Shattered Kingdoms

Run around with lightie-items!

"Fiend, thy cannot touch this holy artifact, and therefore need to die!!!!"

It concerns me the argument is "actions should define people, not their aura."

I really have to say that the actions of someone are what make their aura, it's not some mystical field handed on from down high - or the argument can be made tot hat effect. Detect aura is a way to see what mark their actions/thoughts have left on their soul. That's SK, and that's the RP.

In short, HTFU.

This is my first attempt for a big post, and I gave myself 3 hours before
posting it to change my mind and not to.

If anything of what is written below does not make any sense, I will try to
explain myself better. Those written ofcourse are my -till now- experience of the game and what I've seen, been taught, and learned.


There are books inside the game that actually teach the (pc) how to react
on dark, grey and white aura encounters.Those books are written by
previous characters or imms, and are given to the rest of the characters
so they can follow some simple guidelines.

One of those <guidelines> is that a knight should never harm one of
white aura, no matter how misguided he is. Also those books don't
mention something about dark auras and killing but close inspection of
their actions and being around them to make sure they don't do anything
that compliments their alignment while they are near others.

Now, the help alignment command states clearly that the alignments are
just rough guidelines and I do agree 100% on this.

The characters we take the responsibility to give life to, are not bound to
any rules of ooc nature that we try to categorize them in, but then again,
items with different auras depend on them. Damage depends on those rules.

Except ofcourse the aforementioned 4 classes ,and if I may say 1 cabal,
that have to abound to those rules, or at least strive to roleplay as close
as it gets.

Even if I find it quite silly and nonsense to kill a darkie or a lightie on
sight only because of his aura (which imho it comes from their past
actions), I do think that paladins/hellions/clergy need this spell as through
divine blessing they can actually judge if someone has been naughty or
nice or will be. Ofcourse I would prefer myself to see that the spell is
taken of the game,so people can actually roleplay diabolic personalities.

There was an instance yesterday of an absolute fantastic and worthy of
enlight diabolic character that took the form of non playable race, that I
do believe he might be the one that created this topic, and even if not, it
was an instance that "know alignment' and 'detect aura' prayer, led my
character to be 'unfriendly' towards her/him. That ofcourse has nothing to
do with the rest of the classes, but he/she must accept the fact, that
when he chooses an evil alignment, diabolic in this instance, he takes
risks that involve unfriendly encounters, by Players and NPC's alike.
(There are places, that don't like evil alignments and attack them on sight after all.)

And from what I've read and learned and heard and saw till now, there is
a certain organization(cabal) with sole purpose, to seek,hunt, and cleanse,
any evil found in this world.

EDIT:
Also, as I've read and came to believe, paladins and hellions are chosen
by gods when they see one with extraordinary faith on a particular god,
(hence the spells before choosing religion) The virtues he will nurture
though, will dedicate him to one more than another. So, even if roleplay
should be judged by actions, we see blemish in the game, atonement,
confessions and sins. Things that one perceives differently according to
the god he follows. And beyond that, hellions and paladins are knights
who dedicated themselves to fight other religions and promote their own,
as the gods do themselves in heavens, as they are an extension of the
gods in the mortal realms

Conclusion

If the aura/alignment detection spells are removed, people should be
ready to face any technical difficulties with the items they try to grab,
cities they want to visit etc. And the NPC characters should have their
aura discrimination issues changed to a race discrimination or a spoken
language one.

EDIT2:Also, since the only thing that will be able to give our characters a
fair warning about the deeds of a another after a change like that, are
the news that travel around the world./FINISHED EDIT
Maybe something like a 'bard spell' could be implemented or a certain
change to the Title people carry.
For example. (Title changes depending
on if the person in question has killed many good alignment people or
dark alignment ones, if he is a member of a certain cabal, or what was
the language he spoke the most. Or if he was ever an oathbreaker or
deported from a city for his crimes) You know, things that are difficult to
remain hidden forever. (Achievements, if I may call them)

EDIT3:
Actually I do believe that the alignment of someone should change
depending on their actions and roleplay, lets say once a month.

We could have fallen paladins that turned into hellions (like the story of
their creation). Necromancers that saw that what they were doing was evil and
changed their class into hmm, a mage ? And other nifty changes that will
promote roleplay rather than lock it in tight boundaries . [/EDIT3]

Just throwing some ideas that may or may not be silly.


Anything else technical involving combat and the rest, I'll leave this to the old players that have more experience on the matter.

Generally I'm of the belief that players shouldn't use detect aura to tear through a city killing people without RP. It's just not cool and should be avoided. It can be used as a tool to enhance RP in certain situations and as long as there are items/spells that are aura based it has its applications.

Yorwos, in the old days there were times that you would see a character change their alignment. The most memorable for me was a light aura drow of Nada. It took a player months to achieve that sort of change and the staff has said no more. As much as I would love to see a character able to be swayed from the norm and the ability of a character to be affected so profoundly by their actions that it has a lasting affect on their aura, it just isn't going to happen. A person who creates a principled character that is slighted by lighties again and again and again isn't going to be permitted to turn against them any more than a diabolic can seek therapy and healing.

Taking the form of a non playable race and then pretending to really be that race, was, in fact, an action that could be judged over and above the dark alignment. The alignment just added information to the interactions.

There has been a lot of talk about what players believe alignment to be and mean. That's all good, but wouldn't it be okay for a character to believe differently from the player? I don't think the system is broken. I just think it would be enriched if we all were able to step back and look at it from new perspectives.

I still think it's stupid that priests have both detect aura AND know alignment, shamans have neither, and priests can't DODGE. DODGE. Reminds me of Dodgeball where they throw a wrench at Justin Long and he just stands there.

Do priests really need both? I personally never use DA, know alignment is more specific and doesn't waste continuous mana.

I think you have to be of equal or greater level for know alignment to actually work. It's been awhile since I've used it though.

That probably was me, but that wasn't what entirely spurred the post. I ask this in perspective. People are saying here that aura is defined by past actions, yet when you roll a character you start off at a predetermined age and just enrolled in a training school, yet you're automatically assigned an aura. The questions you answer in the soul portals don't actually judge a past life or so, so how can you base an aura on past actions if someone hasn't fleshed out a backstory for said character yet? Several times my character got accused of being a "spy" simply for their dark aura and because they were polymorphed. Also it kind of irked me that most people instantly knew the character was polymorphed simply because it was a non playable race, but that's not important.

The "spy" accusation seemed a bit oocery because of A. the people had no idea who the character was. The people the char interacted with never were greeted in their normal form or even met for that mattere. And B they had no idea who the polymorphed char was, yet a ton of people knew they were polymorphed simply because it was a non playable race and everyone is familiar with everyone's skill set.

If you don't want to be accused of being a shady mother #*$&er...don't roll a shady mother #*$&er. Just because you aren't the shady mother #*$&er they're looking for doesn't mean you aren't one. I'm just sayin'. If I was in war, and I saw a dark aura rolling around, I'd tell that dark aura to move along.

Fact is, with all those "portal" notions, you missed the important one: you willingly walked through one that said aberrant, miscreant, or diabolic.

Then be more defined with your character before creating it.

You don't start a character at age 0, so whatever happened in the characters life for the beginning years is what forms the characters aura.

If you don't want to be considered evil because of your aura, don't roll with a dark alignment. If you don't want to be judged as a nice, light hearted character then don't roll with a light alignment. It's simple. Don't get upset because your Dark Alignment character got judged for being evil...because well...he/she is evil?