Zinzerena, Red Shroud: A Drow Theology Discussion

[Durvayas]

Many of the UD's characters are immigrants. I've seen drow from elsewhere all over the place, so Arelith is not completely insular. It is easily concievable that cults from elsewhere could set up shop.

[JediMindTrix]

Speaking of this, how exactly is it that Drow of the Underdark cross from the Mainland to Arelith's Underdark? Is their a giant undersea?

[Arelith_Rocks]

You sure it wasn't CN? It sounds CN. I think it's CN.

I also think I recall who, but I can't be certain.

You might be right about the alignment being Chaotic Neutral.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend playing Non Evil Drow - the alignment is a game mechanic and having a neutral or good alignment makes you immune to stuff like Smite Evil (among other things). Non Evil Drow have always been frowned upon, not necessarily because the roleplay is "bad" but because alignment is a game mechanic that can be exploited.

For this reason, I've personally always played my Drow with the evil alignment. If you get into a PvP situation where DMs are called in the other player could argue that you're abusing the alignment system and you probably wouldn't want to find yourself in a situation like that.

Sorry to derail your thread (again).

[Durvayas]

Speaking of this, how exactly is it that Drow of the Underdark cross from the Mainland to Arelith's Underdark? Is their a giant undersea?

I'm inclined to believe there is a large, possibly narrow, network of caverns connecting our region of the underdark to the mainland's.

There is a massive cavern beneath the sea of falling stars. I don't see any reason why there wouldn't be one stretching the distance between Andunor and the rest of it.

Also, Andunor has shipping traffic. Our undersea connects to /somewhere/. We have caravaneer NPCs, so logic follows that there is somewhere for them to go.

[P Three]

You might be right about the alignment being Chaotic Neutral.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend playing Non Evil Drow - the alignment is a game mechanic and having a neutral or good alignment makes you immune to stuff like Smite Evil (among other things). Non Evil Drow have always been frowned upon, not necessarily because the roleplay is "bad" but because alignment is a game mechanic that can be exploited.

For this reason, I've personally always played my Drow with the evil alignment. If you get into a PvP situation where DMs are called in the other player could argue that you're abusing the alignment system and you probably wouldn't want to find yourself in a situation like that.

Sorry to derail your thread (again).

I have to respectfully disagree.

I would honestly recommend you playing what's on your character sheet. If you want to play a Neutral drow, do it, but play a neutral drow. There's no reason to pigeonhole an entire race into three alignment slots when nothing about lore says they all fit there. Is Evil the overwhelming majority? Absolutely. But if you want to do something different, and like the scenario above, you actually do it? More power to you. Smite evil shouldn't be a catch-all.

[Arelith_Rocks]

Smite Evil isn't the only mechanic that's tied to alignment. Alot of server features are tied to alignment as well.

Having recently returned to Arelith, I've noted that this community seems to be alot more mature than it was in the past.

I don't believe you should be forced into a specific alignment because of your subrace, no.. But it's something you have to consider as a monster race player - the likelihood of you being involved in a PvP incident is almost inevitable. I'd rather take the safe route of Evil, and not have to explain my alignment to anyone.

For a long time, the Drow community didn't interact with the surface community because there was so much metagaming/pridegaming on both sides. As soon as your Drow logged in, surface players would go to enormous lengths to find you and kill you even though they had no IC justification for doing so. Stuff like that doesn't appear to be much of an issue anymore, though.

My character got the cool opportunity of being able to raid Wharftown when she was only level 7 - stuff like that used to happen on Arelith and nobody on the surface was ever happy about it, lol. Monster races are cool until you actually begin to play like a monster - then everyone hates you. I'm sure Norfildor or any of the other people in this thread can tell you all about it.

[Durvayas]

I think a lot of the neutral drow thing being rare is that you wouldn't recognise a neutral drow. Why? Because a neutral drow is only slightly less evil than an evil one.

An evil drow kills for enjoyment, a neutral kills because that is just the way things are and how they were taught to deal with things. Drow culture is necessarily evil from an outside standpoint. The neutral ones are merely more pragmatic than their zealous counterparts.

There are no good drow on arelith, because of the drizzt rule. Your choices are "A jerk, and a jerk who loves being a jerk."

[P Three]

Yeah, and that ties into the whole..."what is the core of alignment" thing that always becomes an (interesting) battleground debate.

[Kuma]

There are no good drow on arelith, because of the drizzt rule. Your choices are "A jerk, and a jerk who loves being a jerk."

Normal Rewards let you make Good Underdarkers, including Drow.

You can play a Neutral Underdarker with zero mechanical restrictions on doing so.

Feel more than free to play one, so long as you are actually playing a Neutral Underdarker, and not abusing it for mechanical gain.

Also, welcome back A_R! The server absolutely has matured since you were last here. Hence, you know, less violent restrictions, and less feeling like the Surface and the UD are separate gameworlds.

[Arelith_Rocks]

Thanks, Kuma!

I always look for names and faces that I recognize whenever I'm logged in. So sorry that I haven't seen you in-game! And yes, the server is very mature now! Everyone here should be proud, especially the Dev Team! The first time my character walked into the Bramble Woods I was absolutely floored by the level of detail. It's crazy how much influence players have on the areas now!



I feel like a newbie again and it's great!

The sheer amount of new features are overwhelming - and I'm not easily overwhelmed, haha.

[Kuma]

Thanks, Kuma!

I always look for names and faces that I recognize whenever I'm logged in. So sorry that I haven't seen you in-game! And yes, the server is very mature now! Everyone here should be proud, especially the Dev Team! The first time my character walked into the Bramble Woods I was absolutely floored by the level of detail. It's crazy how much influence players have on the areas now!

I play under alts these days, but not very secret identities - I'm sure we'll bump into one another. Actually, by the time we got talking on IRC years ago you'd already sort of stopped playing, and I was still playing Ayin Mesmer.

god i feel old

[Arelith_Rocks]

You should feel old. The server was still running Gigaschatten's engine when you last saw me, and Udos still existed. Urblexis Grond was a relatively new outpost (Jhared's wasn't that old either). The engine Arelith runs now is so far removed from Gigaschatten's that it doesn't even compare.


The last feature I remember (that's new to me, at least) was the citizenship system and it was basically nothing more than a prototype. I think I do remember the Dev Team talking about class paths - True Flame Sorcerer for example didn't exist yet, but I remember Mithreas talking about it on the forums. It was a very different server!

And I do remember Ayin. I created my Drow shortly after rolling Jillian with Jj in the IRC chat.

I put alot of time into roleplaying my Drow, and then my entire House stopped playing! It essentially killed my interest in Arelith, sadly.

I actually did make a Barbarian after that, but I think I got to level 12 or something and then I stopped playing her, 'cuz Barbarians are weak and they suck. I wanted to play a Barbarian so bad (my first character on Arelith ever was a Barbarian), but they're so weak!

EDIT: Also, the concept of having a separate server for the UD was a relatively new one - I remember Jj complaining in IRC about having to run Windows/NWserver through a virtual machine (I guess alot of the plugins didn't work on Linux). Now Arelith has THREE servers! Crazy!

[dirza]

....
I put alot of time into roleplaying my Drow, and then my entire House stopped playing! It essentially killed my interest in Arelith, sadly.

......

Drow houses usually last month or two. They come up, snowball players and characters, hving like 4 core players. They got to power (which others often allow hoping for them to stay in playx ) Then the leader quits or becomes playing sporadic as soon as they get into power, and the lifetime of house then lasts month, maximum two.

You can then still see remnants of the house around, usually these chracters joining them, trying to mantain the house time to time. And while core players are long gone, those whom they lure in faction now re paying for all they have done. All enemies and such take their toll from those unhappy guys, who joined that house and were left behind.

This is a pattern which repeats every month for over two years

[Durvayas]

Drow RP can be pretty taxing on the players of matrons because it is very often 30% scheming, 20%grinding to remain powerful enough to be relevant, and 50% conflict RP. Many people roll a priestess and then make a matron, and then forget to delegate, focusing most of the house RP on themselves as such, and then when they drop off the face of the earth, the house collapses around them just like any faction on the surface run as such. It is important to have second and thirds in command.(first and second daughter).

In short, matrons very often get burnt out playing their drow, because the political environment shifts so fast and endlessly. Being a ruler in a backstabby environment like the UD does that.

Now, not all drow houses are so ephemeral. If run by a player who knows how to pace themselves and delegate, I've seen houses last for a very long time. Several months, to several years. Its all about having the right leader and a backup to take the reigns and keep things going when the boss takes a short break to recharge.

[Durvayas]

Anyways. This thread has strayed so far off topic. I think its time we let it die.