A Forestal RP High Clan

Favonius

This is something I've been wanting to do for a while, and I think it's finally time to get it off the ground.

The Forestal community has its share of hunter-combatants (Sentinels and Anachai), scholars (Sylvans) and pacifists (Druids) but what it doesn't really have is a group of like-minded roleplay enthusasts - specifically, people who are willing to roleplay conflict and change.

In that, I view the Occultists as something of an inspiration. That's what I'd love Eleusis/Oakstone to have: a bunch of "mad scientists" bending the rules, doing the unpredictable and driving the community's story forward.

I've set up a clan (CLHELP LAIANS) and drafted a charter, which I've posted below. I've based it on the Tsol'dasi worship of Life ("Laia") as in my view Istarion is what the Forestal community could be - awe-inspiring, mysterious and mystical instead of parochial and ordinary.

I have a good group of players who I know will help get it started, but I thought some input from the wider player-base would be helpful - especially the sort of RP conflict you'd like to see with us!

Thoughts?

Favonius said:

THE SEERS OF LAIA
=================

The first struggle is to take breath and the last struggle is to release it. Between these two points are Laia, the sacred gift of life to mortal kind.

Because of this, we believe that Nature explains herself to the perceptive, so we will attune ourselves to perceive. Laia's beauty encompasses everything known in this plane, the mysterious planes beyond, and all we have yet to learn.

We will exclude nothing from consideration.

Our bond comes from Nature, and we celebrate it reverently in communion with the natural world, attuning ourselves to the rhythm of Laia's beating heart.


THE FOUR FOUNDATIONS OF THE SEERS OF LAIA
=========================================

We, the Seers of Laia, profess these truths to be our guides:

-----------------------
THE FIRST FOUNDATION:
Nature
-----------------------

Nature is Laia, and Laia is Nature. She is not a God as we know it, transcending divinity: the 'She' that we speak of is the unity of all living things.

Seers of Laia believe what benefits Nature benefits themselves. The whole of Nature is more important than individual life and wellbeing. There is no higher calling than to protect the universal gift of life.

Seers respect Nature and never harm Her.

Seers consider themselves members of the Forestal community, and respect its institutions as long as remain true to Nature.

------------------------
THE SECOND FOUNDATION:
Life
------------------------

All mortals will die, including us. That which is borrowed from the earth, the gift of life, will be inevitably returned in death.

Seers respect and revere others who worship Life, including the Tsol’dasi of Istarion. Learning the Tsol’dasi language and their ways and joining the Temple of Life are strongly encouraged.

Seers do not shy away from bringing death to others, but do not do so lightly or frivolously.

Seers reject necromancy as a perversion of Life and Death, and necromancers as thieves of the sacred gift of Life and the inevitability of Death. Seers oppose necromancers and their works and institutions.

-----------------------
THE THIRD FOUNDATION:
Discovery
-----------------------

Seers believe in the interconnectedness of all things in Nature, and that Laia’s answers will be sufficient for all questions.

Seers believe in expanding their minds and knowledge, in discovering new lands, cultures, and ways of thinking.

Seers believe in experimentation, in expanding knowledge and wisdom from within. Seers reject the principle that any knowledge is dangerous to know or any line of enquiry forbidden.

Seers refuse to be enslaved by conformity or ignorance.

------------------------
THE FOURTH FOUNDATION:
Expression
------------------------

No-one owns Laia's insights, and no-one can say anyone's interpretation of them is wrong.

Seers reject censorship in all its forms. Instead we believe that one must take responsibility for one's words and deeds.

While Laia's insights may seem insane or foolish to the uninitiated, the Clan does not tolerate insanity and foolishness.


OATH OF AFFIRMATION
===================

In Laia we abide, from the field mouse to the mighty crownwood on the great wheel of Life and Death we make our journeys together.

Favonius

Oops, forgot to credit @Ailne with drafting large parts of the charter when we looked at this way back - consider that corrected here!

Favonius

Oh, and for further reading - an awesome bit of RP from last night with @Vivia.

http://pastebin.com/us3iXUJH

Mishgul

These kind of clans were a huge problem in Shallam and recently becoming a problem in Mhaldor. You have five organisations already in which you could try to integrate this into, instead of using a high clan for this purpose. This could be part of the Sylvan house for example, where they play with fire more often than not (figuratively speaking)

just  abit of criticism and opinionation from a leaf.

Favonius

Tried that with the Sylvans. Didn't work. The people who were trying to change things got demoted or cast out, and eventually Fav challenged for the leadership and lost by one vote.

I know @Delphinus had similar frustrations with the Druids (if anything, his experience sounded worse).

I'd love to integrate this into an existing organisation but I need to prove it works first. Challenging an entrenched heirarchy is hard (which I assume is a great deal of the reason why Shallam was blown up).

Edit for clarifiction: I'm not saying the Sylvans or the Druids are doing it "wrong" or that people who want to romp, snuggle and write poetry are evil - I used to be one of those people before I got inspired by some good RP-ers. But I guess part of the problem is that doing edgy, conflict-based roleplay tends to rain on their parade and creates a lot of resistance. Bypassing that resistance seems to be the easier route - for now.

Silas

The problem is that you need to be accepted and legitimised by the forestal community for your plan to work out. If you're already an established and influential forestal character this clan might work in a very small way; if not you have no chance.

I don't want to piss on your bonfire or anything, since these clans can be a huge amount of fun to play regardless of whether people decide to accept you, but you should be realistic about your aims from the start.

Favonius

@Silas if it ends up as just a few of us having RP fun in isolation I'd be happy with that. I'm not going to take my ball home if it doesn't change the world!

@Daeir yes, message Favonius in-game from whichever character you'd like to get involved and we'll get some interaction going.

Wysteria

You forgot one person who still remained Granted, those kinds of changes wouldn't be able to be integrated into Sylvans either way, and if they did it would be very, very slowly. I'm sure Fav and Wyst would remember the hubbub when Raes woke up again and they pounced on him during that election.

The clan could work, but it will need a lot of wrangling to not have the Big Three intervene in one way or form. Sparrow's Rest would be an interesting place to establish it but you'll get a lot of noisy Druid denizens in there and all the magpies too!

Have you and Ailne decided on which classes the clan could take? By the sounds of this charter, could be suited to Sylvans, Shamans, Druids and maybe Bards. Correct me if I'm wrong though.

Favonius

There aren't any formal class restrictions as yet apart from apostate/infernal because of the necromancy, though obviously accepting any faction-based classes like occultist/priest/paladin would be pretty weird too and probably not something we'd do.

Idelisa

I just wanted to give you a virtual high five on this. This is really, really beautifully written. I freaking love this all over.... as a forestal that has ideals and goals that literally go against Oakstone though... she keeps her head down and her mouth shut.

Hell, as it were she got into a hell of a lot of trouble just for mentioning banned Gods at a memorial within the Village walls.  The Sylvans, @Anatral and @Phaestus appreciated it at least.  -sniff-

Anyway, point is that there are a lot of people like Idelisa that are literally AFRAID of their beliefs becoming known at all because of elitists and Oakstone.

edit: clarity

Anatral

Nice idea.... Not sure if we need / can tolerate another forestal org though. Perhaps everyone just needs to up their RP game... -ducks-

Ailne

@Favonius As soon as I can be back in game, count me in. My character's reaction to learning about the necros offing the Priestess was "predictable"

Lothien

I love it (and am in the clan). My only concern has been voiced by others; namely, that we can't get widespread participation. I think such a good idea needs to be more visible, but as you said @Favonius, the orgs are already pretty entrenched.

(Also, I'm still in the Sylvans with @Wysteria!)

Delphinus

The only problem I'm seeing is that most of those are already (or should be) a part of forestal beliefs.

I dunno. It's well-written, but I'm sceptical of this in the same way that I was sceptical of Logistics' Baobab clan, or Mhaldor's OIA: it's redundant. There really isn't any need for another overarching forestal group, and if you cordon these beliefs off in a clan, it just gives people an excuse to dismiss them from the forestal mainstream. Better to integrate them.

Wysteria

Yeah the logistical part would be having people who are already Housed, in Orders, Oakstone and the billion other clans that already exist try to figure out how to join this one, should it finalise to that stage. I'm in on seeing how this pans out. Pun intended, we could do with some more rustling of the RP leaves/feathers/shrubs/thorns.

@Lothien: You went dormant for like ages! And I just suck with my timezone making me impossible to communicate with :P

Tirac

Can you elaborate for someone who is on the outside of forestal community roleplay: what exactly is the difference between this clan and the rest of Eleusis? Are there any Eleusians who would not agree with your four foundations (are you actually segmenting your community)? In my personal experience, I find that clans that are redundant inside of their containing organizations usually fail because there is nothing distinguishing them from the org (or in the rare case that they succeed, cannibalize members from the containing organization). I don't know the intricacies of forestal RP so maybe you can correct me.

Mannimar

Wysteria said:

Yeah the logistical part would be having people who are already Housed, in Orders, Oakstone and the billion other clans that already exist try to figure out how to join this one, should it finalise to that stage. I'm in on seeing how this pans out. Pun intended, we could do with some more rustling of the RP leaves/feathers/shrubs/thorns.

@Lothien: You went dormant for like ages! And I just suck with my timezone making me impossible to communicate with :P

The man went to a different country for a while, and stopped playing 'cause he couldn't see @Evans beautiful mug every day.

Delphinus

@Tirac: Beyond the shallower "protect the green stuff," this is basically it in a nutshell. Opposition to Necromancy and undeath, balance, life and death, interconnectedness -- it's all there for people who look. The problem is, most don't.

That's why this could be a harmful project. When you try to frame it in this context, people can just say, "Oh, yeah, that's just what that silly little Laia clan believes." It's much healthier to reinforce it in the mainstream.

Ailne

I am on mobile, so forgive the brevity. Also, only speaking for myself...the key differences planned were in extremity, passion, and wildness to the point of madness even. In other words, "dark" nature rp. Now, that sounds like some fun right there to me! (A few rites are already written to kick things off...) But I will shut up and go back to lurking as usual. See you IG.

Zeon

Would rather see Eleusis and the forestal mainstream become a little more open/extreme/passionate/wild in their belief, to be honest. 

Arlanda

Wow, I see so many from the Sylvans that I used to know when I was still there!

Vivia

This makes me miss the Sylvans.

Anatral

@Delphinus that's by no means every forestal's understanding of things. There's plenty of RP out there by just talking about the basics, which we don't do enough.

Delphinus

@Anatral: Yes, but I'm saying it should just be part of forestal RP. If they're forestals, they have no grounds on which to dismiss it, but if it's in a clan, they can easily hand-wave it if they're not members.

Start some talks on CT or something. "Eleusis, how do you feel about X?" or thereabouts.

Favonius

My attempts to RP on the Eleusis channel have normally been met with the sound of crickets. Generally, the only time Eleusis has a CT discussion about Nature is when there's some world event going on.

What works much, much better for me is grabbing people and interacting with them one at a time - see this log where @Nadine and I turned a hunting trip with a Sylvan novice into a mini-ritual. (And no, no-one responded to my CTs at the end.)

http://pastebin.com/RZVdtibJ

@Delphinus, you are quite right that this should be integrated into the Forestal mainstream, but it needs a place to germinate first. I don't want it to be a clique, though, and to reinforce the point I added this line to the Charter:

Seers do not work to divide Forestals, but rather seek to unite them through our teachings.

Anatral

I have to agree with @Favonius. There is very little tolerance of debate in the Eleusis mainstream, and a recent event which tried to kick that hive a bit went down like a lead balloon. The chances of someone doing well after saying something like, oh, "Oblivion is part of Nature - discuss." on CT is very limited, so these debates have to happen very quietly. Similarly, those debates that do happen tend to be dominated by a very few strong characters, so people just tend not to bother.

There must be a mechanism to help with this, but it is not clear to me just yet.

Idelisa

Even if it's just don't from the perspective of a scholarly study.  *coughmyritualcough*

Nice log, by the way @Favonius