Shattered Kingdoms

Hello friends. Today, I would like to start a conversation about the current arrangement of the various factions on SK.

Let me start this off with a very simple TLDR. The current "spread" of factions, drastically favors Light Aura characters.

Now, you may think I am simply here to talk about the mechanical benefits (of which there is certainly a conversation to be had there, in regards to what the fist/hammer offer characters vs what the MC/Crux offers them), but no. That is not the focus of this thread. If someone else wants to start that conversation, feel free.

I am here to complain about the Roleplaying impact that the current spread of factions has.

The crux of the matter here is very simple. It makes perfect sense for Hammer + Fist characters to join the Peacekeepers, the only light aura tribunal. It does not make perfect sense for the Crucible + Harlequins to join the Legion, the only dark aura tribunal. And the reason is pretty obvious. The Legion already has a cabal 100% intertwined with it, and there was never supposed to be a 'Legion' in the first place. It is Legion+MC.

So now, you are stuck trying to force the squares of Harlies and Crucible characters, into the circle of the Legion, because they have literally no other option on the game and are putting themselves at a severe disadvantage by not being in a tribunal.

Which further means, that the Legion, the tribunal of the Empire, is stuck with characters who...RP-wise, really don't make sense to be in it. Complete wildcards and baby murdering blood cultists.

These characters can't go Talon, because the Talon, I am led to understand, now has a bunch of restrictions on its membership.

And really at the end of the day, it doesn't make a lot of sense for Harlequins or Crucible to be in the current Talon anyways.

Something needs to give, here, I think. As this issue causes a pretty serious degradation of RP integrity, IMO.

I don't really have any great ideas here, but two I've considered are...

1) Axe the Legion. It goes bye bye. Make the MC a cabunal again. There is no PC Legion. Just Imperial Elite. Give them leadership back. Midnight Plate, Phalanx, and Shield Wall are such...non-abilities due to their restrictions, that the cabal having leadership isn't exactly game breaking.

Darkies need a more "chaotic evil" or "chaotic neutral" kingdom, for blood cultists and joker wannabes. Northern Wastes, Uxmal Trib, or complete rework of Zhenshi.

2) A complete rework of Zhenshi to make it more grey/evil to at least permit some of these characters in it. As it stands, the Talons are such a...non-Faction, that I don't even think anybody would even notice.

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What do you guys think? And does anybody have any other thoughts?

This is inaccurate about the Talons. The Talons are restricted against anarchist and diabolic characters, not against Harlequin or Crucible characters. An unprincipled Harlequin or aberrant Crucible, for example, could join the Talons, and many have. This may not alter your overarching point very much, because a lot of Crucible RP has historically been diabolical in nature and a lot of Harlequin RP has historically been anarchist in nature, but in the interest of being factual, you can roll Harlequin/Talon and Crucible/Talon characters. These, and even Druid/Talon, are obviously nowhere near as great a RP or thematic fit as Midnight/Legion or Hammer/Peacekeeper. Those factions are built to go together, and there is no perfect Cabal/Tribunal pairing for grey auras.

Personally I like the idea of both Midnight and Hammer as cabunals. Crucible, Druid, Fist, and Harlequin could join the Talons if they want, or forgo joining a tribunal if they prefer that. Part of the issue here is there are only two light-aura alignments and three each for grey and dark auras. If there were a "chaotic good" alignment, Talon membership would be restricted against that. The asymmetry in alignment distribution results in this asymmetry of membership restrictions in the Talons.

Thank you for clarifying that.

I think the issue kind of boils down to that the current state of things has almost wholly boiled down to "good v bad", "east v west". Which....I think, after a handful of years, is starting to get kind of stale? Or is beyond stale at this point, really.

Especially when there are no real changes based on the results of these wars.

The RP around these wars is boring, and uninteresting, because it's just...on repeat. Over and over, and they don't even really matter. And it's hard to do any RP about /stopping/ the war because, well...what other PVP routes are there? Are you going to go declare war on the 2 Druids or the dead Talon?

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On a bit of a tangent, I wonder if perhaps the immbase has any opinions on what the players could do to try and keep the world a bit more interesting?

The east vs west stuff has become stale. I don't think it is any secret I have been pushing for an Ayamao revival. If this every did happen, big if I know, it could open up some possibilities. MC merges with the legion again making the empire whole. I believe that makes the east way more appealing . Then, there are two other options. Or both. Aghelia can get some love or the Talon could have a shift in stance where they could become grey leaning dark. A very orderly EYE kind of trib.

I personally don't see the Talon having any appeal to people in its current state. It's mainly there for trib revival for people who get in a pinch from what I can tell. When it comes to politics and/or war and pk, they are just kind of...there?

I would love to see some changes happen to change the static political landscape of sk. I agree with TacoRobot that it has become quite stale. This isn't anything I haven't said before though, and I'll keep doing my part to help broaden these horizons.

I would like to see Zhenshi lean heavy toward Ain-Eye and continue to reject anarchists/diabolics. I think the existing RP supports this, and converts the tribunal to be more grey-evil.

Its usually a bad thing for a Harlequin to join the Talons because they dont help to maintain order, they create create chaos.

Its usually a bad thing for a Crucible to join the Talons because it draws the ire of the Light.

I think Talons should be restricted to greybies only making it a stronghold for greybies. Not past, but present and future. They rule themselves by their own presence and autonomy and we should forget this Ain-centric tribunal nonsense.

No one expects greybies to rule themselves because they are not the good-hearted folks of the Light. They dont have the discipline to rule with an iron fist like the Dark. Long-term, I want Talons to be a powerhouse to provide Lighties vs greybies and Darkies vs greybies RP motivated actions, so it can respected as an organization. Because right now greybies are side-characters to Light vs Dark.

In conclusion, Talons is a b#### organization that doesn't fit into most cabal RP.

I'd like to bring up another topic here.

Currently, you can join every Cabal on SK while levelling a new char, and largely go unharassed unless somebody really wants to be a douchebag.

Wait, sorry. Every Cabal on SK except...The Midnight Council, for which you first need to join the Tribunal, and get slapped with a giant LGN next to your name on the who list.

And in the current state of SK "our factions are at war" seems to be the ONE acceptable road of minimal-RP PKing.

This also sort of unfairly exacerbates the level requirement thing that isn't supposed to exist for joining factions. You're not supposed to NEED to be GM before you join your cabal. And if you join the Hammer/Fist/etc you are able to...benefit from your cabal skills and enjoy cabal RP while your character is still fresh and learning the world.

Not the MC though. You better be GM and done mastering skills and doing mundane [REDACTED], or you are going to get run down within IC bounds because of your LGN tag.

I don't really expect this to change right now, or anything, but I did feel this needed to be addressed.