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Comments
Right now there's a fiction in Eleusis that neither house is the combat house. That's not true and I think everybody would be better off accepting that and running with it. The Scions have serious combat requirements to advance, the Kin don't. The Kin have a patrol requirement, the Scions don't. Better to just call it what it is. Maybe that will let some of the pressure off.
The problem imo is that Eleusis still wants that choice instead of rallying behind their Divine. Not that they are here atm to rally around ofc, but that's my perspective form everything I have heard and read. If Eleusis was a true theocracy, none of this matters.
The next Gaia/Artemis should come in and lay the expectation out completely. Support Us and your fellow citizens or hit the door. Only way Eleusis is going to recover, I believe.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
That love soon might end You are unbreaking
And be known in its aching Though quaking
Shown in this shaking Though crazy
Lately of my wasteland, baby That's just wasteland, baby
However, RP becomes hollow if the protectors of Nature can't actually do any protecting of it. Some kid was shouting about how Eleusis beat Mhaldor because Mhaldor gave up. Like seriously lol. Naivety at its finest.
You need to find a balance, but 'Gaia not MY god!!1!1' is never going to cut it if you want a healthy faction.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
The people in Eleusis who cause problems are the people who are like "that Rangor guy is a monster for attacking all those other cities; we don't want anything to do with him, we swear. Please don't judge us by his actions" and "not everyone in Eleusis agrees with Gaia; don't hold her teachings against us!"
People want to dissociate themselves from the pkers and goddesses completely, which inherently creates disunity. Standing behind what they're doing verbally but just not fighting would cause loads less problems, and there are people in Targossas like that who get along fine with the pkers (albeit not many since most there like pk).
Someone else said that friction between an org and its patron is not uniquely Eleusian. That's true; parts of Ashtan might have chafed under Babel, Mhaldor didn't really embrace Keresis, and Shallam certainly wrestled with its 5-strong pantheon of various divine, but I don't recall any of those examples telling their respective divine--directly and in-character--"We don't think you know what your own realm is about," which I feel Eleusis has done on multiple occasions, to multiple divine.
The reasonable voices seem to agree that Eleusis' issues have less to do with roleplay, charters, gods, or differing playstyles, and everything to do with a section of players determined to transform Eleusis into their personal country club. Here's hoping Eleusis fares better than Cyrene has.
Also, if you're spouting this bullshit IG, I'd go as far to say that you are more a part of the problem than it is likely you will ever be a part of the solution.
Now, you don't only not have Oakstone and Eleusis as optional organisations. You have Eleusis as the SOLE, mandatory city-state that every forestal MUST join and support. Because Eleusis embodies Nature. Because there are no other organisations that make sense for a forestal to join - there's no Fianna, no Council of Oakstone, no guilds, no Houses that are not directly tied to Eleusis. Plus, you have a situation where every faction in post-Renaissance Achaea is dominated, controlled, and directed by a divine and their followers. Factions without an active matron/patron don't have it easy. They actually have it hard and need to compromise on many things.
Personally, my impression is that the old Druidic mindset, the nurturers, those who seek to live peacefully and explore other facets of Achaea than fighting, survives. It survives because people were not given any time to move to neo-Eleusis, because the Renaissance and the Viridian Charter were shoved down their throats, and - at least as far as I've heard - were not given any opportunity to participate and discuss in this formerly player-dominated community. There is a reason why Mhaldor or Targossas don't choose their leaders democratically, and there's a reason why other city-states do. Druids and many other elder forestals value their freedom much higher. The old Druidic mindset - that is not just limited to Druid class/House ex-members, but was a dominant factor in the old forestal community as a whole - will also continue to be a thorn in the side of neo-Eleusis until it is allowed to have a suitable place in the community and isn't just the laughing stock of neo-Eleusian power players.
The process of alienation began with the Viridian Charter and the way it was introduced (see above), but particularly also with the way it was promoted. IG you had those who saw it as a unique chance of finally making Eleusis a serious player on the scene (Alrena or Rangor explained this very thoroughly and well in this thread), and you had others, who, at some point, were forced into either shutting up or quietly leaving the scene altogether due to some rather hostile and unpretty behaviour by players and Divine. The Heartwood and other pre-Renaissance forestals never officially resisted the Charter, probably because they didn't have a choice. Ever wondered why the Heartwood only have Artemis as their matron, and both Eleusis and the Scions have Gaia as well? I don't, because I assume that the same hostility that was displayed in the Charter's intro and put-through was applied there, too.
There's a chance for healing, but you gotta not ridicule the people who try to make their stance public here. And you also gotta stop threatening people with announces like "you're part of the problem, not part of the solution", making them feel even less appreciated than they already might be. If you want that community to heal, try to be inclusive, not shutting out people who don't follow your specific mindset. You should see where it's led you so far.
That love soon might end You are unbreaking
And be known in its aching Though quaking
Shown in this shaking Though crazy
Lately of my wasteland, baby That's just wasteland, baby
As for teaching novices your views: if you teach them that the Scions are the extremist combat House, then yes. You are part of the problem. Want to fix it? Talk to the Scions, learn what they're actually about. Teach -that- to novices. You are now part of the solution.
Also stop relying on hear-say. As Melodie said in the post above mine, that's not how the Charter was introduced at all. This has been mentioned several times in this thread now. It's incredible how many Eleusians just blindly believe something because an 'elder' said it, even when it's a ridiculous and blatant lie.
Just #shallam Eleusis or the Kin
For those of you that say that it would be ridiculous to say that Gaia should not be ruling voice of Nature and Eleusis, does that mean that the forestals have gotten it wrong for hundreds of in game years before this resurgence of Gaia and were just fumbling along? Forestals have in the past, as they have now, rejected Gaia when they did not agree with Her, they have their own house ideals about Nature that has nothing to do with Gaia or any singular God. Were they all wrong?
Now talk ideology. Imagine this. A completely new player wanting to play a good character comes to Achaea and mistakenly joins Targ thinking Good = good. You can correct him by saying Good is about upholding Creation and he will get it - Achaea Good =/= good. How can then he know more about Good? Aha! You give them scripture from the Divine of Good.
Same for Evil. Evil is not about being a maniac, it's a creed revolving around Strength. It is lawful and orderly. How then can he know more about Evil? Aha! You give them the Seven Truths.
Now try do this with Nature. You tell them Nature =/= nature in an attempt to tie them to ideology. What then can you tell them about Nature that is different from nature? Nothing. So then you tell them Nature is like nature but you must also listen to the words of the Divine of Nature. Then they will ask, so.. what does the Divine of Nature has to say?
You then tell them, read up the Virdian Charter... words left by Gaia.
But what does the Charter gives them? Iron and stone(structures and walls of civilization) are bad for Nature. Huh? They already know that, no different from nature.
Then you tell them how Nature would win at the end. Huh? But they come to Eleusis, the only home for forestals so they can defend Nature, and Nature in this world gonna win anyway? This also does not add to the definition of Nature but is merely a prophecy of the end of Achaea.
From here, it should be very clear Nature is extremely unsuitable as an ideology or a religion. There is literally nothing any Divine can add to make Nature just an Achaean thing unlike Good or Evil. Even if there is, that would be like discounting the hundreds of years in Achaea when it is not.
Now then we come to the drive of post-Ren Eleusis, anti-civilization and expansionist-Nature. These simply sound like aggressive policies right? They do not in any way an integral part of the definition of Nature.
Now when people fight those policies, are they really going against Nature? And why should they not fight those policies? For hundreds of years Eleusis has accepted the existence of cities and have more or less adopted a co-existence attitude towards the cities that are not actively harming Nature.
How does pitting oneself against all cities, whether militarily or just rhetorically, help or promote Nature by the way? Who does it really help?
So no, these people are not 'troublemakers', they are not 'special snowflakes'. They are not cancerous or a menace that should be eradicated or sent packing. If anything we can say they are being true to their RP. Or are we saying Nature does not exist before? That Nature is a modern concept?
If you then say.. oh maybe the Charter never clearly says exactly we need to be anti-civilization or need to expand Nature's borders(it's abit cryptic afterall), maybe those are just Scions' ideals, a small section of the forestal community. Then, why does it appear like the Scions are representing the whole of Eleusis with these aggressive policies? Why does it appear like these policies are so unchallengeable that people cannot challenge them in the open?
Maybe lines should be clearing drawn, so everyone in Eleusis would know where the boundaries are within which they can act. Policies can then be changed if that is what -the forestal community- want. If they believe that Nature is best served by focusing one's aggression against a CLEAR threat of Eleusis, the Necromancers of Mhaldor, then they can make a policy change for that and reinstate relations with the other cities.
Anything then becomes possible and movable and thus -playable-, everything then depends on the players. How they can manipulate, persuade others, and then using ELECTIONS to determine the direction they would go. They would then be able to react to -situations-, make wars, form temporary allies, etc.
Having a static one city against all model, and then call it 'serving Nature' is ridiculous. No it serves only the ooc wanting of free fighting with no room for change in the storytelling. It serves the ooc want of controlling and narrowing the way people play in an attempt to have the numbers to go against other factions in raids and such. This might work in other factions but not for Nature(unless Nature/Chaos/Good/etc are -pure- labels and do not have their own unique meaning). See what all your endeavours have done. Do you now have the numbers and unity you want?
"But if we don't adopt this one city against all mode, then the people in the 'Oh Nature so pretty' group would win. There will only ever be endless grove parties... " No this is just the way you selectively -chose- to see people who exist in the world in a way different from yours, or people who play for things you cannot fathomed. These people are creating content, providing flavour, perhaps more in sub storylines than the main factional one, but they are the ones who will make Achaea feel like a world and less just a game of mechanics, and in a roleplaying game, that is invaluable. If you now say Achaea should be a game of mechanics, in that case, you are entirely right.
ETA: The only time this becomes wrong is when the God is blatantly abusing their GM power along the lines of Caspian or other administrative disasters. However, when everyone tells you your faction is a hot mess and a big shiny god appears to point you in a direction, you better fuckin take that hand because some of us would love to have an active god. If you are dumb then active gods are wasted on you.
No one is saying Nature =/= nature.... That's just choosing to stop at the door and saying, "Hmm, I'm happy with smelling the flowers, I won't come in for the entire experience.". If teaching someone about Nature stops at "the flowers are blue and red, the trees are big and sturdy and they are sooooooo beautiful I just love them!" then we'd be missing out. The Gods and players with them, builds and gives us more lore to dig into, to study and use. It is really annoying and disheartening when people complain and oppose that. Eleusis before Gaia, and before the Ren, was pretty worthless as a center for culture, influence in the world, or even military might... It was a nice friendly place though, and I loved it very much, but to try and go back there is backwards.
I'll just copy paste my novice lesson on Nature.. It's not great, since I'm not the best writer, and it's been a while since I updated or used it at all, but it should get the basics through.
Find your place while accepting that Gaia (and Artemis) are the Nature Pantheon. It's not impossible. You're all just being petulant and obstinate at this point.