Underdark General Discussion Thread

[Aelcar]

[ Maecius edit: This post was edited because it was in response to an earlier post, which violated forum rule #3: ]

[ "3. If you have an issue with any other player or member of the staff OOC or ICly, do not post about it on the forums, instead use personal messages to solve it." ]

[Hitman Hard]

[ Maecius edit: This post was edited because it was in response to an above post, which violated forum rule #3: ]

[ "3. If you have an issue with any other player or member of the staff OOC or ICly, do not post about it on the forums, instead use personal messages to solve it." ]

[Aelcar]

[ Maecius edit: This post was edited because it was in response to an above post, which violated forum rule #3: ]

[ "3. If you have an issue with any other player or member of the staff OOC or ICly, do not post about it on the forums, instead use personal messages to solve it." ]

[mireigi]

Can we stop the bickering before the thread gets locked? If you want to sling mud and yell at eachother like children, please go to Facebook instead and start a group chat or take it to PMs to settle your differences.

[Aelcar]

Can we stop the bickering before the thread gets locked? If you want to sling mud and yell at eachother like children, please go to Facebook instead and start a group chat or take it to PMs to settle your differences.

No. We settle them here. And ad hominen get moderated, as it (do-me) should be.

Even ad hominem against DMs.

If you think complaining about ad hominem on these forums (which are a clear violation of the rules) is "bickering like children", you are sorely mistaken.

The standards here are in the toilet.

[DM_Xzar]

The next post had better be about the Underdark. I don't want to see any more personal attacks.

[mireigi]

There were a lot of discussion back and forth on the first three pages of this topic about how to meassure ones standing within Sshamath. Was this ever settled as being "the way to go", or is standing more arbitrary and no longer used in the constant powerstruggles?

[pattu]

Well there is at least one faern still active who is not in Lolth's webbed pocket. Though currently a charmed follower of a certain faction, Cal is active and will fight to keep the conclave standing!

I wanted to make a post about the current events and share my thoughts. I feel the one of the most powerful entities on the server, the conclave, is being ignored. And its a darn shame. The only thing more fun than a cranky wizard is a cranky drow wizard. And to understand the power of the conclave and why every player character in Sshamath should fear them, I always go back to this quote.

I ran the campaign that created some of this strife and secular conflict but I will tell you this..... Sshamath's conclave has the means to terminate every religious institution in the city if it comes to open violence. It is as simple as turning on a switch.

((Page 20 of UD General Discussion))


Rest easy my Lolthlite friends

[Aelcar]

There were a lot of discussion back and forth on the first three pages of this topic about how to meassure ones standing within Sshamath. Was this ever settled as being "the way to go", or is standing more arbitrary and no longer used in the constant powerstruggles?

This is a very important point, thanks for raising it.

Sshamath is not the BG of the UD. The Conclave is not made of illuminated renaissance L/N individuals or anything.

The original "lore" Conclave was formed by 11 Drow Wizards. 8 Are Chaotic Evil, one is Lawful Evil, one is Neutral Evil and one is a Chaotic Evil VAMPIRE. There is no "Menzoberranzan/Ched Nasad are evil environments, but here...": the Conclave is formed by TRUE Drow. They plot against each other and assassinate people like flies.

The city is a magocracy, so the usual theocratic environment of the typical Drow society is absent in the lore. Given the recent two years of intense roleplay, the Conclave has two new members: 7th Circle's Grandmaster Ilphryssin Arkentlar, an Archmage and convinced atheist, more aligned with the rest of the group, as well as Bel'iira Sshamath, who gives the Lolthite faction a decent relevance so that they can have an RP niche and occasionally work with the rulers of the city, when their objectives meet.

TO DISAMBIGUATE THE "TRADE CITY" SITUATION: "Sshamathans are both welcoming of outsiders and xenophobic. The city's culture is steeped in fear of conquest, yet Sshamath's continued existence depends on the steady flow of Underdark traders bringing in goods for its inhabitants' artifice. This conflict enables all races to visit Sshamath, even traditional drow foes, yet ensures that such visitors are only superficially welcomed and always under great, unspoken suspicion." This means: you annoy the Drow, you disappear. Dont fool yourselves into thinking somebody cares, because nobody does. (Also, it's extremely easy to annoy the Drow. Can be that your nose is too short, too long or too medium...)

ON THE CONTACTS AND RELATIONSHIP WITH SURFACE TRADERS:
"Despite its role as an Underdark trading center, Sshamath is surprisingly hard to reach from the surface. While a few routes shorter than hundreds of miles connect Sshamath to the surface, the most common way to reach the city from the surface is teleportation magic, a consequence of the complete absence of faerzress near Sshamath. However, teleport requires the wizard to either visit the target location or scry it first. The first restraint is self-limiting, while the second is made difficult by the near total lack on the surface as to even the general location of the city. In addition, teleportation restricts the volume of trade goods that can be ferried into or out of the city. As a result, Sshamath has very little commerce with the Realms Above.
The most important and direct route from the surface is Varalla's Passage. Completed by the Lich Queen at the behest of the Conclave of Sshamath, this route promises to one day open the legendary markets of Sshamath to the Realms Above. Sememmon discovered Varalla's Passage in the Year of the Griffon (1312 DR), but kept it secret from all but his most trusted apprentices. Within days of the destruction of Zhentil Keep, Sememmon dispatched emissaries to negotiate a trade accord between the drow wizards of Sshamath and the Zhentarim of Darkhold. Negotiations continue slowly; Sememmon's fears tipped his hand to Manshoon, and the conservative elements of Sshamath's ruling council feared revealing themselves to hordes of surface dwellers." THIS IS A LITTLE WHILE BACK IN TIME, but gives a good idea of the Conclave views: they dont care about the surfacers. The SURFACERS care about them, and they beg them to trade.

ABOUT THE SUPPOSED ACCEPTANCE OF EILIASTREEN:
"Sshamath is home to more than thirty-two thousand drow, and often another one thousand or so dark elves trade in the city's markets....Aside from Lolth's clergy, the populace pays only token homage to the gods." The Conclave does not like fanatics. Lolthites definitely qualify...and so do Eiliastreen. With a difference, though: at least, Lolthites are Drow (and considered beaten and under control). Eiliastreen are an abomination to a real Drow, so whoever is too enthusiastic about it, gets torched. Again, guess who cares? That's right. Nobody.


RECAP: Mages are respected, and cannot be enslaved even if belonging to other races. However, they CAN have "accidents", or decide to jump in the lower dark via Mist Lake against their will, if they annoy someone...things that happen. Religious fervor is viewed EVEN MORE suspiciously than strangers (which are barely tolerated, IF they bring profit, AS LONG as they bring it, WITHOUT annoying proper Sshamathans. Otherwise, they die), Eiliastreen in particular because they are not even real Drow to the largely CE Conclave.

This is the way the setting has been run the last 3 years minimum, and it stems from lore and heavy RP by the dedicated UDers.

If you have a more specific question, or an example of "standing in Sshamath" you wish to analyze, ask away.

[illithid]

There were a lot of discussion back and forth on the first three pages of this topic about how to meassure ones standing within Sshamath. Was this ever settled as being "the way to go", or is standing more arbitrary and no longer used in the constant powerstruggles?

Standing has a little bit of a dual meaning in context of a PW with 20PC's and 30k+ NPC's. When meeting someone for the first time, whilst I could claim that my characters standing is high within the city hierarchy, essentially it will only be a show of power from me or respect shown to me from someone you know to have power that will prove the point. This is where PC's and DM controlled NPC's can provide a differing viewpoint on things. The lore taken in context, will help move the two sides of the story towards the same conclusion, but with new players constantly arriving it can sometimes be a case of re-educating players of why one should or shouldn't be respected.

Rasaels update will also allow actual citizenship, which may bring a new dynamic to the way things work, but from a personal point I always felt that respect and standing was earned through interactions, and displayed in subsequent interactions, PC or NPC.

That being said I'm sure a few have fallen for the "Oh, I'm a houseless rogue of no particular importance" line, occasionally to their detriment

[Lambert]

I wanted to make a suggestion, and I apologize if it doesn't flow with previous posts. Here goes.

I've given it some thought, and I think I have the solution to the whole Surface and UD debacle.

In short I think there needs to be a buffer zone. In the UD there is the lowerdark, middledark, and upperdark.

What I am suggesting is this. Somewhere in the mountains of Cloudpeaks, have large complex of mines with a Dwarf city or an abandoned outpost guarded by various races.

Allow anything goes in those areas so rp and cvc can evolve naturally, so that players who want to be involved in interactions with the surface can do so in the buffer zone. Shevarashians, elves, drow, and intrepid heroes can go at it with full knowledge that said areas are dangerous and an invitation for potential interaction with volatile opposition. Perhaps on either end it is hard to get there, but the middle part is large and open for confrontation. At the Underdark end their could be a Drow outpost, perhaps Qu'ellar based. I was thinking that the areas of that Qu'ellar could be spawns. The area with the Qu'ellar outpost could have a switch on the roof that the Qu'ellar leader can flip to make the spawns in that immediate area friendly, with a gate between the spawns and the inner part of the outpost. Another switch unlocks and locks the gate. The gate can be broken down. ARound the gate on a second elevation, PCs of the outpost can position themselves to fight off the invaders. The same basic outlay can be done for the dwarf outpost.

Breaking through can be done to access a once only useable key, that opens to a merchant area. In that area are merchants who can only be puroused once by any character, and once something is bough, whatever it is, the merchant disappears. Obviously the goal then for players is to prevent opposing players to gain access to these merchants. RP can happene making areas near the outpost interesting roleplay locals that are beautiful and interesting and of course lore based.

On the dwarven side, it could be dwarven, but have the ability for any surface guild to take up control of the switches, for the guild leader or the party leader. It might make sense to possibly make it an elven outpost as there is a large elven population on the surface. This could include Shevarashians.

Neither outpost would be taken over for long because of server reset and re-inforcing, but allows for interesting battles at the gates, inside the fortresses, and at the maps and areas between the two strongholds. Behind each stronghold is an impossible uber boss. Moving into a stronghold locks you into the buffer zone and it is a one way trip, or a trip that has to wait for a 1 hour window (tides or something) to prevent quick movement beyond it.

The areas between the two outposts should have a tavern area, dynamic battlefield maps, specific lootable types specific to this region, and one epic dungeon that holds exceptional loot, but the unfortunate possibility of bumping into an opposing faction. Obviously players who can't tolerate PvP or this level of open potential hositility will need to understand that they consent by entering the stronghold areas and accept responsibility for any potential outcome.

Not having any ability to freely interact between surfacerers and UDers is unfortunate in my mind. I agree though that having raids on certain surface areas is difficult. Raids in certain UD areas likewise is somewhat difficult too. I think there needs to be a middle ground, or buffer zone, specifically desingned for conflict between the two servers.

This buffer zone does not have to be all that large. 10-12 areas for each stronghold. 12-18 areas between strongholds. And the epic dungeon in the middle that is 8-12 areas.

These areas should be heavily lore based, beautiful, with lots of interesting maps that allow for different views, access points, choke holds, etc. A tacticians dream.

Lam

[Ardul]

Hi Lambert,

this is all very nice, i suggested something like this in this thread almost one year ago (and there were an area designer around willing to do something like that):

This would be the concept i suggest:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I suggest that between the areas A and B is no direct connection, it would make things more interstingly instead of having always one big connected map. Area 3 can be partially some ancient ruins or whatever (you guys know alot more about the lore than me, better you do the details) Mabe Area 1 (and also Area 3) can be designed in large parts vertical, to give a feeling that we are going very deep into the earth. They should contain some harder mobs as well. The dotted arrows indicate that these transits are only permitted by the opposite faction when supervised by a DM (if possible, this is done by a script)

Area 3 can also be connected to a place outside of darkhold (so that there are two different connections to the surface)

Unfortunately it seems that nothing has happend in that time...

Therefore I dont think that there will be any changes in the UD in the next decade

[Aelcar]

New areas are nice, always. But this has nothing to do with the issue described as

the whole Surface and UD debacle

(I hardly think it's any sort of debacle).

The problems deriving from the interaction between Surface and UD are caused by the completely wrong idea many players on both sides have of the UD itself (at times of the Surface as well, but it's less common), and of the Drow race.

It seems as though the best course of action would be server wide information and education on setting and server lore, rather than new areas (which are always amazing to have, mind you...but they dont solve anything per se).

[Lambert]

Aelcar: I agree server education would be good, but it would take something like a humerous how to Youtube clip. Maybe a short write up guide could help as well?

Adrul: If enough people ask for it, enough people with extreme baddass build skills support it and work with admin direction, and enough UD and surface players demand it, it will happen. So long as ud and surface players just argue with each other, critize staff, and complain, staff will continue to keep the two kids separated.

There must be a way to maximize the best qualities of every player, while giving players an undersood out who don't like Cvc conflict.

[Aelcar]

Aelcar: I agree server education would be good, but it would take something like a humerous how to Youtube clip. Maybe a short write up guide could help as well?

In my opinion, the clip would be good IF we were about to describe gameplay. But here, we're talking about lore.

First thing, would be for players to assimilate what I wrote above, and build on it. We could (and should) definitely make a thread for it. It would be more effective if a DM were to create and sticky it, or add the relevant info to an existing one, if present.

As far as players disliking conflictual RP...If and when that is the case, they should RP fear of the Drow, and practice complete IC and OOC avoidance. There IS no avoiding conflict, when Drow are involved.