understand what you guys are saying. I did not understand, however, that these were defunct artifacts of a time gone by. That is immensely important. I didn't know that as a new player, and I don't think most players I've talked to IG know that. I've been mentioning so often the Holy Codex and people just nod and say "yeah, it's weird that it changed."

And I would say, deleting is a better solution. It is terribly inconsistent to have them existing. It opens a door for someone to RP saying "look, gods of good have gotten wrong again," The gods of good aren't omnipotent. Realms like love, sin, the sky, darkness, are so different from the realm of Good because Good itself comes from creation as an unchanging force.

What do you guys think about this?

I don't mean to be argumentative here but about three paragraphs into the introduction of the Holy Codex it says "As a member of the Church of Achaea, you will ..." and then the opening piece for the commandments says "Holy Constituents of the Church of Achaea," and then talks about bringing glory for the Church and what not. And specifically says "these ten codes of the Church". That's before you even get to any of the actual commandments.

So I guess I am confused as to why the first question a burgeoning do gooder would have would not be "what is this Church this book keeps talking about? Am I in the Church? Does this even apply to me?" And of course the correct answer would be no. It doesn't apply to anyone. Because the Church doesn't exist anymore. 

It is not remotely inconsistent if you learn the history of Good in Achaea. I understand that it seems that way from a shallow reading but Good, or any of the more radical factions, are really not designed to be absorbed that way. Which is really what makes them interesting.

Tael

Aminah said:

I understand what you guys are saying. I did not understand, however, that these were defunct artifacts of a time gone by. That is immensely important. I didn't know that as a new player, and I don't think most players I've talked to IG know that. I've been mentioning so often the Holy Codex and people just nod and say "yeah, it's weird that it changed."

And I would say, deleting is a better solution. It is terribly inconsistent to have them existing. It opens a door for someone to RP saying "look, gods of good have gotten wrong again," The gods of good aren't omnipotent. Realms like love, sin, the sky, darkness, are so different from the realm of Good because Good itself comes from creation as an unchanging force.

What do you guys think about this?

The first issue you mention is largely not a problem. I don't think anyone's addressed how rare the problem you've stepped into is. You mentioned, for instance, that priests shouldn't be able to join Cyrene. Going forward, they essentially won't be - even if the city does technically continue to allow priests to join, any newbie priest is going to be told immediately that this is going to present a problem. Even insofar as some Cyrenians don't understand the situation with respect to the old Holy Codex (which is not at all vague or confusing and was announced all over the place), they all understand that now you can't be a devotionist in Cyrene.

I think your situation has maybe caused you to suspect this is a bigger problem than it really is and that other people are going to have to face this same issue in the future, but they largely aren't. A number of other classes have become faction-exclusive in the past and it hasn't really caused any further problems. You just happen to be in the wrong place as the wrong class at the wrong time, through seemingly no fault of your own.

Regarding the RP door you are saying has been opened: I think most people would agree that said door has indeed been opened. And I don't think it's a bad door to open! What exactly is the problem with characters being able to believe that the gods are fallible? For one, the gods are demonstrably fallible. Gods making mistakes is a big part of the history of the game - it's even a big part of the Mythos that serves as the fundamental backstory to the world.

It's just important to remember that saying "look, gods of good have gotten wrong again" in a world where the gods are actually listening and actually throw lightning bolts at people they don't like is maybe not the most prudent decision.

Aminah

Aldair said:

Aminah said:

I understand what you guys are saying. I did not understand, however, that these were defunct artifacts of a time gone by. That is immensely important. I didn't know that as a new player, and I don't think most players I've talked to IG know that. I've been mentioning so often the Holy Codex and people just nod and say "yeah, it's weird that it changed."

And I would say, deleting is a better solution. It is terribly inconsistent to have them existing. It opens a door for someone to RP saying "look, gods of good have gotten wrong again," The gods of good aren't omnipotent. Realms like love, sin, the sky, darkness, are so different from the realm of Good because Good itself comes from creation as an unchanging force.

What do you guys think about this?

I don't mean to be argumentative here but about three paragraphs into the introduction of the Holy Codex it says "As a member of the Church of Achaea, you will ..." and then the opening piece for the commandments says "Holy Constituents of the Church of Achaea," and then talks about bringing glory for the Church and what not. And specifically says "these ten codes of the Church". That's before you even get to any of the actual commandments.

So I guess I am confused as to why the first question a burgeoning do gooder would have would not be "what is this Church this book keeps talking about? Am I in the Church? Does this even apply to me?" And of course the correct answer would be no. It doesn't apply to anyone. Because the Church doesn't exist anymore. 

It is not remotely inconsistent if you learn the history of Good in Achaea. I understand that it seems that way from a shallow reading but Good, or any of the more radical factions, are really not designed to be absorbed that way. Which is really what makes them interesting.

Mortal organizations come and go, but that doesn't mean that their ethos, especially revealed and eternal ethos, automatically have followed suit. It's foolish to suggest a person would think otherwise.

Jukilian

For added clarification, wasn't the Holy Codex an actual book/tome kept within the Basilica in Shallam? That was ultimately destroyed with Shallam. A bunch of people would have just copied its contents into journals to put into libraries for ease of access. It would be these copies you're reading.

Lorielan

The original Codex is publicly accessible to all and kept on Zaphar Isle.

Bluef

As the person behind the character, I feel Aminah's frustration. She had a nice life as a devotionalist when she logged out. She returned to find she'd have to either leave her city and the friends she made there behind or give up Devotion. Let's not marginalize that experience.

Sure, most players, at least the older ones, saw this coming. It was a lot more evident in its eventual onset than shamans not being allowed in Targossas post-refugee camp in New Hope. for me anyway. But the questions now becomes what will Cyrene do for those devotionalist who may be out real-life money if they have to switch class to stay in the city and have access to a full range of abilities? What kind of culture of welcome can Cyrenian devotionalists expect in Shallam? 

The way things are approached will make a massive difference for the players affected. I hope it all works out in the end, @Aminah. My best advice is to look at this not as a door closing but as one that is opening to new roleplay opportunities either in Cyrene or Targ.

Blujixapug

Hellen said:

Chaos was Eris' lulz land until Babel came along and made it much better. Interesting story about that one, Flair apparently played that role for like, a decade until the Garden decided that Chaos needed some Lovecraftian Love. Nature was possibly more cringe-worthy than Erisian Chaos until very recently. Hashan had a social revolution that left it one House poorer but with a much better base than before. Numerous Gods have made revisions to their own teachings.

I'll put my post in a spoiler tag, since it's a diversion on Chaos and this thread is about Good/Cyrene. I think it's still relevant because it's about factional ideals and retcons.

[spoiler]
Chaos was the same thing all along: a vast extradimensional source of primordial energy used by the Creator at the time of Creation, now largely separate to Creation, and corruptive/mutative to Creation (in the same way that paint is harmful to a finished painting).

Eris dressed it up with flying rabbits and rainbows and misdirection, preferring to create a seductive facade - "Chaos? Harmless, darling!" - and then do terrible mad science-type things in secret.

IMO the facade was *too* convincing. You also had very confusing and unhelpful things like one of the versions of Mithraea running an event that declared the 'bad part' of Chaos had been purged, and the Erisian Pyramid being largely empty of actually bad, harmful Chaotic things (the most dangerous thing in there was that toilet you flushed to kill yourself). But there were Lovecraftian elements there all along, like the Spawn, the Orphanage, the Chaos Plane, Maim de Vermiis, occultist class abilities, and content in the Occultist library. The later chapters of the Mythos featuring Entropy and Discord are the best, most public example, and they've been around since... I don't know, close to game launch.

Babel stripped away the 'harmless' facade and announced, "This is your doom."

Chaos itself didn't change, not in the way the doctrines of the Church/Te'Serra/Citadel/Shallam/Good/Tarah/Sentaari/etc were so dramatically swept aside.

I'd argue that wile Chaos and Good are both core faction definitions, they're fundamentally different in that Good is a verb and Chaos is a noun. This has been a source of difficulty for Shallam/Targ and Ashtan in different ways, but that's getting a bit off topic.
[/spoiler]

Orzaansyn

In Mhaldor, we fund the classchange for returning occultists of old.

We also fund the classchange for Sylvans and those kind of things.

Ognog

Those who say neutral-good makes no sense don't really understand Cyrene.

Cyrenians are good people who choose not to involve themselves in the conflict between good and evil. They are tolerant of the existence of evil and chaos in the outside world so long as it doesn't impinge on Cyrene.

As an aside, if Targossas can't tolerate the good people of Cyrene, who can they tolerate? Targossas is looking more and more like Mhaldor every day.

Sarathai

Bluef said:

But the questions now becomes what will Cyrene do for those devotionalist who may be out real-life money if they have to switch class to stay in the city and have access to a full range of abilities? What kind of culture of welcome can Cyrenian devotionalists expect in Shallam?

As mentioned in the Raves thread, there have apparently been several thousand credits and over a million gold donated for class changes out of Devotion and into a different class, all coming from Cyrene and some rogues. So that's a start in the right direction.

Also, I think you mean Targossas, not Shallam.

Morthif

Ognog said:

Those who say neutral-good makes no sense don't really understand Cyrene.

Cyrenians are good people who choose not to involve themselves in the conflict between good and evil. They are tolerant of the existence of evil and chaos in the outside world so long as it doesn't impinge on Cyrene.

As an aside, if Targossas can't tolerate the good people of Cyrene, who can they tolerate? Targossas is looking more and more like Mhaldor every day.

1.) I'll take that last bit as a compliment.
2.) Targ and the Bloodsworn are what defines Good. If @Aurora decides that the be Good we must each slit the throat of a cute puppy every month then that is what you have to do to be Good. Cyrene gets no say in how you define Good. I'm sorry but that's the way it is. Hint: tolerating evil/darkness/chaos so long as it stays out of your city is never going to get you classified as Good anything.

Naverre

The really big problem here is people hear "neutral-Good" and think DnD style alignment. If Cyrene were to be given such an alignment, it would be Lawful Neutral.

Calling it "neutral-Good" is always going to be a problem. What they are is Neutral, and they happen to be the only city in Achaea that really is. People like to throw on the "-Good" part to explain how they do not support nor allow the assistance of Evil and Darkness, and to an extent Chaos. This is mostly due to the fact that Hashan was considered for RL years to be Neutral, and Cyrene had to differentiate themselves, because they definitely did not have the same ideologies. Hashan allowed Apostates and Occultists in their city, and openly supported Twilight. Cyrenians didn't want to be painted with the same "Neutral" brush, so they amended it with "-Good".

Cyrene is Neutral. They do not support Evil/Chaos/Darkness, but they don't want to fight it, and it's the "not wanting to fight it" that's the key point. To the actually Good-aligned people, Cyrene is, for Biblical reference, the "lukewarm" group that they want to "spit out of [their] mouth".

Bluef

Sarathai said:

Also, I think you mean Targossas, not Shallam.

Do I though?  

Just kidding. That's great about the donations!  

Jurixe

Ognog said:

Cyrenians are good people who choose not to involve themselves in the conflict between good and evil. They are tolerant of the existence of evil and chaos in the outside world so long as it doesn't impinge on Cyrene.

The point that people keep repeating here is that 'good', as a moral value, is not equal to 'Good' as a factional ideal. You have pointed out here precisely the main difference between Cyrene and Targossas, and why, ultimately, this was a good split; Cyrene does not care much about Evil or Chaos (capitalisation necessary here because again, not the same as lowercase), even though it doesn't support them, as long as it doesn't threaten them.

Targossas, on the other hand, loathes them. Cannot tolerate their existence at all. They believe that they are actively poisoning/destroying Creation and are fighting a constant battle to stop it - that is what their gods champion, and They have blessed Targossans - their holy warriors - with gifts of Devotion to aid them in their never-ending struggle. That they grant these precious gifts to Cyrene to use, who then not only tolerates these blights upon Creation and refuses to help Targossas in their crusade but even goes so far as to believe them capable of friendship is, as far as Targossans are concerned, a major slap in the face and a huge insult because it means that they don't understand these gifts and what they are really meant to be used for.

As a result, Targossas was resentful and dismissive of Cyrene, whereas the well-meaning Cyrene felt slighted by Targossas's 'tolerance' of them even though they tried to 'be nice' - because what Targossas wanted from them, Cyrene ultimately could not give: a zero-tolerance policy of Evil, Chaos and Darkness. These tensions brewed for a long time and ultimately came to a head, but it was always going to happen if neither party was willing to sweep the differences under the rug and, for once, stand by their principles - which was often not the case in the past for convenience's sake.

It finally happened, and this - while unfortunate for individual members and I fully sympathise with the class change headache - is an excellent step to forming solid, distinct identities. No longer will Cyrene be seen as 'Targossas's little brother'; without the constant threat of excommunication looming over its head, now it is finally free to be its own city. Targossas no longer has to make excuses or turn a blind eye to its 'protectorate' (for I am sure this is how Targossas views Cyrene) going off and 'fraternising' with Evil/Chaos/Darkness scum.

Backlash is expected for any game-wide decision that affects people's investment, but you are lucky that Cyrene is one of the most caring cities in the game and I am certain that its leaders will make every effort to soften the transitioning pains as much as they are able to. It is perhaps a natural reaction to want, vindictively, this course of action to backfire so that you can be justified in saying 'I told you so'; but even if it does, that is simply yet another interesting turn of events in a vibrant, ever-changing world.

As others have said, this was the players and gods of Good 'righting' a whole bunch of confusion and misinformation that was severely undermining the ability to form a cohesive interpretation of what 'Good' actually was. It was long overdue and it's unfortunate that you got caught in the transition, but there were always going to be some affected.

I am so excited because now you can be the catalyst for determining new policy and feeling in Cyrene towards Targossas, an almost unprecedented moment in history for these two factions. Some will remain arguing for its cause, while others will remember this slight and become its detractors. So many interesting avenues of roleplay can result from this one moment, and if viewed from the perspective of a storyteller, it is so full of potential.

My advice: it's okay to be upset, angry even, at this perhaps unexpected change. But remember that this is a roleplaying game; you can create your own endings. Use it as a pivotal moment in your character's life to influence her further actions, let it colour your interactions and become a part of you. Roll with the game and let it inspire you to write a story worth telling, and be a character worth reading about someday.

Ognog

Having recently returned to Hashan, I'm loving how people are no longer talking about "evil and chaos", they are now talking about "evil, chaos and darkness". Let's get this party started as Lord @Twilight has arrived!

Halos

Aldair said:

It is not remotely inconsistent if you learn the history of Good in Achaea. I understand that it seems that way from a shallow reading but Good, or any of the more radical factions, are really not designed to be absorbed that way. Which is really what makes them interesting.

Agree!

Jurixe said:

As others have said, this was the players and gods of Good 'righting' a whole bunch of confusion and misinformation that was severely undermining the ability to form a cohesive interpretation of what 'Good' actually was. It was long overdue and it's unfortunate that you got caught in the transition, but there were always going to be some affected.

Jurixe gets it.

Okay, @Aminah, here's the super long cliffs notes version:

beginning of game (176-200ish): Sarapis is like "Ok so we have Holy Church (templar and priest guilds) to play as foil to evil/chaos (infernal and occultist guilds)? Ok what does Shallam do? So vaguely the same thing? Well, why not stick the Church inside Shallam? Great!"

The newly combined faction gets to have philosophical debates on what they're supposed to actually do for years. They argue about church shrines and who's job it is to help maintain them.

Deucalion appears through a Church summoning in 196. First real faction patron.

Begs the Holy Church to get its shit together.

Aurora appears out of an explosion of a giant star in 208. Becomes dual patrons with Deuc. 

Becomes the second parent to patron and try to straight out the team good drama.

Holy Codex written for the Church in 220 AF. 

Deucora got tired of Church people arguing about how to play on good faction and just wrote it. Was pretty well-written. Ten or so laws. Didn't actually define what Good was. Just said "do this", "don't do this". Shallam didn't have to follow it. This caused intra-factional issues sometimes (hi Sentaari). Devotion is only in the priest and paladin guild, but of course some of these members live in other cities like Cyrene, Eleusis, and Hashan. Sarapis retires church shrines a little later and creates Landmarking, a yearly struggle between Good and Evil.

Deuc dies 240 AF

Now it's just Aurora, but the faction is going strong. So it's cool right?

Rory disappears 260ish AF

Just kidding! Orphans all of you.

New faction patrons 260-400ish AF
A couple of new gods appear or change over to help steer the now flailing faction, with vague connections to the old ones. Pentharian and Mithraea ascend from mortals and become main faction patrons. 

Mithraea writes a treatise on Good around 375 AF.

Mithraea actually writes what Good actually is in a book. For the first time, it's described as a metaphysical force of the universe, rather than as nice-feelings, or honorable service, or compassion towards your fellow man. Super educational. The book gets placed on a pillar in an out of the way place off of Fish Street. Elder God Lorielan switches from neutrality to lend a hand to the faction.

Autoclass in 400 AF. Codex of Light written for the Church in 420 AF. Rho excoms the world 460ish AF.

Tarah writes a new codex, probably in response to autoclass and changing times. Patrons of Church and Shallam endorse it (by this time it's like four or five patrons), forced it on Church. Deleted Holy Codex (or, it's on Zaphar? How or why was not explained, other than "hey they're ex-Jaruvians gaiz"). Officially separated Good and 'good', made other ways of serving in the faction equal to Church's way (like, it almost said Dawnstriders and theft were cool). Half the Church went into an uproar. It became central book anyway. The big questions were "are we all militaristic Good or compassionate Good? Both?" and also "Do the ends justify the means?" Drama continues. Leaders quit, or quietly subverted it. Gradually met acceptance with most. Cyrene's priests and paladins create a clan called "The Lumeni" and do their own thing, establishing their own whacky, but rather well-written ethos (hi Aerek) sometime during this century. Autoclass also meant priests and paladins elsewhere were running around like a horrific girls gone wild video though. Church turns its attention outwards. Enter Rho, who excommunicates nearly all non-faction priests and paladins (except for rogues and Cyrenian Lumeni) to curb rogue priests and paladins whoring it up with rogue occies and necromancers. 
Yay factional purity. Clementius makes it so priest blessings only affect Shallamese and Church + allies.

The three patrons quietly become the "Te'Serran Alliance" and combine essence, plus Tarah or something, who was patroning the Church around this time. Miramar joins later, and now it's four faction patrons (plus or minus Tarah).

Achaea forums reaction mixed outrage and relief and well-wishes.  

Shallam retires Sultanate. Institutes God-appointed Caliphate around 500 AF.

Church and Shallam continue having scuffles. One of the best was an explosive stand-off between Jovaras, who was Caliph of Shallam at the time, and Mathonwy, who was Archprelate.

Forums eats it up. Several threads titled "This is why I hate Shallam" continue to flourish.

Church disbanded in 568 AF. Archprelate power and authority given to Caliphs. Te'Serran Primary written.
Holy Church disbanded. It was super sedentary by then and having two orgs doing the same thing but still fighting over little shit was kind've silly. Codex of Light is deleted. Te'Serra made the Citadel of Light to solve Church-Shallam issues once and for all. Published Te'Serran Primary as simplified one page document to serve as central document of the united church and state. I basically saw it as faction cliff notes on Good. Citadel was an interesting experiment but not well-implemented. Militaristic Good still desperately wanted by half of Shallam, still desperately fought by the other half. Other people were still hanging onto battered copies of Holy Codex, and others onto Codex of Light, and combining all philosophies with the new one. Very few people actually understood what the Citadel of Light actually was, and that didn't help either. Lumeni continue trying to do their own thing, occasionally coming to blows and getting bullied by Citadel of Light. 

Achaea Forums reaction super optimistic but cautious.

Bal'met Saga. Shallam destroyed in 612 AF.

Te'Serra are killed off by Bal'met or abandon Shallam (hi Lorielan). Everything is deleted! Thank Sarapis! (what is a shallam? becomes a short-lived joke).  Deuc and Rory (Deucora) get resurrected/summoned through time. They look at the sorry refugees with worry, are like "wtf have you guys been doing", then lead pantheon to eliminate Bal'met, giving team good a little street cred back. Refugees huddle in a safe room on New Hope for 6 ig years. Half of the ex-Shallamese snugglers fall away or have moved to Cyrene during the waiting period.

Lots of wailing on forums. Lots of "thank god" also. Mostly everyone wrapped up in Bal'met Saga.

Rory excommunicates Melodie 615ish AF(?)
No Archprelate or Caliph is around, so it's the first excommunication in a long long time (and the first one actually done by a divine since the early days of the game). If anyone had any doubt as to Deucora's supremacy over devotion and Good, it's rapidly been dispelled by now.

Eastern Reaches terraforming 618 AF,  Targossas founded 623 AF. Targ and Cyrene relationship lukewarm, but do not declare ally status.

Deucora announces the start of a new militaristic Good faction dedicated only to worship of them. About two-thirds of the ex-Shallamese still in non-faction Orders throw fits, move to Cyrene. Lumeni welcome them. Citizens of either city strongly discouraged from assisting the other in raid defense. Deucora appoints a Deacon to handle excommunications and look after Devotion.

Achaea forums cheers and hopes new city won't be like Shallam.

Rory disbands Lumeni 630 AF. Diaspora appear.

Rory cracks open a book on what Cyrenian priests and paladins actually practice and believe, lols, has Lumeni disbanded. Creates Diaspora clan to herd non-Targ devotionists into (probably) to either reform them, convert them, or slowly cull them. Moderately successful. Cyrenians suspicious of it as a non-Cyrenian thing.

Cyrene and Targossas tense relations. Antidas steals something and Targ lols. Cyrene finally decides to ban devotionists 681 AF.
Another step towards factional purity. Yay. Forums reacts.

/thread

Melodie

Correct on the 615.

Jeeze that timeline is scary to look at.

Aodfionn

Only thing missing is the entry for

"680 AF, Diaspora institutes changes of direction and structure, as parts of an effort to grant Cyrenian devotionists more input into the actions of the group."

"681 AF, #rekt"

Nim

I wanted to join as a temp, too.

And by join, I mean get denied for being a dirty Pandora worshiper.

But then be outraged about it!

Sarathai

Halos said:

Devotion is only in the priest and paladin guild, but of course some of these members live in other cities like Cyrene, Eleusis, and Hashan. Sarapis retires church shrines a little later and creates Landmarking, a yearly struggle between Good and Evil.

Uh, there shouldn't have been anybody living in those three cities if 220 AF is the date you're using?

- Hashan opened its gates in 221 (the Public post stating it could begin accepting citizens was #2051, dating it to 18th Mayan in 221).
- Eleusis wasn't discovered until 271 (Events #12), and didn't get the first Speaker or patron until 324.
- Cyrene wasn't discovered until 288 (Events #31).

I mean, maybe Hashan, but not Eleusis or Cyrene.

Also, Aurora had a return in 275 AF. Don't know how long it lasted offhand, though.

Halos

Idk, some of my dates might be a little off. It's a cliffs notes edition that I wrote from memory! Def not an encyclopedic reference. People can and should actually be find out all of this stuff through in game sources (kudos to you on actually doing this).

edit: The bits relevant and leading up to the cyrene-shallam/targ falling out are still fairly accurate though, and I hope answered the question that this didn't just "happen over a weekend".

Sarathai

Halos said:

Idk, some of my dates might be a little off. It's a cliffs notes edition that I came up with off the top of my head, not an encyclopedic reference! You should actually be finding out all of this in game (kudos to you on actually doing this). The bits relevant and leading up to the cyrene-shallam/targ falling out are still fairly accurate.

I like reading through old Events posts. Not so much the Public ones. Blech.

Ayami

The important thing to take from that is that Aurora/Deucalion are the canon 'original' gods of Good. That means they have a legitimate claim to what Good actually is, and I'm sure that's why they were chosen on an OOC level.

All this talk makes me want to play more in Targ too

Jovolo

Glad this finally happened! It's been a long time coming. It bugged me when people assumed that Cyrene being neutral-good justified them having Devotion classes.

Mizik

Reminds me of when I lost Necromancy to Mhashtan split

I feel your pain, Cyrene homies. 

Now we're all even Stevens.

Kakotas

Tael said:

I understand that it is very frustrating when the game's setting does not cater to what you want to do/be, but that does not necessarily mean that a given change is bad or that the people who made it are bad people.

Conflation of good with Good was a huge problem in the game for well over a real-life decade. That single problem created more heartache and bad blood than probably any other in the game. Escaping that dynamic was a large part of why Shallam was destroyed and Targossas was founded with a much clearer version of Good. And it's true, "alignment"-based conflict is a huge part of the Achaean landscape, but that's exactly why Targossas being more hardline has been an improvement - it can finally be Good vs Evil vs Chaos. Previously, "Good" was a degenerate faction - one of the largest, but almost completely without direction and with constant insistence that no one had the right to determine what did and didn't constitute "Good". In terms of factional conflict, it was a disaster and almost everyone knew it.

It's worth pointing out here that this is a problem pretty much unique to the Good faction. Notice that no one is saying that even though the Evil faction is incredibly radicalised and has settled on a very, very specific and narrow notion of what constitutes Evil, pretty much no one goes around arguing that it's too radicalised and has too narrow a definition and is pushing too many people away with it. And while Evil factions get a handful of people who want to play psychopathic mass-murderers with no respect for what Evil means in Achaea, they're relatively few and no one ever really suggests that they have some inherent claim to determining what constitutes Evil in the game. The fact that the Good faction faces these issues is probably due to the fact that most people in real-life consider themselves "good", while very few think of themselves as "evil" and consequently want the game to recognise their conception of what it means to be "evil".

If you think that this radicalisation of Good is the result of "stardom" or "immaturity", you are severely lacking in perspective. The radicalisation is a direct result of the fact that, prior to radicalisation, things didn't work. To the extent that there were glimmers of hope for the faction prior to Targossas, they were almost exclusively from subsets of players who were themselves more radical.

You say that this hardline version of Good is going to alienate all of the players who want to play characters who are good or sympathetic to good as though that's a bad thing. That is very much the intention, and for good reason. Characters who are "lower-case good" or sympathetic to that kind of good are not a good fit for factional conflict. Being a generally moral, decent person doesn't really lend itself well to a call to war. A group of people whose primary simarity is that they all agree you shouldn't be a huge asshole doesn't make for a particularly interesting or engaging faction. Aurora and Deucalion are purposefully alienating those people because trying to combine people who were good with people who wanted the factional conflict that comes with being Good didn't work well and didn't make a lot of sense either, since there is already a city for people who want to be lower-case good: Cyrene (and arguably most of the others - most people in Ashtan, Hashan, and Eleusis are more or less lower-case good).

I do agree that you have something of a point with respect to priest becoming a faction-exclusive class. Given that you were warned about some of the RP-based restrictions on playing a priest, but weren't warned about this particular problem, I think you have a legitimate grievance here - which I think remains true even if you think priest being exclusive to Targossas is ultimately a good move for the game (which I think it is). I'm not sure what could really be done about it, but nevertheless I think you have a point that this is somewhat unfair to you.

But if you think the problem is the radicalisation itself that lead to this, you really need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture, or maybe go back and read some of the reams and reams of posts in the archive about all of the messy problems Shallam was contending with for years and years.

And if you think that changes like this shouldn't be made because it's "not an in-game mechanic", you are playing the wrong game. The fact that the game's landscape is dynamic and somewhat player-controlled is usually considered one of its primary draws. If player-directed factional RP developments like this couldn't happen and we simply relied on "in-game mechanics", I think an awful lot of people would be an awful lot interested in the game.

Slightly snide comment but 1- Tael I don't recall seeing you in Shallam during that whole conflagration. 2- most of those conflicts were sorted just not in the way one of the factions liked. Things did work before being radicalized they just were not the way that some people wanted. Shallam wasn't going to be like mhaldor and for plenty of good reasons. It would have made more sense to free the groups to move than what happened but I digress.

Hellen said:

Yeah, Good in Achaea has always been a theology rather than 'moral good'. Its a literal religion, with the ability to excommunicate you. This is hardly a misunderstanding. There is no overarching moral good. There is what Deucalion and Aurora say what Good is and that's it. Targossas is the home of Devotion because the Bloodsworn Gods say it is, and if you don't like it there are other choices. I personally dislike the whole lose half your lessons thing that often results from it, but I'm really unsure of what to do about that kind of thing.

It will be interesting to see where this leads.

-umm hellen you need to read history and not the mantra stuff put out but the actual histories like the codex (original one) and the Codex of light.

Sorry but unless you lived through it (and I'm talking pre-citadel of light) and were a city leader or a house/church leader there is very little room for comment on "the problems shallam faced" because 90% of them were people not being engaged or going off and pouting in a corner everytime a majority decision was made or people trying to cheat the system of voting by allowing Ents to vote.


-Additionally the lessons thing royally sucks. But it looks like we will have some help from cyrene. But that's just Cyrene being decent. Really targossas should pay for it for the elder players.

Silas

Aldair said:

The first time the "modern" understanding of what Good is in Achaea appeared is in Mithraea's treatise on Good.

Funny, that.

Achilles

-Additionally the lessons thing royally sucks. But it looks like we will have some help from cyrene. But that's just Cyrene being decent. Really targossas should pay for it for the elder players. 

Absolutely not.  This is an opportunity for Cyrene to retain their devotion players by funding a class change.  Why would Targossas pay people to go further away from "Good".  

The problem with recent Cyrene and Devotion has always been they have been Cyrenian first, devotionists second.  If you are a Cyrenian with Devotion are you thinking class change or city change first given recent events?  Ask yourself that in the context of how you are serving Good.

Agrias

I'll make a few things clear, as none of you are on the Senate of Cyrene, and I am.

Firstly, it was my shop that was robbed, and at the time, I was a Paladin, and had only taken the shop partly because Rahum gave it to me when he quit Achaea, and partly because it was an order shop for Hermes that I was proprietor of, and Inara managed for me.  Yes, it was in Ashtan, yes, I had to pay shop taxes, but to me, that doesn't count as 'supporting Ashtan' as I literally had discussed my owning the shop with Achilles (shortly after I quit the House Templar), and I was told that it wasn't going to be looked upon favorably, but it was tolerable since I had no ties to Targossas/Shallam, but to soften the edges, I jacked up the prices that I charged for Ashtani and Mhaldorians, and flat out refused service to Nihilists. Antidas robbed it when Inara was keeping inventory for me, and while I did get nearly everything back after some deliberation, that was why he was enemied.  This isn't a surprising turn of events, and I don't understand why people are shocked that he was enemied to Cyrene for it.  Theft is theft.  You steal from a citizen, and the city will usually enemy you. Furthermore, he also came INTO Cyrene and robbed one of our shops.

Simply put, if I were to go into Targossas and rob a shop, I would get enemied.  Nothing happened to Antidas, except that a tantrum was thrown and the end result was that we finally cut the tie that we had been keeping for centuries.

Secondly, in terms of people not having a voice in Cyrene, we had a referendum that @Verrucht opened immediately after @Aldair made her post.  Keep in mind that this referendum was only open for ONE month, and it gained over 80 votes.  Our decision as city leaders was based entirely upon the results, which were an overwhelming 78 votes to tell Targossas to stuff it, 2 votes to back down, and 2 abstentions.

What you're all forgetting is that actions have consequences for both sides of a faction. Can any of you honestly say you expected an entirely autonomous city to become subservient to Targossas?  Cyrene has been around for a hell of a long time, and it's never crumbled, and always tried to work in conjunction with Good/Bloodsworn/Shallam/Targossas/Church.

The end result was that we as a city got tired of being slapped in the face every time Targossas wanted to exercise its authority over us.

We no longer are forced to stand in the shadow of Targossas, while Targossas continues to preach about standing in the Light.