Yesterday I made a lengthy post about the cabals which was summarily deleted when the boards went down. And since I posted it right around the time the trouble all started, I didn't have a copy of it.

I just want to summarize a couple of things:

1)Steel cabal never required 25 weapons or whatever the ridiculous assertion was. There were in steel cabal, as in all groups, a fringe of extremists on either end of the spectrum and the majority somewhere in the middle.

The ladder of tests and weapons reqs were never required. They were an optional way of participating. As far as I know, at least during my tenure with the cabal, no one that wanted to join was ever turned away. The number one requirement was always interest and desire.

2)Cabals have fallen by the wayside, sadly. I blame part of this to the state of the War Mage guild, i.e.being guru-less. Nadrien and Dalzien were the last GMs to show an active interest in cabals.

We can all say it didn't matter whether there was GM participation or not, but the bottom line is, it did matter. War Mages were not afforded the saame courtesy in regards to cabals as Moon Mages were afforded for sects and the general populace is afforded for Orders. The option of cabals should have been given to us as a viable game system.

What many of you don't know is that before the first cabal even met, Lailokken and I had many meetings hashing out structure and suggestions for a general Cabal System. Much of this was sent on the Nadrien and Dalzien. We had big hopes.

When the first cabals formed, ideas of structure were taken further by the three active cabals: Steel, Aether and Fire. An attempt as even made at giving the cabals a superstructure; a setr of common goals/interests. This was all an attempt to make it a viable system that would benefit War Mages. Even if it had only resulted in being a system that boosted morale. I remember early on there was also talk of a tourney to be held between cabals. I think Valherji had been involved with that.

At one point a 'cabal membership ring' much like the pins and what not that other groups have was created as well. The Gm made it for us and then someone higher than him nixed it. When Hyram came in, he essentially said no to cabals and that was really the death knell in my opinion.

I have always been willing to work on cabals as a viable system for War Mages, unfortunately we haven't been afforded the support of the GMs/staff on this.

Allarsk Cinquefoil-Eternalhope

I agree with you Brett, and you have been one of the stalwarts on this. I do think, however, that in order for it to become a real system all the elements need to be represented. I remember attempts at forming water, air and electric as well, but fire, aether and steel were the only ones that seemed to at least be visible. Yes, players are ultimately who will make the system run. Maybe if we ever get a full working staff there will be more enthusiasm for cabals and maybe ultimately more support both among players and staff.

If there is no leadership, its hard to keep a group together. Kudos to you for carrying on.

Allarsk

>>>The new magic comes out just as my academic year ends! That means I can actually help with the research! Yay!<<<

Which is a darned good thing! Jolebin is one of our most hardworking researchers, if not the most.

The RP we've had at the Aether Cabal meetings has been without exception, excellent, and I've enjoyed it as one of the highlights of the game for me. Can't wait to get started again.

---Brett

in a nutshell, a group of people dedicated to a specific thing

in a slightly bigger, war-mage shaped nutshell, a group of mages dedicated to the study of a specific element or aspect of Warrior mage abilities.

-Shurin

From The Warrior Mages Responses to GM/Official Announcements
By DR-VALDRIK from PLAY.NET

<<How about Cabals/Sects?>>

I'm actually unsure about these. It seems, just from what I've been reading, that you guys have pretty much been running these. I'm confused as to if these were supposed to ever be coded for ya, or even how. I am interested in the idea, just digging around to see what was planned

---

This reminds me of the next point of order I never got to mention at the Fire cabal meeting. :) ::mutters about power outage::

I think it's time all the active Cabals got together for a general Cabal meeting to see where we all stand and just chat about where we want to go with things. Anyone else interested in getting a little meeting together?

Yeah,
I'm totally there! Any weekday evening after 6pm is good for me, as are anytime on weekends.
--David (Jolebin Swordstaff, Elemancer of Riverhaven)

Do any of you dislike the concept of Cabals? Not in that you think they shouldn't happen, but feel that the general impression you get from the very word Cabal makes you prefer not to join one, regardless of element?

I'm just wondering how many are into Cabals right now because those seem the way things are going, and how many are joining because they see them as something more natural for the guild than say "schools", which to me seem more refined and a more open group.

>>Lets use the rooms with the archways in the crossing guild maybe see if we could have a back room added for members of cabals only .keyed to a charm (leather wristband bearing metallic arcane image of ari,etc) and put published research and discoveries in the main rooms.

But considering no one really even hangs out INSIDE the guild, is this worth it? Who would use it?

>HOW DO WE GET MEMBERS?!

Buy a cool potion from Frogspawn.

~Not Frogspawn

>Cabals are little more than badly named elemental fan clubs. No, scratch that. They don't even rise to the level of badly named elemental fan clubs. May they rest in pieces. ;)

lol, Have some feelings on this do we? Personally, I don't know how I feel, having just joining one (as the leader, that's gotta mean something <snickers> That and that the only other member was the one who made me the leader, near as I can tell). Time will tell.

-Zak

<<Time will tell.>>

I hate to say it, but time told me that noone gave a crap. So I gave up on it. :P It's hard to have a group that doesn't have any in-game support. Because it's really just like mentioned, an elemental fan club. And you can only go -so- far with that, unfortunately.

My favorite element is Lightning. Pure, raw power. The strongest single focused force in nature. Anyhow, good to know that yer a member Tanath. That makes 3. Maybe as soon as I have some time to think, I'll think of a good reason to come to electric meeting, and we might get some turn out. I'm not gonna give up on the Cabal, it's just easy enough to ignore for awhile then start up again to effect me.

-Zakarious, Storm Mage, Electricity Cabal leader of 3

Noone said it had to be easy. It's just that a large majority of people tend not to get interested when there's nothing in it for them. Why not have the best of both worlds?

When Hyram was our guru we were told cabals would be made official and it created a surge in interest and development, but then it was decided they weren't going to be, which put a lot of people off and kinda killed the development. That's not to point the finger at Hyram mind you, there could have been many reasons why the decisions were made. I've heard talk of elemental specialization now though and I beleive if becomes reality it could open a doorway to cabals again, although I don't think they will ever be what we envision unless they are made official, on an equal par with moon mage sects which are essentially their version of cabals.

~Sardric~

These are the same thoughts that recycle time and time again. Considering we only have one person who is already swamped with tons and tons of coding, Cabals are I'm sure on the back burner for a while. But if I recall correctly they are not completey forgotten as far as this goes. That's why I sorta give up, for now at least.

<<And for all the people who dont want it, just think you'll have something else beside ranger abilitys to complain about

I guess my objection to development of the elemental cabals is just that ... they are specific-elemental oriented. I have long opposed any sort of 'elemental specialization' in the guild, because it would seem to water down the effects of magic as a whole. That is, we aren't going to get a free ride. If fire shard, for example, is already as effective as it is going to be allowed to be, do you think they will really give an elemental specialist any sort of bonus to using it? Or do you think they will trim a little bit off it's maximum potential effectiveness in order to 'reserve' the upper tier of effectiveness for specialists to the detriment of the generalist?

Now, I know that the cabals are role playing institutions and not actual functional specialization, and in fact I support them on that level. It's the inevitable 'cabalists should get some sort of bonus' lobbying that would start as soon as soon as cabals seen official development that I would prefer to avoid, though I understand that GMs don't exactly cave in to lobbying. :)

My other gripe, and this is perhaps the biggest one, is that I've never liked our spells grouped into elemental books. It limits their potential by seeming to arbitrarily limit warrior mage magic to manipulating one element at a time. Which book would a hypothetical spell (borrowing from a couple existing spells for the example) that attacked an opponent by simultaneously putting a patch of ice under the opponents feet and both shaking the ground beneath him and causing rock spikes to rise out of the ground for him to impale himself on when he slipped and fell? Would it be water? But it shakes the ground. Would it be earth? Explain the ice. It's neither and it's both... it's elemental. We should have lots of spells like this, that combine multiple elemental effects, yet we don't have a 'greater magics' book to support it.

Elemental based cabals seem to support, or at least reinforce this extremely limiting (and hopefully incorrect) notion that elemental mana can only manipulate one element at a time. I'd rather see cabals like the target cabal, the martial cabal, the talisman cabal, the enchantment cabal and the anti-warmie defamation league.

Of course, I wouldn't use the word 'cabal' to describe any of them. I have a hard time believing the guild would approve of a bunch of 'splinter groups' being formed that both refer to themselves as cabals (look up the word) and seem to be a return to the old days of the elemental clans. Seems the guild would see it as a sort of separatists movement. Now elemental 'schools' would be a different issue.

>>I have long opposed any sort of 'elemental specialization' in the guild, because it would seem to water down the effects of magic as a whole. That is, we aren't going to get a free ride.

Yes, you have been using this arguement for a long time. However, it is flawed by your pessimism.

Is specialization going to be a free ride?

No, of course not.

Will the WM team (and by extension, the staff as a whole) make ALL guildmembers (or even all magic users) pay the cost for the choice of a few?

No, of course not.

I actually used to be just as paranoid about development here in DR, but we have an entirely new generation of GM's here. Just look at what has been done in the past year or two. And as Solomon has hinted elsewhere, the future is looking very, very bright. You may not agree and/or like all of the changes, but I doubt that you would argue with this pace or scope of development compared to past years.

>>Now, I know that the cabals are role playing institutions and not actual functional specialization, and in fact I support them on that level. It's the inevitable 'cabalists should get some sort of bonus' lobbying...

Unfortunately, you're looking at this backwards. The development currently under consideration is for elemental specialization. If cabals come into existance around that development, then it will be tied in to it somehow.

>>My other gripe, and this is perhaps the biggest one, is that I've never liked our spells grouped into elemental books.

I can't really argue too hard with this one, and actually agree with it to some degree, but it isn't going to be changing, so we'll have to live with it, or find ways to work around it.

>>Of course, I wouldn't use the word 'cabal' to describe any of them.

Semantics. Personally, I think the Barbarian guild is poorly named, but it doesn't really make any difference. If they were renamed the 'Wooly Warriors' guild, they would still have the same abilities. Cabals is as good a name as any.

Porlock

>>>don't know if it's still around, or if any of the original cabals are ... I suspect they've been disbanded and reformed several times each, hehe<<<

The Aether Cabal has never disbanded or reformed. Its activities were, however, put on hold while we waited for spells to come out, since we didn't have anything to study at that time. Now we're getting our momentum back and rescheduling meetings (which will be easier now that the holidays are essentially over.)

---Brett

<<I don't think that it would be impossible. Obviously, it would be dependant on how the magic team decided to handle the first question, then whether or not it was seen as necessary.

Thanks for the reply. As to the necessity, I think it's necessary just to open the door. Warrior mage magic seems to be limited in scope. We have lots of spells, but by and large many are just various ways to make things go splat. Even if the new 'combinational magic' book contained only a single spell, it's very existence would set a precedent and could be a source of inspiration for future spell design ideas, simply by opening the door.

I don't remember the details about that spell that won the spell design contest at the last con... what book was it? From what little I remember about the spell it seems that it might, for example, touch on multiple elements and be suitable for such a book. This is one of those times when I wish I archived old posts. :-P

This will be my last comments on this particular issue, as it's strayed away from cabal commentary, though I guess the possibility of a combinational magic book does present the possibility of a completely new cabal. And this one would be a progressive one, attempting to expand the guild into new territory ...

Aether.


- Arcanist Telein