> Would really anyone who actually lived in this would go against that?

Really stupid question, but if a necro doesn't have SRE then is it possible for them to walk the starry road? If not, maybe revealing that the "gods" everyone worships may not have the power they claim to have to gain that devotion would be a good RP avenue to fixing some of this. How the masses react is up to them, but it could remove some of the official penalties.

> but rather there is an interference from "other entities" that allows a Necromancer to avoid the Starry Road.

Sometimes it makes me really sad when other necromancers miss out on this point.

> What, you expect people to read the text or something?

I'm not sure if this was reference to what I said or one of the replies, but go up a few posts where I made a comment about playing a lowbie necro years ago and being interested in picking back up the guild again. Publicly available information on elanthipeida (see here: https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Necromancer#Demonic_Necromancy ), including spell descriptions, implies that necromancy is not inherently demonic. If that's wrong or there's additional information behind it (assuming it's not meant to be discovered in game later) then I'm interested in reading it now.

>>implies that necromancy is not inherently demonic

With the exception of CRE (and even that I find questionable because reasons but whatevere), this is correct.

AFAIK, it's also correct that there's no explicit "definition" of what makes an extra-planar entity a demon, except in some rough [bias-driven] conceptual sense. IE: "If it's really strong but not an Immortal it's a demon."

Is there an explicit difference between Chadatru, Pelag ai Aldam, and Maelshyve? Demons are essentially defined as entities that corrupt the way the plane of probability should work. But who says that favors granted via Immortals should be how the plane of probability works? Who says that the Immortals aren't extra-planar beings corrupting the "true" state of the plane of probability, except we view it as a net positive and we're all so used to it by now that we can't remember a time without them?

FUN TIMES.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

Magic is an anathema to barbarians, but barbarians aren't expected to go around killing all of the mages (since 3.0).

Causing pain is an anathema to Empaths, but empaths don't refuse to heal people who practice combat (see also manipulation).

Shifting is an anathema to normal citizens outside of Ilithi, but Empaths who shift aren't burned at the stake and habitually reviled.

Criminals are an anathema to every society, but people on the warrant boards aren't hunted down by PCs (Interesting idea for Paladins, but not the case).

There is something to say about a certain necromancer who decided to lay waste to an entire country, but I think the time has passed for putting the actions of one on the feet of many. Take Moon Mages and Empaths for example. Both have had some rather disturbing guild members in the past, and people move on. They're even widely accepted now, even if certain guilds (Barbarians) hate what they're doing. It would be an interesting story point to start living in that transition phase for necromancers. Let clerics continue to hate the necromancer, and let there be some casual RP here and there; however, there are so many easy outs here that can increase playability without requiring years of GM coding/event planning to make it happen.

1. Let the government decide that the indiscriminate mobs have finally lost their rule. Have them officially deny the necromancer guild exists and unnoficially ignore it so long as the members don't actually break the law. Make Theren a special case, and leave the justice zone intact there. For reasons.

2. Let the governments decide that they can't stop necromancy. Let them issue a proclaimation that the guild will be tolerated so that the new magical users can be watched. Make a not so subtle reference to swift and quick justice should they get out of line. Add an RP story of infultration or corruption, but let it happen even if people are wary about it.

3. Let the guild openly challenge the immortals. Prove that they are above/equal to them (or have immortal support), and force them to comply or go to war.

4. Let a few "good" necros (rumors about being saved from a brigand by a zombie) turn the tide of general perception. They become tolerated and eventually accepted.

The players can still choose not to be necro friendly, but that's an RP choice. It's no longer forced by mechanics. Necros are no longer barred from events. I'm not saying that all flavor go out the door. For fun, you could even have a necro that entered the temple or the cleric's guild meet an unfortionate and quiet demise or barred altogether to show their distate. I'm just saying that it should encourage group play. Not discourage it, and this isn't a game where you can decide to roll up a max-level necro in a week just to wreck havoc before going back to your main. It shouldn't treat classes as if they're throw aways for a quick lark in an MMO.

The problem with all that as the sole justification of the present situation is that necromancers are far from the only ones wielding the power to cause tiny apocalypses or linked to small scale genocides. They aren't even the only ones casually using necromancy or butting heads with the temple. Philosophers also explicitly condemn that behavior. At that point, at least part of it is a PR thing. It is not utterly inconceivable that something within the fiction could change a little.

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Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com

"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

>>Necromancers are, by all accounts, effectively walking around trying to unmake the world the rest of Elanthians live in.

Let's not forget that GMs are the ones who wrote up this view and could easily unwrite it if they feel like it (I don't believe GMs will unwrite it).

As Thayet implied (I think), GMs could easily eventually go "Yes, Necromancers are evil, but Philosophers aren't those kinds of Necromancers, because due to deus ex Immortals-said-so, bad-Necromancy now has to deal explicitly with demonic influence in magic. Sorcery might be spooky/scary but a Philosopher being caught casting REI is no better or worse than a Moon Mage being caught casting TV."

Once again, I don't expect that at all, but I also think that we should ignore that just like the way Barbarians are now going to view magic (Knowing and using arcana is okay and not mechanically punishing as long as you're okay with Agonar giving you a stink eye when you ask him about magic which you never really do anyway), other things can shift for the sanity of gameplay as well.

(Once again, I don't expect this to happen, I'm just saying that from a player perspective I think it's okay to acknowledge this as a potential route, no matter how unlikely, and that "but the lore" isn't a good counterpoint to that stance, because the lore is fluid and not a legally binding document.)

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>>The problem with all that as the sole justification of the present situation is that necromancers are far from the only ones wielding the power to cause tiny apocalypses or linked to small scale genocides. They aren't even the only ones casually using necromancy or butting heads with the temple. Philosophers also explicitly condemn that behavior. At that point, at least part of it is a PR thing. It is not utterly inconceivable that something within the fiction could change a little.<<

I think the best solution would be to hold an event that lets the Philosophers step up and distinguish themselves from the Perverse in the eyes of the public.

Maybe a mini-Lyras arises and the Philosophers step up and put it down, causing the public perception of Necromancers to shift and allowing acknowledgement of a Necromancer Guild as an organization that is distrusted but not outright illegal, followed by an overreaction by the Hounds that causes the provincial governments to step up and say "Enough already."



Mazrian

>(Once again, I don't expect this to happen, I'm just saying that from a player perspective I think it's okay to acknowledge this as a potential route, no matter how unlikely, and that "but the lore" isn't a good counterpoint to that stance, because the lore is fluid and not a legally binding document.)

Sure, and like I said earlier, if the curtain is drawn back and it turns out 'haha, Necromancers were sort of right all along!' that would be an incredibly interesting twist. And indeed, even if it turns out that Necromancers weren't as evil as claimed, that would be an incredibly interesting twist.

>I think the best solution would be to hold an event that lets the Philosophers step up and distinguish themselves from the Perverse in the eyes of the public. Maybe a mini-Lyras arises and the Philosophers step up and put it down, causing the public perception of Necromancers to shift and allowing acknowledgement of a Necromancer Guild as an organization that is distrusted but not outright illegal, followed by an overreaction by the Hounds that causes the provincial governments to step up and say "Enough already."

I think that's a fantastic idea, and would be super cool, but, and I don't mean this as a disagreement, wasn't that approximately what happened when the Philosophers did Alchemy/Something to Lyras and everyone including you murderized her for good?

>My only true complaint in this topic is that there are some unavoidable public services (repairs, crafting mats, etc) that can only be acquired in justice areas (as far as I'm aware).

Right, but, again, barring a full SO spiral, public services are still available to Necromancers. I think some of you guys are treating JUSTICE zones as if the floor had lava, when it's a bit better to treat it as standing downwind a camp fire. Yeah, you should probably move, but you don't need to run screaming to get out.

>>I think the best solution would be to hold an event that lets the Philosophers step up and distinguish themselves from the Perverse in the eyes of the public.

My characters have no possible way of distinguishing between a friendly (lol) neighborhood "Philosopher" and a heart-eating, skull-licking, turning his own grandpa into a Risen "Perverse" Necromancer, or anything in the middle. Most of my characters (the main in particular) survived the Lyras war, worked with the Inquisition, and would never accept any sort of pro-Necromancer movement. I think trying to paint any segment of that guild as any kind of good guy is ridiculous. I get that the endgame is boring. All of the endgames are boring. That's why all the top level characters either quit, PVP all the time, or retire quietly to headsplitters. Once you hit a certain point in this game, all you do is hunt, craft, complain on twitter about people, or some combination thereof. I really don't think trying to retcon this supposedly hardmode, not for the faint of heart, serious players only, evil guild into something watered down and palatable to goofy order events is the answer.

>>I'd like to see that fixed or tweaked. Wouldn't you?

I would've preferred the dev time never be wasted on this guild and have been put to better use, but the lore shouldnt be retconned nor should a feel good event occur to all of a sudden make necromancy socially acceptable lore-wise. Its preposterous.

> I get that the endgame is boring.

It's the mid game that is boring! After the initial novelty wears necromancers are kind of boring for everyone. Hence all the apathy about them. It's not great for either side.

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Re: Life mana Spell preps

You raise your hands in the air. You wave them like you just don't care. Somebody says, "Hey!" Somebody says, "Ho!" Somebody screams.

I still call bs on that. My original characters were around for the sorrow war. Marstan was a friend. He was also a necromancer. He was a better person than 90% of the heroes in this game. Would take him over all of them and that established my views on necromancers. Frankly the lore as it is was ridiculously harsh to begin with based upon the pre-existing lore. Necromancers are scary sure. But there have been plenty of other guilds that have done as bad or worse.

And again.. unless the necromancer is blatantly raising the dead infront of you.. you wouldnt ever know. Without stupid ooc mechanics. Even casting spells is ridiculously ooc in terms of 'knowing' what is being cast is necromatic.

>>the lore shouldnt be retconned nor should a feel good event occur to all of a sudden make necromancy socially acceptable lore-wise. Its preposterous

This.

>>And it is sooo easy too distinguish between world shattering moon mages and nice normal ones too?

Nope. My main, frankly, isn't crazy about most mages. Never has been. Moon mages play with incredibly dangerous and stupid things, but they weren't the ones raising corpses, marching them down main street, and killing off 2/3 of the known world's population within the last couple of decades.

>>If the necromancer isnt attacking towns.. and just doing his thing.. there should be little to no justification for harassing them any more than you harass a moonie.

I don't send my characters off looking for necromancers, nor do I run around "harassing" the ones I know about.

>>It's the mid game that is boring!

Heh, I'm sorry you feel that way. The mid game is the most fun I have on any of my characters, including my Necromancer. She's actually a lot of fun to play and way more friendly and social than my main, when she's not making zombies somewhere quiet.

Necro's don't have the mechanical tools to succesfully do what their in-game lore suggests they do, it's as simple as that. No matter how awesome of an RPer you are people continue to use all information available to them in order to come to the "correct" decision. Thus, without a way to mimic another guild's abilities or do give them a way to pass all OOC checks, the class will never achieve the full set of objectives it was created to do.

Good concept though.

>Maz: Not really. It could have gone that way, but the necromancer's involvement stayed relatively secret and instead of coming out they stayed hidden.

I thought it was pretty evident that Necromancers lent a hand?

>Nope. My main, frankly, isn't crazy about most mages. Never has been. Moon mages play with incredibly dangerous and stupid things, but they weren't the ones raising corpses, marching them down main street, and killing off 2/3 of the known world's population within the last couple of decades.

I dunno, I think this is sort of circling around a lore/ethics conversation that's been had many many times in the last ~10 years of gameplay.

>I would've preferred the dev time never be wasted on this guild and have been put to better use, but the lore shouldnt be retconned nor should a feel good event occur to all of a sudden make necromancy socially acceptable lore-wise. Its preposterous.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeesh. I'm surprised to see sentiment like this, and surprised at the vitriol at the notion of moving forward with anything developmentally speaking in this game.

Though, I suppose I do remember the responses to 3.0.

So, I am going to try to state this politely. I do not mean offense or bad wishes on anyone by saying this, but this thread is starting to teeter off the rails and I do not wish it to do so yet.

In the context of this discussion, I do not highly value the opinion of people who do not main or substantially identify with the Necromancer guild. I would like to hear more discussion from the principle players of the Necromancer guild where the faults of Necromancer guild play are. If your only vested interest in the guild is to be an antagonist of Necromancers or commentator of Necromancer material, you are risking drowning out people with more share in the guild.

Thank you.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

>> The only thing they are really missing out on is openly attending Order events, which are fun but aren't game-changing.

This is demonstratively untrue and you have a thread full of people saying so and talking about the obstacles present.

The thing is, nobody's even asking for a retcon I don't think? Nobody is asking for the persecution etc aspects to completely go away, I don't even think anyone wants that (I don't). We're just asking for the progression of the story we were promised, which isn't the same thing. Yes, that means things might not (probably won't) stay the same, but that's what advancing a narrative means.

It is also a problem, on an OOC level, when the majority (read: every primary Necromancer player I talk to) feel little to no investment in the greater community and are at a loss for how to fix that as things stand. It's a problem that deserves a discussion and some thought about how to engage this group of players so we can tell more and varied kinds of story with the rest of you.

And this is very much a "walk a mile in their shoes" sort of thing. Spend six months to a year playing nothing but a Necromancer as your main PC. Actively seek out roleplay and new interactions and new relationships with other players with them, don't just script quietly in a corner or talk to people you already know OOCly. Then you will be able to boast about having an informed opinion about what that is like.

Most of you wouldn't make it two months. Bet me.

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Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com

"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

>So, I am going to try to state this politely.

I would be fascinated to see how you'd phrase that post if you were actively trying to be impolite.

My apologies for interrupting the discussion in the echo chamber with an irrelevant opinion.

>>I would be fascinated to see how you'd phrase that post if you were actively trying to be impolite.

I would've said something sarcastic.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino