Shattered Kingdoms

Ohoy!

It's been a while, but I'm back playing again.
I've seen some interesting changes take place here. Good mud overall.

I've gotten into Mind's Eye Theater lately, Vampire:The Masquerade.

Incase you're wondering I play LARP, meaning I dress up and pretend to be a vampire for 4 hours every two weeks. It's not for everybody, but worth your time if you get into it.

Basicaly, I was hoping to play a political charicter on SK as well. I like to see back-room deals, political intrigue, and moral issues charicters need to personaly resolve. Trouble is I'm not big enough yet. Eledan the Swashbuckler is beneath anyone's notice... A problem I'll soon have remedied, but there are other issues as well.

I don't notice much in the way of moral or ethical differences between kingdoms. I also don't see much in the way of politics. Cabals and empires appear static. Occational spats between individuals, or lynchings by small groups... Can a player with some rank or office command NPCs without having to charm/intimidate them? If not, why not? A member of the midnight council should be able to command a small legion of the Empire's finest, no?
I haven't heard of an Imperial edict. Such a thing could move plots... Suppose the Emperor commands the Council of Midnight to organize an incursion into a neiboring realm... The Hammers would have to oppose this on principal... any effected local groups would also see consiquences...

What about aliances between nations to oust an invader, or invade a rival? Monsters, Gods, or powerfull wizards/political leaders/outlaws can also instigate plots. Or what about a wave or refugees come into any of the kingdoms and displace locals.. effect prices... cause racial tentions?

The fact is, I'ld stir some of this up myself to the extent possable... But I'm hamstrung by not being able to find instruction in forigen languadges.
It's hard to stir up the masses in Uximal or circulate a roomer in Zhenshi when you can only speak Imperial. And Imperial PC's are hard to find.

It's an awsome world you've conjured up. I'ld hate to see it go stale.

Yegor

I can help you out with some of that.

There's actually a considerable bit of politics. For instance, if you wanted a quick list of the Cabals/countries:

Hammer-crusading good guys
Adepts-evil necromancer/wizard blood drinkers
Midnight Council-Leaders of the oppressive, militaristic and power-hugnry Empire of the Bright Star
Harlequins- doers of chaos and bringers of mayhem
Druids- a select Order seeking to keep nature pristine and safe from mortal harm
Fists- Quiet good-auraed monks seeking enlightment

Countries (Tribunals):
Taslamar (Peacekeepers)- Land of the free. Analgous to the US but with a monarchy.
Zhenshi (Talons)- Fairly neutral kingdom, home of the Fists. Politically analgous to switzerland.
Uxmal (None)- Land of chaos- no government and no authority except by raw force.
Empire (Midnight Council)- Expansionist and slave-owning. Nazi germany with slaves.
Northern Reaches (Council of Necromancers)- Not really a country, but centered around the biggest city, Krychire, home of a horde of necromancers and their undead servants.
The Ayamaon Alliance (Guardians of the AA)- All this mythogical creatues you hear of live here. Centaurs, elves, sprites, etc. Recently it's taken a turn towards the Light side, though that has certainly not always been true.

Just within those groups you can see how a lot of conflict/politics can appear. Just don't expect radically different RP out of line from a cabal to appear- though even THAT happens every once in a while. A year ago, the Hammer was allied with the MC against the Harlequins (the harlies had grown absolutely enormous, to the point that they nearly outnumbered all other cabal members online totaled together many times during the day).


Some things are static, but many are not. For instance, the crusading Hammer will -always- be at war with the Adepts and almost always at war with the MC, because they're practically polar opposites.

In general:
Hammer is at war with: Adepts, MC
Adepts are at war with: Hammer, Druids
MC is at war with: Hammer

Those relationships are more or less set in stone. The ones that really switch back and forth are the Druids and the Harlequins. The fists really only switch between an active or a passive stance against darkies+company. There are essentially four sides: Lightie, Darkie, Free for all, and neutral. The strongest sides by far are lightie/darkie- FFA is usually only possible if your cabal is very strong/sucidal/stupid/all of the above. The current politics are somewhat static on the lightie side, but recently made major changes in terms of the darkie/gray politics. I won't tell you the IC information of what happened, but suffice to say that things do indeed change often. For the most part, you'll need to join a cabal/tribunal to learn about such things, since the days of daily raids on Exile/other cities are over for the moment.



All tribunal members have this power. They are the police forces of their country, though in the case of the MC also the cabal.


Limit of one NPC per tribunal member for balance reasons, but yes you can indeed do that.


First of all, global RP that requires imm intervention is fairly infrequent due to the amount of work imms already hvae to deal with. Staging an invasion would require doing quite a bit of NPC moving, at the very least. However, it does indeed happen. What you spoke of happened almost exactly as you said it a few years ago, when the Empire invaded Uxmal.

Second of all, cabal power if based on cabal activity. I know that the knightlord of the MC has been inactive for most of the month due to IRL lack of internet, and it in some ways caused the cabal to basically drop off the influence scale, though it is certainly on its way back up now.


It'd be lovely to have, but this all requires work on the part of the imms, and they have many other things on their palette. I believe they still accept ideas in the form of emails, however. If you're in a cabal/tribunal, especially as a leader, it's even more likely you can get something of that size started.


That's easy enough to solve- send a few tells to people that look important and they can probably direct you somewhere. There are MANY language trainers. Additionaly, you can just be mentored.


Hope that helps somewhat.

Oh, the differences between kingdoms are significant. The monarchy of Taslamar, the non-human alliance of Ayamao, the theocracy of Zhenshi, the anarchy of Uxmal, the oppression of the Empire, the necromancer-lords of Krychire .... if you're missing this, you need to look at more room and NPC descriptions.

Language instruction should not be a problem if you can locate some players. Any player of Mentor rank or better can teach them to you. NPCs teaching languages are also in appropriate places. (One example in Nerina would be the library.)

As for political plots - I'd try joining the tribunal of your country of interest. For the Empire, that would be the Midnight Council. Unfortunately, that's a cabal as well as a tribunal, so getting in is likely to be difficult. I'd suggest contacting people with Empire-like names and titles (usually Germanic or Roman, like the Legio), and trying to help them out. Avoid asking to join the MC, though, at least until they know your character very well.

As to what can change - that's in part up to the immortals, when it comes to coding things, like country borders. Expect a LOT of sucessful RP/PK before something like that happens. But I believe a tribunal member can do much to influence a tribunal's direction and moral tone. It's worth a shot, anyway, if that interests you.

If you are looking for political intrigue you need to look at one particular possible truce between two groups I will not mention oocly. If you ask around to the different members enough you will find it.

Interestingly enough, I'm working on a little addition to enhance the ability to have diplomacy between groups. I'm not prepared to say anything more about it right now though.

I love it when he's all cryptic about up-coming changes...

Well... I'm not exactly pleased with the situation you describe... rare invasion/mass scale plots by ims... limmit of one NPC/tribunal... fixed economy... semi-fixed political situation... Talsamar stronger than Empire at the moment... Emperial Lord Knight absent.


But it's workable. My vampire charicter is a leftover Nazi. Not the street thug type, the administrator. And he owns the city's premier security company Die Junker, leads a youth group, and most resently launched his first luxuery airship the zepplin Von Mintchousen to outshine his nearest in-clan rival's art gallary. Obviously he's well connected, and filthy rich, but not much in the combat department. That's the freedom I'm used to... My next move will be to embroil a rival clan leader into a hopeless resque attempt of a third clan which is faced with extinction by some ancient monster... Hopefully, both will be severly weakened, maybe distroyed, and I'll conveniently move into the vacume.

Naturaly, this is all IC stuff.
I'm not a Nazi, I only portray one.


In the case of SK.... I don't at all mind a challange. Let's see what we can accomplish.

-Yegor