Surface Races in Anundor

[Exordius]

On the rare occasions my character goes to Andunor he is always disguised, always keeps to himself, and always stays only for as long as it takes to complete whatever reason he is there for. Non-drow and non-monsters from the surface going there and acting like they are the king of the place deserve whatever grim fate they get. The UD is not a joke and its certainly not a good location for a vacation home. Go at your own risk...

[Halibutthead]

i miss the good 'ol days, when a human or elf going into the underdark would get the same treatment as a drow or goblin on the surface.

we've evolved past that, but i, personally, would be happy to see a little bit of a return to it

[Ork]

Those were not good days.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

Goblins are a surfacer race. So are kobolds and gnolls.

[Nitro]

Those were not good days.

[My decency]

Those were not good days.

[-XXX-]

i miss the good 'ol days, when a human or elf going into the underdark would get the same treatment as a drow or goblin on the surface.

we've evolved past that, but i, personally, would be happy to see a little bit of a return to it

Never has that ever been the case

[Preytoria]

I said it in another thread, but I really hope there is some sort of effort to allow monsters to exist -somewhere- on a surface town/city/outpost/whatever. I really don't give a heck about the lore in this regard -- it's a multiplayer server with a focus on RP. Bring players together. I get that this goal can be achieved through RP. And of course that is the preferred method. But a bit of a safety net for people who just 'aren't that good' at achieving goals like that, or people who have limited play time/are new would be welcome. Some of these races are already restricted due to an ingame clock. I will never stop thinking it's hilarious when multiple players come up with an idea for some RP above and they all have the 'time' to play but...ah. The ingame clock! Too bad! Admittedly I'm jaded enough to assume it would turn into a slew of PvP if we did away with in-game clock restrictions. And it'd be too lore breaking for many, too, but a man can dream.

I'm not sure how much I believe the 'Surface races can come down below!' Usually it's within reason. AKA they are a human or 'with' someone else. I understand conflicts in the wilderness coming down to blows. But I like the sense of sanctuary Andunor has. It's not an automatic 'get everyone it's time to kill a sunlander.' It feels more like 'You better be careful, punk.' The limited times my character has tried to interact with surface settlements it has boiled down to 'Die.' I haven't tried poking that hornet's nest as much as others, though. There's a good chance I'm just plain jaded and put off by experiences in the past.

The other option I would like to see is DMs/Devs coming forward and making it very clear: 'Monster Races are to play in the UD server. If you want to play on other servers, please consider making another character that is an appropriate race. We wish for monsters to be treated with hostility as they are evil creatures.'

I'm not trying to be a jerk by suggesting that. I've played in communities so tiny that having multiple characters was basically REQUIRED to find good RP. No shame in that, I think.

EDIT: I wanted to mention there was a brief stint where my current character very much tried to 'run out' surfacers he came across when in favorable conditions. It was never satisfying to me as a player. It very much felt like my character upholding something 'just because.' Made sense for the character but ultimately wasn't fun. I admit that I could have made it more interesting like make demands or try to make it more theatrical rather than 'You need to leave.'

[Shadowy Reality]

I should preface this by saying that I am by no means against the existence of surface races, or even surfacers in Andunor. I think the Underdark would be worse and much more stale.

With that said, I get what some people are saying and where they are coming from. A long time ago I played a drow and together with some others we decided to make an excursion to this one place called Benwick, where devils had overrun a place of light, and so we went through the Stonehold portal. As we were headed towards the forest a couple of elves unstealth. We get a couple lines of dialog and then my character was killed in 6 seconds. I vaguely remember from the time we got to the surface and the time I hit the fugue less than 5 minutes had passed, that stings a bit.

Many months later (or maybe it was years) I was playing some other character in the Underdark and watched a goblin said something silly and mildly insulting to some human, the human replied briefly and then proceeded to kill the 3 or 4 goblins that were in that group.

At some point I understand that some will inevitably start to think that there is absolutely no where where they can actually be a monster. If you are killed above for being a monster and are killed below by some human because they are very tough and cannot take bad words this resentment will begin to take its toll, and spread.

These are by no means individual events, I am sure it has happened several times. Presently, I don't think this is as big of an issue. The amount of humans and slaves is far smaller than it was in the past, and generally the ratio of underdark races + monsters vs outcasts/slaves seems much much better.

[Petrifictus]

Interesting how defensive players with surface races as main are if you try to limit Andunor from them and their reasoning.

”Andunor is trade city by the lore setting, which means our surface characters in there should be fine, so monsters must accept us.”

”Zhentarim try to recruit monster races into their ranks, which is known in their lore setting. This is not fine because monster races dont belong to surface in this server.”

”Sibayad is hive of scum and villainy, where slavery and low morals rule. Still we dont want monsters who would do business yet rather keep murderous paladins and elves smiting anything that is evil in our streets.”

”Monster try to offer more social RP that dont need to end into PvP? Kill and report. Surfacer is cuddly to monster? Report and punish the monster.”

EDIT:

Also remember time when players were getting harrassed and corpse bashed for simply playing as goblins in Andunor, making the race nearly unplayable as they could not go anywhere or do anything. Yet no action was taken and was told ”well they’re monster race, this should be expected and dont break Be Nice-rule.”

But when monsters started to push humans from the Sharps and plan to purge them, its suddenly different. ”Gods, this is harrasment and not fun. This clearly breaks Be Nice-rule!”

[The GrumpyCat]

I just wanna... clarify something about how I feel, because I think one thing is getting a bit tangled.

There are three catagories here

*Monster Races
*Outcast/Slaves
*Surfacers.

Monster races are fine in anunor, obviously.
I don't want to see Monster Races going on a 'MURDER ALL OUTCASTS/Slaves Policy. I really don't. That's lame, and utterly destroyed a character concept. Not saying you can't be cruel/mean/awful to them in other ways. But going 'Andunor should only have monster races no humans!' is just not what the team wants.

Surfacers in Andunor: Within the rules of PvP, feel free to go wild sure. I mean don't get me wrong - I think (as with underdarkers too!) these things are much more fun if you offer rp, or if you consider ways to make the situation much more interesting in some other ways - and as a bad guy it's far easier for you to do so than for surfacers to. But if you don't want to? Then that's fine too. That's your perogative.

'Evil' has a lot more options in roleplay than 'Good' in many ways, and it's often more fun and interesting to take advantage of those opportunities, but you don't have to.

[magistrasa]

it'd be too lore breaking for many

Only because many people in the server don't actually know lore and think that monster races straight-up melt in the sunlight. When in reality, there are actually surface drow in the forgotten realms. There's a city where they're the majority race among other elves, no less. In PnP, drow get like a -2 penalty to attack rolls while they're in the sunlight. Doesn't sound like the sunlight's all that debilitating to me. Sounds more like an inability to discern details and mild discomfort in direct light. And yet every time I go to the surface alongside a drow they pull out such a grandiose performance of pain and agony, screaming that their eyes are burning out of their skull, as if there's a DM somewhere offstage waiting to hand them an Oscar. That's pretty lore breaking if you ask me. Kills my immersion every time I see it.

And for those of you who are like, "Well, Corellon's curse makes it so they are in pain under the sun and uh yeah, makes sense!" Okay, what's the excuse for gnolls, kobolds, and goblins? They're literally surface races. And why are duergar given a pass on being active and open surface tourists when they're just as evil as drow?

At some point we need to be able to acknowledge we're defending something that doesn't make sense. Hopefully then we can evolve into something that works better for everyone.

[Petrifictus]

Goblin purge was began by outcasts, goblin players were attacked in the streets, no matter if they were new or old, low or high lvls. It drove away first timers from the Underdark because they happended to play ”wrong race” by the moment of getting bashed in the Hub after arrival. You can ask any dedicated goblin player who experienced it and nothing was done to stop it.

What bothers me that it was dismissed with ”its different” when monsters wanted to return the mistreatment upon their human overlords after their union. OOC I dont approve any purges, but sometimes it feels outcasts and surfacers get away from some things.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

Interesting how defensive players with surface races as main are if you try to limit Andunor from them and their reasoning.

You're playing a surface race as a main right now, in Andunor.

[Petrifictus]

Interesting how defensive players with surface races as main are if you try to limit Andunor from them and their reasoning.

You're playing a surface race as a main right now, in Andunor.

I play Ogre Karstaag, sure he can walk in sunlight but he is monster/UD race.

[Xerah]

Interesting how defensive players with surface races as main are if you try to limit Andunor from them and their reasoning.

I really hate the terms "surface main" or "good main" etc. in that they are used to dismiss the opinions of other people since they can't be objective. Far fewer people are "X main" than you think.

[Preytoria]

it'd be too lore breaking for many

Only because many people in the server don't actually know lore and think that monster races straight-up melt in the sunlight. When in reality, there are actually surface drow in the forgotten realms. There's a city where they're the majority race among other elves, no less. In PnP, drow get like a -2 penalty to attack rolls while they're in the sunlight. Doesn't sound like the sunlight's all that debilitating to me. Sounds more like an inability to discern details and mild discomfort in direct light. And yet every time I go to the surface alongside a drow they pull out such a grandiose performance of pain and agony, screaming that their eyes are burning out of their skull, as if there's a DM somewhere offstage waiting to hand them an Oscar. That's pretty lore breaking if you ask me. Kills my immersion every time I see it.

And for those of you who are like, "Well, Corellon's curse makes it so they are in pain under the sun and uh yeah, makes sense!" Okay, what's the excuse for gnolls, kobolds, and goblins? They're literally surface races. And why are duergar given a pass on being active and open surface tourists when they're just as evil as drow?

At some point we need to be able to acknowledge we're defending something that doesn't make sense. Hopefully then we can evolve into something that works better for everyone.

I'd be curious to see a source of this? Rather than 'a city.' I'm not arguing it, mind. There's just so much lore to D&D and most of it is unknown to me. And you better believe THIS drow is uh VERY GUILTY of the 'Sunlight kills me, noooo!' RP. No oscars yet though, sadly.

[Halibutthead]

Never has that ever been the case

kind of a weird thing to say after a bunch of people echo a sentiment that they didn't like it

[Party in the forest at midnight]

Interesting how defensive players with surface races as main are if you try to limit Andunor from them and their reasoning.

You're playing a surface race as a main right now, in Andunor.

I play Ogre Karstaag, sure he can walk in sunlight but he is monster/UD race.

Ogres are a surface monster.

If you look up statistics of Underdark cities, humans are listed as part of the free population. Ogres aren't. Ogres are always slaves. Same with a lot of other surface monster races. If an ogre ended up in the Underdark, it's probably because it was captured by slavers.

Skullport, which Andunor is based off of, doesn't have detailed slave population breakdowns like other Underdark cities. But there are more humans to anything else, with half-orcs as a second. Goblins and kobolds after. Elves are listed next with a subnote of mostly drow. Which means non-drow elves are also present as a minority. Then dwarves, with a subnote of mostly duergar. And then everything else is lumped together as "other." So I don't know what the ogre population in Skullport is, and how many of those are free vs slaves.

Skullport also lists body parts and undead as exports. That is pretty cool. One of my future character concepts is smuggler, I wanna do this.

[-XXX-]

Never has that ever been the case

kind of a weird thing to say after a bunch of people echo a sentiment that they didn't like it

It's not, they're clearly wrong, d'oh

[magistrasa]

I'd be curious to see a source of this?

I thought this was really interesting when I saw it.



Turns out my memory was mixed up! It's not "an elven city," but "The Elven Woods" - drow make up a majority in an entire region on the surface, during the very era we are currently set in.

While they're not, y'know, evil nasty Lolthite drow, it at least supports the fact that drow can and do exist on the surface, without their eyeballs bursting into flame or their flesh melting off their bones.

[Chosen Son]

You're playing a surface race as a main right now, in Andunor.

I play Ogre Karstaag, sure he can walk in sunlight but he is monster/UD race.

Ogres are a surface monster.

If you look up statistics of Underdark cities, humans are listed as part of the free population. Ogres aren't. Ogres are always slaves. Same with a lot of other surface monster races. If an ogre ended up in the Underdark, it's probably because it was captured by slavers.

Skullport, which Andunor is based off of, doesn't have detailed slave population breakdowns like other Underdark cities. But there are more humans to anything else, with half-orcs as a second. Goblins and kobolds after. Elves are listed next with a subnote of mostly drow. Which means non-drow elves are also present as a minority. Then dwarves, with a subnote of mostly duergar. And then everything else is lumped together as "other." So I don't know what the ogre population in Skullport is, and how many of those are free vs slaves.

Skullport also lists body parts and undead as exports. That is pretty cool. One of my future character concepts is smuggler, I wanna do this.

Ogres still fall under the monster race guidelines outlined here http://wiki.nwnarelith.com/Playing_any_UD_race.

[Kuma]

ogres don't live in the underdark as a general rule of thumb, along with over half of the races that can choose to start in andunor. this is an arelith convenience to allow the playing of monstrous races that otherwise would be impossible long term, since they all have to work together in a melting pot against a world above that'd kill them.

Something else to consider, and something that I have always wondered why it does not happen more often is, surface pcs make amazing pawns for andunorian schemes. Some of them might merit killing, or sacrifice, or enslavement, but others can be blackmailed, or charmed and manipulated, or hired to kill someone in Andunor before they flee to the surface and your pc can wash their hands clean of the act. They can be recruited to serve as spies, and feed counter intelligence.

Sure they will possibly (likely) turn double agent, but if you are a drow why would you be worried of not being able to outsmart a silly human. You expecting your drow allies to also be your enemies goes hand in hand wiht being a evil drow. Just apply same to dealing with your new potential catspaws and inadvertant, manipulated minions.

Surface pcs, alongside outcasts are just as much opportunities as they are threats. How you respond to them often determines which they end up being.

However if there really is bad or immersion breaking rp going on, you can always document it and forward it to the dms, who I understand review things on a case by case basis.

I love every bit of this post.

i don't. that's the niche outcasts used to occupy and i miss it.

Goblin purge was began by outcasts, goblin players were attacked in the streets, no matter if they were new or old, low or high lvls. It drove away first timers from the Underdark because they happended to play ”wrong race” by the moment of getting bashed in the Hub after arrival. You can ask any dedicated goblin player who experienced it and nothing was done to stop it.

What bothers me that it was dismissed with ”its different” when monsters wanted to return the mistreatment upon their human overlords after their union. OOC I dont approve any purges, but sometimes it feels outcasts and surfacers get away from some things.

Career goblin players were the #1 reason why I had to send reports to the DM team literally daily when i played among the first batch of Outcasts, at Andunor's release. Menzo-Udos Drow were #2, but their playerbase cycled in and out since it's actually a popular race, but the old guard gradually accepted the outcasts and the part they'd play in the new UD - even if sometimes it was just because Irongron said you had to.

Goblins didn't. Neither their characters nor players. And yes, I feel like I can generalise here due to the monopoly that a Certain Tribe had over the race, rendering newcomers unfortunate collateral. Add to that they're generally a very niche race regardless, and you're going to be left with only the old ones that stayed and anyone they've gotten to latch onto them.

For all the appeals to setting and lore, it sure was a long time on the server that a tribe of epic goblins, the monsters that are never revisited after level 5 in your average P&P game, did more to try and drive the newly arrived outcasts off the server than the drow did long-term. Bearing in mind also, that goblins are an outcast surface race, but self-awareness isn't a goblin trait either I guess.

As soon as the first outcasts got off the boat, UD-entrenched goblins were in their way. What were outcasts supposed to do in the face of such adversity, die? (Don't answer that, I remember the forum arguments from Andunor's release) Then it turns out outcasts are all unique, capable of many varied things, so their usefulness to the population of Andunor gradually outweighed the general hate/distrust for rivvil living in the Underdark. Then they went for revenge from the ones who tried to enslave or kill them at level 2 that were still around. Which was the entirety of the goblin race.

The fact that the legacy of the outcasts is that Andunor purges goblins annually like roaches if they get too uppity is honestly a perfectly IC response. The outcasts proved they could slot into the Andunor puzzle; goblins tried to stop them and lost what power they'd built in Grond for it. These things happen!

If goblins want to get a better reputation, perhaps they should earn it like the outcasts did, or try and get papers from the drow to not be killed on sight, or maybe even find a faction to protect them as individuals, and secretly gather their strength again before establishing themselves as a race worthy of respect. But then that isn't very Setting And Lore of them either, since humans can be free in the Underdark, but goblins are only ever a slave race. This is the universe correcting itself.

[Arigard]

As an UD player for most of my time in Arelith, I think what really pours fire on this whole issue is that there seems to be very real double standards when it comes to monsters/outcasts going above and surfacers coming below.

I've been one line hostiled more times than I can remember on the surface & my character wasn't even a monster race, it was a slave. I've walked through transitions in disguise without having my disguise broken and been insta-hostiled with no RP by groups just because I came from the same direction that hunted groups were in. I know of other slaves who have been minding their business completely and have had the same thing happen, not even inside a settlement, but on the road by goodly aligned characters.

In reality, most cities are 'trade cities' in some form. The whole point that Andunor is a 'trade city' and therefore should overrule the natural order of who dislikes who just because you arrive there with some gold always seemed a little bit of a stretch to me personally. Is Cordor not a trade city? Most settlements will depend heavily on trade, whether that is outward, or inward, especially if they are sitting on valuable resources. However, certain principles do still win out over gold. I don't care how much gold you offer my PC, that doesn't mean she would go and allow you to enslave other members of her race, for example.

But in general, I've always seen Andunor as being way more receptive to RP around 'visitors' who get caught than the surface in this regard. I've also a seen a lot of people say that evil has more options for RP than good does, but I don't see why. Plenty of people get captured, or taken by the UD, I probably only know of one person who plays a monster character that has been actually captured without getting insta-corpse bashed and RPed with on the surface in my entire time RPing in the UD.

Do people on the surface not want to learn about what happens below, or build contacts and informants in the same way that the UD does? Are they not interested in the plight of slaves, or their stories and perhaps offering an olive branch of kindness to them rather than putting them into the dirt at the first opportunity? To say that good does not have options is lazy thinking IMO to justify relentless one lining rather than interesting character developing RP. Good has as much, if not more reason to engage with surface visitors as the UD does the other way around. Showing kindness to the downtrodden, looking for the best in people etc etc.

I would have loved to get captured on my slave character. There is so much trauma in his life as a slave, that nobody has ever once bothered to even ask about during any surface dealings. So much rich RP potential for 'turning' or changing his mental state and who he trusts, character progression etc etc. None of that has ever seen the light of day.

I don't think it would ever be healthy for the whole server to be holding hands and singing kumbaya. RP would get stale, lore would break and people would be bored very quickly. I'm all for IG RP having IG consequences and what we have now is a legacy of surface/UD relations. But saying that, if surfacers truly do want more from the Underdark, they also need to give more. This is a two way street and every character that gets treated like scum the second they set foot outside of their comfort zone, will simply return the favour when things are flipped. The issue IMO is that a fair amount of people in the NWN community (in my 15 years experience of playing on different worlds, not just here) have always played their characters like it's 'their story' and not a fluid world where they are simply actors in a large narrative. So when they want to kill something because it fulfills their personal character arc (the gallant hero dispatching the nasty monster), it's all groovy. But when it comes time for them to have their 'challenge' and it doesn't go the way they expect, outcry happens.

It might be a nice start if the second someone who isn't native to the surface logs on after RP builds up in parts of the servers they aren't normally in, they aren't instantly hunted down, found & insta-hostiled/one lined within 10 seconds. As long as that kind of interaction continues to happen above, expect characters to be heavily guarded and on the lookout around surfacers in Andunor.

[Ork]

It is a time honored tradition to purge goblins, and excuse your history but Xun'viir did it first. If you feel like there's a double standard, it's time to play outside the Underdark. Your tribalism is blinding you.