The Chaos Wedding

Illarion

Backing up @Leviticus, to say top marks to @Nicola and whoever else was behind that.  The quality of the writing adds so much to big-ticket events, and that was awesome.  Full of nice touches, great word-choice, nice mix of epic drama and small-bore moments.  Haven't enjoyed a piece of Godly writing as much for ages. 

Tahquil

Not everyone studies Chaos or history. Just think of what happened akin to the first few episodes of Game of Thrones. We are meeting characters, learning their personalities and relationships, setting a scene, getting some hints and glimpses of things we'll look back on and go "Oh man, did you see all those hints in hindsight!". If we jump straight to Jon Snow fucking his Aunt a lot of people are going to be confused and start writing angry emails.

Hataru

This isn't some Elder God Wars obscure stuff. Chaos Lords being close to God-Tier is a fundamental part of the Occultist class. The Chaos Plane being so scary and untouchable is for a reason. I understand newbies not knowing, but there's no reason for the majority of players to not have a very firm understanding the Chaos Lords are terrifying. We're not jumping straight to season 7.There is 400+ years of game history that solidifies this information. Glaaki bitch slapping Golgotha is just the most recent and most terrifyingly solidifying of those events.

I think its easy to forget the game is in year 20 and Flair has been doing Babel stuff for 13ish years. The Shamans literally all almost got wiped out because of a chaos dude once and when I say Shamans, I mean the guild. This information has been readily available in-game for at least a decade.There's a good reason many older players are terrified of the implications of the Chaos Plane.

Jinsun

Yeah, I get that not everyone knows it. I really didn’t know who haldoran was, and I probably should have. Will say, most of this was not obscure information. Essentially just the Second Chaos War and the Ashtani Renaissance. There was a lot of groaning that we got such a big event

Farrah

Glaaki isn't necessarily god-tier outside of the Chaos Plane, though. Pazuzu got stomped because he was a demon who was powerful in the Inferno and was a prisoner on a plane outside of his domain. Golgotha and Glaaki were created from the very essence of the plane and are most powerful there. That's why they want to release Chaos on all of Prime or all of Creation. If it becomes Chaos-saturated like the Chaos Plane, then the Chaos Lords are god-tier everywhere.

Obviously the wedding took place on the Chaos Plane so this clarification doesn't change anything in that context.

Tahquil

I’m going to admit I didn’t know. I haven’t read up on the Chaos Wars or what the actual hell happened in the Ashtan rennaissance. Those things are, and were not high in my list of things to study because  they did not interest me as much as things like alchemy, astronomy, biology ... Yada yada yada did. I don’t think I’m a particularly under-learned player either, I just spent my time in a different part of the library.

Farrah

I mean, it wouldn't surprise me at all if more players than not haven't even read the Mythos.

And things that happened 10 rl years ago are unlikely to be known by people who weren't playing 10 years ago. Sure, there was the Ashtan Renaissance, but even that was a while ago - Long enough ago that I wouldn't say only "newbies" aren't aware of it. 

Even those aware of the Renaissance, if they haven't read the Mythos, wouldn't really understand much about it. Only people who've been actively interested in the Chaos Lords or involved in the Chaos conflict in some way are likely to know this stuff. A lot of new information has probably come to light to everyone who wasn't paying attention to that aspect before.

Tysandr

Nothing to suggest Deuc & co have not been getting stronger in the intervening x number of years either.

Hataru

Farrah said:

I mean, it wouldn't surprise me at all if more players than not haven't even read the Mythos.

And things that happened 10 rl years ago are unlikely to be known by people who weren't playing 10 years ago. Sure, there was the Ashtan Renaissance, but even that was a while ago - Long enough ago that I wouldn't say only "newbies" aren't aware of it. 

Even those aware of the Renaissance, if they haven't read the Mythos, wouldn't really understand much about it. Only people who've been actively interested in the Chaos Lords or involved in the Chaos conflict in some way are likely to know this stuff. A lot of new information has probably come to light to everyone who wasn't paying attention to that aspect before.

I don't disagree with any of this.

What I do disagree with was Tahquil's analogy. The information has always been there if you want it. At least 3 factions actively work with chaos (2 against, 1 with) and should have had this base knowledge that the Chaos Plane is scary/powerful as heck (at least to a base extent). The analogy she made made it sound like this was all obscure, hidden information that was unavailable. Which isn't true. I don't expect any people to know nearly as much as those who are directly effected by it (and even then, I don't expect most people to be in-depth about it). But the information was there, that's my only point. I mean she literally compared it to a massive 7th season reveal happening in the opening episode of the show. That's what I took grief with, when there's 10-13 years of lore to back it up. (I would like to note, however, I specifically said 'ongoing' not that it happened 10 years ago.) Just because you didn't watch the first 6 seasons, doesn't mean you can ignore that they happened.

Jinsun

Maybe some kind of character honours system could be useful with a reference to posts surrounding each events with each major character

Jinsun

Glaaki, the Imperator.
Fought alongside Pazuzu in the second Chaos war -post#

Served the Occultist house in secret and hiding -post #

bitchslapped Golgotha -post number etc etc

Antonius

What's the second faction that works against Chaos?

Aegoth

Mhaldor, surprisingly enough

Torinn

That is a great idea Jinsun.  I'd love that.

Hataru

Antonius said:

What's the second faction that works against Chaos?

Mhaldor. Mhaldor is anti-chaos, very anti-chaos. Super anti-chaos. But Targ is definitely more active about it, zero question about that. Stemming back to the Keresis/Babel throw down and removal of all occies from the city. Chaos, Nihilism in particular, is a big no-no in Mhaldor. Just given current line up of active divine, active threats, Mhaldor focuses on other people it hates.


Like you assholes with your Good and your fire and your dawnblades and ugh gross why.


Enemy #1 Tesha's giggling tho.

Hataru

Jinsun said:

Maybe some kind of character honours system could be useful with a reference to posts surrounding each events with each major character

This is a great idea. The fact that the Chaos Court runs a city and doesn't have a basic help file has baffled me since my return. Like I get some level of secrecy of course, but there's not even a basic file so people understand how the heck a city is run by non-mortals etc.

Farrah

Pretty sure Cyrene and Eleusis have both been more actively anti-Chaos than Mhaldor, though - Cyrene in some pretty cool ways, albeit more sub-groups of the city (Agatheins, Phaestians) than the city as a whole.

There isn't anything there really, Daeir, other than individual things here and there (Mhaldorian players RPing things to push it rather than any major basis in lore, I mean), unless it's really new. I wouldn't be surprised if that changes overtime though.

I always hated that the event that divided Mhaldor and Ashtan was just more of a power struggle than anything related to Chaos itself. It was essentially a Targossas-Eleusis type conflict as presented at first, where Mhaldor opposed the Chaos Lords because the Chaos Lords struck out at Keresis.

Hataru

Daeir said:

I'd love to publicly see Mhaldor's anti-Chaos stuff. I know it's there, but it isn't very publicized at all. Makes the ethos seem very shallow in comparison to others as far as worldview is concerned. Show me expurgator demons or whatever hellish monstrosities from the Inferno turbofuck Chaos for a living. I'd be all over that shit.

Not saying this to throw shade, just saying that it isn't very public facing as far as I can tell.

This is #lifegoals for Hat. On a personal level Chaos/Nihilism are her #1 hate, even above Good. More of her history as a character has been anti-Chaos than anti-Good actually lol. Its just that most of the people left don't know much about that stuff. I have to hold back tears every time someone in Mdor is like "we aren't anti-chaos" ;_;

I also 150% agree. We've really dropped the ball on Mhaldor's very poignant history of being anti-chaos recently.


And in response to @Farrah, I said factions. I don't consider orders that span multiple cities to be factions. They're subgroups of multiple factions. I also even pointed out we've not been focusing on it and some basics of why. However, I am 150% on board with any statement about us dropping the ball on us being anti-chaos. I'm not denying other people have done stuff.

Edit cause of Farrah's edit: That's just not true, but this really isn't the place for me to go into that. There is a lot more history than just the Babel/Keresis fight when I was Avatar lol.

Jinsun

Hataru said:

This is #lifegoals for Hat. On a personal level Chaos/Nihilism are her #1 hate, even above Good. 

Does this mean we can’t be friends?

Hataru

Jinsun said:

Hataru said:

This is #lifegoals for Hat. On a personal level Chaos/Nihilism are her #1 hate, even above Good. 

Does this mean we can’t be friends?

Can't give away the method to her madness, bruh. But I will say a lot of Hat's personality and how harsh/icy she is is a direct result of her history with Chaos. Particularly Nihilism.

Farrah

Hataru said:

Daeir said:

I'd love to publicly see Mhaldor's anti-Chaos stuff. I know it's there, but it isn't very publicized at all. Makes the ethos seem very shallow in comparison to others as far as worldview is concerned. Show me expurgator demons or whatever hellish monstrosities from the Inferno turbofuck Chaos for a living. I'd be all over that shit.

Not saying this to throw shade, just saying that it isn't very public facing as far as I can tell.

This is #lifegoals for Hat. On a personal level Chaos/Nihilism are her #1 hate, even above Good. More of her history as a character has been anti-Chaos than anti-Good actually lol. Its just that most of the people left don't know much about that stuff. I have to hold back tears every time someone in Mdor is like "we aren't anti-chaos" ;_;

I also 150% agree. We've really dropped the ball on Mhaldor's very poignant history of being anti-chaos recently.


And in response to @Farrah, I said factions. I don't consider orders that span multiple cities to be factions. They're subgroups of multiple factions. I also even pointed out we've not been focusing on it and some basics of why. However, I am 150% on board with any statement about us dropping the ball on us being anti-chaos. I'm not denying other people have done stuff.

Edit cause of Farrah's edit: That's just not true, but this really isn't the place for me to go into that. There is a lot more history than just the Babel/Keresis fight when I was Avatar lol.

There's history of conflict, but none of it is against Chaos itself. Just servants of Chaos getting uppity. There is also a lot more history of Mhaldor and Occultists/Nihilists being allies. I was on the Ashtani side of it, then the Mhaldor side of it, in high ranking positions in both, so it's not like I'm just making things up. The fact is that it's to this day perfectly acceptable for a Mhaldorian to not care about Chaos and not see it as a threat, which is vastly different from what I would consider a faction that officially opposes Chaos (like Targossas).

I'm not saying this to throw shade either though. I'd love to see more from that angle and tried to push it a little when I was Mhaldorian.

Hataru

Maybe not Chaos itself as a general game-long ideal of discord. But absolutely against Nihilism-Chaos.

Morthif

who isn't against Nihilism? I think more of Ashtan hates Babel then likes Him.

Farrah

I don't mean either ideal (Discord or Nihilism). Just Chaos itself.

But when Babel's order originally came around, they were invited to join the "Evil orders" club (the Baneful or something) and everything. Apollyon's OH (I think?) was best buds with the Nihilist leaders. Evil v Nihilism, even, is relatively new.

Hataru

Well Keresis/Babel stuff was like 5 years ago. That's not really 'new' and it caused a mass exodus.

I also don't think Sabiru (who was, yes, Apple's OH)/Dunn/Tanris being besties is relevant to whether or not Mhaldor was or remained anti-Nihilism. Does it mean it was poorly handled at points and caused a mass exodus when finally forced on people? Yes. Does it mean it ever made sense as a partnership? Absolutely not. And that partnership was always about interpersonal relationships and "fuck Team Blue", not theologies that actually worked together

Either way, Chaos in either form directly contradicts Evil. Its part of why the Mhashtan split happened - because it never should have been a thing, honestly.

Farrah

No disagreement there. It's just a harder sell imo because of all of that history. And Apollyon directly endorsed the earlier stance at some point iirc by saying that Oblivion would be the ultimate Suffering or something. I remember because I was trying to -split- Ashtan and Mhaldor and that stuff got thrown in my face to tell me Evil and Chaos weren't enemies.

Hataru

I don't think we're going to agree on this, honestly.

I think the interpersonal friendships are a pretty bs excuse to make re: whether or not Mhaldor is anti-chaos (again, specifically Nihilism).

Leviticus

Farrah said:

I mean, it wouldn't surprise me at all if more players than not haven't even read the Mythos.

And things that happened 10 rl years ago are unlikely to be known by people who weren't playing 10 years ago. Sure, there was the Ashtan Renaissance, but even that was a while ago - Long enough ago that I wouldn't say only "newbies" aren't aware of it. 

Even those aware of the Renaissance, if they haven't read the Mythos, wouldn't really understand much about it. Only people who've been actively interested in the Chaos Lords or involved in the Chaos conflict in some way are likely to know this stuff. A lot of new information has probably come to light to everyone who wasn't paying attention to that aspect before.

God you are old.

Melodie

@Hataru When life is less crazy for both of us, we should hook up and get some anti-Chaos shit going for public Mhaldor stuff. You know I'm all about that life, gurl. 

Hataru

Melodie said:

@Hataru When life is less crazy for both of us, we should hook up and get some anti-Chaos shit going for public Mhaldor stuff. You know I'm all about that life, gurl. 

YASSSS GURL YAAASSSSSSSSSSS. I'm all about this life. All about it. Rain hellfire on the Nihilists who think destruction is better than subjugation HELLFIRE.