Background story // Gods

Everything about Illarion that fits nowhere else. / Alles über Illarion was inhaltlich in kein anderes Board passt.

Moderator: Gamemasters

Post Reply
User avatar
Mr. Cromwell
Posts: 1876
Joined: Wed Oct 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: All over the place.

Background story // Gods

Post by Mr. Cromwell »

Hey

I felt the need to open this discussion to basically gauge the opinions and feelings of the players about gods and background story. PLEASE NO TECHNICAL STUFF; This is not the issue here. The issue is whether you are given enough/relevant information and whether stuff makes sense or not, in your opinion as a player.

How would you describe the background story and pantheon of Illarion?

Do you feel that either of the two is relevant to the game in any large degree? How does this show itself?

Do you feel that you are given enough relevant information? If not, what is missing?

Is either the background story or pantheon of Illarion lacking something? Would something require official clarification?

Any other meaningful comment?


Please note, that this is not an official thing, but rather I'm as a player interested in how the community feels about these things.
User avatar
Estralis Seborian
Posts: 12308
Joined: Wed Nov 10, 2004 9:14 pm
Location: Sir Postalot
Contact:

Post by Estralis Seborian »

I'll give you a quick answer to inspire others to write more than me ;-):

Q: How would you describe the background story and pantheon of Illarion?

A: The background story, if you mean the "official" history and the description of the main land is lame, pointless, irrelevant but still inspiring and creative. It is generic and plotted but at the same time, leaves room for one's own ideas. Sadly, it has nothing to do with Gobaith or the game we play.

The Pantheon is rather generic, but covers the basics. It lacks some evil dudes you still honour, like Cherga. It is fine enough for me.

Q: Do you feel that either of the two is relevant to the game in any large degree? How does this show itself?

A: I give this a clear "NO". Neither the gods nor the background story plays any role, apart from what the players try to realize. Most NPCs do not even know any god nor is there any evidence of any main land faction/site/guild/whatever within the game content. Without our players, neither the gods nor the background would be part of this game AT ALL.

Q: Do you feel that you are given enough relevant information? If not, what is missing?

I am given too much irrelevant informations. There is not even a single official page about the history of Gobaith before the first settlers arrived or what even made them come to Gobaith. The history and setting of the game itself is not present, most informations deal with "Albarians invaded Lor Angur 1028 years ago".

Q: Is either the background story or pantheon of Illarion lacking something? Would something require official clarification?

Yeah, it lacks a summary. I mean, who wants to read all this stuff? You don't create atmosphere if you describe events that took place a thousand years ago, a thousand miles away in the style of a 8th grade history book. This game needs a living background, the background should be present in the game content as myths, rumours, ruins, sites, inscriptions, tales,...

Q: Any other meaningful comment?

Skim background plz.
User avatar
Juliana D'cheyne
Posts: 1643
Joined: Sat Jan 06, 2007 9:14 am
Contact:

Post by Juliana D'cheyne »

How would you describe the background story and pantheon of Illarion?

I had no idea there were two moons until a couple of years ago reading about it on a forum thread. I STILL don't know how Gobaith was settled originally. As far as I know only mages look at the background story in relation to Lor-Angur.

The Pantheon is sufficiently generic to inspire creative thinking yet I do feel there should be more evil influences... I look at it each time I make a char for reference.

Do you feel that either of the two is relevant to the game in any large degree? How does this show itself?

There are not too many chars in game don't have one or more gods they worship, or mentions the "gods" at some point so I would say not related except to the RPers as far as the game itself except for the altars. If the background was a little more readible I think would be more relevant in game.

Do you feel that you are given enough relevant information? If not, what is missing?

I have played games that has had extensive long backgrounds going over ever small detail, and the PO was expected to RP accordingly not allowing variation. In my opinion that negates creative thinking and roleplaying to a large extent. Background wise- I would like to have more a summary, generalization as far as origins of Gobaith. The Pantheon, I like the idea of the gods in general and hope we keep yet I don't think it makes much difference if the names or description changes.

Is either the background story or pantheon of Illarion lacking something? Would something require official clarification?

A general description of the mainland and "world" example "Gobaith is an island first inhabited by ((whoever)) from the mainland in ((whatever date)). "The world has one sun and two moons" inhabited by ((number)) of races.

Any other meaningful comment?

(at the moment no)
User avatar
AlexRose
Posts: 4790
Joined: Sat Oct 22, 2005 8:18 pm
Location: Megajiggawhat?

Post by AlexRose »

I think a lot of the time in the magic scene we're like.. making a theory. Then we ask if that theory is correct and they're like "Oh you can say whatever theories you like!"

But then when those theories actually decide how you react to something (say magical fire. Does it cause mental pain or does it physically burn your body? I roleplay that it causes mental pain. Now if someone else roleplays that it physically burns you) how are we meant to know how to react?
User avatar
rakust dorenstkzul
Posts: 2300
Joined: Fri Mar 21, 2008 2:47 pm
Location: In the heart of every smiling child

Re: Background story // Gods

Post by rakust dorenstkzul »

Time to put away the awesomeface and become a vaguely contributive community member.

How would you describe the background story and pantheon of Illarion?
There's a lot of stuff in there, but very, very little that could ever affect a newly created character (I.e, one that's a twenty-something) as Esty said, the majority of it is light, irrelevant, and pointless.

The pantheon too, seems pretty light, in a lot of fantasy pantheons (DnD and the like) There's a series of gods for each race, and while i know that that's completely out of the question, since we'd probably never had a PO for each god, we should elaborate on how each race treats each individual god as opposed to the current broad overview.

On top of that, there should be some really basic, "Everything your character/You should know" part of noobia, stuff like how many moons, what they're called, whether female dwarves have beards, why llamas rock, what's that horn thing lizards have, things like that.

Do you feel that either of the two is relevant to the game in any large degree? How does this show itself?


In terms of background, no, As i've said in the first question, there's very little in the background, you give vague suggestions of what happened without giving the player a strong indication of how it would effect them in the long run.

Along with that religion is 99% seperate from the game and if you were to remove it today, it feels as though the only things it would change would be the name of the temple, some cursewords and there'd be a missing chunk of the library in TB.
There's very few guidelines on how you're supposed to worship any given god, you're given a list of their likes and dislikes and basically told to figure it out from there, which isn't good.

Do you feel that you are given enough relevant information? If not, what is missing?

In the history, since it's all set around a millenia ago, there's not much you can use, i would say that the game needs some more fleshing out within the last 10 years of IG time.

Religion on the other hand is filled with relevant information that only needs a little addition to, in most fantasy pantheons (Phrase of the day) and indeed most of our old polytheistic religions there's a god for everything or there's a demon for everything or a spirit or a sprite or whatever, while i'm not suggesting we go overboard and do that, we should at least let each god have a specifically named group of servants that cover a very specific area, it would help priest RP a lot, and might give the priest system something more to work with.

Alongside that, and while i realise why there isn't any, There needs to be established tenets for the religions, so as to give someone something to stick with when playing a preist/religious char, you can leave the interpretation of each tenet to each character.

Is either the background story or pantheon of Illarion lacking something? Would something require official clarification?


Not really, one thing i'd like to know though, is how a priest of Adron or Nargun would work, since these two gods seem competely against such establishments.

Any other meaningful comment?
Reading the page on the moons was a great example of how it should be done in terms of characters explaining things, things like that would be greatly appreciated.
Also, we need the "recent changes" button back on the wiki.
User avatar
HolyKnight
Posts: 762
Joined: Sat Dec 02, 2006 10:52 am
Contact:

Re: Background story // Gods

Post by HolyKnight »

Mr. Cromwell wrote: ...

Q: How would you describe the background story and pantheon of Illarion?
A: Most might not agree, but I enjoy the background stories. Mainly because of their ambiguity which allows GMs and POs immense freedom. However, I also like the history of how Illarion was formed, the epic of The Great War, and the fall out story of Moshran. Now obviously the pantheon has not been as strong an element to the game as say, magic, but neither was druidism before the engine was equiped to play such characters. ;-)

So, IMO the pantheon will never be part of the core aspects of Illarion until priest magic is created.


Q: Do you feel that either of the two is relevant to the game in any large degree? How does this show itself?
A: As I somewhat explained in the previous question the relevance of the patheon is directly related to what it offers the PO. If following Bragon allows your sword to blister with fire you bet your ass POs would be playing Paladins and the gods would mean something. Certainly some characters ig utilize the history and gods a lot more then others (e.g. elves and orcs) but on the whole, the relevance of the two are not very impactful.

Q: Do you feel that you are given enough relevant information? If not, what is missing?
A: As far as Gobaith goes, hell no, my character as well as myself have tried to figure out as much about the history of Gobaith as possible. It is incredibly difficult, but in a way I like the mysteriousness of the isle. While I think that some mystery would be nice, developing a loose structure and timeline of Gobaith's past would be most beneficial.

Q: Is either the background story or pantheon of Illarion lacking something? Would something require official clarification?
A: I think it is lacking for a reason, like PO Juliana said there are games out there that have very strict background histories and I have always liked the freedom Illa has given. So really the only background story that is too far lacking is Gobaith's.

Q: Any other meaningful comment?
A: Providing validation of the background story is left to the players, it just depends on whether you take the time or not.

...
User avatar
Vern Kron
Posts: 1565
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2007 10:20 pm

Re: Background story // Gods

Post by Vern Kron »

How would you describe the background story and pantheon of Illarion?

I would say it is chaotic. Looking at the background, it flows with.. a little.. decency. But it is clear what the intention was, when it was created. Vague, and mysterious. And its very bendable. And its constantly changing. I think of it like this, that Illarion went through some sort of time.. where everyone forgot the entire past. And they are slowly recovering. And this stuff is only recovered, because it directly relates to troubles happening at that momment.

Do you feel that either of the two is relevant to the game in any large degree? How does this show itself?

Yes, I feel that it is very relevant, if used correctly. A character fresh from the mainland will be very set in their culture, but will slowly be absorbed into the island culture. And in general a lot would be different if the background was not the way it was. The issue stems from when the background CHANGES.

Do you feel that you are given enough relevant information? If not, what is missing?

No. I do not. I feel like there is information there, that is either being intentionally hidden, or has not been translated yet. More over, I feel like that RECENT happenings (Anyone remember Aegohl's last quest, and what the very end was?) should be a part of it. I also think that it ought to look more closely into certain people's lives, behavior, people of interest. Things that people can use to drop names. Such as Princes, Kings, Noticed Nobles, and so forth.

Is either the background story or pantheon of Illarion lacking something? Would something require official clarification?

Are the Gods for real gone? What happened in the past that got each other the younger gods chosen? How did the cities form? What began the conflicts?

Any other meaningful comment?

Information needs to be shared, and other things developed. And there needs to be more hrm.. agreement. Even if its an agreement to disagree.
User avatar
Enwell van Illdoran
Posts: 627
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2006 11:28 am
Location: Aristo-cat

Re: Background story // Gods

Post by Enwell van Illdoran »

How would you describe the background story and pantheon of Illarion?
Very Useful, but very unused. I sign that statement that Gobaith has not much to do with it. When i first started playing i didn't read most of it, just some info about elves and humans.

Do you feel that either of the two is relevant to the game in any large degree? How does this show itself?
It has lost its relevance due to our laziness.
Do you feel that you are given enough relevant information? If not, what is missing?
Most things are still in Damiens head, who wrote a lot of it. I remember asking him a lot of questions about the backround, and always got a very useful and detailed description of most things. Buit i never found a lot of those infos in the written thing.

Is either the background story or pantheon of Illarion lacking something? Would something require official clarification?
Both.
Any other meaningful comment?

I think the biggest problem is that the backround is used by noone, staffside and gmside..

I almost never participated in a quest that really used the backround. I used it a lot back in my questing days, actually with every Quest.

I mean, even our Salkamarian Prince screwed up in the first place, not being really salkamarian and still not really fitting to it.
User avatar
Rincewind
Posts: 1960
Joined: Tue Mar 11, 2008 10:40 am
Location: schroedingersbox.org
Contact:

Post by Rincewind »

Tha last week i searched in the wiki, I wasn' able to find the history of Illarion. (just the one about the gods.)
User avatar
Estralis Seborian
Posts: 12308
Joined: Wed Nov 10, 2004 9:14 pm
Location: Sir Postalot
Contact:

Post by Estralis Seborian »

User avatar
Faladron
Posts: 1139
Joined: Thu May 05, 2005 3:52 pm
Location: Ich warte auf NIX

Re: Background story // Gods

Post by Faladron »

Mr. Cromwell wrote:Hey
Hiya!
Mr. Cromwell wrote: How would you describe the background story and pantheon of Illarion?
It's nice and underused. Gods do not realy have much going for them right now besides "I'm a crafter, guess I'll tell everyone I pray to Irmorom." "I'm sneaky, I pray to Ronagan." whilst the HOW of this worshipping doesn't stand anywhere (or is realy acted out by many characters).
Personally though, I think it's up to some player to step up and write a How-to on preachings and teachings, same with fleshing out the rest of the background story.

If you want to have more clearification about something, try to write about it yourself, weave it into the roleplay of your character (stay reasonable) then publish it and see how public accepts it. I recall lots of people actually talking about that book about the elven magic princess a lot simply because it was one of the sparse books in-game at that point in time currently.

As soon as content is added, people will use it in their roleplay.
Mr. Cromwell wrote: Do you feel that either of the two is relevant to the game in any large degree? How does this show itself?
Yes absolutely. Having an largely undefined background and pantheon gives EVERY player the opportunity to write something reasonable and worthwhile (either about background, fleshing out some places on the map that nobody knows about (i.e. some settlement of <race here> near <geographical point of interrest on the worldmap> where <event that you contributed to lore now> happened). It's a great mechanic to inspire people to write their own stories (which is what roleplay is all about in the first place),
compared to a strict corset of a realy fixed background.
Mr. Cromwell wrote: Do you feel that you are given enough relevant information? If not, what is missing?
A "political" worldmap would be good, showing the current state of powers on it. I for one do not know whether the halfling villages for example are part of Salkamar or Albar (background hints towards Salkamar) or are independant alltogether.

By that I don't mean every spot on the map should now have a certain and named rulership assigned towards it, you can have large portions of the map just show "Disputed" or "Unknown" to leave places for people to write their own stories (see above).

But the big and thusfar named factions should have their borders visible for everyone to know.
Mr. Cromwell wrote: Is either the background story or pantheon of Illarion lacking something? Would something require official clarification?
Borders, see above. I think it's better to stay lenient about what to set in-stone in the background, more myths, legends and rumors would be nice but what's keeping players from making up names, conflicts, heroes and more and add it to the background on a first-come first-published basis.
Mr. Cromwell wrote: Any other meaningful comment?
Cromwell is awesome?
Mr. Cromwell wrote: Please note, that this is not an official thing, but rather I'm as a player interested in how the community feels about these things.
It's alright. Only realy manly men are able to show and express their feelings and interrests openly.
User avatar
Miklorius
Posts: 963
Joined: Thu Feb 09, 2006 3:10 pm
Location: Germany

Post by Miklorius »

There is quite a lot of background (if you can obtain it from the Illapedia; not everything in translated from German), but much of it covers more general descriptions (which isn't bad) or veeery old happenings. That's the greatest problem with all the information: It's often not relevant to the actual IG life (or the information in the Illapedia/elsewhere is not up-to-date).

It's not that bad that there are "gaps" in the background information, because players can fill them then. It would be e.g. a nice situation, when followers of the same god clash with each other because they worship in a different way.

I don't know if it's necessary to have some ongoing happenings on the mainland. Well, as it was mentioned above: Even big events on Gobaith aren't really noticed (absence of gods?!)...
User avatar
Kevin Lightdot
Posts: 2849
Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 8:17 pm
Location: Green again

Post by Kevin Lightdot »

How would you describe the background story and pantheon of Illarion?
The descriptions of the gods themselves on the main page are enough, but the history and background is kind of long.
The history of the gods part is just do-able, but the mortals part really needs a shorter version.

Do you feel that either of the two is relevant to the game in any large degree? How does this show itself?
There's not much ingame for it aside from the names for some places noone ever cared really cared about.
Noone really plays much according to any godly stuff either, if I were to run into Trollsbane and yell "MOSHRAN FOR PRESIDENT!" Noone'd care, while if I said "ORCS FOR PRESIDENT!" some people might try to yell at me for it. And when people do play according to any godly stuff, many people go like "Ok you like Moshran, I still like you even though I hate everything you stand for."

Background&history: Totally unused, exept for a certain fat dwarf. :P

Do you feel that you are given enough relevant information? If not, what is missing?
There is too much information spread out that doesn't matter, filter out the things that most people won't use (over9000 years ago somedude beat otherguy because he wanted his fish)
and put all that matters on a few pages it'll be a whole lot easier.
You can keep the old detailed stories elsewhere too, but we could use a shortened version.

Is either the background story or pantheon of Illarion lacking something? Would something require official clarification?
Pantheon is fine, but it could do with some more representation ingame. Maybe specific gods could have some specific quests, like "Go on a pilgrimage to see the holy whatever of someone hidden in the mountain of the giant cookie.", that gives you a nice item(like water of Irundar but more permanent, maybe even indestructable, or you can obtain a new one every x weeks.), but makes you unable to do other god quests. Or altars giving specific bonusses to characters for a week(or day, if the altars are pretty easily accessable), but only one each week, and as long as people stick to their character and don't go worship the great laz0rshark just because he gives you a nice sword it should be fine.

History needs to clean his room and throw out the empty cola bottles.

Any other meaningful comment?
ARITFB (Alex Rose is the friggin' best)
rakust dorenstkzul wrote:the game
Damn you you fat dwarf D:
Damien
Posts: 7845
Joined: Thu Feb 22, 2001 5:59 pm
Location: Vanima and grey Refuge, of course.
Contact:

Post by Damien »

Side comment w. suggestion:
In the original (first) sketch by Nanuk and me, we were talking bout a pantheon of possibly much more gods, even fractions amongst those, or two to three main gods with lots of unimportant side-deities. But that attempt was stopped by the majority of the staff before we could even think about actual names. They said: MAXIMALLY ten gods. We haggled em up a bit and cheated with the three (usually unused) evil immortals for "more badguys"...
But the decision was done with good reason : Look at the gods we have now, keep in mind that i's not all "black-and-white"-painted (on purpose, every god has his/her good and bad sides, something Aegohl wanted to underline with his quest), and realize that NOT HALF OF THEM have EVER been used by players. Mainly because the overview (which exists !) isn't looked at too often.
I also think that the background doesn't need more gods. And if you REALLY want more of the "good and evil" / "black and white" scheme you find everywhere else, just declare some gods as purely good and treat the three evil immortals as gods as well. :wink:

As for the island : It has been settled first by the NPCs/Eliza and the players, in the year 0 (start of the game). Before, it was unexplored and unknown land - for millenias. The intention was that every "history" of the island is made by the players.
For quest and plot reasons, there have been tiny settlements millenias before, like the mummy ruins, but that is nothing the actual known world history knows of - martin or nitram may still have a small scheme about stuff related to archaeology. By the way, a tiny element of this appears ingame : Ancient, archaeological and usually very unknown cultures are referred to as "Yr" - cultures, and sometimes, you find a treasure map left of those that is guarded by big, mystical beasts. So an "Yr"-treasure usually contains a few items with archaeological and usually magical value.

As for the storyline : You might have seen that it only covers things before 1000 years before 0. That's because that concept would have become too long-ish and too boring, and too "dead", if covering the WHOLE past for each and every town. It only serves for the "faraway"- past that does not need to be known by every person at all. It also served as a far-back-wireframe for the town and places descriptions to be built on - the description of the "closer" past may appear in the description of the town itself, depending on if the event was of interest to the world or not (most are not translated yet, mainly because noone wanted to do it and i gave up on finding helpers for something that's not used anyway). So much for that. ;)
User avatar
Aegohl
Posts: 2568
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2005 12:17 pm

Post by Aegohl »

Damien wrote: Look at the gods we have now, keep in mind that i's not all "black-and-white"-painted (on purpose, every god has his/her good and bad sides, something Aegohl wanted to underline with his quest),
I think one thing that is lacking ingame is people bring their scientific minds with them when they need to be sending them on vacation. They need to adopt a magickal worldview. In a magickal worldview, magick is a normal and natural thing and in fact everything is magick as much as everything that is magickal is natural.

Let me take the earlier example of magickal fire. In dungeons and dragons, which often makes the mistake of trying to explain magick to a scientific mind, magickal fire doesn't continue to burn, because it's magick fire, not real fire. To a medieval mind, magick *is* real. So magick fire burns because fire is magick no matter the source.

That being said, dungeons and dragons gave us another wallop by separating magick into the arcane and the divine. However, to medieval thought all magick is divine (or else it is infernal). Not just all magick, but everything. When you sit down to eat you thank the gods for the bounty at your table; however, when you starve you ask the gods why they forsake you. So let's apply that thought to our gods.

Sirani is the goddess you pray to for blessings upon your marriage. She's also the goddess that gave you syphilis for your whoring and your mistreating of women. She's the goddess that women use the name of to call for curses upon men who spurned them. She's the goddess of the old hag who stalks into town at night and cuts off the penises of sleeping men to get revenge for her lover who was slain by jealous men so many decades ago.

Because of her relationship with the lizardmen, Zelphia is seen as a goddess of watchful, protective mothers. So it's no surprise that the mother who prepares to poison a man who is rumored the murderer of her son says a silent prayer under her breath to Zelphia.

Outside a burning village the conquering barbarian tribe remains. There they dance and sing praises to Adron in the nude, as they gulp down wine from massive golden chalices. The party will continue well into the next night, when the village's stores of wine will be depleted, and a new village will be chosen to be sacked.

I would imagine that for every god there are a several dozen books on dogma for them, and none of them agree. Who is right? No one but the god knows, and gods certainly aren't like men. Is it possible that all are right? Or more likely none are right. The truth is well beyond our ken.
User avatar
Jupiter
Developer
Posts: 3477
Joined: Sun May 28, 2006 11:23 am

Post by Jupiter »

Aegohl wrote:I think one thing that is lacking ingame is people bring their scientific minds with them when they need to be sending them on vacation.
Right! That is, at least in my eyes, a major problem.

But in attention to that (even if slightly off-topic):
They also bring their democratic, (pseudo)enlightened minds with them.
User avatar
Milo Bottoms
Posts: 31
Joined: Sat Jan 16, 2010 3:21 pm
Location: 28.30.29, -81.16.5

Depth of Roleplay.

Post by Milo Bottoms »

-Describe background and Pantheon.-
Both are detailed enough for the "average" roleplayer to use.

-Are they relevant to roleplay?-
The relevance of history and the pantheon cannot be overstated. History should ideally be the engine that drives the society forward. The current state of a culture can only be described in terms of it's past. New history is being written everyday. The true roleplayer will not only know some history but will be able to apply it in terms of what is happening at that moment in the game.
As for the relevance of the pantheon? Illarion is a medieval society that remains polytheistic. There is no real world historical frame of reference for players to draw from. In polytheistic societies Religion was omnipresent. Very little was done in daily life that was NOT directly tied to religion. The clergy and the political leadership were deeply intertwined.
Once the "real world" had reached the medieval age religion had become monotheistic but it was still very deeply entrenched in the politics of the day. On Gobaith people pay lip-service to religion but it has little or no real relevance.
Anarius came to town but there has been no mention of religion in his life. Without Priests/Monks as viable characters this will continue. If they are indeed brought to life in the VBU things are going to get weird. Suddenly priests and monks will begin popping out of the woodwork at an astounding rate. Without any foreknowledge of how they operate
it's very difficult to RP one at the present. In other places the healing cleric ( I think that is what ours will be?) plays a very important role in the game.
-Are we given enough relevant information?-
Historically yes.
Religion? The relevance of the pantheon will change dramatically when the Cleric character arrives. Will the clerical powers be specific to certain Gods? What the cleric will be able to do will determine his/her role in the game. Healing is already in the hands of magic users. Will Clerics just duplicate this power? Gobaith is overrun with undead in many different forms. Will clerics have the ability to deal with them? It would seem to be an important role for them to play. The mere existence of undead is a direct affront to most religions. To others it is an important tenet of that religion. If you have "evil" Gods in your pantheon you will have "evil" clerics. But here again we have magic users that summon undead. More duplicated powers?
The cleric's ability to "turn" undead at different levels would seem to be taken for granted. The importance of the pantheon is,or should be, at one with the powers of the cleric. Right now the pantheon is of little or no relevance.
-Do we need clarification?-
History not really. Religion? If the VBU brings the cleric character then the pantheon will have to be rewritten at length.
-Comment-
The whole pantheon/cleric question is up in the air. Nobody can make any intelligent choices until more information is available. Sister Seori is making a valiant effort with her charity and I applaud her for it. Brother Milo on the other hand is fighting an uphill battle. Trying to rebuild a monastery that has no meaningful place in the community and is of little or no interest or importance to anyone but him. He does speak daily with Eldan about this but as always,Eldan remains silent.
Would it be possible for us to know any anything about the cleric before the VBU? Something to allow people to be prepared for when/if clerical power arrives?
User avatar
Nalzaxx
Posts: 1234
Joined: Mon Aug 22, 2005 7:14 pm
Location: In Ethereal Thoughts

Post by Nalzaxx »

Pray to the Plague.
User avatar
King Udan Trollbane
Posts: 109
Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2009 6:43 am
Location: Farmers Union/Arena outside TB

Post by King Udan Trollbane »

Eldan? You got it all wrong, you should be talkin' to Ushara!
Elias S.
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Nov 25, 2009 6:56 pm

Re: Background story // Gods

Post by Elias S. »

Please read until the end before you flame me. :)
Mr. Cromwell wrote:
How would you describe the background story and pantheon of Illarion?

The background story stops approximately 1500 years before the events that take place ingame, with having about 95% of the player characters being less dann 200 years old that doesn't give anyone a good basis for a background story. There are rarely any recent events described and if there are any (quest like) they can only be read on the forums where stuff happens to disappear into oblivion quite quickly. The player gets to know nothing about the mainland events at the moment, he/she rather gets the impression the mainland is completely peaceful, there are no border problems between the great empires and all the dangerous and thrilling events take place on Gobaith.

The pantheon has everything it needs, although the gods only get a few lines of description. Almost every player character has more exciting and powerful stories than all the gods together, which makes them look awfully boring and leads to not using them. If however someone comes up and tells people something about a certain god, he/she can be sure of being corrected ig and ooc about how wrong he/she sees the certain deity.
Also, Moshran is always the bad guy and sends hordes of undead to the land of the mortals, which are then bashed. If I was him, I would throw in the towel and become the god of resignation, because that's what he will mostly be already.


Do you feel that either of the two is relevant to the game in any large degree? How does this show itself?

It is not, because it doesn't have to be. What is given to the players is simply not relevant to the game, so why use it? Some rp the gods very good, but they are not rewarded, unless someone who also likes playing god-rp comes along and tells everyone via "whos rp did you like today" how much fun it has been. And afterwards he/she is killed by undead spawned by Moshran, or by a lunatic archwizard/farmer/tailor-char, following Malachin at first, but now following Bjolmur, because he found an advertising text of her on the board, thinking it sounded really cool.

Do you feel that you are given enough relevant information? If not, what is missing?

Recent events, if that is what is really wanted to influence the ig-life.

Any other meaningful comment?

The question is whether change is really wanted, or not. No matter how much you write into the Illapedia, it is not required to read it. There is a way to make people do that, but that way was already tried out here in the past and was abandoned. Character story and so on. Actually, despite the name check, the game is back at the roots when it comes to character creation: Put in name, arrange attributes, go! That has some nice side effects, and some bad ones. You get a lot of quantity, but you will lose quality. More specifically spoken, you lose the control over the players. No one wants to watch all the people ingame all day to make sure everyone plays along with the background story and to make sure the characters don't change their minds every two minutes.

So if you'd really want to give the game more background story, you should consider the following:

1. Give the mainland a recent history with some events NOT affecting Gobaith maybe, so the mainland looks alive and like a place where people could actually come from.
2. Overhaul the gods descriptions, because they are mainly the same ones they were in pre-java times. Give them more than a few lines and give them stories of prominent followers, which then can be maybe used in ingame quests so people can say "Know what, I met the champion of Ronagan yesterday!" while having a beer in tavern. Any maybe give them a neat picture. Will that take away some room for interpretation and imagination? Yes. Will it be easier to identify with the certain deity and help people respecting it? Hell yes.
3. Apply a test before creating a new account, or even better, before creating every new character! There once was an automatic test if I remember correctly, so no one had to check the answers even. But it makes people take a look at the background story and the gods. Maybe even ask the question "Which god does your character favour most?" That information shall be non-binding ingame then, but it will make people ask "wtf there are gods in this game?"

And in the end know that the harsh stuff above was ment to be a bit funny, too. The game is 'good' as it is, but if you want more background which you actually control (and not the players alone) this might be a way to achieve it. :)

User avatar
Arvemor
Posts: 599
Joined: Tue Jul 14, 2009 3:36 pm

Post by Arvemor »

Yes, please do the test! It sounded like such a good idea, and when I first heard of it a while back I wondered why it was taken out...It sounds like it acts like a filter. That way, (if it's well-written) you won't have any reason to talk about players without well-textured roleplay, or how they know nothing of the story. A test would be awesome!
User avatar
Anon of D'Athen
Posts: 175
Joined: Sun May 31, 2009 6:39 pm
Location: The Middle Kingdom

Post by Anon of D'Athen »

Yes, we defiantly need more description for the gods. I agree it would make it much easier to identify with them and then be able to actually RP being religious, which nearly ALL people were in times medieval and before.
And please, please bring back the test. I arrived when one had to write a paragraph or two and LOVED it. IT made me feel the game would have quality, and at the time, it DID. Even if we only used the multiple choice test that was around for a while, its better than nothing IMHO.
User avatar
Estralis Seborian
Posts: 12308
Joined: Wed Nov 10, 2004 9:14 pm
Location: Sir Postalot
Contact:

Post by Estralis Seborian »

No test, no application until we have at least five time the players, compared to now.
Elias S.
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Nov 25, 2009 6:56 pm

Post by Elias S. »

Is there already a work-in-progress situation concerning the Illarion pantheon behind the scenes? If not, or if it is only rough, I could overhaul the descriptions and post them under Proposals... just asking because I don't want to spend time into it and then just get a "we are already working on that and have certain and specific ideas we want to implement already" :)
User avatar
Estralis Seborian
Posts: 12308
Joined: Wed Nov 10, 2004 9:14 pm
Location: Sir Postalot
Contact:

Post by Estralis Seborian »

Currently, nobody is working on the gods' description. The current state is here:

http://illarion.org/illarion/goetter/us_bck_10.php

or

http://illarion.org/community/wiki/index.php/Gods
User avatar
Dyluck
Posts: 2354
Joined: Wed Aug 08, 2001 9:32 am
Location: The Future
Contact:

Post by Dyluck »

Just to throw it out there, personally I have a story that I came up with about the Younger Gods when they were still mortals and how they were ascended. It describes their personal motivations, complex relationships and key events that would cause some of them to actually hate each other, and shape the way they act and their themes as gods. But a more detailed background for the past would probably only be useful for reading purposes anyways. I think the general theme of each god is already clear enough to easily associate various people, places, or things, with them.

Again, what I think you really need is just more representation of the gods and their themes, such as by having more regular monthly festivals, temples or landmarks, religious quotes, and mythical creatures or artifacts with a short story on their origin and connection to the gods. I actually had some ideas on the latter as well. Most of my material were originally part of my idea for a prequel to LOI, but they're of no use to me now, and I think it would still be useful as stand alone material.
Post Reply