Factional Classes For Hashan And Cyrene

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Comments

  • Karai said:
    Neutrality is a copout for Hashan and it's caused more apathy than anything else. We don't have the culture and atmosphere Cyrene does. We lack the events that every other city has and in place of them, we have no clear direction. Night, Darkness, Moon, they're all so esoteric that none of the Divine have been able to succinctly explain their realm. Hashan served it's purpose long ago, now it's just a free-for-all that's tearing itself apart using neutrality as an excuse for laziness. Stop calling us neutral, we're trying to distance ourselves from that, otherwise the best course of action is to have Ourania fling a meteor at Hashan and be done with it. Saying Bard or Jester, Serpent, Alchemist, Runewarden are factional classes is lame, at best.
    Err, thanks for the constructive feedback about how everything is bad...I guess?
  • It is constructive. The problem has been diagnosed. Now remediation can begin. The Merchants leaving was necessary. Hashan does not allow Mhaldorians or Targossians in the city, and being the city based around the Night puts it at odds with certain groups that cuts into its bottom line.
  • Jules said:
    It kind of sucks for you that the Merchants left.  That was an awfully good direction and justification for Hashan's neutral stance.
    Honestly though, the merchants leaving definitely pushed them into becoming less neutral. Also it had to be bad for business for merchants to have city enemies.

  • Also, make it so that Kyrra is the only person who can totem anything, BUT every time another city's totems are smudged, 4 random totems in Ashtan are smudged (because math of totems and cities, but probably not rooms, whatever...).  If they're empowered they'll still tell you where they are, but if not, it'll be like a game!  This is completely reasonable and balanced, and should happen immediately.  
  • Dji said:
    Karai said:
    Neutrality is a copout for Hashan and it's caused more apathy than anything else. We don't have the culture and atmosphere Cyrene does. We lack the events that every other city has and in place of them, we have no clear direction. Night, Darkness, Moon, they're all so esoteric that none of the Divine have been able to succinctly explain their realm. Hashan served it's purpose long ago, now it's just a free-for-all that's tearing itself apart using neutrality as an excuse for laziness. Stop calling us neutral, we're trying to distance ourselves from that, otherwise the best course of action is to have Ourania fling a meteor at Hashan and be done with it. Saying Bard or Jester, Serpent, Alchemist, Runewarden are factional classes is lame, at best.
    Err, thanks for the constructive feedback about how everything is bad...I guess?
    Honestly, the only constructive feedback to give is to either wait for some new philosophy to filter down from Twilight, or get the admin to stop throwing Hashan into conflict and just let it be neutral. Hashan won't be factionalized until two things happen: it has the support of the playerbase in Hashan, and it has something to factionalize behind. Karai said it, the Night/Darkness/Moon is all too esoteric and essentially meaningless to even be a base, citywide philisophy, and what of if that is understandable is essentially neutral (imagination, inspiration)

    Twilight's arrival points towards factionalization, but a new philosophy has to be brought in that's as simple on the surface as Good, Evil, Chaos, and Nature are. Nobody's going to want to poke around for 5 IG years trying to figure out what the Night is about, only to realize and almost no one is in agreement on what it actually is.
    image
  • Jacen said:
    Dji said:
    Karai said:
    Neutrality is a copout for Hashan and it's caused more apathy than anything else. We don't have the culture and atmosphere Cyrene does. We lack the events that every other city has and in place of them, we have no clear direction. Night, Darkness, Moon, they're all so esoteric that none of the Divine have been able to succinctly explain their realm. Hashan served it's purpose long ago, now it's just a free-for-all that's tearing itself apart using neutrality as an excuse for laziness. Stop calling us neutral, we're trying to distance ourselves from that, otherwise the best course of action is to have Ourania fling a meteor at Hashan and be done with it. Saying Bard or Jester, Serpent, Alchemist, Runewarden are factional classes is lame, at best.
    Err, thanks for the constructive feedback about how everything is bad...I guess?
    Honestly, the only constructive feedback to give is to either wait for some new philosophy to filter down from Twilight, or get the admin to stop throwing Hashan into conflict and just let it be neutral. Hashan won't be factionalized until two things happen: it has the support of the playerbase in Hashan, and it has something to factionalize behind. Karai said it, the Night/Darkness/Moon is all too esoteric and essentially meaningless to even be a base, citywide philisophy, and what of if that is understandable is essentially neutral (imagination, inspiration)

    Twilight's arrival points towards factionalization, but a new philosophy has to be brought in that's as simple on the surface as Good, Evil, Chaos, and Nature are. Nobody's going to want to poke around for 5 IG years trying to figure out what the Night is about, only to realize and almost no one is in agreement on what it actually is.
    Maybe start with, WTF does night do? Do you learn? Do you sleep? Do you spread darkness to all parts of the world? That is what I never really understood about night, I mean it's just there so it's basically neutral.
  • Achimrst said:
    Accipiter said:
    Trilliana said:
    Maybe if aforementioned Bards had triple-jab again... but seriously, cities that are supposed to be neutral shouldn't have a factional class... when they technically already do. Runies, alchemists, bards, serpents, etc.. neutral.
    There are no neutral cities anymore. Everyone is at one end of some spectrum or another.
    How in the world is Cyrene not neutral? I really need to know this.
    :P Folklore tells us that neutral good was the mandate given when Cyrene was handed over to adventurers. Of course what that actually means in practice tends to be the cause of a lot of bickering.
  • DjiDji
    edited February 2014
    Jacen said:
    Honestly, the only constructive feedback to give is to either wait for some new philosophy to filter down from Twilight, or get the admin to stop throwing Hashan into conflict and just let it be neutral. Hashan won't be factionalized until two things happen: it has the support of the playerbase in Hashan, and it has something to factionalize behind. Karai said it, the Night/Darkness/Moon is all too esoteric and essentially meaningless to even be a base, citywide philisophy, and what of if that is understandable is essentially neutral (imagination, inspiration)

    Twilight's arrival points towards factionalization, but a new philosophy has to be brought in that's as simple on the surface as Good, Evil, Chaos, and Nature are. Nobody's going to want to poke around for 5 IG years trying to figure out what the Night is about, only to realize and almost no one is in agreement on what it actually is.
    I don't want to seem dismissive, but this seems like a lot of your issues with Hashan and not a lot to do with the idea of them and Cyrene having some kind of factional class or skillset.

    I didn't really start the thread to suggest that Hashan was broken, or needed more direction or needed to have some philosophy beyond the one it already has. If you want to discuss that, by all means, make a thread about it.

    Edit: I am bad at quoting. I don't even know how I broke this.
  • edited February 2014
    I think it went that route because to have a factional class, you have to have a reason for it to exist and that cannot happen so long as the two cities are continually described as neutral EDIT: and without direction/purpose that creates a need or design for that class. I don't think that factional classes are going to help the matter all too much, though. It would be nice to deal with factional abilities that we do not have access to. Note: deal with, not circumvent entirely. Curses doesn't do that and the backstory to link it to Hashan is sketchy. We were promised stuff, so yeah. We'll just wait and see. Until then, no new classes. I don't see any class going entirely to either city.
  • Dji said:
    Jacen said:
    Honestly, the only constructive feedback to give is to either wait for some new philosophy to filter down from Twilight, or get the admin to stop throwing Hashan into conflict and just let it be neutral. Hashan won't be factionalized until two things happen: it has the support of the playerbase in Hashan, and it has something to factionalize behind. Karai said it, the Night/Darkness/Moon is all too esoteric and essentially meaningless to even be a base, citywide philisophy, and what of if that is understandable is essentially neutral (imagination, inspiration)

    Twilight's arrival points towards factionalization, but a new philosophy has to be brought in that's as simple on the surface as Good, Evil, Chaos, and Nature are. Nobody's going to want to poke around for 5 IG years trying to figure out what the Night is about, only to realize and almost no one is in agreement on what it actually is.
    I don't want to seem dismissive, but this seems like a lot of your issues with Hashan and not a lot to do with the idea of them and Cyrene having some kind of factional class or skillset.

    I didn't really start the thread to suggest that Hashan was broken, or needed more direction or needed to have some philosophy beyond the one it already has. If you want to discuss that, by all means, make a thread about it.

    Edit: I am bad at quoting. I don't even know how I broke this.
    True, but Cyrene has Scarlatti and Bards fit him perfectly. I mean what more does Cyrene need, Runewarden as a knight class and bards.
  • edited February 2014
    When I think Cyrene, Runewarden and Bard are the first things that come to mind.. and snow, which makes me wish I was snowboarding right now. Next week. Cyrene uses them real well, or the image works best there. Something like that.
  • I can't see Cyrene and Hashan getting all of the runelore in its current form (because totems), but I agree that the historical and aesthetic appeal is compelling. 
  • Achimrst said:
    Accipiter said:
    Trilliana said:
    Maybe if aforementioned Bards had triple-jab again... but seriously, cities that are supposed to be neutral shouldn't have a factional class... when they technically already do. Runies, alchemists, bards, serpents, etc.. neutral.
    There are no neutral cities anymore. Everyone is at one end of some spectrum or another.
    How in the world is Cyrene not neutral? I really need to know this.
    Cyrene isn't neutral because it embraces artistic creation over inartistic destruction. If you are saying only good and evil can have factional classes, occultists and forestal classes need to have their flavour removed and be opened up to everyone. If you are saying that there are 3 spectra that are allowed factional classes (good/evil, chaos/creation and nature/buildings) then I would like to hear your arguments as to why those are the only ones that count.
  • We're neutral in the sense that we'd rather not have constant war in the city (because artistic creation, trade, beautiful city).  That's what neutral has always meant in Cyrene, and what those who would like Cyrene to be more combative have always tried to subvert.  
  • ShirszaeShirszae Santo Domingo
    edited February 2014
    Achimrst said:
    Dji said:
    Jacen said:
    Honestly, the only constructive feedback to give is to either wait for some new philosophy to filter down from Twilight, or get the admin to stop throwing Hashan into conflict and just let it be neutral. Hashan won't be factionalized until two things happen: it has the support of the playerbase in Hashan, and it has something to factionalize behind. Karai said it, the Night/Darkness/Moon is all too esoteric and essentially meaningless to even be a base, citywide philisophy, and what of if that is understandable is essentially neutral (imagination, inspiration)

    Twilight's arrival points towards factionalization, but a new philosophy has to be brought in that's as simple on the surface as Good, Evil, Chaos, and Nature are. Nobody's going to want to poke around for 5 IG years trying to figure out what the Night is about, only to realize and almost no one is in agreement on what it actually is.
    I don't want to seem dismissive, but this seems like a lot of your issues with Hashan and not a lot to do with the idea of them and Cyrene having some kind of factional class or skillset.

    I didn't really start the thread to suggest that Hashan was broken, or needed more direction or needed to have some philosophy beyond the one it already has. If you want to discuss that, by all means, make a thread about it.

    Edit: I am bad at quoting. I don't even know how I broke this.
    True, but Cyrene has Scarlatti and Bards fit him perfectly. I mean what more does Cyrene need, Runewarden as a knight class and bards.
    What Cyrene needs is to abandon the neutral good thing and become a true neutral city dedicated to the arts. Thus, Cyrene would be Neutral, and Hashan could go Dark.

    And you won't understand the cause of your grief...


    ...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.

  • Accipiter said:
    Achimrst said:
    Accipiter said:
    Trilliana said:
    Maybe if aforementioned Bards had triple-jab again... but seriously, cities that are supposed to be neutral shouldn't have a factional class... when they technically already do. Runies, alchemists, bards, serpents, etc.. neutral.
    There are no neutral cities anymore. Everyone is at one end of some spectrum or another.
    How in the world is Cyrene not neutral? I really need to know this.
    Cyrene isn't neutral because it embraces artistic creation over inartistic destruction. If you are saying only good and evil can have factional classes, occultists and forestal classes need to have their flavour removed and be opened up to everyone. If you are saying that there are 3 spectra that are allowed factional classes (good/evil, chaos/creation and nature/buildings) then I would like to hear your arguments as to why those are the only ones that count.
    I said absolutely nothing like that, it was a genuine question asking how Cyrene isn't considered Neutral. I don't get why you think I'm limiting factions here, but Cyrene literally just kind of sits there on their mountain and I have never heard them say anything about being against "inartistic destruction" Not to mention being against anything other than Mhaldor.
  • Jules said:
    We're neutral in the sense that we'd rather not have constant war in the city (because artistic creation, trade, beautiful city).  That's what neutral has always meant in Cyrene, and what those who would like Cyrene to be more combative have always tried to subvert.  
    See @Accipiter This is an answer to a question without creating some BS about what I am saying. Thank you @Jules.
  • Shirszae said:
    Achimrst said:
    Dji said:
    Jacen said:
    Honestly, the only constructive feedback to give is to either wait for some new philosophy to filter down from Twilight, or get the admin to stop throwing Hashan into conflict and just let it be neutral. Hashan won't be factionalized until two things happen: it has the support of the playerbase in Hashan, and it has something to factionalize behind. Karai said it, the Night/Darkness/Moon is all too esoteric and essentially meaningless to even be a base, citywide philisophy, and what of if that is understandable is essentially neutral (imagination, inspiration)

    Twilight's arrival points towards factionalization, but a new philosophy has to be brought in that's as simple on the surface as Good, Evil, Chaos, and Nature are. Nobody's going to want to poke around for 5 IG years trying to figure out what the Night is about, only to realize and almost no one is in agreement on what it actually is.
    I don't want to seem dismissive, but this seems like a lot of your issues with Hashan and not a lot to do with the idea of them and Cyrene having some kind of factional class or skillset.

    I didn't really start the thread to suggest that Hashan was broken, or needed more direction or needed to have some philosophy beyond the one it already has. If you want to discuss that, by all means, make a thread about it.

    Edit: I am bad at quoting. I don't even know how I broke this.
    True, but Cyrene has Scarlatti and Bards fit him perfectly. I mean what more does Cyrene need, Runewarden as a knight class and bards.
    What Cyrene needs is to abandon the neutral good thing and become a true neutral city dedicated to the arts. Thus, Cyrene would be Neutral, and Hashan could go Dark.
    What is Dark?
    image
  • ShirszaeShirszae Santo Domingo
    Jacen said:
    Shirszae said:
    Achimrst said:
    Dji said:
    Jacen said:
    Honestly, the only constructive feedback to give is to either wait for some new philosophy to filter down from Twilight, or get the admin to stop throwing Hashan into conflict and just let it be neutral. Hashan won't be factionalized until two things happen: it has the support of the playerbase in Hashan, and it has something to factionalize behind. Karai said it, the Night/Darkness/Moon is all too esoteric and essentially meaningless to even be a base, citywide philisophy, and what of if that is understandable is essentially neutral (imagination, inspiration)

    Twilight's arrival points towards factionalization, but a new philosophy has to be brought in that's as simple on the surface as Good, Evil, Chaos, and Nature are. Nobody's going to want to poke around for 5 IG years trying to figure out what the Night is about, only to realize and almost no one is in agreement on what it actually is.
    I don't want to seem dismissive, but this seems like a lot of your issues with Hashan and not a lot to do with the idea of them and Cyrene having some kind of factional class or skillset.

    I didn't really start the thread to suggest that Hashan was broken, or needed more direction or needed to have some philosophy beyond the one it already has. If you want to discuss that, by all means, make a thread about it.

    Edit: I am bad at quoting. I don't even know how I broke this.
    True, but Cyrene has Scarlatti and Bards fit him perfectly. I mean what more does Cyrene need, Runewarden as a knight class and bards.
    What Cyrene needs is to abandon the neutral good thing and become a true neutral city dedicated to the arts. Thus, Cyrene would be Neutral, and Hashan could go Dark.
    What is Dark?
    Whatever you decide. The idea is that people who want to be in a neutral city can go to Cyrene, leaving people who want something else for Hashan to fully work at it.

    And you won't understand the cause of your grief...


    ...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.

  • Jacen said:
    What is Dark?
    Not finding homes for all those stray dogs, you monsters!
  • I'm not Hashani or in any of the dark orders or anything like that, but speaking as an outsider with little specific knowledge, and only expectations from what I know of other works of fiction...

    It honestly amuses me when people argue that the concept of Night or Darkness or whatnot needs to be well-defined, well-understood, or pushed as a factional direction. Isn't the point of being darkness and lies that no one really knows what you or your motives are? D:
  • Jules said:
    Jacen said:
    What is Dark?
    Not finding homes for all those stray dogs, you monsters!
    I used to kill those poor things, ah Hashan.

    image
  • edited February 2014
    Nim said:
    I'm not Hashani or in any of the dark orders or anything like that, but speaking as an outsider with little specific knowledge, and only expectations from what I know of other works of fiction...

    It honestly amuses me when people argue that the concept of Night or Darkness or whatnot needs to be well-defined, well-understood, or pushed as a factional direction. Isn't the point of being darkness and lies that no one really knows what you or your motives are? D:


    ____________________Bleh broken Quotes__________________________________________
    As it exists, yes, that's the point. But right now, as Karai said earlier, its a copout: If anyone asks a question about it, you just give the standard "We're not allowed to talk about it" and everything is honkey dorey. You don't have to know one little inkling of what Darkness is to RP it, so you've got people that pretend to be experts on the matter that aren't contributing in the slightest, yet you can't challenge their expertise because the subject is taboo. 

    When I left Hashan the first time, it was after I had done a lot of prompting on CT about what the Night was and what we were supposed to do. The majority of the answers I received were "we're not allowed to talk about it" and "I know, but if you don't know then you don't need to know" <- That is a HUGE problem.
    image
  • Achimrst said:
    Accipiter said:
    Achimrst said:
    Accipiter said:
    Trilliana said:
    Maybe if aforementioned Bards had triple-jab again... but seriously, cities that are supposed to be neutral shouldn't have a factional class... when they technically already do. Runies, alchemists, bards, serpents, etc.. neutral.
    There are no neutral cities anymore. Everyone is at one end of some spectrum or another.
    How in the world is Cyrene not neutral? I really need to know this.
    Cyrene isn't neutral because it embraces artistic creation over inartistic destruction. If you are saying only good and evil can have factional classes, occultists and forestal classes need to have their flavour removed and be opened up to everyone. If you are saying that there are 3 spectra that are allowed factional classes (good/evil, chaos/creation and nature/buildings) then I would like to hear your arguments as to why those are the only ones that count.
    I said absolutely nothing like that, it was a genuine question asking how Cyrene isn't considered Neutral. I don't get why you think I'm limiting factions here, but Cyrene literally just kind of sits there on their mountain and I have never heard them say anything about being against "inartistic destruction" Not to mention being against anything other than Mhaldor.
    Perhaps you should read the quote chain to get some context of what you are saying then.
  • AchimrstAchimrst Nature
    edited February 2014
    Jacen said:
    Nim said:
    I'm not Hashani or in any of the dark orders or anything like that, but speaking as an outsider with little specific knowledge, and only expectations from what I know of other works of fiction...

    It honestly amuses me when people argue that the concept of Night or Darkness or whatnot needs to be well-defined, well-understood, or pushed as a factional direction. Isn't the point of being darkness and lies that no one really knows what you or your motives are? D:


    ____________________Bleh broken Quotes__________________________________________
    As it exists, yes, that's the point. But right now, as Karai said earlier, its a copout: If anyone asks a question about it, you just give the standard "We're not allowed to talk about it" and everything is honkey dorey. You don't have to know one little inkling of what Darkness is to RP it, so you've got people that pretend to be experts on the matter that aren't contributing in the slightest, yet you can't challenge their expertise because the subject is taboo. 

    When I left Hashan the first time, it was after I had done a lot of prompting on CT about what the Night was and what we were supposed to do. The majority of the answers I received were "we're not allowed to talk about it" and "I know, but if you don't know then you don't need to know" <- That is a HUGE problem.
    ______________________________________________________________________

    I still have most of that conversation from the first time you left Hashan! Yeah quotes totally broken btw.

    And yes basically that was the answer that was given, let me post a piece of it describing night.

    Person X says, "I told you that the Night is a phylosophy, a religion without distinct laws
    and a rulebook, descendant from the Triad of the Night. It is based upon much of what Darkwalkers, Dreamers and Moonwalkers belief, yet it is slightly different in several aspects."
  • Sena said:
    The problem with factional classes for Hashan and Cyrene is that being thematically appropriate for the city isn't enough. Look at the other factional classes, for example. All of them draw their power from a specific "side" to some extent, there's a very direct link inherent in the classes. Cyrene and Hashan don't have any strong alignment like that, nothing to inherently tie a class to them exclusively from all the other cities, nothing that would let them control access to some aspect of a class (like devotion/essence).

    Even if you create new classes with the explicit intention of making them factional classes for Hashan and Cyrene, you'd still also need to change the cities themselves for it to work, giving them some inherent and permanent link to specific gods or powers, or you could limit it to a specific house that happens to be part of the city (like the Occultists and Ashtan), but that likely wouldn't be much easier without any history or tradition behind it.

    I could see this being a possibility for Hashan (after a huge renaissance/rebirth and probably RL years of work), if it was explicitly made the "City of Darkness" for example, with a class that draws its power directly from Twilight somehow. I can't imagine it working in Cyrene, and I imagine the city would largely oppose something so inherently divisive and conflict-generating.
    Yeah, even if you give these cities classes of their own - would they accept them? Is there enough of a stable power base there onto which you can graft a new class? Hashan is practically defined by contrary attitudes and internal schisms, and Cyrene seems to enjoy and agree with its neutrality.

    Anyway, in terms of existing classes, I think runewarden best fits Cyrene, and shaman or alchemist best fits Hashan.

    Bards suit Cyrene. The bard House is in Cyrene. Cyrene has all its gardens of the arts and monuments to the muses. Scarlatti loves Cyrene. Restricting them to a factional class would be good in terms of removing a layer of stacked room passives from every large skirmish. I just don't think bards have a strong enough identity to be a factional class. Compare them to priests, who walk with angels, infernals who wield the power of Evil, forestals, who are forestal, or occultists who dabble in forbidden primordial forces and bargain with the Chaos Lords. Bards... sing, and swashbuckle. They aren't aligned with any greater force. Maybe if they had some grander ideas surrounding them? If the Place of Eternal Song was a bigger deal. If they quested for the remaining four of the Five Forgotten Songs from when Eru Ayar sang the world into being: Knowledge, Power, Warmth, Life, Death. If they governed the power of Word, granted to mortals by <pick a god>, through which ideas may be ordered and communicated. This still doesn't really put them in conflict with any other factions, it doesn't really give people a reason to go to war with them or ally with them, but it's a start in terms of associating bards with some polarising ideas or ideals.

    Alchemists were specifically designed to be a neutral class, to make cures available to everyone. They just fit Hashan so well, with their astronomy and pseudo-scientific mysticism. With Transmutation being, presumably, made into a general tradeskill, that removes the necessity for alchies to be a neutral class, and creates the option of tying them to Hashan. Bit of a mess to make that change though, and snatch them back after having given them to every city.

    Runies sort of share bards' problem, where they're quite neutral in their flavour. You could perhaps say that runes record the language of the Gods spoken at the time of Creation, Runelore regards their deciphering and translation, and none but Cyrene possess the wisdom, judgment, honour, and nobility to wield their power.

    How interesting would it be if totems were a faction-specific tool? Suddenly only one faction in the game has reliable access to totems (or two, if you leave them with shamans as well). You could count on runies to market them out. Or you could take it as an opportunity to create and balance some new general and faction-specific city defenses: occultists making pacts to protect specific rooms, forestals growing plants of protection, devo users performing persistent rites.

    Shamans fit Hashan really well. Like bards, their House is in Hashan. But like bards, I think they also have the issue of being too neutral in flavour to carry a faction as a factional class. Shamans are conceptually rich, but nothing in Runelore, Curses, and Vodun aligns them with any greater power or polarising ideal, they're all very neutral skills. I believe the Spirit Walkers have a lot of background, but I don't know much about it. You could say that while only Cyrene's runewardens are worthy to wield the power of runes, Hashan's shamans made deals with beings of the spirit realm to glimpse that power anyway, and split the two versions of Runelore; maybe give shamans a darker or more twisted version of it. And then play up the spirit aspect further, assuming that doesn't conflict with the new, revitalised direction in which Hashan is moving. While understandably the class has its mysteries, kept by the SW House, you need to reveal and define some of them to allow people to understand at least the outline of their identity.

    [spoiler]Random tangent on increasing shaman flavour/themes by giving them a few new abilities!

    It's so hard because I want to give shamans a diverse pantheon of spirits, like RL voodoo, or Shadowrun, but it's hard to avoid that feeling similar to occultists and the twenty Chaos Lords.

    Maybe you could create provisions for shamans to create their own spirits? I have little idea of what shaman/Spirit Walker RP is in this game, so this might run contrary to their established pantheon of spirits. But a shaman might be like 'I'm going to venerate the spirit of Cat!' and it creates that Cat spirit anew. And their abilities build up that spirit's power, over time, slowly and on a large scale, like offerings to a god. And you can use its power through a few other abilities. The spirit is reflected purely through the relevant shaman abilities. But if the shaman goes dormant, the spirit's power will tick down and it will eventually disappear. If someone else wanted to venerate Cat, they could join you, and you could have a little cult. The similarity to offering would play up spirits as pseudo-gods. This could be executed through 4-6 abilities within an existing skill.[/spoiler]

    If you want to invent new classes, nothing immediately leaps out that suits Cyrene or Hashan better than these four. The Nght is a fitting theme for Hashan, but it's one that alchemists already touch on, with their astrological and astronomic flavour. You could create some kind of shadow-caster class maybe. Creating a class with deep or specific ties to Darkness - or the Moon, or Dreams, by extension - seems risky, because they risk being reliant on Twilight's activity for factional relevance. For Cyrene, I have no idea. Some kind of miner or archaeologist/relic hunter class would be fun, but doesn't make a lot of sense. Every other idea I have is a joke, like a bureaucrat class.
      don't disagree with your points, yet it still boils down to Hashan's Spiritwalker house being ran by occultists who have enemied a lot of Shaman to the city. So inviting city enemies to the city will cause more problems than it solves, while punishing those who are Shaman and RP with the class outside of Hashan have to now find a way to fit themselves into the ideals of a city they are enemied to.... Not to mention the difference in religion they already have between some of them. Basically if you give Hashan the ability to punish the majority of Shaman who play the game it can cause problems.
  • Restricting (even partially) an existing neutral class to a specific city is problematic, because they're so widespread already. The factional classes we have now were already tied to a specific faction long before being restricted (post-autoclass, at least). And even for priests and paladins, which had always been clearly Shallamese classes and risked excommunication if they weren't Good, it still wasn't really a simple task to (mostly) pull them back to Shallam. In the case of occultists and necromancers, it was more that other cities rejected them rather than being restricted by their own factions (although necromancers at least had to worry about anathema if they acted against Evil), and it seems like it would be hard to get the majority of the cities to do the same for a currently neutral class (even with Targossas and Cyrene disliking shamans already).

    It seems like it would necessarily have to be an arbitrary, hard-coded restriction like alchemists/forestals, and there would be a lot of anger, frustration, and bitterness all around, even if it can be justified well.
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