Shattered Kingdoms

I had a little fun when you tried to solve my priestess's riddles, but you abandoned that too soon, due to all the invasions in Taslamar. Oh, well. I have not interracted more than that with you, but I kept hearing good words about you. I hope you stay in the mud and contribute with another character

Wish I would've gotten more opportunities to interact with him, but I definitely did like what little I saw.

Best of luck with your next! (You will have a next).

I liked Ciadel a lot. His research RP, and peacekeeper/hammer conflict RP I thought was solid and made sense. Thats happened before in the past and its definitely a more nuanced conflict that evil darkies/versus lighties, brawl. Always felt bad whenever PK, or enchanting, or EQ outfitting for people would get in the way - which happened often. Sorry about that.

There were many, many things that contributed to Ciadel's low opinion of the Hammer of Light and it started at a young age. The first incident I recall is when a Hammer murdered a greybie pixie NPC (Ciadel sees NPCs as people) for her things and told Ciadel it was okay because it was, "For the greater good." That could have been an isolated incident except he kept hearing that phrase used as justification for all sorts of things he considered morally abhorrent from slavery to genocide. As a principled character who "values life and freedom above all else," this was unconscionable. It made the Hammer little better than the darkness they said they were fighting.

I had a hard time picking out an alignment for him as I was looking for the NG option before settling on principled. Ultimately, I think it suited him.



I've had a few people tell me that being principled means you're supposed to run around and smash every dark aura you see. That's not what I read in the help file.

Ciadel valued life above all else which is why he pursued peace. He was sick of seeing his people die in a pointless, never-ending war. What provoked him into deporting the Hammer was that he discovered that the Black Hand had offered everyone truces and the Hammer had refused. They would not even entertain the idea of peace when Ciadel approached them saying he already had a truce but it was dependent upon the Hammer not using Exile as a refuge after launching attacks on other nations. To Ciadel, this meant that the Hammer was acting in its best interests, not Taslamar's, and was disobeying the law. Therefore, it did not deserve the protection of Taslamar. If it was not going to let its pride (vows) overrule the good of the people (peace), they had no right to call Taslamar home. Hence, the deportation. There were other examples of their testing his authority that encouraged him to throw the book at them.

He thought you should try to reform evil and not simply mimic them by spilling more blood. He thought good people were supposed to be better than that. How is killing an innocent person or enslaving someone any less vile just because it is "for the greater good?"

He thought the laws of Taslamar were extremely fair and encouraged tolerance. It was his job to enforce them. He would instruct Hammer members to read the Book of Law to see if they would grasp this point but they refused and continued to harass people based on race or creed.

The core of it was that Ciadel thought that peace was better than war. The Hammer disagreed. Ciadel was willing to give people a chance to see whether or not they were unrepentant. The Hammer refused to look past the surface. There were a few times when people were saying "The fate of the world is at stake" and the Hammer refused to cooperate. This just made them look even more unreasonable to Ciadel.

It wouldn't have been such a problem if they were located anywhere but inside Taslamar. Then they would have just been another overly aggressive group of bigots. I'm not opposed to people playing lawful stupid holy rollers. It was the fact that they constantly returned to Taslamar, claimed Taslamar as their home, claimed to speak for Taslamar, and invariably compromised the Keepers' foreign policy which got more of his men killed than anyone else's that drove Ciadel to deal with them harshly. They never acted like they were part of Taslamar but constantly made a mess of it.

Oldesword I don't disagree with you at all. I didn't play during this time period so I don't know all the facts. But I will say this: I'm amazed the hammer is still allowed in taslamar because IMO the hammer is nothing but the real life crusaders. Slaying/raling/pillaging in the name of god, yet none of those men held the values of their religion. I've played a keeper before and a hammer before. My hammer chat was a priest of Aludra and struggled with this concept bu what made it so much fun. (sorry if this doesn't make sense posted from my phone)

You played Taslamaran as if Taslamar = U.S.A.

Many play Taslamaran as if Taslamar = Israel, if you get the difference in mentality. Thus the conflict.

Thamus went to her grave debating whether Ciadel was simply foolish or actually in league with evil after he deported her and pardoned the Black Hand, or a combination of both.

That being said, I thought Ciadel was a pretty interesting character, and the commitment to the character made him a fun character to enjoy disliking. I would have liked to have seen where things would have gone had Thamus stuck around. I personally felt bad about getting some of Ciadel's things lost (though there didn't seem much of value), but Thamus thought of it has holding onto evidence. Best of luck.

Pilnor wasn't interested in agreeing to truces that were not presented withanything besides the single word "Surrender." Ciadel thought that decision made Pilnor into an amoral murdering machine with no respect for order. On the contrary, Pilnor said that he would be perfectly happy with staying outside of Exile's cities before or after any attacks, but Ciadel deported all the members without question anyway: For reference, for the entirety of Ciadel's existence up until way after the deport thing, Pilnor attacked the North -maybe- twice. The Black Hand just came up and wrecked your crap anyway, blamed it on the Hammer, and you bought it hook line and sinker. That's the equivalent of you getting robbed, Chuck Norris showing up to beat the trash out of the robbers, and then you being angry at Chuck Norris because you would have rather they just took your stuff.

People attack Exile in order to make Hammer members come defend the city. We disagree on the stance that the best way to rightfully resolve that conflict is not to simply man the wall, but instead to deport and banish the Hammer. Either way, you had a consistently belligerent attitude towards Pilnor, and an extremely forgiving attitude towards the Black Hand, which, given that one always defended the city and one always attacked it, was extremely annoying.

If you decide to return, you should consider joining the Talon, Fist, or no faction at all. They are much more likely to be amenable to your preferred playstyle.

I'm not sure why the afterlife of an amazing character is turning into you giving him crap Edoras but here's my two pence worth. IC conflicts between factions don't always have to be light vs darkie. Dulrik's even noted that to my knowledge, could be wrong, but I am pretty sure that's the generalized idea it's not team lightie vs team darkie. Just like the same as people in the same faith can go around pking each other because so and so believes this and so and so thinks that. I ran into a similar issue back when I had my Keeper leader and the Hammer so the whole, Hammer not always acting in the best interest rp goes back a long ways.
It's a matter of tactics and player choices. What each player has their character values will change and as a result they will play their leader a different way. The whole this is the way sk must run ideas are great!, but not everyone agrees and I'm sorry, not many people are going to bow to a system that says rp can not be stretched or changed. If it was we may as well go play WoW or something else. "Breaking" sk is more fun than winning it. If I came back to this game and was playing the same tired old bs, I'd be right back out the door.