Shattered Kingdoms

You keep saying that but never explain how it's a quirk. I already said, if it's because you believe that Thuban would always go out of his way to protect the oh so secret identities of his followers, then your argument is baseless. There is no evidence whatsoever that Thuban would do that. We don't even know if Thuban cares enough to have an opinion.



Is it bad RP to detect auras and check the people you resurrect until you spot someone with a different aura than the one he was resurrected with, obviously because you have the metagame knowledge that you can't cast distort alignment while dead? Is it bad RP to locate symbols? Almighty Thuban would have taken care of those things. So just because you keep repeating something is "poor RP" doesn't make it true.



No actually there aren't any that lead to an absolutely certain identification. Know why? Because your entire argument is based on ambiguity. If creating food can be faked, then everything can be faked so a Thubanite could cast doubt on any evidence you might have. This is what you get for making ad hoc arguments and not thinking they're leading to an absurd outcome. Want examples?

-The leader of the Thuban faith told me you're a follower.
-You can't believe a Thubanite.

-I saw you hanging out with Thubanites.
-They're just my friends.

-You're carrying a symbol of Thuban.
-It belonged to my dead wife and I love her so much I kept it around.

-I resurrected you and your aura was as dark as night. (metagaming)
-Thuban distorted my aura to make people hate me.

-The food you called down from your God isn't the food your God normally sends his servants.
-Well yeah okay, Thuban is messing things up to make people hate me. Also food can be random even though no one has ever heard of that ever happening to anybody. But it's not as if it's a law of nature right?

-You're a liar and a thief. You must be serving Thuban.
-Okay I am but not all liars follow Thuban. Some people actually don't care to follow super evil just to make a quick buck by conning fools.

-You're a Thubanite. I tried to induct you into the Hammer but (stupid in-game explanation on why the game rejected the induct command) happened.
-OOC dude you're using the game engine to learn my affiliation. that's metagaming

Want any more? It can get far more ridiculous.

There are many better, non-twinkish ways to base evidence on whether someone is a thubanite other than telling them to cast create food.

If you think someone is a thubanite, then you should be able to reference them A) being a liar, B) being dark-aura'd (sometimes), C) hanging out in thubanite areas, D) whatever the heck else. Why would your litmus test be "Oh, when you cast create food a tongue appears?" Of all things, that's a really lousy one to choose from an IC perspective, even though it makes perfect sense from an OOC perspective.

There are many ways to find circumstantial evidence that someone is a Thubanite, sure. But almost none that would conclusively prove that someone is one, short of being a Thubanite yourself and being able to see the religion flag. Maybe you'd be able to witness him/her getting the sacred armor but if you ever tried to use that as a test, by your own criteria, it would be "metagaming". And even then the Thubanite would be able to cast doubt on it since Thuban is a jack of all trades plus mimicry etc.

So let's say you're playing a Dulrikian Hammer paladin who spots some grey aura candidate Thubanite. Here's the supposedly good ways to out him as you suggested.

A) being a liar

Anyone can be a liar. Doesn't prove he follows the God of lies.

B) being dark-aura'd

Not all dark auras follow Thuban. But it does give you a pretty good excuse to kill him. Still no conclusive evidence.

C) hanging out in Thubanite areas

Non-Thubanites are far more likely to hang out in Thubanite areas than actual Thubanites for the fear of being associated with Thuban in any way. But even if you spot one wandering around in a Thubanite area he can claim all sorts of excuses like exploration, getting lost or preferring to mudsex on velvet linings. Not conclusive evidence.

D) Do whatever the heck else.

Yeah, eventually you base your reaction on stuff people tell you even if it constitutes hearsay which pretty often originates in actual OOC yim knowledge even if you're turning a blind eye to that. So you might pretend it's conclusive but it's not.

And here's the eventual complication. The whole Dulrikian creed demands conclusive evidence, absolute truth, objective knowledge and so on. The priests even have a spell that makes them see through lies and stuff so it's not as if the whole theme isn't about using purely technical tools to tell truth from fiction. So you eventually kill the grey aura potential Thubanite, the player lodges a complaint that you're not following the creed properly and that your character couldn't prove his character was actually a Thubanite and some immortal takes it up to arbitrarily enforce the creed.

Principled character following Dulrik who murders someone on the accusation of being a Thubanite without having conclusive proof? Eat that blemish. Before you deny that ever happens, something very similar has happened in the past using the exact same reasoning regarding "conclusive proof" and that pertained to a character of mine who had no obligation to follow any creed regarding absolute conclusive proof before doing something.

So this is where this leads. You get an expanding grey area where some member of staff can hold you against the letter of the creed depending on whether he's got it in for you and Thubanites are completely immune since no conclusive proof short of "metagaming" can be used, at least by the faith who is their actual nemesis. It's actually pretty funny.

The cake is a lie.

No, it isn't a lie. It actually was there. I just ate it.