Shattered Kingdoms

One the one hand, I feel like this thread just isn't the place for me and would be fine with not posting in it. On the other, I have that activist feeling that if I don't say *something,* decision-makers might actually be swayed by such flawlessly textbook hyperbole.

Maybe you can help me see things your way: where is it documented that the desire to recover a relic is an essential part of the RP/PVP of being a cabal member? De gustibus non est disputandum.

It isn't that it is documented. CRS was explicitly created to create more combat between the cabals though. More combat means that if you are losing it is supposed to create more chances for RP. If you don't believe us, ask D.

The relic is literally the heart of your organization. It is the manifestation of your faction's ideals, powers, and purpose. This has been stated by D and staff members frequently, particularly when issues of why powers are removed when relics are taken by enemies threads pop up. If you DON'T have a desire to recover a relic, then you are failing to hold the ideals of your faction in high regard, and don't belong in that faction. It's really that simple. If the heart and core of your organization is so dismissible to you that you can just shrug and go about your day while it's in the possession of and being utilized by your enemies, you probably don't belong in the cabal to begin with.

EDIT: Actually, perhaps this analogy would help you understand why it's an essential part of the RP/PVP of being a cabal member.

You are a ranking member of the catholic church. Maybe a bishop or something. The true cross of the crucifixion is discovered and verified. It's literally stained with the blood of your savior. This is, for all intents and purposes, the icon that describes the heart of your ideals.

Then, some group of militant atheists comes and steals it from the Vatican. They then use it in what you would, as a devout catholic, consider a blasphemous display of art.

Would you really deserve your position in the church if you were to take a laissez-faire approach to the denigration of the preeminent icon of your organization?

The same is true of cabals. The relic is that true cross. Shrugging and whistling Dixie while it's in the hands of your enemies is the same as our hypothetical bishop not caring.

I understand and acknowledge your account, I'm just wondering about your sources. It seems that the relic as source of power is word of Dulrik, but then the conclusions drawn from that to support the idea of cabal uninduction for not retrieving a relic seems more like a personal interpretation.

Am I misreading your posts? Perhaps there are instances of Dulrik stating that wanting to retrieve a relic is obligatory of all cabal members, but that would trump the roleplay flowchart by letting cabal override alignment, wouldn't it? Could not a diabolic character perhaps relish in watching her supposed fellows suffer without the relic? Would not a principled character defer diplomacy to leaders and be unwilling to instigate an SK version of the XYZ Affair?

Your edits make it sound like joining a cabal means your character must be an iconoclast.

To some extent it does. This is a world where the core ideals of your chosen faction are made manifest in a magical relic. If you fail to defend it, you fail the faction. Everything else flows naturally from that state, I think. I don't really think there's a whole lot of room for misinterpretation. You are supposed to care enough about the ideals of your faction to be willing to accept the responsibilities of taking up arms in defense of them since in SK, those ideals are given a physical form in the shape of the cabal relic.

No, it doesn't violate alignment. Would a principled character be more likely to seek a diplomatic resolution? Probably, but there's nothing in the principled help file that says they're forbidden from taking up arms against evil. And, frankly, only an evil or evil-aligned organization would be taking/holding the relic of a cabal that includes a principled character. The diabolic in your example might enjoy the suffering of her cabalmates, but obviously cares enough about the ideals of the cabal to have wanted membership in the first place and therefore has a responsibility to defend them.

Your posts make me think you're simply stretching for reasons to buck the status quo and guidelines of cabal RPK again to justify trying to join a group for all the bells and whistles with none of the costs that go along with them. A freeloader like that should be ousted by leadership, and if they are leadership, by an imm. It's literally a betrayal of what they signed on for when they joined.

Again, I'm not sure where you're getting your list of things people sign on for when they join a cabal. If you can show me where it's been established by Dulrik that every cabal member must burn with the desire to get back a relic by all means possible and lose membership if she fails to achieve those desires, I think I can put my doubts to rest and sign on with your ideas.

It's the one thing that you haven't shown me in your replies, but everything following that premise seems to be sound enough to agree with.

Auctoritas non veritas facit legem.

Relics are like crutches for crippled people. Taking them away and placing them at the end of an obstacle course, then expecting said cripples to navigate said course while being drop kicked and donkey punched by non-crippled defenders is an accurate depiction of what is wrong with the crs.

This does raise a point that I think I might have read in Finney's posts. CRS is seen as a way to take OP abilities away from hardcore players.

It may be more convenient for those hardcore players to implement new combinations and take advantage of other toolks than it would be for them to participate in the RP/PVP processes of CRS and relic return. You're left with a cabal with members who cannot achieve CRS victories put in the position of needing to achieve one by players who do not remain to experience the consequences.

In other words, one of the problems Ezeant mentioned by way of short-lived characters may in fact be exacerbated by CRS and its hard-coded transfers of power.

More importantly, it seems that any given discussion of the is and the ought of CRS making use of a CRS scenario frequently seems to assume one side is doing it completely right and the other side is doing it completely wrong.

There are specific mentions of the requirements of defending and protecting relics in the specific faction forums. I'm not allowed to repost that information outside of those forums. I did your research for you, though, and it is there to be read in each cabal's faction board.

Thanks not for doing my research for me but for satisfying your burden of proof and making your argument properly.

So this isn't something a newbie would actually be able to know before joining a cabal.

That should be fixed. Nice, bold text that says: "you are obligated to participate in CRS if you join a cabal."