Hello, Skuldhellir!

(Edit by Heimdall: I'm dropping the OP from the other thread right here.)

(To council members reading this: I pretty much went through the thread on the council forum and vomited all our ideas into this thread. :p If I left anything out, lemme know!)

This is the grand discussion thread for the new continuity, Skuldhellir. If you have any ideas, just post 'em.

It started with Serin's essay on RP:

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ON THE SUBJECT OF ROLEPLAY AND RAHS

We have all come to know a very standard format in the way strict roleplay dreams have come to work in the last decade or so: Rah builds a dream, Rah recruits a few Taneests, and they have all say over the major plots of the dream and generally are required to be there to run them. This is all well and good. I myself am a Taneest for a dream in Imaginarium, “Northkeep.” Northkeep, in it’s prime, was a thing to behold. Upwards of 20 members at a time, all busying themselves with role play. Major RPs would have several player characters involved and would generally span over several days. Unfortunately, the dream has stagnated. That is due to the busy and hectic life of the Rah and Taneests keeping them from giving the PC’s much of anything to do in the way of major plot roleplays. Hopefully I can dissect this problem, and provide a solution that will keep RP in any dream from becoming stagnant.

I think the first problem is the way RP itself is the audience it garners. You look at most Furc users, and the demographic tends to be 10 – 20 year olds. That is an awfully wide range, and the personality of a roleplayer most certainly changes in that time. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the younger roleplayers in Furc tend to be more socially secluded, or at least only have a handful of friends, and a load of school weekday nighttime to kill (can’t go out, no homework to do, time to spare etc). At least, that’s how I know I was at the time. Now turn your attention to the average 16 – 20 year old Furc gamer. They’ve started dipping into life more, and tend to have things to do besides sit at a computer for hours on end. Interest in RP starts to wane. But why? What is it that holds a younger person’s attention but not someone my age?

I would say it’s the nature of RP itself. If you think about RP, what is the majority of it? RP is character interaction during the mundane times. Small talk and interpersonal plots are usually what drives it. This is all well and good, but I find older RPers tend to get bored of this, and crave for the next “big” RP to come along. The force versus force nature storytelling of a Rah driven RP offers an experience outside of normal RP. This experience is special, because interpersonal relationships are something that basic socialization in the real world can offer to a player. That conflict offered in a custom tailored plot RP gives the players the drama they want, and usually do not get, in real life (the feeling of heroism, braving harsh elements, fighting monsters, etc etc).

Now, how do we bring this “force versus force” type of storytelling to everyday roleplay? If you look at a regular everyday RP, it gets most exciting when two players have some kind of disconnect or turmoil. It rarely happens, because players rarely want to be mean to each other, but when it does it’s truly a fun experience (if handled correctly ICly and OOCly). To me, it seems the only logical course of actions is to FOSTER discourse and turmoil between players, so they almost ALWAYS have an opposing force to pit their character against.

How to foster these ideas, though? My first suggestion is to do away with consent. Yes, I know! It’s wild! Without consent RP will turn to anarchy! I am quite aware that many personal emotions are attached to a good character, because the best characters are the ones that are simply an extension of yourself (but that is going into the fundamentals of RP, which is a whole other thesis entirely). As such, bad things happening is much like having bad things happen to oneself. BUT, if we are ever to reliably step into more interesting plot dynamics, everyone in a community must be willing to let dramatic things happen to their character! There is nothing better to encourage a PC or a group of PCs than the motivation of revenge for harm done upon them or a friend.

But, still, that leaves the motivation for the cruel intent in the first place. How to encourage that? That involves a whole new structure for how a dream is ran, as well as how rules are handled and enforced. In my opinion, a Rah’s only purpose in this case would be to enforce OOC rules, such as fair RP and courtesy between players. There can be anarchy IC but OOCly it is absolutely unacceptable. Therefore, a Rah would only interject in IC matters rarely, and only to settle a dispute over combat. There is also the matter of handling the enforcement of IC laws:

It should be left entirely up to the players. In most dreams, the government of the realm is mostly RPed out by the Rah. I think this notion should be done away with. Control of all central governing bodies should be relinquished to semi-trusted players at first, and then the positions should be freely rotatable. The ideal setting would be a single ruler monarchy with a system the subtly encourages assassination or wrongful exile as an excellent way to shift power. Political parties are interesting, but the investment and amount of players required to make any system where voting involved would be difficult and require additional though, most likely a whole paper’s worth.

So what are we left with, then? A dream with very little in the way of rules. OOC rules are firmly laid, so players have no reason to quarrel OOCly. IC laws are laid, but are by no means set in stone, and only to be enforced by the players who may happen to do so in the dream. All aspects of the dream must also be molded to the players. This is where the Rah would be most active: patching in broken walls, scenery changes, secret hideouts and such. What would emerge is a very freeform plotline that is mostly player driven, and constantly running.

Now of course there are foreseeable problems: Players who OOCly desire power and IC power is their means of satisfying that urge. These players would be hard to control and likely jerks who turn it into a competition rather than a group story. Disagreements between players would also be a large problem, but that also falls under turning the RP into a competition rather than a group story (which is in spirit what all RP should be). As such, applications should be an important part of any continuity who would use such systems, as well as trial roleplays with the player in question. Skill in RP is a must for a such a dream, and novice RPers (namely the younger ones I mentioned earlier), would most likely struggle in such an environment.

I think that this hands off, laize-faire, system of Rah-dome and player interaction is the best way to foster continuous roleplay in older players. There is never a reason to stagnate ICly because there would always be something happening. Players would vie for power ICly, whether to protect or control, and things would happen through that. Political infighting, assassinations, combat, heated arguments, and perhaps even full blown civil-war could come from player driven plots. It would require a perfect setting, but if done right, I believe that players left to their own affairs and subtly encouraged to squabble amongst each other would be the ultimate roleplay environment.

Rules Stuff:
That is the sort of system the guild will have. There will be a group of mediators who sort out rules disputes, handle applications, etc, and one decider who is just a mediator who solves disputes where mediators can't agree. The current mediators are largely members of the council I attempted here, and Ulrin has graciously agreed to be the decider for now. Since the dream is non-consent, it means that the dream can be altered by anyone who has a will to do it (provided it isn't ridiculous). The decider will change every couple months, or when the current decider needs to pass the duty on to someone else for whatever reason. (exams, etc.)

We may also use Talzhemir's Orical system for small things for the players to do.

Application and membership might be handled differently. There will definitely be an application process since the dream is non-consent, and there have to be some checks on who can do what. I was thinking that there could just be one big list of approved alts--just names, not positions. It'll be up to the player to keep track of their character's job. In Northkeep, there was no real way to survive without a job. But in the new guild, it won't be anywhere near as important. Your thoughts?

Even so, characters entering the continuity will be held to higher standards--they need to work well in this setting.

There is a heavy emphasis on writing in the present tense and shorter posts; we're looking for free, fast-paced and loose roleplay! The limit on the number of lines in a public roleplay, that is, a roleplay taking place where anybody can join it, to no more than the amount you can fit into your text box. That's the same for every font style.

There will be DS such that the NPCs say different things depending on current events in the dream, so make sure to talk to them frequently. ;) There also might be a currency system DSed into the dream.

Setting Stuff:
The continuity is a rough, newly-built (ten-ish years old) mining town on a frontier with some dangerous fauna to spice things up. Here are some features of the dream, including history, geography, etc... pretty much everything we've agreed on so far!

- The town's name is Skuldhellir, based on ___.
- The geography around the town consists mainly of rocky plains. The grasses and plants are mostly a dark bluish-green--probably tinted that color from the magic running amok in the caves. There are a few areas with copses of coniferous trees, or patches of tall cliffs and sometimes boulders the size of houses. It's lush and green, but chilly and often overcast--think Scotland.
- A series of mines started when the town was first settled by dwarfs. The dwarfs originally went for iron and copper, which are the main exports. However, gold was then discovered and quickly depleted--though every once in a rare while, another small vein will appear, or some loose nuggets will be found in the riverbed.
- One of the mine tunnels connects to an underground magma passage that is used to fuel the towns' smithies, which are currently all underground.
- Since the place was founded by dwarfs, there are still many, many dwarfs living and doing business there--and most of them don't like elves very much.
- Many years ago, these magical caves were part of the hoard of a huge and terrible dragon, yet it hasn't been seen in fifteen years. When it was declared dead, the dwarves moved in to settle. (Is this idea acceptable, guys?)
- There aren't many horses, if any at all. Most of the heavy pulling and riding is carried out by caribou/reindeer!
- Magical ores and the like were also discovered in the mines, attracting the close eye of wizards. One such substance is found in pools of water and underground streams in some of the mine chambers. The substance causes this water to glow brightly. There is also a magical ore, ___ in color, that seems to produce amazing, lightweight weaponry. Strange molds and mushrooms coat other shafts, often near the glowing water.
- The river snaking around the town is rather polluted and cloudy from the mining excess dumped into it.
- The mines are largely operated by convicts under the watchful eye of guards. The non-convict miners have mixed opinions of these convicts.
- Three main, privately-owned guilds (wizard guild, fighter guild, and mining guild) as well as a weak legal system led by a mayor.
- Dangerous to traders (and everyone) due to orc and gnoll invasions. The gnolls (and their worg mounts) live in scattered, matriarchal tribes across the plains, and rarely band together for anything (they actually often fight amongst themselves). There are also several orc villages.
- More fearsome than any orc or gnoll are the feral ___s, which require many people banding together to take down.
- There's a discrepancy between the rich and the poor. Generally, only middle-class or poor people actually live in the town--most rich people stay for a few days or weeks at the expensive inn to make sure whatever affairs they have are going well, and then they move along. They often hire underlings to handle their business for them.
- The way most people arrive in the town is by boat--there is a large, large river complete with docks. It's also possible (but more difficult) to arrive overland. The wizards also control one teleportation booth, but it's very expensive and is prone to breaking down--so only rich, risk-taking individuals would attempt it.
- There are sometimes sightings of horrific, mutated creatures in the deeper, darker parts of the mines. There have been cases where rocks come to life and bite off peoples' legs, and people being dragged away if they venture too far...
- Most of the town's books are in the possession of the wizards. The miners have a few books relevant to their interest, and the town hall is home to two large tomes: one with a history of the town, and another with local geography, flora, and fauna.

Fighting characters would come to the town to make money fighting the dangers--some of the fighters even require ridiculous amounts of "protection money" from town residents. There are several magical features of the mines that are of interest to mages, which is why the wizard guild was formed. It's a trade hub, so there are merchants both successful and not, and where there are merchants there are surely thieves! The guilds don't always get along, either.

Ed defines the overall feel we're going for:

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I also hope we'll have a very adventury, roughish feel, moreso than we had with Northkeep. If it's only normal for people to run off on grand adventures (or get into brawls--LOSSADORFS AMIRITE) all the Time, player-run plots will have the potential to be much funner while still making sense within the continuity.

I think this would be best achieved with a REALLY strong fantasy flavor--lots of heroes, lots of threats, dragons and magic and artifacts, the whole shebang. While we'll be starting small with a mining town (and surrounding areas, probably), this sort of setting is just really goddamn fun because there's so much stuff to do. Think D&D.

What Is Needed:
Above everything, PLAYERS! If you like what you've heard, join a hand in the creation process and throw some ideas at us, then pop in for an RP when all is said and done. Northkeep's closing story will provide the characters with a reason to move to this new setting, or you can make a new character for the place. Both newcomers to the town and residents of it are needed.

That's all we have so far. So...

What do YOU all think? What do YOU want in a guild, when it comes to setting, rules, applications, whatever? Spew your ideas at us!

(Resuming what Ed posted...)

Now that we have our forums up and running, we'll be continuing the discussion from the Northkeep forums here instead.

You can find the old topic right here.

If you don't feel like reading all seven pages, just read the summary Heimdall's got up there in the first post. (And help us fill in the blanks!)

Make your accounts and resume discussion! Gogogo!

Also, do feel free to make suggestions for these forums, and the website, too. Everybody's looking for everyone else's input on everything.

I declare this discussion opened!

Anyway, I like the idea of that legend. Perhaps the dwarf who did so could've died and has now become sort of a folk hero, and his shield is hanging in the town hall as something of a monument to his bravery?

I definitely love the legend idea, meself. Perhaps it's a legend that's not so closely tied to the town itself after all--maybe the cave was called Skuldhellir long before the town was ever founded. It could be that it originally got its name because the dragon was impossible to hit in its confines, and all it had to do was spout flame through the tunnels to ward off would-be attackers.

Or maybe all of the dwarves have different stories about where the name came from. (; Those more inclined to bask in glory may bring up the tale of a brave dwarf, impossible for even a dragon to hit beneath the armor and shield he crafted himself, while the pessimists might insist on theory of the dragon being impossible to hit while within its cave.

That is an even more awesome idea.
It could possibly be a common discussion among the dwarves (and wizards). And perhaps in the future someone will go try and find out the truth.

I can easily see the dwarves taking up the former explanation, and the wizards standing stoically by the latter. Everybody else doesn't care and just wants the gold. :D

I do like the idea of split creation myths. It seems like we're hitting the tipsy top of "fleshin' out details while still being ambiguous." I am pleased. Every second this nears fruition.

Perhaps we should start discussing who is going to take/make their characters into particular fields to get the ball rollin'.

Sounds good!

I think we've decided on the following so far:
-The mayor and head of the Miner's Guild will start off as NPCs for now.
-The heads of the other two guilds were originally NPCs, but players are going to have taken their places as soon as we start up the IC. Perhaps the head of the Wizard's Guild resigned (under mysterious circumstances; maybe he/she wanted nothing more to do with the ore after discovering something about it), and the head of the Fighter's Guild was killed in a battle with the orcs/gnolls, or assassinated.

Those positions are pretty important and I think it'd be best if we could find some people whose characters might logically take up or ascend to either of them as soon as possible.

That aside, most folk can make pretty much anything when it comes to characters--including tribeless orcs or adventuring gnolls that are living in Skuldhellir for the same reasons as anyone else, if you like.

Anyway, somewhat needless to say, Ed's probably going to get wrapped up in participation in the Wizard's Guild--and even then, likely not so much for the ore as other fields of interest that the Guild might be investigating, directly related to Skuldhellir or not. He's pretty boring and will likely just be a member, at least to start with.

Hilarius might come along eventually. As for what he'd end up doing once he got to the town, it might be counterproductive to mention it publicly!

I think Ulrin mentioned that he wouldn't mind leading the wizard guild.

I don't want to RP anyone in too much of a position of power right now--maybe just an older dorf miner who's in a high position in the miner guild (but not at the top). I also sorta want to RP a furre blacksmith's apprentice who'll start off as a boring shell and get more interesting as stuff happens to him. :p

Ah splendid. I've been thinking quite a lot about my main characters place within the new dream.

Anukha will likely join the Mages Guild as well, but she has no ambition to aspire to anything big (for now). She's most likely going to concentrate on studying the ore for personal reasons in the beginning. Her decent knowledge on enchanting could perhaps come in handy for selling magic charms to common folk though? Or securing the guild some more? Or will such agreements be made IC?

About Gilex, he might've followed someone from the Keep but once he's on the road there's always the chance he wanders off from time to time, he would likely arrive at Skulhellir a few days later, head full of new tales to tell and music to play. The split legends give him something to play with. I assume that, if you make it count as a position, he'll be the medieval juxebox of the taverns. :D

I've also worked out a new, more ambitious character, but that should be seekrit for now :3

I really don't even know what I want to RP yet. hurj. too many possibilities. :(

Yeah, Ulrin is always looking for more mages to get under his wing. And a small mage guild without leader is perfect ;D And if they won't listen he'll just shoop da woop them. Ohyes.
It'd probably start of more as a small group of tinkering men and women with little to no joint ambition and cooperation. After all, they all just want a piece of whatever is in that cave rather than form a decent Guild, probably.

As for the story, maybe there was (according to the dwarves, no one really knows if it's a myth or not) a dwarf who forged an indestructible shield to go in and stomp that dragon, but he never returned. Could lead to interesting expeditions of people looking for this (possibly magic and very powerful) shield artifact and getting in all kinds of troubles, from gnolls and orcs to swarms of venomous spiders and cave-ins.

Well...Lares will probably stay more in his private little place, then venture into a village and protect people for gold.
If he is needed, however, people will have to travell beyond an desert to get to him...but to get a Dragon or berserkers help might pay off...if you can get him out of his lazy mood.

I wanted that Takeo and Bosper get a bit more important in there!
Bosper would be obviously one of the only priest in the new village, trying to spread the word of the God of Death and Sleep. Maybe even founding a small temple in there...
Takeo would...be a Negotiator between the Fair Lord and Ladies beyond the hedge, and the villagers, he lives in both worlds and is even more home in the border of these worlds, the hedge.
Like, if a newborn shouldn't be stolen away and be replaced by something else, they will try and get his help. He would take for that....their luck, courage, memories...ya know x3

On the subject of the Wizard's Guild, I'm not sure if it should be a localized group of magicians that somehow decided to work together (and build themselves a huge tower... somehow), or if it was a batch dispatched by a larger guild of mages located elsewhere. I, personally, think the latter makes more sense. The kind of folk that'd just turn up in Skuldhellir to try and get some of the ore for themselves, magic-users or not, just don't seem like they'd think to band together officially, and if they did, it likely wouldn't be a very firm unity.

This brings me to another thought; whether we ever have intentions for ever adding more places or not, I think it'd be nifty if we set in stone some details about other places in Skuldhellir's continuity. What dreams will we officially recognize in a way that our characters can say "Oh yeah I'm from hurpdedurp" and others, NPCs and all, will know what they're talking about? (Obviously, characters can still mention and be from other places/dreams, they just wouldn't be considered close enough for Skuldhellir oldbies to recognize the names.)

We should probably come up with some loose names/descriptions of other, more far-off locations that are not dreams, but might have an impact on Skuldhellir in some way, too. Taking my above statements as an example, it might be nice if we knew just where Skuldhellir's Wizard's Guild has come from, or if we knew what the closest major city of the dwarves was, or if we knew where our goods and supplies were coming from, or what city set up Skuldhellir in the first place. They seem like fiddly details, but they really bring a place to life; just because our characters will rarely leave Skuldhellir doesn't mean a world beyond doesn't exist, and I think fleshing out that world, even if it's as simple as giving names to bits of it, plays a major role in making a continuity feel tangible and real.

For anyone concerned about getting too lore-heavy, I'd like to add that this knowledge would not be necessary to have upon just joining the continuity--after all, if your character is from somewhere else, how and why would they know this stuff, anyway, without looking into it? It'd mostly be there to give folks something to talk about, though in the future we might be able to do more with it.

I think those are all good ideas, Ed! To simplify, the largest dwarf city nearby could be where the dwarves are from, and it's where we get many supplies from, too--though there ARE some farms in the town that provide food (meat, milk, and some veggies). And people can hunt on the plains for meats, too.

(I kinda want to see a RP where there's some kind of huge, fatty, delicious fish living in the glowing-magic-water-cave-pools that everyone's all excited about, because hey, delicious feesh. But it actually messes you up or turns you into a fish or something. :B)

As for being lore-heavy.. it'll also probably just be one sentence in the history. "day 1: we departed Beard City for the new town. day 354: some wizards from Hat City are here to investigate. day 396: the wizards from Hat City have formed a guild and are building a tower." So I think it be fine.

As for guilds we recognize... definitely Northkeep. And we can ask Jin if he wants Mirandol affiliated? We can find other guilds we like and just ask 'em if they want to be affiliated or not. :>

HAT CITY YES. And I love that fish idea, Kain!

I'd kind of like to flesh out the places a wee bit more than that, though. i.e. people from Hat City might be known to be particularly haughty and aloof and they might be a major political power, while Beard City might be known for being exceptionally dwarfy and having the best booze of all the dwarfplaces and extremely hardy soldiers. Or something.

Northkeep will definitely need to be recognized! We could maybe even have a few lesser NPCs originally from NK turn up here for the same reason all of the PCs will. Mirandol'd be great, too, of course. I can't think of anywhere else just off the top of my head, tho'.

Creoso? I dunno, they just came to mind as I was having some musings (and trying to catch up; you all move here and discuss while I'm on a road trip; shame on you awl >C)

Oshit and Creoso!

Excellent, yes! Creoso and Miranlol both must be officially recognized as officialplaces that are officially official.

What does everyone who's familiar with these two continuities think about what Skuldhellir's general opinion of them should be?

I just asked Jin and Ru and they're both down with the idea! Not sure about Mirandol, but I reckon they'd frown a bit at Creoso and it's frilly-willy-nilly HALF-ELF of a leader, BUT since it's up so high/in mountains and in such a cold climate all the time, it wins some bonus points. XD

XD That sounds 'bout right.

Ok, I copypasted the original post with all the solidified info into the main post on this forum! There are still some ___s that need filling in, y'all!

Okay one more thing: if we're gonna open soon, we need some kinda member application! What should it entail? We need more definite criteria for acceptance/rejection, too. In NK it was too vague and handwavy. Also, what are the membership perks--just the two basic ones: only members can affect continuity, only members can fight? What about jobs, which I assume would often happen IC?

Jobs are easy: if there is a PC character in charge of the thing being applied to, the character must go through them ICly, else, a mediator says yes or no.

As for character passing in general: Must be balanced, and we must be able to slightly acknowledge their competence (which is easy to do through a few forum posts, lets be honest).

I don't like the handwaving of "this is balanced" or "this isn't balanced." Should we try and come up with a better system that's still simple? >_<

Yes, we're certainly going to need to be much more stern with applications this Time around. If someone seems like a jerk/moron and their character isn't rock-solid awesome, that could be grounds to decline their application. This is going to be something all of us are going to need to work on judging and being able to say firmly without sounding too harsh.

Obviously, we're going to need some strict parameters for magic and the other majorly unbalancing supernatural abilities we'll undoubtedly come across. As I mentioned in the old topic, some spells that seem simple and harmless can utterly sunder a continuity if abused, and usually they're easy enough to cast that this abuse may as well be inevitable. This sort of thing is very difficult to define, however, and we might need to nitpick on a case-by-case basis.

We'll have to skew our perception a little--rather than thinking on terms of 'how fair would this character be in a fight with another character', we need to think of how vastly the character would be able to affect the continuity, and other characters. We don't want the feel of the dream to be ruined. That's kind of what happened at Northkeep, and I really don't want it to happen here.

I was thinking we could do something like this, when it comes to applications: do you remember that old number system we were testing out on the forums? I think it might work if we use that, only instead of the applicant assigning numbers to their skills, the mediators do.

Essentially, applicants post up their strengths and abilities and skills as usual, and a mediator comes around and decides on how much of an impact these various talents have, giving each strength or weakness a number. If the two numbers are within a few points of eachother, the character is balanced.

After that, the mediators take a closer look at the skills the character has, and look for cont-breakers or silly, nonsensical abilities, and deliver criticism and suggestions accordingly.


Member perks = the two Heimderp mentioned. I can't think of any others that'd make sense.