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Comments
Maybe Sybilla, I dunno. But no one else who currently is an Occultist.
Easily fixed, @Cynlael
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
Getting enemied to Chaos plane stops you from getting pacts, btw. Which I'm p sure is done by Babel, IIRC.
Give each city a firm ideology first. I love what Cyrene's done with Neutrality, but it doesn't lend itself to an actual alignment.
Say what you want about the tenets of Nihilism, Donny, at least it's an ethos.
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.
Edit: Stupid emotes ruining my lists...
You said you wouldn't want to see it in a players hand, and I agree with that.
I thought I was pretty specific, maybe I was wrong.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
If Mhaldor and Targossas and Eleusis players can handle it, there's no reason to believe Ashtan's players couldn't be trusted with the same.
If anything, it seems like the very limited actual mechanical control Eleusis has traditionally had over forestal's skills, as well as the historical strength of the occultists as representing Chaos as a faction despite no mechanical controls seems like it would prove further fictionalization of the occultist class unnecessary.
Like, the entire city is devoted to Chaos now. I don't think anyone's going to go "oh look, a rogue occultist, I guess Chaos isn't based in Ashtan" any more then people would say that about forestals and Eleusis post-alchemists.
- With sharp, crackling tones, Kyrra tells you, "The ladies must love you immensely."
- (Eleusian Ranger Techs): Savira says, "Most of the hard stuff seem to have this built in code like: If adventurer_hitting_me = "Sarathai" then send("terminate and selfdestruct")."
- Makarios says, "Serve well and perish."
- Xaden says, "Xaden confirmed scrub 2017."
Now/here isn't really the time/place to cry about factionalisation and what that means. First of all, Ashtan needs to trim the fat and establish herself and her direction at an interior-affairs sort of level.
There's still plenty of people who aren't sold on the Chaos ideal, and this needs to be a priority, since we'll end up back to square one if we don't all end up pulling in the same direction. Let's get our own glass house sorted and reinforced before we start throwing stones at others for not playing the way we want.
Could class Occultist become factionally governed? Sure, it's possible: there's precedence for it, enough lore and canon to support it, and (now) the backing of a bigger organisation to make it viable. Right at this very moment, however, the admin are not keen in making it a mechanical/hard-coded reality.
Does this mean it won't be? Not really, look at what happened the Diaspora, or at out-of-Mhaldor Apostates. It just means that if we do want to go this route, we have to start a solid, serious (read: NOT lol-grief't-y) RP campaign to build up influence and apply pressure without needing to resort to Issue-able measures. The first step is starting with an Ashtan that works. Anti-rogue measures could quite easily be a branch/mission for one of the new Houses!
Whoever brought up shamans and forestals should be ashamed of themselves, go to the sewers and discuss it there gdi.
I think @Trevize made a good point, why would they pact with people they do not want to? Since an NPC is in control of it, I think it would be rather easy to control this from that side and would not be immersion breaking or break from the cool culture the Occultists have developed.
That said, even though I don't really like factional classes, if you guys get one then I want one too.
It's just as easy to check ENTITIES, cross-reference that against Ashtani Occultists, and then go saunter to the unaccounted entities and start banishing/throwing orb sigils while delivering a stern lecture.
This can continue until they delete the ENTITIES command, which has the curious bullshit property of being a decent Veil bypass.
be somewhat limiting in RP. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and there is a good
reason that some classes have been factionalized. However, it eliminates some good permutations (I so badly want to
be a Druid/occultist!).
Now to why I am torn:
One thing that happens when a city or faction gets new shinies is that there is a flood of alts and players who just want to see what is going on. That's to be expected, and we as players cannot be selfish with our glorious new awesomes. Personally, I've already fielded some questions from new Occultists as we don't really have a house safeguarding it, though I generally only help Ashtani. Here's what I do hate, though, there are some players who make no attempt to reconcile IG centuries of conflict with Ashtan, quit their own faction, then go Occultist and beg Jinsun to teach them as well as asking other citizens to pester other Occultists. I am heavily against permanent enemy status, but if you're going to be an Occultist it doesn't make much sense to hide in Cyrene's bell tower, remain enemied to Ashtan and beg stalwart members that you've fought against for years to pity you. OOCly it is really annoying because it is lazy and piss poor RP, and I can't do much about it aside from telling the person how unwelcome they are and encouraging other players and organizations to blackball them. ICly it is frustrating because Jinsun really would want to camp the Plane and make sure they never get a pact, and he probably would be a bit justified given their alignment against Chaos. I just don't see that working out well for me from a PK standpoint. That's really the only reason I would want it to be factional, but mayhaps a mechanical change to enemies of Ashtan being able to form pacts would remedy that. The thought would still make me uneasy given the easy of enemying someone. The thought of Avianca being an Occultist makes me even more uneasy.
Why, from an IC standpoint, would you go around hunting entities that serve the Chaos Lords that your city is now aligned with, though? Seems like something Targossas would do, not Ashtan. If the Chaos Lords choose to pact with someone, it seems like Ashtan would respect that. It doesn't mean that the Ashtani Occultists can't consider themselves of a higher caliber than the non-Ashtani Occultists - the Chaos Lords probably do too, given that they've entered into accords with you and made promises. But I don't see why they would actively hunt the entities that the Chaos Lords put out there. Would be more interesting/cooler for the Ashtani to just treat the outsiders as inferior practitioners of Chaos who are still "on their side" to some extent, like pawns in Ashtan's game.
But whatever, like Dunn said, whatever happens will happen IG. No real need for it to be argued over further.
If I remember correctly though, Xenophage used to be loyal to the occultist house. This quite effectively barred occultists that angered the house from pacting with Xenophage (basically taking away their instant travel to the chaos plane)
That specific clause, for Xenophage, could be put back into place for enemies of Ashtan maybe?
Artemis says, "You are so high maintenance, Tharvis, gosh."
Tecton says, "It's still your fault, Tharvis."
Glaaki will pact with Ashtani at a reduced karma cost, and Golgotha will pact with Ashtani at an increased karma cost. You can determine that from the messages when beginning a pact.
Xenophage never did as is described, his refusal is just a part of the result of being banned from domination.
Probably misinterpreted it as global refusal, Asmodron never bothered to stand still long enough with Xenophage to try pacting
Artemis says, "You are so high maintenance, Tharvis, gosh."
Tecton says, "It's still your fault, Tharvis."
twitter - @spacemanreno
I'm not Hashani so I don't know about the depths of their RP, but I'm willing to bet that 'summoning chaos entities' is a very very very small portion of it. Scientific experiments with karmic energy and Chaos? Go hog wild. It's the foundation that Occultism was built on: Small scattered cabals all working towards an ideal through different means, most of them horrible failures like the crypt beast. Banning karma is the wrong way to go about it, and it's not something I've argued for.