Shattered Kingdoms

Wanna know what's really funny? Rolling a scrupulous minotaur, and being forced to choose between NW and Uxmal.

Well, I can see not allowing evil alignments in Taslamar or good ones in the North or Empire, as you are looking at a small number of cases where people will want the mechanic advantage of saying they are from said country. Sure, a light aura character might come from those countries, but how long are they actually going to stay there before asking (read: demanding) to be deported?

However, when I rolled a centaur hellion, I couldn't even come from Ayamao, which IMHO is a serious problem. Yes, the guardians are more lightie directed and a dark aura centaur might have trouble there, but it is clearly not supposed to be an elf only area even if it is dominated by the elven element. Minotaurs are another problem. Right now they have two areas where they can start from, and I understand part of this is due to the RP of their "coming out to the SK world." I'm not sure if any of today's RP changed this, but it would be most fun to start an IC minotaur "tribe" from the other various areas. I mean, that's -the- most fun thing to do for some of us - create history.

I really do not think it a wise idea for a newbie to be able to roll anything anywhere. Nor do I think it wise for any griffon or elf to roll in the North, but I do think the options should be opened up for those that aren't new to SK, specifically in Ayamao and possibly beyond.

Considering that it was Taslamaran and Ayamaoan forces that killed Lathron (who I assume is now king of the minotaurs), I'm completely unsurprised that they are not viable minotaur creation points. You (and others) have to suffer because of the stupidity of the folks that killed him.

That said, I think it's a great chance to remodel the north. I've always thought that the north could be home to greys and lights as easily as darks, despite the oppressive presence of Krychire and the Council.

Krychire is an after-thought now anyways. It's all about the Moot.

So I guess my point about Krychire was moot!

(get it?)

Your assumption is wrong.

Regardless, it's a pretty glaring IC reason for minotaurs to keep out of those countries. It's a shame, too, because I really would have liked to see minotaurs develop in Ayamao.

You know what? Scrupulous people can exist in both of those kingdoms, regardless of whether they are Minotaurs. The thing is, those are the only kingdoms where Minotaur tribes currently exist.

What doesn't make sense is that you train to be a newbie paladin in Krychire, where you train by killing slaves, or a griffon in uxmal, where they would just kill your fledgeling before you left the egg. Yes, I killed some concepts - concepts that were mostly non-sensical and I would have restricted from the start of the game if I'd had the tech back then.

You really want to be the paladin from Krychire? It still makes a lot more sense that you escaped to Taslamar where they would actually train you to be a Paladin. Then you can emigrate back to fight the darkness if you want.

Let's be clear. You are not restricted from making a dark-aura centaur in Ayamao. You are restricted from making a Hellion in Ayamao. Ayamao is not a kingdom that is in the business of training Hellions.

Let me answer the next response right away. "But Hellions have been training in Ayamao for centuries!" Yes, because we didn't have any way to restrict them, it would have been pretty newbie-unfriendly to make it completely impossible to train their skills. That would cause us to lose players. But now we've taken care of that problem at the source.

Alignments are in the same boat. Some people don't like to be "straight-jacketed" by alignment. I say alignments are a social contract between you and the game. It's not like the alignment forced itself on you - you chose to be that alignment at the start. And that's one of the primary reasons that I am now having you pick alignment before anything else. This makes it clear that SK considers your alignment to be the most important part of your character concept. You don't choose to be a necromancer and then end up being diabolic. You choose to be diabolic and now are allowed to be a necromancer. It's a subtle distinction, but it reinforces our RP-focus.

Everyone wants to be a unique snowflake, but a world that is full of unique snowflakes is a bizarre, non-sensical place that has no theme or consistancy. For SK to be a world that is capable of telling good stories through roleplay, the theme must be reinforced by just these sorts of rules.

I think it's a faiiiiiiirly good idea to have these restrictions - some of them, at least. I think it's fairly well known that I have different views from most people about Ayamao though, and I think that no class should be banned from training there but necromancers.

Just me though.