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Comments
The fact remains that for Hashan to be an actual faction, it has to hardline for something. Darkness, Moon, complete Secularism -- anything to make it have a defendable position on the world stage.
To touch on this a little.
Regarding Thoth, the only reason he was able to die in the way he did was a combination of the weapon used and the place it happened. Needless to say, very hard to replicate, particularly given that at that point Slith was very, very powerful in his own right. If you want to get an idea of what it takes under normal conditions to kill a god, you'd be better off looking at the Bal'met event. Likewise, I think people need to remember the role the gods played in that event and why a city rejecting them outright would be a big deal.
As for the Tsol'teth raising their own god, I think people need to realise this was something an entire (very powerful and unified) race worked at for a thousand years with that as their singular end goal before making the Thoth play.
I get that, but the thinking would be if the Tsol'teth can do it, why can't Hashan? Obviously it'd be a long-term goal and not one they could immediately enforce.
A lot of stories with godkilling have a domino effect when a god is killed by non-gods. This doesn't usually result in everyone becoming a godkiller, but it does result in people questioning their infallibility and maybe looking into what it really takes to become divine.
I don't think your example is in line with what I was thinking. For my example to fit your scenario, it would be Aurora and Deucalion's followers pissing on each others boots because they are more important than another, which is how the return of Twilight felt to me. I think I've stated this before Twilight was crazy interesting to me, until the some followers were off putting to deal with. I just feel that isn't how i would have dealt with shadows, secrets and subtly.
Now your statement, of course they would not, the city is more clearly defined, and have had the blessing of two active divine for a long time. Yes, I am crazy jealous of that. I mean imagine if Twilight and Ourania returned at the same time and they worked together, with Their orders, I really feel that there would have been unity, and of course discourse and disagreements with direction, however respectfully and especially if framed in the scope of what is best for Hashan. Especially with helping to define some of these things, because your right, we need a focal point to rally around, but I feel that Moon/Darkness/Sleep&Dreams are far more nebulous than Good/Evil/Nature, so it takes work, and help, which we don't really have.
End of the day I just keep trying to improve Oz, moving on to combat, not that I will ever be a Farrah or Proficy, nor do I want to, but it's just something to help make Hashan better. I feel he's to young and ignorant to most of the history and religion of Hashan compared to others to even speak with any level of authority of hardlines/goals/identity, but til we sort that out I can least have fun, and try to help others in Hashan have fun.
1: The sheer amount of secrecy. There's nothing explicitly wrong with having secrets, but in general Darkness hasn't really come out and explained any kind of... goal. You can kind of piece things together if you really think about it, but that doesn't mean much until the Big Guy himself comes out to say it. The entire Order is shrouded in secrecy. Quite frankly, the city is perfectly willing to fight for the Night. But we don't really know what that is.
But you know what? Twilight's secrecy perfectly fine if Ourania was more active to act as the face of the Night. I hate to admit it, but this kind of does kinda fall on the Ouranians as well, but it's... slightly more understandable considering all their members were given some rather hefty reasons to leave Hashan and then just went dormant. Then Ourania went dormant and the Order really hasn't been given much of a chance to build itself back up again. I know people want to join the Ouranians, but I can't personally do anything about it. I'm not at the rank needed to determine that sort of thing! But even then, well, dormant God often means a dormant Order. Still, even if it wasn't our fault it's still partly our responsibility.
But even with -all- those issues, they fail in comparison to my second issue.
2: Control Issues. I'm going to be quite vague with this because even with Recent Events and other matters I'm not sure how much to reveal. Basically, if the Darkwalkers had their hands in your pie, then all was well. But if they did not have direct control over your organization in some form, shape, or way they would do whatever it took to get it. This caused friction and resentment for the Order. In short, they needed better PR and to be alright with just being able to influence an organization rather than directly controlling it. I'm pretty sure it's a big reason why that little 'coup' failed. They just overthrew the Seneschal, and one of the Regents just blatantly said "Yeah, we did it because that's what the Order wants". Que backlash.
In general, from what I've seen from the city we're mostly fine with going all in on the Night. But to bring up a quote I can no longer recall the source of, "I'm alright with being a tool, but it all needs to make sense!".
TL;DR: The Night needs to give a clear and consistent goal somehow, whether that be with Ourania as the face while Twilight does the dirty work behind the scenes or otherwise and the Order of Darkness needs better PR. I hope things will go better soon, however. Otherwise, why not go with my idea of just going full Rome? Why make another theocracy in a game of theocracies? Hashan Invicta!
Explain to me in 3-5 sentences(suitable for HELP HASHAN) what the Night is and what being a follower of the Night entails. Assume I know absolutely nothing about Achaea and have never heard of Ourania or Twilight.
That said, while I personally may not be the biggest advocate for the old Triad concept, I do know what it was about. Concerning your challenge, I will explain it below:
"The Triad represented a guiding force for self-awareness and growth. The Moon that guides your path. The Darkness that bestows truths and understanding. The Dreams that inspire for greater works."
A bit paraphrased. It was a simple concept based on cultivating the self and your community.
We already have Mhaldor, Targossas, Ashtan, and Eleusis as organizations with 'clear goals'. If there happens to be players in Hashan that do want to be part of a solid faction, then they can simply move to one of those four.
Why not have a city that simply fights to further it's own power and for the sake of having resources and prestige? Why not an old fashioned Imperium that also worships a pantheon of Gods and science? Does the concept of a techno-Rome surrounded by a physics-defying chasm what is haunted by ghosts appeal to you? How is this boring? Fight for the glory of Hashan! Let the Gods of the Night piggyback on Hashan's success and influence it's culture and give convenient excuses to start trying to set fire to the Ithmias and lose maddened alchemically-enhanced war-beasts on Eleusis!
At least, that was the idea I tried to go with when the whole Sundering thing happened, considering that the Houses we have suffer from... being extremely generalist to a fault at times. Simply that if the Night is going to be the faction in and of itself rather than, say, Hashan, then we're going to need to see some kind of victory condition to theoretically work toward from it. I can draw some conclusions from what I've been given here, what with the whole talk of returning the world to it's pristine natural state of darkness and the like, but I think we're all going to need a bit more to work off than that!
Edit: Accidentally a word.
When I was Hashani, I had a feeling that people were waiting for something to happen, rather than making that something happen. And different people wanted different things to happen, and if something does happen that wasn't what they wanted, they'd scream all over it and Hashan goes back to obscurity.
Hence, my thought was just to let Hashan be, a background city like Cyrene where new players can start in before moving onto to the factional organizations if they so choose. While Cyrene would cater to the non-combatant newcomers, Hashan would tend to the opposite.
Do you know what you get when you embrace the godmins of your city? Cool stuff. Places named after notable leaders like the Roualt Bridge. Interesting items that reinforce your factional identity like the Dawnblade...dawnblades (the special blades each House member gets). Unique mechanics like the Chalice of Purity that burns karma items and counts how much karma has been burned (good for contests, etc.)
Hashan has declared itself to not be the city of Darkness. That's fine, it's your players' choice. But you have to understand that in doing so, then you also become a less attractive place for godmins to play in. Hence, Hashan's best course of action, right now, is to simply embrace being Cyrene 2 without the restrictions on combat and the like.
Edit: That sounded a lot more mean than I wanted it to sound. Nothing against you personally, but it's like I said, the Order had an issue sharing power. If it didn't have a controlling hand in things, it went to make sure it did. This lead to obvious things happening.
EDIT: Keep in mind that a substantial number of Targossas' current crew are the same ex-Hashani you like to disparage now. A+, good game.
This is pretty much it, and fits perfectly to my previous explanation of Hashan's division.
It remains in obscurity, not really championing a concept...but when it suddenly starts to lead up to something (as it did when Twilight returned and Hashan was at the point of fully embracing Darkness)....Boom...in comes the outcries of some citizens with "unfairness" and "destroying Hashan" and "enslavery" etc. etc.
Hashan then dwindles down back to obscurity, peace is restored...until the next idea comes along that is also shot down in flames.
Edit: I recall when Twilight once appeared before me and asked me what I believe Hashan needs. I told him Hashan is like a ship at sea in the night with no lighthouse to guide it. Simply put, Hashan had no guidance or purpose and was floundering. He replied that while he would love to give such guidance and purpose, it was up to the citizens to make that choice. I then replied to him that if that was the case, then Hashan is doomed. I stick by it.
You also can't say 'hashan likes darkness, just not YOU' when hashan's done this with twilight (and I assume the rest of the triad since they ditched) many, many times over the years.
otoh trying to claim the exhashani targs are what made targ what it is now is pretty suspect, lol. losing that specific group of people isn't hashan's greatest crime, there's plenty of other people in the game to replace them with. none of them are joining a city that's failed to be more than second cyrene except for like a total of 3-4 RL months over a period of a decade.
You know what's really bad though? That coup probably would have worked if they had kept their mouths shut. If they had simply said that they decided that they thought that Asria was a better option, waited two years or so and then contested Regi for his seat to remove him from power. But the moment someone told Regi that he was deposed because the Order decided he had to go, they lost. It probably would have passed by without too much issue. Sure, Regi could have put up a fuss, but he'd have no evidence but hearsay to back it up.
I'd like to reiterate that this coup most likely would have worked if the Order had kept it's mouth shut, but subtlety was never the new Order's strength. In other news, I need to stop playing Crusader Kings 2. Addictive little time sink.
Edit: I'd like to state a few things before it sounds like I'm coming off as way too harsh on these guys. Like them or not, the Order was -extremely- capable of getting things done. They did that real well! But they also did things that gave them more direct power, but lead to them alienating the rest of the population. Hopefully they're happy where ever they went.
That is what I was thinking, the Order of Darkness, secrecy and subtly, went power hungry, and from my seat on the sidelines, without Twilight's approval, hence everyone getting kicked. The thing that blows my mind is that the change was really zero, you switch Seneschal, and the Regents remain the same, and Regi being as popular as he is. would win any contested election, so he wasn't going anywhere, so felt like a short-sighted power grab, with no plan.
@Mathilda it is hard to not agree that Targossas is not one of the strongest cities out there, and I would love to have folks like Karren and yourself back. My opinion falls more into the, players that want to join something, than build something. It's easy go to a powerful city, with an active divine and instantly thing oh yeah this is better, but I'll equate that to buying a house, versus building a house, one is having money, the other is work. Perhaps if you took a moment to think of the viewpoint of Hashani, like myself, that were alienated by a lot of people, or treated poorly, for only reason that I was not a darkwalker, you might begin to understand some of our frustration. I know this, and other things really made me/oz bitter and jaded for a long time. Thankfully I think I've turned this around, and hopefully can start to at least help making the city better. If not, I can always go to one of the most powerful cities, and take credit for their success, right ? (I am totally kidding
Why would you want someone who does nothing get into positions of power? This is, again, Hashan shooting itself in the foot. You want to be something, a real faction, more than just the butt of jokes. And yet whenever things do happen, you turn it all around and go against the players that make these things happen. Then you commiserate that "there's nothing happening, boo to the admins for not making us do anything."
There's a disconnect with the goals you say and the things you actually do.
Was it badly thought out and sloppy? Hell yes....
Were the intentions in the right place? Also yes.
Hashan was without a true core identity for ages now, the Renaissance really did -not- help. Twilight had returned and the city finally seemed like it had a chance to take the stage again. We began to see movements in the world by Hashan that were associated with or influenced by the wishes of Darkness (Darkenwood conflict anyone? That was fun). So the Order of Darkness tried to finally make it official....and with it did their biggest screw up.
Hashan just doesnt do labels. They tried to label Hashan...thinking it was the right way to go. The Drama llama then visited Hashan...back to square 1.
At this point I just say let Hashan be.