To the Ninefold Star

[CheekyHobo]

Hey guys.

I've not been playing Shiera regularly, or long, but in my short time with her I had the opportunity to get to know the Ninefold Star - the Infernalists - and these players quickly amazed me. I've never been more frustrated by not being in the primary timezone than now, because what the players of Morgan, Lucia, Mary and Marya created seemed to me to be unusually deep, and I barely had time to spend with them.

I only scratched the surface of these characters and the only caught a glimpse of all the lore they worked on for their cabal, but what little I did see was really inspiring. They took it to a level I didn't expect, and frankly it spurred me to improve as much as it intimidated me. Their characters proved to be much more multi-layered than I thought (with Marya in particular surprising me). I could have spent hours in their hut alone, reading everything they wrote. I wanted to, really, but just never got the chance. It truly was extensive, and the focus on occult was much bigger than I thought it would be. I was a bit humbled to see how committed the players were to what their characters were, in a way I don't recall other religious factions being with my former characters (no offense to anyone!).

They managed to create evil people that weren't the typical black-spikes-and-cackling-laughter sort. Their characters most of the time felt human first and foremost - which made the moments where they weren't, where they were the cold, calculating and zealous Infernalists, all the scarier. They had emotions beyond just hate and anger, they could be positive and humorous without overdoing it, and they tried to be rational in their line of thought. I believe this is the sort of evil character that makes interaction with the good guys more interesting, because it doesn't always, or often, become roll playing. It's much more a clash of ideologies than a clash of mechanics.

Unfortunately, Shiera seemed to have arrived near the end of the cult's activity, and not long after, the core group began to move on, much to my regret. I don't know what their next project will be, but I'm certain it will also be greatly fun, probably elaborate, and highly inclusive of others. They're the sort of players that make me want to create whatever character would be in the vicinity of theirs, because I know that the effort they put into their personalities, emotes and lore will motivate me to do better myself.

I did get a chance to play much more with the novices - Andelos, Alphellius, Stellen. We adventured a lot together, with many conversations about this and that. They were sometimes light-hearted, but more often than not serious and interesting. Hearing about Andy's death got to me much more than I expected. He may have been the most unusual in the group, the sort that really seemed the most human to me in his daily behavior, to the point where you sometimes wonder why is he a bad guy at all - until he actually does act on his ideology, and you understand then that being evil doesn't mean you're inhuman and must act so in every small moment of your day. Ahh, I don't know. All the pain he was in, physically and emotionally, his youth, his (at first) insecurity, his development into someone more confident. It got to me, what can I say. It may have been the final blow to the motivation to play Shiera (after replaying Hearts of Stone I really feel like making a warlock like Olgierd Von Everec, but two warlocks in a row might be repetitive). Time will tell.

This is from the perspective of someone who played an ally of theirs. I don't know if enemies out there might feel the same, but I still feel nonetheless that the quality of RP I experienced also extended when dealing with their foes. So thanks a lot for what short fun we had, guys. I'm already missing them.

[susitsu]

I went to write a post and...deleted it all, because honestly, I really owe it to make a kudos thread for Alphellius. Everything I was writing up belonged in there. So...until later, after I sleep, I'll say this.

I absolutely love every player in the Nine-Fold Star and I find it the greatest shame that...we all just sort of drifted away. I think every single person was very, very important to it. All of us, it was literally like our characters really were family, and in a weird way, even if I had never talked to Morgan or Lucia's player, and how rare my conversations were with Mary, I still felt like they were these incredible people I wanted to talk to every day.

Ive had an excess of light-hearted and joking conversations with Andy's player and lots and lots of much more in-depth ones with Cheeky over there. Still, though, I had important ones with Vizcar/Mojopin/Andelos/whatever this guy's main username is and sillier ones with Cheeky. And Stellen, he's just bae. Always a bro. Always so chill. It's almost weird talking to the player sometimes because of the stark contrast between Varg's difficult to understand and seemingly super serious cultural differences whereas anytime Ive spoken with him, I just think "Ah, this guy is so cool."

The hardest decision for me to make was to actually stop playing Alphellius. I don't want to delete him and I actually do hope the days with Morgan, Mary, Marya, and even the shorter-lived ones in which I actually got to see Lucia, will come back at some point.

You are all the best.

I'll go way more in-depth when I can in a totally new thread. Lots of people outside of the Cabal deserve a mention for that guy.

[gilescorey]

I really don't have much to say, short of what I've already said in my own thread. It was a good time.

[Baron Saturday]

The Ninefold Star (is that what the younguns are calling it?) was great fun, no matter which side of the equation you found yourself on. I'll miss the characters, but look forward to what the players do next!

[CocoHaram]

I mildly regret vanishing and not keeping up contact with the others playing characters in the Ninefold Star, but the experience was my first with Neverwinter and for a character that was originally intended to be a joke that would help me get used to RPing on this game it spiraled into something wonderfully entertaining.

It was definitely an experience and getting to know the others was probably the best out of all of it, even if my character was pretty much the only stereotypical (besides Lucia) cloak and dagger scheming fellow with a heart like the Grinch. Almost felt bad that he had the same amount of individuality and personality as your average potato, but c'est la vie.

(also the insanely high quality writing blew me out of the water and forced me to seriously up my standards. reading lucias reports was an experience and a half.)

Really enjoyed RPing with you and everyone else though! Intend to dive back into Arelith some time in the near future and hope I see you and the others around in RP and otherwise.

[CoastalSurf]

I really hate vanishing like I did. But yeah, that whole crew was great. And oh man, shiera and marya, there is quite honestly nothing I would have loved more than to see the two of them grow together.

Marya was (is maybe?) terribly hard to play given all her....stuff...but it was totally worth it given what I got back