Nero

I generally plan to have something happen to the character. If I intend to shelve a character then I do plan to either kill them off permanently or just have them leave for an extended period of time. I tend to plan for multiple contingencies so that there's always a way out, so to speak. I absolutely hate finding that I've written myself into a corner so I tend to broaden my options as much as possible. I don't really have something set in stone for them for the above reason. Roen killing Nero wasn't explicitly planned. That turn of events was purely an in-the-moment decision, one that I didn't even really make (although did encourage). I did plan for something to happen though; if Nero didn't die, he would leave the continent, that sort of thing.

Brief reminder to keep the discussion civil and on-topic. You can disagree with someone without derision.

It wasn't implemented to be a "rule" as much as it is an organizational tool and a clear, unambiguous indicator of exactly where the LEP rule will apply so that users won't have to worry about not knowing where or to what the rule applies.

Short version: Tag your thread as a "Discussion" if you do not want meme posts, .gifs, silly one-liners or comments, or other posts that may or may not add substance to the thread. Threads that are not specifically tagged as "Discussion" are not subject to the Low-Effort Posting rule, although staff will still remove posts that break the site's rules. Long version: As you may have noticed, we've now implemented the "Discussion" tag in select forums. You can assign the "Discussion" tag to your thread by using the prefix, as displayed in the image below. As you may recall, a while ago we implemented the Ruling Against Low Effort Posting. Per that ruling's announcement: Essentially, the intention of the original ruling was to cut down on meme or .gif posting in discussion topics so that discussion posts with more substantial content would be allowed to take precedence. However, with the implementation of the "Discussion" tag, the Low-Effort Posting rule will only apply to those threads that have been specifically tagged with "Discussion". While inflammatory comments or posts that are blatantly and/or provocatively off-topic will still be removed as per the rules Section 1 - Posting and Topics, and Section 4 - Tone and Attitude, things like joke .gifs or posts with minimal or little content won't be removed unless the thread is specifically tagged as a "Discussion" thread. You can look at the Ruling Against Low Effort Posting thread to see specific examples of low-effort posts that may be removed in threads that are tagged as "Discussion". The Discussion tag has been implemented on the following boards. Final Fantasy 14 FFXIV Discussion Community RP Discussion Lore Discussion Making Connections Character Workshop Off-Topic Off-Topic Discussion The "Discussion" tag can be added to a thread retroactively, but the technical limitations of the plugin means the staff cannot see exactly when it is applied. For that reason, it is recommended that users tag their thread immediately if they wish for the Low-Effort Posting rules to apply to their thread, and that users do not retroactively remove or add the Discussion tag. Feel free to provide feedback to this feature in the posts below.

Worth noting that Unnamed Mercenary, a member of our tech staff, has been working on a Lore wiki. He's currently on vacation right now but when he returns he'll be able to weigh in on that subject and its implementation, and then we can discuss that as an option.

In addition, I'd welcome help from the users in using the Report system to flag threads they feel should be moved.

We've now implemented a dedicated lore board. You can find it in "Community", right under "RP Discussion", or by clicking this link. For the moment, the board is intended to be a "General Forum", lacking in specific categories. Feedback on the board's organization is welcome in this clickable link. The "FFXIV Discussion" board is now primarily intended to be about in-game mechanics, PvP, PvE, and Final Fantasy XIV as a video game. In the mean time, the staff will be shuffling over lore threads from the "FFXIV Discussion" board over to Lore Discussion. Thanks for your patience while we get everything sorted.

Are there any specific categories or sub-boards you'd like to see? Do you feel that additional subforums are necessary? For example, we could split the discussion board into the following categories. Classes & Jobs Factions & Regions Historical Events and Individuals Possibly a board for speculation and/or headcanons? Let me know via post or poll.

Hello! Firstly, I would like to thank everyone who applied to the staff. There was a good number of applications for us to review and many great candidates. I am sorry that we could not select them all. Please note that this new selection of moderators is not necessarily permanent! Sometimes people don't mesh well with the role, sometimes people find themselves too busy to continue, or some people merely find the responsibilities to be a chore, and that's okay. If you've submitted an application, you may be contacted in the future about possible openings on the staff. There really were a lot of good candidates, we just couldn't accept every single one. And if you didn't get in on the last application period, then don't worry! If any openings on the staff become available or if the staff feel that more members are needed, a new application thread will be opened and those who did not or could not previously submit an application can do so. Now for the new staff. You may review the full list of staff here. Our new staff members are GhostlyMaiden, Meishali, RiniKett,. Sorcini, Teadrinker, and Kylin, whose name isn't applied yet due to technical difficulties. In addition, Graeham has agreed to become a supermoderator. You might have also noticed some new name colours, so here is an overview of each label and their role on the staff. The administrator is responsible for, as the name implies, administration of the site. The administrator is mainly responsible for: Resolve disputes between staff Implement or coordinate technical changes to the site or the site's tools Approve or disapprove policy changes suggested by the staff, and to in turn present policy changes to the staff for democratic approval. Serve as a final authority on moderation issues The supermoderators are responsible for the following: Enforce policy, interpret rules, and hand out infractions and bans for violations of policy on a site-wide basis Suggest and vote on policy changes Lock threads and remove posts as needed Provide input to issues brought up by other moderators Make announcements and communicate to users Reorganize threads into the appropriate forums or subforums Report additional issues to the administrator The moderators are responsible for the following: Enforcing and interpret rule violations within a limited number of forums or subforums Reorganizing threads into the appropriate forums or subforums Reporting additional issues to supermoderators and the administrator Submit disputes, user appeals, or violations to supermoderators or the administrator for review Remove duplicate posts Lock threads until review by a supermoderator only in notably egregious cases Provide additional input on issues brought up by supermoderators or the administrator Suggest changes and input to rules, policy, and enforcement as needed Lastly, a new colour, the hardhats, are technical staff responsible for the following: Implementing new features and plugins to the site Troubleshooting technical issues with access, formatting, and users Suggest or dispute feature changes to the website Reporting issues for review by moderators, supermoderators, and the administrator Manage technical issues from the RPC Wiki Again, thank you to all of the applicants and welcome to the new staff members.

He had always hated knocking on doors. It made him anxious. Not because of the possibilities that lay beyond the door, but because he despised etiquette and was yet hard-wired to follow it. Should he knock twice? Thrice? Should there be a pause between the knocks? No pause at all? Was one pattern of knocking considered more acceptable than the other? Should it follow a rhythm? How much force should be placed behind the first knock as opposed to subsequent knocks? His contemplation was interrupted by a deep, masculine voice reverberating from behind the polished mahogany door. "You may enter." Maximilien breathed a sigh of relief, free of his cogitations regarding the nature of alerting one's presence to a door, and swung the door smoothly. His drachen mail was absent, replaced by a white doublet whose wrinkles belied his disdain for fine dress. The Marquis chose not to face him, of course. The rustling coming from the front of the turned highback chair indicated that he was still replacing his mask. This time it was a full-faced visage of some kind of Far Eastern monster. The last time Maximilien had spoken to the man it'd been an eagle, and the time before that a cyclops. Lady Auzenne had alerted him to the Marquis' proclivity for masks, but the dragoon would be lying if he said he had adjusted to the former's habit. "I was informed as to the existence of a sort of complaint with which you would like to file." The Marquis spoke in a rich, smooth baritone, still facing away from his guest. The stone walls reflected his opaque tone of voice quite well. It was a trick of the ears, intended to make him appear more full of presence than he actually was. Maximilien dipped in a smooth, well-practised bow. "With all due respect, my lord, your subordinates saw fit to abandon another one of their trophies among the Highlands." "I do not believe previously expressed concerns were placed." The Elezen twitched the corner of his lip. The Marquis' peculiar style of speech was another one of those quirks that he had never quite adjusted to. "I had not because my lord had assured me that it would remain an isolated incident amongst eager zealots. If you signify your presence to this extent, however, the Temple Knights may begin asking questions." A billowy snort was heard from the front of the chair. "No Temple Knight has yet to care a whit of the cold claiming another foreign body. Think me not of king or ruler; their activities express fervour of which I am unlikely to condemn." It took a notable amount of willpower for Maximilien to keep from sighing in annoyance. Almost as if in response, the Marquis stood from his chair. He was a tall man, dressed in a gilded black justacorps, but in addition to the mask he wore a black hood that obscured much of his features, and his height and lankiness made it ambiguous as to whether or not he was Hyur or Elezen. "There remain a reason regardless that your summons was made. I wished to be certain of the completion of aspects of your task." The dragoon nodded rather grimly. "It's done. I received the support of the Convictors in hunting the dragon known as Kavir myself. The dragon's horde is scattered, for now." "And the blood?" "My retainers collected pieces of the dragon's remains to Miss Reeves' specifications." "Were you seen?" Maximilien shook his head. "I managed to secure the corpse by making an excuse of claiming a trophy. Speaking of Miss Reeves, I do hope she has been using her subjects efficiently. I find Inquisitor Bellamont's....collection to be distasteful." The Marquis folded his arms, turning away from Maximilien again. The latter did his utmost to keep from fidgeting. "Think not of the Inquisitor's methodology. The specifications of the conversion process Reeves has narrowed down to a small number of possibilities." "That being?" "That information is not necessary. Suffice to say that the high possibiliy is that the threat remain one unique to Ishgard." There was a pause, and this time Maximilien let out the audible sigh. The Marquis waved a hand, transfixed on a large tapestry that had been erected behind his desk. "Your hunt continues with full endorsement, Valencourt." "You have not forgotten?" Maximilien said, his gaze narrowing. The nobleman's masked visage turned to stare at the Elezen in turn. "Your war will continue for as long as you wish."

Introducing a new race to Eorzea: CASTs. The Garleans developed autonomous magitek androids who have defected and are now looking for a different place to point all of their photon weaponry. I can dream.

EDIT: Made some changes based on Sounsyy's clarifications below. Luckily, Ninja was introduced only in 2.0 so there is no 1.0 stuff for me to sift through! Note: This post contains spoilers for the Ninja quests!

Applications are now closed. Thank you to all who applied.

The short answer is "whatever you want". The long answer is something quite a bit more complicated. Let's not think about the character for a moment. What is it that you want to do? Do you want to get into plotlines? Do you want your character to develop? Do you want to be able to engage in casual slice-of-life RP on a whim? You said there was a complete disconnect on what they are and what you want them to be. What's stopping you from developing the character into what you want them to be? There is nothing inherently wrong with a character who acts unlikeable or has an unpleasant personality, mostly because whether or not something or someone is likeable is fairly subjective. The problem comes from a character being one-dimensional. Either A). the character's behaviour seems forced or arbitrary or B). the character has absolutely no positive traits or qualities. So you have a character who's petty, egotistical, contrarian, and likes to push people's buttons and get them riled just for laughs. My recommendation? Add dimension. What does your character care about? What gets your character angry? What qualities do they see as redeemable in people? If you can answer any of these questions, then you can assign personality traits to them that make them marginally likeable enough--even in very esoteric contexts--to get RP going. Even Stalin had two wives.

By user request, the application form will remain open until 9 PM PST. Any and all last minute applicants must submit their application by or before that time. There will be no further extensions past this point.

They're painting it with single strands of unicorn hair, man, you have to be patient. The main issue I find is consistency, in the sense that the WoL less of an individual and more a character concept that's totally fluid in appearance and mannerisms. It would be easy to call Derplander the "canon" WoL (and judging by the MSQ, the possibility of an actual canon WoL or group of WoL outside of our character does exist) but all it does is make me scratch my head. It'd kind of be like roleplaying as The Last Dragonborn in Skyrim, you know? Everyone has such a different version that regardless of what interacting with the WoL does, the lack of consistency makes it a real hedge of thorns to sort through.

A brief reminder that applications close at 11 PM, Wednesday, March 16th.

Given that the lore is flexible enough for you to make your own tribe, it's completely possible to create a culture who's basis revolves around a "Most Dangerous Game" sort of deal. I would call it extremely rare, borderline unheard of, but that's partially because A). The tribal nature of the Xaela lend themselves to extremely low population density and thus it's very unlikely for even the canon tribes to have heard of one another unless they are in geographically similar areas and B). Au Ra are foreign in Eorzea. I don't see any way this wouldn't be plausible, though be aware that if you try to go General Zaroff in public then other characters are likely to take issue with it.

I like the white hair, though that may be because I am not overly partial to chestnut brown (or whatever shade that is). Although for a measly 2,000 gil you can change the hair colour at any time, and I can't tell the difference between any other features...so I'll go with the first one.

I am now completely confused, so correct me at any point if I'm misinterpreting anything you are saying. There are two points you are arguing: One: white magic is used for healing and incapable of or ineffective in causing direct harm (or perhaps any harm at all), therefore white magic is inherently good and beneficial. Because white magic is inherently good and beneficial, it cannot (or should not) be used as the "evil power" in a story. Because white magic cannot cause any harm, then narratively-speaking, evil should not use white magic. White magic being used for evil purposes doesn't make sense in a story, and a "good vs. evil" plotline makes more sense with, say, a black mage villain than a white mage villain, because there are other powers (i.e arcanima, thaumaturgy) that are capable of causing direct harm and thus should be used instead. Counterargument: white magic, while incapable of causing direct harm, is still capable of causing indirect harm. And because it is capable of causing indirect harm, white magic is therefore not inherently good and beneficial (BUT nor is it inherently bad and harmful). And because white magic is not inherently good, then it can be used for evil purposes and still make sense within a storyline. It may not be as directly evil as blowing up hospitals with thaumaturgy, but it is still capable of performing evil acts. See: keeping an unambiguously evil person alive, keeping an innocent person alive to torment them, draining all of the aether in a localized environment (and by extension threatening the indiscriminate wrath of the Elementals). Also, contradiction with the below point: how can a power that is inherently "good and beneficial" also be capable of destroying the world? Two: using white magic is extremely dangerous as its abuse nearly destroyed the world. Therefore it makes no sense for a villain to use it for evil purposes or attempt to inflict direct harm with it because they risk destroying everything in the process. In addition, if a villain wishes to destroy the world, there are easier methods of doing so involving (insert: Allagans, primals, a particularly stinky cheese, etc.) Counter: "Evil" is not limited to wanting to inflict direct harm or destroy the world. Inflicting indirect harm, or inflicting any harm in general, can be extrapolated as an evil intention. Therefore, on a purely individual basis, a good person who becomes a white mage and then turns evil for whatever reason is still capable of using their powers with evil intentions. Whether or not they would is irrelevant, what matters is that they are capable of doing so if their inclination exists. Pretty much unrelated to my above points, but isn't this exactly the kind of thing we're talking about? Is that not exactly what happened at the end of the Fifth Astral Era? White magic, an "inherently good and beneficial" magic, was used extensively for the sake of man's own gain. This own gain became greed and avarice. Then the Elementals retaliated by flooding the world. Imagine if you're a white mage in the Fifth Astral Era, and you know your magic drains environmental aether, but you want to cure all of the world's diseases and ailments and rescue all the sick children with your power because you're a good person and that's a good intention. So you use your power. A lot. Unaware (or perhaps fully aware) of the harm it causes to the environment. Then the elementals flood the world and kill you and all of the innocents you were trying to preserve with your good intentions. ANYWAY this is getting way off topic so I'll stop here, I just want to be sure we understand each other's points.

Well of course! That is part of the fun. Then again, would it not be considered atleast somewhat raided, for the lack of a better term, by a few hordes of adventurers? Considering that it has been accessible now and all of that. I could imagine that getting in and out would be harder. In all honesty, I have yet to understand people who want to align White Magic with evil when it's so clearly not designed to do anything more than heal. Even weaponizing it appears to be extremely harmful in retrospect, and may very well be what accelerated the War of the Magi's damage of the earth itself. There's plenty of other magical schools that are either on the edge of evil, or just outright evil. I guess I just don't understand why someone would want to use the one intrinsically good and beneficial school of magic that way when there are much easier, and more sensible schools to access. On a purely narrative level, I'm sure there's something appealing in exploring the theme of "Light Is Not Good", and that tools are no more good or evil than their wielders. I'm not sure the healing capabilities of white magic would be appreciated as "good" if it was used to, say, keep a torture victim alive during interrogation in order to break them, or if a bad guy's conjurer croney managed to keep an explicitly evil boss alive and protected so that said explicitly evil boss can go set orphanages on fire. Is white magic beneficial? Absolutely. But to whom it is beneficial can change the morality behind its usage radically. Of course, ignoring all the lore stuff. I'm just talking about narrative context, here.

An additional note. If at any point during the application window (so, until March 16th) you would like to edit one or more of your responses to any of the application questions, simply send me a PM and I will make the change for you in the application and in the review.

The staff responsible for reviewing applications won't write someone off immediately just because they are active in certain forums. The main factors we're looking for is a decent amount of activity, a reasonable temperament, and stress tolerance. Post history does reveal certain traces of these things, and with enough posts a discernible trend may be seen, but someone who writes paragraphs of lore and someone who just jokes around and likes to post funny images are more or less even in this reviewing process. And while we're on the subject, rep count literally does not matter in the slightest. It's not the type of content you post as much as it is how you deal with the content of others. You don't have to be considered a contributor to have a good enough activity level and attitude to be selected--plenty of people who are active or post occasionally in NML fit this bill--and conversely those who post a lot of content may not have the stress tolerance required to keep up with the duties these positions might demand. EDIT: I edit my posts constantly so...uh, yeah. Sorry for that.

Please note that this survey will close at 11 PM PST, Wednesday, March 16th, 2016. This is the same time that moderator applications (which can be found here) will be closed.

The RPC is now accepting applications to the moderation team. You can find the application by clicking this link. All questions are optional, however the thoroughness or lack thereof in a submitted application may affect whether or not a user is selected to be a member of the staff. Applications will be accepted until 11 PM PST, Wednesday, March 16th, 2016. The applications will be reviewed by the following staff members: Nero, Nailah, and Graeham. Review for applications will take place from Thursday, March 17th to Sunday, March 27th. This is not to be interpreted as a strict timeline; the application review process may be shorter or longer depending on several factors including staff availability and volume of applications to process. There are two types of positions that may be applied for. The duties of supermoderators include but are not limited to the following: Enforce rules and hand out infractions and bans for rule violations across all forums Suggest and vote on rule and policy changes Resolve disputes between users Lock threads and remove posts that violate the rules Read and respond to user reports Provide input to issues brought up by other moderators Make announcements and communicate to users Reorganize threads into appropriate forums or subforums The supermoderators are the first to go to whenever there is a violation of the rules, to properly interpret the policies and rules of the RPC and make a judgment on how to handle the violation. The bulk of their duties will consist of interpreting the rules and dealing with violations of those rules. The duties of the moderators include but are not limited to the following: Reorganize threads into the appropriate forums or subforums Report additional issues to supermoderators and the administrator Submit disputes or violations to supermoderators or the administrator for review Remove duplicate posts Lock threads until review by a supermoderator only in notably egregious cases Provide additional input on issues brought up by supermoderators or the administrator Suggest changes to rules, policy, and enforcement as needed The moderators perform some of the duties of supermoderators on a smaller scale but are largely not involved in rule interpretation or enforcement; in an analogy, they would stop the fire from spreading by moving or locking threads, but are not responsible for putting fires out by banning users or removing offensive posts except in extreme cases (e.g. revealing personal information). Any questions or concerns you may have are welcome to be posted in this thread.