Surface Evil Needs Another Home

[Waldo52]

I'll admit it: I'm about to get piled on. There's gonna be a lot of disagreement here. I've had too much to drink and I feel like making an unpopular opinion thread.

Sencliff, while awesome in its own way, is IMO far from adequate as a headquarters for team evil on the surface. The system on Sencliff rewards a very high sail skill and land pirate is very much something that is hard to put together. I've seen the popular wisdom of "Be the change you'd like to see" slam head first into powerful in-game incentives too many times to entertain it any further.

Your typical good player in Skal has lots of options. He can join the radiant heart or become involved in politics or law enforcement on probably 75% of the server's land mass. Your typical evil player on Skal has two options: Pre-arrange for epic skill focus in Skal and accept a mostly conflict free life of circular sailing against NPC mobs or take a slave collar.

Sailing is fantastic in its own way and the hub can be a lot of fun, but it feels like bad guys are being redirected to remote corners of the game world where it's hard to generate conflict without a rare slave harvest or DM approved raid. I think we need some kind of bandit camp, necromancer friendly settlement or something in that vein. Preferably in a higher level area to reduce incidents and accusations of real or imagined griefing.

It feels like a full time job finding people interested in pillage and plunder and RP based antagonism. Sailing in circles and talking about shop profits with underdark schemers does very little to build tension and create panic on the surface. Once you leave Skal, being the bad guy feels sad and boring.

I anticipate massive disagreement but I'm a big boy and I can take it.

[DM Monkey]

It doesn’t need a new home. It just needs to take over other people’s homes.

[For My Next Trick]

I made a post in another thread that technically, Sibayad could fill this function, but it doesn't really have the active population or playerbase to support it. I know that it also doesn't -really- have the same support as most other zones or factions, in terms of, say, enforcing or not enforcing certain things.

I know you're not SUPPOSED to take battles to Sibayad either, and that could get you in hot water, but you can do it. You just need enough people to sort of build up to it. And it's possible you could also get more support if people see that there's a more active, constant presence outside of writs? But that's not something ever guaranteed by anyone.

Edit: Sorry I re-read the thing above and that was ODDLY ambiguous and suggested you could conquer Sibayad. What I meant is you can be surface and evil there, and people SHOULDN'T TECHNICALLY be allowed to just freely PVP you since there is technically supposed to be a merchants guild etc that rules it and merc guards.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I agree with you, so you know for certain your opinion is unpopular.

But more than just another new home, it needs to be a home that gives them validity in the setting. An easy example that may or may not work here but exemplifies what I mean is a town cropping up around the bannite fortress, similar to how a small trade hovel along the northern moonsea ride eventually expanded into a thriving town in its own right known as zhentil keep.

Why would this be good for arelith? Simply put, it gives surface evil a third option beyond hidden evil and obvious evil that will be down in the underdark or on sencliff in short order, opening the door for more concepts that involve shades of grey.

[D4wN]

I still reckon an maffia/gang style underworld would be so awesome. A place for all the degenerates who aren’t monsters to live, trade, smuggle, build criminal syndicates etc would be really good. Either under Guld or Cordor (or both). Something like Westgate style.

[Royal Blood]

Guldorand seemed to be the marriage of a legitimate city state and seedy Freeport but I think that vision is A bit sundered by being joined a the hip with Myon.

Before anything is like made or done though I think it'd be important to ask like if it adds value to RP or enhances rp. And what like design features would help to make it engaging and kinda keep it away from a good vs evil centerpiece. Probably more easily controlled if a NPC held the ultimate authority to be able to check player actions to help steer.

There is already Sibayad and sencliffe too which could sort of function in that capacity. I would say sencliff already does? n my mind what stops Sibayad from becoming more vibrantly seedy is the ease with which it can be reached it's just easy and there's no town guard or anything to stop fighting.

Conclusion, idk if adding or altering another zone would sorta feed that spark. I think there's a lot of space that could already meet that need and the reason it isn't being met is more like broader design then just requiring a zone to congregate.

Last thought, the radiant heart zone remains active because anyone with the right class and alignment can join that. It's relatively easy to reach too. Maybe a criminal based zone should follow the radiant heart model but be like

1: you start doing special criminal/rogue like writs in a seedy tavern only rogues, swashbucklers and classes in that niche can do
2: You get high enough criminal renown by doing the writs you get access to a radiant heart style hide out with more unique writs and zone functions that would support nefarious activities.

[Hazard]

I'd like some town where openly being a very obvious baddie would be welcome. Maybe a few undead/monster NPCs scattered about to legitimize it.

It's not something we could have had in the past, because it would immediately be steamrolled and vassalised, but we don't do 'wars' anymore and the settlement war system doesn't even function anymore afaik.

A big difficulty I see with this though, is, how do you make an evil surface town that welcomes things like undead, without also opening it up to welcoming monsterous races from the Underdark, like kobolds, goblin, ogres, Drow, etc?

That is likely something the other settlements would react to, or you'd atleast have groups of players constantly going there to attack it themselves. It'd need to have some beefy defenses, or something.

While a new spooky town would be great, I think a better solution would be to slowly chip away at server culture and try to improve it and bring it to a more setting/lore appropriate place, and less away from the zealotry that seems unique to this server.

Sometimes it can seem like the average Arelithian adventurer is more righteous and zealous in their pursuit of "absolute goodness" than even the shiniest of Paladins. It's just not quite how I imagine the Forgotten Realms to be, given how very common worship of genuinely evil gods is.

Guldorand does have a huge issue in that it is attached to Myon and elves tend to have a pretty hardline stance culturally. I think it would do a lot of great things for the server if Myon and Guldorand were split apart and both allowed to do their own thing. We could have a cool elf place where elves do the elf stuff, and we could have a potentially (sometimes, depending on government) very dark city.

[Griefmaker]

Guldorand seemed to be the marriage of a legitimate city state and seedy Freeport but I think that vision is A bit sundered by being joined a the hip with Myon.

Guldorand divorced from Myon would definitely make it more interesting. I too have always felt that being joined at the hip with Myon caused Guld to be held back instead of allowing it to flourish.

It feels in my mind that Cordor is more the neutral-good city via its history and setting and Guld is more neutral-evil.

Which is good! It could turn the two cities into an interesting rivalry and the elves and dwarves could finally join forces to combat those silly halflings and gnomes and persecute them like the second class citizens they are .

Years ago, I was in the party that the racial settlements join into one big "Andunor-style" city and still would have preferred something more like, even if it would require a more imaginative reason (or cataclysm or whatever) like the greater number of humans rising up against the non-humans to force that to happen.

Edit:
I also agree with Hazard's post too.

[Amnesy]

I still think RP can defend itself, maybe no settlement will turn into an undead worship demon-binding enclave. But within Cordor and Guldorand there is enough seeded opportunity for governments on the non-self-destructive evil spectrum to take hold and spawn a ton of interesting RP.

Cordor had Katernin + Tyros. Nothing stops players from proving a grey to evil settlement can be interesting.
The setting usually follows the RP, not the other way around. Many elements had been created as the result of players coming together under the banner of something cool (good, evil, and everything in between).

[The GrumpyCat]

I think we need to clarify the question very slightly.
By 'Evil' Settlment do you mean
a) A settlment where people can be a bit naughty, a bit evil, a bit bad. Where banites and such can wander where they will, where thieves can cause mischief, ect ect.
b) A settlment like the above, but torture, slavery, murder and other things are considered absolutly fine.
c) A settlment where i can walk down the street with my undead and Fiend in toe, and the above is true too.
d) A settlment Where all above is true, but there's also underdarkers allowed in too, a place of utter vileness.
e)Something else?

[In Sorrow We Trust]

sencliff does most of this, it just doesn't have any established norms and a lot of it is locked behind pirate ink

[Kythana]

Sometimes it can seem like the average Arelithian adventurer is more righteous and zealous in their pursuit of "absolute goodness" than even the shiniest of Paladins. It's just not quite how I imagine the Forgotten Realms to be, given how very common worship of genuinely evil gods is.

This is the actual problem. A surface evil settlement would never thrive when it's getting raided for the 17th time that week because someone saw one of their government summon a demon once.

[Waldo52]

I think we need to clarify the question very slightly.
By 'Evil' Settlment do you mean
a) A settlment where people can be a bit naughty, a bit evil, a bit bad. Where banites and such can wander where they will, where thieves can cause mischief, ect ect.
b) A settlment like the above, but torture, slavery, murder and other things are considered absolutly fine.
c) A settlment where i can walk down the street with my undead and Fiend in toe, and the above is true too.
d) A settlment Where all above is true, but there's also underdarkers allowed in too, a place of utter vileness.
e)Something else?

Probably C or D?

My problem is that while Sencliff kind of checks these boxes, it's separated from everyone else and prevents good guy/bad guy interactions by design. Sailing gives some XP on its own, and even if you're level 30 there are still sailors who need help with sailing jobs. There's always good and plunder loot in sailing. Anyone who wants to cause mischief, go robbing people, or meet people on the road who are diametrically opposed to team evil in an organic fashion are going against the grain of every mechanical incentive there is. So in effect, it virtually never happens.

Pirates have their badass outfits and hook-hands, often with demons or undead following them around. But they have to be themselves by themselves, and functionally aren't the tough guys they try to be because it's all based around playing in an isolated fashion (sailing).

Do pirates stir up conflict? Sometimes. But it's 99% relegated to boat on boat PvP incidents. I've heard they happen from time to time, but they're pretty rare and avoidable. And anyone can avoid the big scary city of Sencliff by just avoiding the sea, which most of us do anyway. I've played like 20 pirates spanning over three years and have been involved in one boat on boat fight ever, lol.

Compare Senlcliff to the Radiant Heart. The Radiant Heart has a land based headquarters in a decently high population, high level area. They're often seen patrolling the roads or doing writ work locally, and this has naturally stirred up a lot of conflict. I've had friends who were caught with undead in the area, and I've had disguises broken in the area (which with my characters is probably worse than being caught with a zombie). Team good has tried to arrest us, given us stern talking-tos, we've been in wild west standoffs and staring contests, and we've been killbashed. This was all fantastic for server health and inter-player engagement.

Sencliff is fine for what it is, but it does literally none of these things. There is no ICly or OOCly intelligent reason to get out of your boat and your evil hijinks are conducted against NPC Cordorian sailors instead of anyone who could potentially care or be scared.

I've heard posters talk about evil-ing Guldorand or Sibyad, and these are fine ideas. A new bandit camp or similar thing would also be a fine idea. But I really do believe that Sencliff is more of a pirate themed hotel and resort than it is a thorn in the side of the surface. And I say this as a guy who kind of likes Sencliff and has no problem taking ink.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I think we need to clarify the question very slightly.
By 'Evil' Settlment do you mean
a) A settlment where people can be a bit naughty, a bit evil, a bit bad. Where banites and such can wander where they will, where thieves can cause mischief, ect ect.
b) A settlment like the above, but torture, slavery, murder and other things are considered absolutly fine.
c) A settlment where i can walk down the street with my undead and Fiend in toe, and the above is true too.
d) A settlment Where all above is true, but there's also underdarkers allowed in too, a place of utter vileness.
e)Something else?

E. A settlement that has validity like Cordor or Guldorand, but with its own code of ethics. This is why Bane probably works the best as a backdrop, because tyranny does not mean lawless. In fact, it's probably more lawful than a good city could ever be. And odds are they wouldn't allow undead to be walking the streets with their necromancers because it would frighten the commoners that make up the bulk of their workforce. But on the same token, they aren't going to care if you got caught summoning the dead while beating up orcs or whatever like Cordor or Guldorand often does.

Also, if it's a surface city, they shouldn't allow underdarkers and monsters to roam freely. It doesn't make sense ic at all, nor does it make any sense oocly. They already have the underdark to thrive in. I really think the general consensus in this city if it becomes a thing should be underdarkers = common enemy with the other surface cities, though that doesn't stop anyone from wheeling and dealing behind the scenes.

I really dug this blurb about zhentil keep from the FR wiki, sourced from a book called "the mysteries of the moonsea":

Administration
As of 1374 DR, there existed a gate fee when entering or leaving the city, imposed by Fzoul Chembryl. A writ permitting an individual free passage within the city for the period of one tenday could be bought, upon entering, for five gold pieces. The valid writ was required on exiting the city, else a fee of 100 gold pieces was imposed. This measure was intended to prevent most citizens from migrating away from the city, since this fee is beyond the reach of most citizens.[28]

It's not something that necessarily needs to be part of it all, but rather an example of what can make the city feel different from anything else on the server.

As for raids, well... That's a cultural thing. Zhentil keep has stood for centuries because no one would be foolish enough to try and take it on with a small group, and moving an army to invade would be a tactical nightmare for anyone outside the other city states along the northern ride, whom Zhentil keep had at least one war with iirc. I'm personally not a fan of how raids are done on Arelith, since its often whimsicle and comes down to pvp, but i also know that giant pvp fests are popular for some reason with a subset of players and dms, so I doubt it will ever be what I would prefer. That being said, I'm sure the people on the team that are much smarter than I can sort this bit out.

[Xerah]

Big fan of the idea of a surface "mini-city" around the Bane Church. You can also build it as if there is some level of support from the undead in the area so that there is a "overreaching NPC" that can stop PCs trying to always steamroll the settlement.

I do think Guldorand has a reasonable set up for something like this. But yeah, the Myon connection is the biggest problem.

The biggest issue is with the server culture though as Hazard has stated. So many PC seem to not understand that evil exists in almost every city in the forgotten realms and they don't have daily wars about it. I appreciate the DMs light attempts to reinforce these ideas (i.e. Thayan enclave, Banite Queen, Evil churches, etc.) but I'm up for trying something more overt.

[Waldo52]

I would like to caution against making something explicitly Bane oriented, although I'm fine with Banites being welcome or it being near a Bane temple of course.

Banites have a fairly specific approach and style that often involves social climbing and political scheming over long periods of time. And that's fine, but there's a real lack of meaningful surface evil locales and the last thing we would want is a place where "you have to be our kind of evil or you're not welcome here either".

While Banites are not all the same, the ones I've met are more likely to conceal their alignment and run for an election than they are to protect the road from paladin patrols or engage in robbery. Everyone knows a bandit camp would be fun. A Banite hall might be twenty years of catty schemers talking about master plans and self isolating in a way similar to what you see in Sencliff.

TL;DR: Nothing against Banites, they should be welcome. But a specifically Banite settlement might turn into a glorified chat room.

[Aradin]

Building up a settlement around the Banite Church feels like the best option, if something like this is being considered. Rethinking Sibayad/Guldorand could also work. The Banite Church makes the most sense to me, as there's a lot of Faerunian lore and Arelith history that would justify them doing so, and would also justify the more 'goodly' settlements tolerating the presence of an expanded Banite congregation. Babylon System gave great justifications in their post above.

However! I think the Banite flavour would have to be far more reserved than it is now.

Take Cordor or Andunor. Cordor has a distant king & queen nominally ruling over things, but it's the player governments that have the power to flavour the city in virtually every way that matters. State faiths, style of government, most laws. Andunor has the hubmaster and Houses Freth and Claddath, and even though the three districts are somewhat flavoured, player governments ultimately choose what each district stand for. Although there are technically NPC rulers in both of these places, you don't ever really feel their presence, which does wonders for player agency.
If a theoretical settlement around the church is overtly Banite (rather than, say, ruled by some distant dreadlord NPC that players almost never see), then it's hard for non-Banite players to feel welcome, let alone shape the roleplay of that place. If there's any surface evil settlement being considered, I would strongly urge for it to be inclusive of far more faiths than just one, and far more character concepts than just followers of one god. Places like that support an extremely limited number of character concepts. If you want a place that will draw population, you have to make it a blanker slate than "the Bane place where Banite things happen".

[Ellisaria]

E. A settlement that has validity like Cordor or Guldorand, but with its own code of ethics.

I wasn't around in those days, but this sounds like what Wharftown used to be.

[Xerah]

I understand people's concern if they think a settlement around a Bane Church means only Banites are allowed, but that's not even what Zhentil Keep is; other faiths were allowed and even shrines to good gods (well, at least Tymora).

The play for the church on Arelith is for them to play up the "Mirmir Protector" role and with the multi-generational propaganda push towards the support of Bane. Doesn't need to start there. Good character would visit and push in the other direction (even hide within the ranks of the "Mirmir Protectorate" force) and try to subvert from inside there.

[Edens_Fall]

I think we need to clarify the question very slightly.
By 'Evil' Settlment do you mean
a) A settlment where people can be a bit naughty, a bit evil, a bit bad. Where banites and such can wander where they will, where thieves can cause mischief, ect ect.
b) A settlment like the above, but torture, slavery, murder and other things are considered absolutly fine.
c) A settlment where i can walk down the street with my undead and Fiend in toe, and the above is true too.
d) A settlment Where all above is true, but there's also underdarkers allowed in too, a place of utter vileness.
e)Something else?

As we already have Andunor, I believe people are referring to opinion C. I personally always imagined a small fortified village sponsored by Thay as a location ruled by such a power would allow everything an evil non-monster can want. That or Sibayad with greater corruption by the league and more lax rules. I will point out that Sibayad used to be rather neutral in regard to evil and monsters until endless PVP in the town between good and evil forced the setting to change and, with it, the town laws.

This, of course, was all my thoughts before Guld city opened where a Thayan sits on the council. I feel we could do more with this city as it has been built to allow a swing in either direction though, from its history, such RP can be limited by Myon and the culture of elves in general. It's simply too difficult to pursue such an evil course without DM support when the settlement next door can walk in and impose its will via force before retreating to safety one area over. There needs to be a cushion between settlements, all settlements, to allow growth within them.

Lastly, I would mention a final issue to the problem. Evil is not one large force, but in fact two variations. One being evil non-monsters, the other being evil monster races. Monster races will NEVER be allowed to settle on the surface or operate on the surface for any length of time. That's just the setting for Arelith. What's left is a rather small population of Evil PCs that can operate within the surface areas. Unfortunately, that means they will always lose. It's a simple numbers game. Good simply has more players on the surface than evil. This is also the reason no openly evil PC is ever elected to lead a settlement and effect change. Thus any evil settlement or location would need to be small and very secure, with some sort of plot armor to protect it. Such as being backed by the nation of Thay etc.

There are ways to bring about a change of direction for certain settlements to be more evil, but any such attempt would need DM oversight and a bit of luck on the players part to pull it off before being chased into the UD once discovered.

[Edens_Fall]

sencliff does most of this, it just doesn't have any established norms and a lot of it is locked behind pirate ink

I wonder if the Cliff can be opened up to support all surface evil PCs. Perhaps with parts not restricted by Ink? I know it will never get a settlement system, so I am not sure how to pull the idea off design-wise.

[Waldo52]

sencliff does most of this, it just doesn't have any established norms and a lot of it is locked behind pirate ink

I wonder if the Cliff can be opened up to support all surface evil PCs. Perhaps with parts not restricted by Ink? I know it will never get a settlement system, so I am not sure how to pull the idea off design-wise.

This would do very little.

Sencliff is an island, natural conflict with team good and land based crime involves herding cats (away from the direction of the cat food/sea plunder). A large number of evil non-inked additional players would result in a lot of guests onboard pirate ships for great loot and circular sailing RP.

Sencliff is a fun place where you can be yourself but it's uniquely ill equipped as a driver of surface conflict.

There has to be a happy medium between bad guys committing crimes against NPCs in international waters and opening a brand new fortress right next to the radiant heart where fifty people die a day for leaving the gates of town. The latter would obviously be stupid. But I don't think the former is working out much better.

[Xerah]

fifty people die a day for leaving the gates of town. The latter would obviously be stupid.

You could say the same thing about Guldorand. The things around that city (or in the sewers) are even more dangerous than around Minmir.

Regardless, there's been very little interest in this sort of thing on the developer side historically (given the failures of Wharftown), so this could all be yelling at clouds. Hopefully, things have changed, because, despite all the best wishes, it really doesn't seem to me to be very successful to foster evil based conflict without getting quickly steamrolled (obviously there are exceptions).

[Ruzuke]

I recently started an evil character with long-term plans, so I like this idea. One thing I would point out is why not allow a Thyan settlement. Or an alliance of evil territory. I do not believe the undead or fiends should be walking the streets, but where such magic is forbidden, power is used to spread and gain more control.

I am torn between monsters on the surface and humans (I say give ogres their place to be the evil monsters), but I would love to have my Kobold on the surface. What I would say is to expand the slavery system and allow monsters to be slaves on the surface. Let them be the beast of burden. For any of this to work I believe evil needs a place where the heroes cannot kick down the doors and slaughter everything that moves.

[Spriggan Bride]

I wish the existing settlements were a lot seedier. At least parts of them. The surface seems like a gentrified neighborhood. It's too clean and nice and tame in general. Why couldn't lower Cordor or the Guldorand docks be a place you just don't go alone, especially at night? Maybe the crops could fail and Arelith hits dire economic times and shanties of desperate NPCs set up outside Cordor's walls. I just never get a sense there's a real criminal element at all, or a poverty and a desperate underclass who might turn to crime creating some actual moral questions about what to do about them. Instead it just all feels so tame, where the nearby caves of monsters are just a contained nuisance and the real threats are a long way away and not really a threat to the surface way of life (except the occasional Anundor raid or DM story, of course).