Shattered Kingdoms

Once an elf sat in the inn with my deep-elf and spoke to him in a friendly way. Unfortunately, my delf was part of [A CERTAIN CABAL] and so he got up, went upstairs, "adopted" the elf's personality, and pissed off a warlock at him. Then he went back downstairs and waited for the warlock to come. You should remember that, Juggs; it was your warlock. Of course, then we both got cursed, and I got mad, so while I was sending Achernar the backstory of what my character had been doing, I PKed the elf into deletion. It was beautiful, and probably the only time I'll ever successfully PK anything.

I love enmity, and you should too.

Lol, so that's what it was. Yeah, it was me who reported you two lovebirds

Okay, so I have a question.

Which is more important, racial enmity, or religious beliefs?

I agree, no teaming up, no best-buddies roleplay. But what I seem to be hearing here is "If you're not attacking them or leaving the room every time they enter, without exception, then you're failing in enmity." But some people have religious views that conflict with enmity. That conflict should be played out, I agree, and it should cost your character some grief, but to argue that every single character should play enmity exactly the same way, regardless of other considerations, is to create a cookie-cutter world where we're all interchangeable.

To me that would be boring. Is that what people really want?

There is absolutely no reason you cannot roleplay both. Show your characters struggle with their unavoidable hatred for the other race. Begin to pray and meditate for strength when they are near. Bear your teeth, show the pains it causes you to even sit "politely" in a room with them. Tremble, break down in tears when you think bad thoughts, clench your fists, grind your teeth, clench your symbol, chant some mantra, ect. There are many ways I can think of incorporating both into a character.

But religious beliefs should never, ever, ever trump enmity. It is an unavoidable part of the deep-elf and elf races. It's there and there's absolutely nothing an elf/deep-elf can do to get over it. It's not like Johnny doesn't like green beans, but if he only tried green beans then he'd discover they aren't so bad. No. It's more like Johnny is deathly allergic to green beans, as his entire family and green beans killed his parents and it's a well known fact so anyone trying to feed Johnny green beans is an evil bastard and is obviously trying to kill him.

Enmity is the reason I never recommend playing a deep-elf or elf to a newbie. There's a lot of thought and subtlety that needs to go into these relationships. But if done right it can be some of the most intense and rewarding RP in the game.

A good example for divine faith vs racial enmity would be "graybie" faiths, and let's take as an example Mira, since it was my last character's church.

Both elves and deep-elves may co-exist in the church of Mira. Note the word I am using; co-exist. That does not mean they still have to get along together, although they may in-character feel the preasure from the church to do so. They may need to "pretend" they can put their enmity aside at moments, but they can't, and this has to be visible and clear to everyone.

Even if an oath holds them from attacking each-other at any circumstance, they will either avoid going to that battle where their "brother" in faith is expected to be, or try to discuss with their HF the fact that in the expected battle they may have to fight each other, and do so with a cost from their church coming unto them.

These are cases where things get complicated. But that's what makes them more interesting RP wise, and not on the contrary be used as a pety excuse to dismiss such heavy tradition as the racial enmity.

I've had more fun with enmity on my current character than I've ever had with it before.

I'm so tired of people saying handle your stuff ICly as an excuse just to get under someones skin. Besides, this is a general post about how people need to play their race rp properly, and doesn't single out anyone in which to deal with ICly.

Elves and Deep-elf players need to quit working together in leveling areas, and sitting in Nerina's Inn together like they were best of friends. I'm quite tired of seeing it.

I honestly don't see any problem with an elf and a deep-elf sitting in Nerina's inn.

Now, leveling together is completely different. I'd be amazed to see that.

But as for the sitting together. The same with people PK complaining about No-RP pks. You don't know what the [REDACTED] goes on outside the Inn, or via tells, etc.

I've RP'd my [REDACTED] off in the enmity department, but it's not always something EVERYBODY is going to know about.

I readily admit that I have put my character's deeply held religious beliefs above racial enmity. Both have played a part (Ealuriel can actually vouch for this, I suspect, and the conflict between the two) but I believed that my character's faith in Compassion and her duty to her goddess trumped by far the real racial prejudice she felt and feels. She puts it to the side, as best she can, and does what she thinks is compassionate and right anyway.

That does not include teaming up with a deep-elf, providing material help to a deep-elf, or accepting anything of value from a deep-elf. It does include listening politely, trying to provide religious counselling where that is appropriate, and treating everyone with as much compassion as she can manage given their various behaviours.

If this is wrong, then my character is wrong, and probably can't be fixed at this point. I apologise to anyone she may have upset.

My character has ressed deep-elves before. It's a combination of OOC courtesy and IC trying to show compassion even when my character doesn't particularly like it.

However, my character has never teamed with a deep-elf, nor has she hugged any. Just to keep the record straight there.