zaviire

I think out of the gate I should get it out there that I think that expecting new RPers (or new players at all) to FFXIV to pay $18 to transfer their character to a large server such as Balmung is unfair to new players or new RPers. They already spent $60+ on the game itself and expansions, plus a monthly subscription of roughly $15 per month. The $18 is a one-time fee, sure (assuming people decide in advance that they want to have 8 characters... Just in case I guess?), but even if that $18 is a long-term investment, that might still not be $18 that every new RPer is willing to invest in a video game as opposed to, say... A visit to a restaurant, or a night out with friends IRL, or movie tickets, which while those are all short-term things, might be more valuable to that individual than the opportunity to play on a server that, while humongous, requires a fair amount of effort to actually break into the community of. Not only that, but in my opinion the sheer size of Balmung is not necessarily a good thing. For a new player, it could be pretty intimidating, and there are a lot of unspoken rules and etiquettes on Balmung that differ vastly, in my experience, from other RP communities. I've been on Balmung for almost a year now, and the chat scroll at large events and in areas like the Quicksand still deters me from attending to do more than just peoplewatch. There's an argument to be made for the ability to just go somewhere else if you get snubbed by a clique, but I think a major thing people miss when saying that is that on Balmung, that doesn't mean a whole lot. Worst-case scenario, you get sent all the way back to square one. You get kicked out of an FC, for instance. Sure, you have some friends from other groups still from partaking of whatever tavern RP is all the rage nowadays, but that was still probably the majority of your meaningful RP connections and most of your regular RP partners. But not only that, but depending on how petty the leaders were (or how deserving you are), they might decide to warn other groups about you... Which makes life more difficult for everyone involved. It's a lot of work to go through doing that all again. Getting snubbed by a clique may not be the end of the world on Balmung, but it still severs connections and ends potentially long-term plots with little to no closure. It still sucks, especially if you end up viewing yourself as a minority in the big scary world of Balmung. Maybe your take on the lore is incredibly niche. Maybe your preferred style of RP differs significantly from what you view to be the "majority". Regardless of how diverse the "community" ostensibly is, and I really do hate to call it a real community, it's hard to get a bearing on where to start over because it is impossible to behold all facets of it at the same time. Which is a good thing, but it doesn't make having to start over any less shitty, pardon my French.

Truth be told, I don't think I would move unless most of my immediate friends/RP partners along with most of my FC (including all the leadership) and LS (also including all the leadership) were down to move. And only if I could move back if things ended up not panning out for whatever reason, either because people decided to just not move or because the people I currently RP with or have a vested interest in RPing with decide to move back or stay behind. I don't think most of the RP community on Balmung would move, though, truth be told -- regardless of whether an official RP server was created/designated or not. Even if it was free and even if people could take everything with them (housing tokens or something, which I honestly think is a pipe dream because even with the moving feature they're implementing, you still have to buy the plot for full server price. I also do not think that letting people have special tokens to automatically have/buy a house is a good idea in general). There are immaterial things that Square Enix cannot be reasonably expected to replace in the move over, such as RP connections and the like, and I don't think that the rules and distinctions that would come with being on an "RP" server (like the lore-compliant name thing? What if a character goes by an alias? Can SE be reasonably expected to monitor backstories and alter-egos?) would necessarily sit well with everyone who RPs. Plus there's the fact that PvE/PvP players might transfer to watch RP and be with their RPer friends, and it would kind of be unfair to make them change their names for "muh immersun" unless said name changes were also free. Realistically beyond that, PvE and PvP players would have nothing to lose by transferring to an RP server along with the RPers due to the cross-world party finder and stuff, unless it was placed on a different datacenter (which considering that Aether has both of the super-highpop NA servers, it probably would be I'd think? Primal definitely has population disparities but I'd think it's a bit more evenly-spread than Aether given the absence of the population black holes that are Balmung and Gilgamesh) which might make things a little more complicated for them... ... Of course all this changes if they were to add additional actual functionality to an RP server in order to enhance the RP experience. Then I might be a little quicker to the draw. Like if they added some small extra emotes (can I have that hand-waving thing Alphinaud does when he's explaining stuff please?!), or gave a discount for emotes on the Mogstation if you sent it to a character on an RP server, which they could cover by jacking up the price of Fantasias if it were sent to characters on RP servers. :^) ... Or even just raised the character limit a bit (One extra line?) on search comments for character info/bio links (an in-game way to have short character bios would sell me immediately on an RP server actually) or world PFs for advertisements. Stuff like that. Asking them to make an RP server already is, imo, already pretty unrealistic -- so may as well go ham with all of my hopes and dreams if it were to happen...

[align=center] [/align] There is no finer motivator than money, and the Ul’dah-based Crow (and a good half of Ebonguard) are no stranger to that fact of life. The promise of it was what drew Greeneyes and Ace to the cave behind Lost Hope to meet with Crow in person for the first time, who quickly laid his cards bare: intel contained in an envelope he carried with him (which he read off and allowed the two of them to verify) indicated that a company known as the White Chocobo Trading Company would soon be coming to port in Vesper Bay, and the goods they meant to peddle in the city totaled two and a half million gil. No petty sum, but this was no petty work. They plotted and planned – and joked around a bit, granted, and agreed to meet again the following week in order to gather intel as to the more precise details of their target. After all, anything was subject to change at any given time, and it was always better to see things with one’s own eyes and lay the groundwork necessary for a successful operation than to blindly place trust in outsiders… But the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. What the future holds for these three of the Ebonguard has yet to be seen…

As someone who kinda has feet on both sides of the fence, I actually like this lock-down a lot, though I think they should have given a bit of warning first. I started out playing this game on a smaller server (Malboro) and I really loved it when I first started, because even though it was small, there were a lot of people that I managed to gather up that I could hang out with and do content with. I have a personal and FC house, so until recently there was never really much of an incentive for me to transfer to Balmung. But then people started leaving to larger servers in general, some of them to Balmung. Malboro is technically a midpop server and when I started I could believe it, but as time went on, more and more people just transferred off for greener pastures and the RMT bots became our only company. Half the people I know and was on good terms with transferred to various other servers. Even my best friend who I started playing with (and who got me into XIV to begin with) briefly transferred to Lamia. They came back, but that was because according to them, Lamia's economy sucked even worse than Malboro's! Things got really noticeable after my static broke up on bad terms, because 6 of the 10 people idling in Idyllshire would usually be my former static-mates who I really had (and have) no vested interest in seeing or speaking to. The server was effectively dead and I started spending more time on my Balmung character because frankly it was kind of depressing even back when we were together, because I'd only log on my Malboro character to raid or do Wonderous Tails because it was so empty. These past two months, I logged on pretty much for the express reason of keeping my houses from being autoreclaimed. I decided to liquidate my assets, and transfer to Balmung where I had people to actually play with. I planned on making the move when Stormblood dropped, so that I could do the MSQ with people I knew and do some RP with a new/different character. But because of the new transfer restriction I can't do that, so I'm going to look into holding onto what I have and actually seeing what the expansion brings to my home server. Who knows! Maybe I won't want to bring this character to Balmung after all, though I'd still love to give my Balmung character a care package of sorts since I'm basically set for life on Malboro. :lol: As far as RP goes, before I came to the server I viewed Balmung largely as a parasite that kinda just sucked the life out of other RP communities on other servers. To be honest, I still kind of think of it that way; I have a lot of... fun (sometimes I'm not sure that's the word to use...) on Balmung but if my home server were viable for RP of PvE then I would spend a lot more time there, and my time would probably be split roughly 50/50. Leonnaux on Balmung wouldn't have become my main if it and other similarly large servers didn't suck all my friends off of my dying home server. They're all kinda scattered now so I don't think I'd bother tracking them down or joining them. I think part of the reason that other servers have had trouble establishing RP communities too is because why would you put in effort to get people interested and gather up people to RP with when you could just transfer to Balmung for the low, low price of $18 where everything is done for you? So while this might be "bad" for Balmung because no new players can come in and Balmung players may get a little tilted that they can't bring their friends over (though Balmungites could always just... Make an alt to play with friends on other servers... because servers that aren't Balmung open up fairly regularly for character creation... There are some where you have to catch it at an odd hour, but at least they open at all), I think this is a good change in the long run and hope they don't reopen transfers to Balmung until at least like, 4.1. Balmung's size is definitely an attractive feature of its community but it's pretty much the sole reason I'm on the server as much as I am. I feel like I've gotten more than my money's worth at this point, and I genuinely like a lot of people I've met, but it's frustrating sometimes being unable to move through zones because there are so many people that I pull 5fps and NPCs don't load for like a solid minute (which is an issue with my laptop, not my internet or ping). I dislike many of the big RP trends, and I find it difficult to deal with the chat scroll in many populated areas. The economy is relatively good though, except for the housing market. Things are better now since they implemented cross-world stuff; if I had my home server on Aether then I would have started playing on it again when that was implemented, but my home server is on Primal so I can't reap the benefits. I understand why cross-datacenter stuff isn't a thing (yet), though, but the fact that both of NA's megaworlds are on the same datacenter kind of punctuates the problem. Aether during prime-time is a lot different than Primal during prime-time. Primal during prime-time, for example, is what Balmung prime-time before crossworld was. 20-30 PFs going, across the whole datacenter, which is more or less what I saw on Balmung prime-time before crossworld PF (if not more; on REALLY good days before the lull hit I distinctly recall there being 50+ at some point or another!). After cross-world PF, I've seen upwards of 60 on Aether. I'm not entirely sure that people who've been on Balmung for the whole time that they've been playing FFXIV realize that Balmung as compared to any "midpop" server, let alone a lowpop one is like night and day, and in a lot of cases that's not really a good thing. Because everyone's always encouraged just to come and transfer to Balmung or other similarly huge servers, the mid and lowpop servers that the people are leaving (without even trying, because why try when you can just transfer?) kinda suffer. Anyway that's my two cents since I kinda have a vested interest on both sides of the fence. I was planning on transferring my character to Balmung to give my functional-new-main's funds a little boost (along with some items that I can make/get for free or cheap on my home server due to circumstances) and get a taste for what kind of stuff my other character, who is drastically different in terms of priorities, personality, and aesthetic could get into, but I still love my home server and if this is what it takes to get people to stop going to the megaservers and look at what can be scrounged up closer to home then I'm all for it. Maybe it'll breathe some life into the smaller servers, which in my opinion should be the main concern/benefit besides the obvious issue of server stability during the rush to play and complete Stormblood content, rather than "oh no, Balmung's closed; what ever are we going to do?!" Given that Balmung is larger than a lot of smaller servers would be combined, I don't think that its RP community is in any sort of existential crisis for the time being. It'll open back up for transfers before that happens, at which point we'll probably be back to square one... But eh.

Thanks for the poke to update this! In Game Theme(s): General Contract Work, Medical Clinic, Magic Research and Development, Magitek Research and Development, Resource/Information Procurement, Academics FC/LS Name: Artifice of Reason : Website url: http://artifice.shivtr.com/ Contacts: Shiori Eikitaika (Leader), Inkeri Ivoryfang (Officer), Leonnaux Altoix (Officer) Housing: The Aetherial Institute (Artifice HQ, ostensibly various services offered publicly but there are some sections that IC are members or invitation-only) Zone, Ward, Plot: The Goblet Ward 7, Plot 13 ... And a new addition, if Linkshells are allowed... In Game Theme(s): Crime FC/LS Name: Ebonguard Website url: http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/showthread.php?tid=17164 Contacts: Leonnaux Altoix (Leader; contact first if at all possible), Aran Aethersmith (Officer), Edda Vincents (Officer), Gwannes Oskwell (Officer) Housing: None (for now...)

[align=center] Welcome to the Ebonguard-- Where the rules are made up and the points don't matter![/align] (Log from 4/30/2017) I should make that a recruitment PF... Anyway hey hi! Not much going on at the moment aside from gearing up for the first part of a longer storyline, kicked off by the planning of a heist on May 12! Allies and adversaries are still a thing we're on the look-out for; in fact I'm going to bump that thread up later today with a few additions! We also got a few new members recently, so a warm welcome to them! It's always nice to have a few fresh faces around. Who are they? Telling you would defeat the purpose! Members of Ebonguard could be anywhere... JK, they're Bandaera Hawkins, Sylas Vairemont, and M'ruhna Kaehl! Looking forward to RPing with all of them soon; I've just been a bit busy with other things so I've been slacking off on pursuing RP plot hooks... (ʘᗩʘ’) Next big update should be after the heist; please look forward to logs, screenshots, and much arguing about who should get the biggest slice of the pie. Apart from in-game events, I'm also planning to do something a little different for interested members and non-members who wanna hop in our Discord during the 48-hour maintenance which should be interesting, so please look forward to it!

I forgot to bump this up last night before our Exchange! I'll set a reminder on my phone next time! (ʘᗩʘ’) I'm sorry; I'm a super space-case. But we are on the Balmung RP Calendar Tumblr and Bot, so it's kind of OK. [align=center][/align] We want to extend our sincerest thanks to all who attended the first Artifice of Reason Exchange last night! We ran from 7PM CST to 10:45PM when things had pretty much wound down. Magitek was popular tonight, thanks for breaking in our New Blood! Some reporters from The Crystal Chronicle showed up as well and interviewed a few of our members so please look forward to reading about it when the next issue comes out on Sunday. We hope to see you again! (The next Exchange is on Friday, May 19, 2017. Who will come next time? The suspense is killing me. Please look forward to it!)

[align=center]Bimonthly Update?! [/align] The Artifice of Reason gets up to mischief fairly often (you didn't hear it from me) but this time it's for a good cause -- this gathering was part of an event chain during which the Artifice's brilliant minds come together to brainstorm ideas on how to help some of Inkeri's buddies from back in the day super-murderize some Garleans. I don't think there's anyone in Eorzea who would deny us federal funding for an incredibly important project like that, right?! Not that we need funding, given some other things that are in the cards... Those other things in the cards include a test of the XIV:Notes system that we devised to make DMing events consistent (mostly; the system is optional so I guess anyone in the FC could just do whatever they wanted if the mood struck them, but as someone who Totally Isn't Biased Because I Made It Or Anything, it's better if you do...). What form does this test take? Well, you see, I am a sucker. I also can't spell reconnaissance without spellcheck. So of course, we're doing a little bit of intel-gathering for an upcoming heist! ... But you didn't hear it from me. [align=center] [/align] We also have a public event... TODAY! Read more about it on Tumblr. There's also an RPC thread for it over here, which I'll bump up a bit when it gets closer to time! Please look forward to it.

[align=center]4/28 Update![/align] ... I totally didn't just decide to update today for the sake of the rhyme. (But I am trying to keep the RPC thread here and the Tumblr more current! There's a lot of stuff to do and all -- I'm a bit pinched on time honestly but you know!) First and foremost, a warm welcome to our newest addition to the officer team, Aran Aethersmith! I'll update the first post there (along with everything else) with this information soon (probably tomorrow...?) with this information but yeah, Aran's enthusiasm especially with regards to heists and willingness to volunteer has earned her a spot in the Blue Name Club, so she'll be helping out with event planning and the like. Look forward to more crime in the future! Anyway, without further ado, I'll just copy-paste from the Tumblr update post I made this morning! 1) The start of a long-term LS plot is still on May 12 and is still at 8:30PM CST, but if members interested in getting a leg up on it want it to start earlier then I can absolutely do that! (I’m just used to starting events hella late because in the past, later has usually been better. But any time before the 12th barring unforeseen circumstances, I can shift stuff around so it’s more convenient for people!) 2) Ebonguard still wants connections! – and who knows where the LS plot will take us as we delve into 4.0? Ever wanna try your group’s hand at cracking a criminal network wide open? Executive decisions at Ebonguard HQ suggest that this could be your chance! Get it now, while supplies last. I can set up a Discord group for all of us to chat it out (briefly) and if all is well then you’ll actually get full, unadulterated access to the Discord! Well, maybe not full to type, but full to view. You have access to the channels that matter. Allies and adversaries will even have unique name colors, aren’t I benevolent! I haven’t decided what they will be yet but if you wanna be either of those things hey, I’ll let you pick why not. Just not red. That’s my color. (It’s always my color.) 3) Because of the rules shift when recruitment reopened back in March, any members who were not in the Discord as of today (or who I just... Flat-out didn't know who they were because I didn't have their name on a name-change or alt list and they didn't have an application with the name) were removed from the linkshell. This was surprisingly few people! Going forward, all important information that members need to know will be plunked in the #announcements channel of our Discord. (That's where all the important information for members is anyway, actually, barring our Tumblr and this thread, and that's why Discord is required to join. It's much easier to keep the Discord updated constantly and then update this thread and the Tumblr periodically with big stuff.) And, as an aside, we have a few people who we have yet to get to with regards to their application and OOC interview. The officers have been a little occupied with RL stuff lately, so we’re sorry for being quiet! (I know I’ve been fixing my sleep schedule, writing for contests to make money so I can actually buy Stormblood, etc) If you’re waiting for something then feel free to poke us via Discord, Tumblr, or RPC – we’ll try to get to things as soon as humanly possible!

[align=center] Every First and Third Friday @ 7:00 PM Central Standard The Gold Court in Ul'dah[/align] Any questions regarding this event can be directed in-game to Shiori Eikitaika, Inkeri Ivoryfang, or Leonnaux Altoix. Examples as to what the Artifice provides as an organization include: artifact recovery, research and development, mentorship and tutoring... Plus anything the members in attendance want to lay on the table. Our FC lore goes into it more in-depth; you can find it here.

[align=center]Update![/align] I do believe the personal plot is good-to-go; another one of the people involved in said plot managed to find some Flames. Hopefully getting it off the ground doesn't take too long; I'm pretty excited. ₍₍ ◝(●˙꒳˙●)◜ ₎₎ Ebonguard is still open and looking for nonmember connections though! It's a big, scary world out there! What would a network be without connections? Nothing, that's what. We have an LS plot arc planned that starts with some plotting and planning. As a sort of proof of concept, Phase One isn't meant to be thwarted but it's designed to kind of catch some attention from an IC standpoint, so hey, that's a thing!

[align=center] [/align] This will mark the beginning of a long-term story arc for Ebonguard. This instance/event/arrangement is a members-only occasion IC, but spectators are welcome! Members do not have to attend this initial meeting to take part in the rest of the story, but there will likely be certain segments later on that will require people to get an IC hook to participate in if they weren’t initially involved. The time is come to make some plans and plot our schemes! That connections thread I made earlier is open for people who want to jump in on this plot arc too, either as antagonists or allies to Ebonguard in our escapades. What's a good heist without a little suspense? [align=center]ONWARD AND UPWARD.[/align] (Ohhh my god look at all my cool fonts guys. I have so many fonts. Take Photoshop away from me before I hurt someone with all my fonts.)

Allies in concept are more of an organizational thing than an individual thing as I understand it, but I'll put a good word in for you! Inkeri is in charge of the Allies LS thing, so I'll defer to his and Shi's judgement on that one! We'd love to hear from you in the near future regarding that though! ----- [align=center][/align] We had a little planning event last night; it was pretty fun, and it's going to lead into a chain of events we're doing as part of a huge FC guild arc! (Or, multiple.) Read the full 'report' here!

[align=center]Bimonthly Update![/align] I mean, ideally we update this a bit more than bimonthly, but seeing as we have meetings every other week to have some realtalk and keep people on the same page, figured that bimonthly was a good start! ... Bimonthly as in twice a month. Is that right? Should it be biweekly instead? I always called it bimonthly. Biannual/biennial/semiannual. There are good reasons to hate the English language. Recruitment is officially open! Well, recruitment was officially open when this thread was made, but it's super duper official now because I'm making a post about it and we have a news post about it too. We do have an application but it's mostly painless. All of that information and more can be found on our website! Or, even better: you can just contact any one of our officers in-game! Or send an ask to our Tumblr! Wow, there's really no shortage of ways to get in touch with us these days is there? The internet is amazing. We're looking for allies! On an organizational level, of course; we have a small list of people we may be approaching in the near future to see if they're interested in maybe getting something going, but we'll welcome anyone who wants to toss their name into the hat as well. Inkeri Ivoryfang is the one who's in charge of the Allies LS formally I'm pretty sure, but seeing as he doesn't have an RPC account, you're more than welcome to go through me... Or anyone you can find in-game. Or our Tumblr! THE INTERNET IS AMAZING. We are looking at planning a biweekly public event! We have a pretty good idea of what it would be, but those details are going to be ironed out in the coming days. When it's all finalized, look forward to hearing about it in the Events forum and on like every RP event calendar we can get our grubby little hands on. Look forward to more of my awesome Photoshop work. In the meantime, have a Spiderman meme, because we like to use Spiderman memes as placeholder graphics when we're lazy. And lazy I am. [align=center][/align]

Hiya! That would be pretty awesome actually -- we've gotta get some stuff going first of course but having been to the Mischief's Coven's tavern night myself I'd love for Ebonguard to get some connections there, even if they're relatively loose ones. :^D Been considering at the very least seeing about getting involved myself for a while, truth be told! Ebonguard will probably take a little longer to get things going but that's fine since I'm perfectly content to sing praises into the void; my own schedule permitting I may look into taking the plunge for myself soon www (On a seperate, completely unrelated note -- still seeking Ul'dahn law-enforcement! Not limited to Blades and Flames; independent investigators and the like are fine too, Blades or Flames just so happen to be preferred. But I mean. There's something to be said for the hard-boiled types!)

[align=center][/align] [align=center]EBONGUARD IS SEEKING NONMEMBERS![/align] LF both allies and enemies of the network. Connections thread right this way! On a semi-related note, I'm looking to get a "main story" sort of series of events started for Ebonguard. This series of events will start off with a story arc concept I've been wanting to take for a spin for a long while now: a heist! Details are still being panned out but where this will take us, nobody knows! Somewhere where we can split the money three ways and sail off into the sunset never to be seen again, I hope. Or becoming a shower of gil coins as we jump off a building somewhere in Ul'dah. Whatever the future may bring, please look forward to it!

[align=center][/align] Oh yes! Ebonguard is seeking individuals and organizations interested in being… [*]ALLIES. Ebonguard might just be a network instead of being a proper organization, but I figure that wouldn’t preclude the possibility of it gathering a few non-members who knowingly support or participate in its activities either passively (not reporting like all of them to the damn police/turning a blind eye to members’ individual operations) or actively (supplying information, routes, actively providing sanctuary or neutral ground to members even if selectively). Reasoning could range from being like, “hey, no skin off my teeth” to “I might be able to use this to my advantage later” and beyond I mean, I’m not going to tell you how to live your life. This wouldn’t even necessarily have to be a new thing; lore-wise, Ebonguard has existed in a few forms and the current one is just the newest… Though not necessarily the most productive. I’d be more than happy to pre-establish a connection if it suits all parties involved. [*]ENEMIES. The network, veering generally toward the illegal side of things, would probably garner a fair share of enemies, from vigilantes to actual law enforcement organizations and the people who’d commission them to investigate the network. I’m planning on getting an incredibly loose “main” story started and sticking strictly to NPC villains gets a bit boring and predictable (at least in my opinion, with regards to watching, playing, or running events) so at various points we’d love to bring other players in! This could easily be a pre-established thing too, as with above; there’s room for it within our framework at the very least and the possibilities are endless. There’s no required national affiliation for Ebonguard connections because of how loose the network is; some of us (both in terms of actual members and lore background stuff) are pretty far-flung, but I’d prefer Ul’dah or Gridania just as a matter of preference, since almost all of the events I plan/run are based in Thanalan or the Black Shroud. Wanna know what Ebonguard is all about? We have a dedicated thread over here! But what's the fun in just keeping to ourselves? Branching out be cool, yo, be it in forging story connections or having events pitched to us -- I'm only one person (even if I'm the leader) so I can't fully guarantee group-wide interest in any given event given how big we are, but I do promise to give em a chance myself if I have the time on my plate, eh? That sounds like a pret[/color][/font]ty swell deal. I'm not a used car salesman.

[align=center][/align] [align=justify] Founded by former Director Shiori Eikitaika along with a personal friend of hers, the Artifice of Reason was created with one goal in mind: the pursuit of knowledge, unhindered by the sorts of restrictions imposed by more traditional, city-state sponsored institutions. Director Eikitaika and her friend had great boons left to them by a late mutual friend, including great funds with which to open the doors and a mansion which they hollowed out and turned into a headquarters for the organization. Although its methods have drawn unfavorable attention at times, there is very little that money can’t buy in Ul’dah, and in exchange for some clever politicking, some pocket-lining, and official allegiance with the Immortal Flames as a sanctioned Free Company, its activities have been allowed to continue well into the Seventh Astral Era. In the beginning, it was a small operation—in fact, throughout the Company’s history, it’s always been fairly small, and for a period of time under Director Eikitaika, the Artifice as an organization concerned itself greatly with protecting the knowledge that it had acquired. This was, in part, due to the methods used to acquire it: although hardly worse than the methods employed by most mercenary Free Companies operating under the banner of the Immortal Flames, the last thing that the fledgling Company needed was to attract ill repute among its peers—or worse, the ire of rivals. The face presented to the public was, then, no less than squeaky-clean. As time went on, Director Eikitaika even went on to make the claim that the Artifice of Reason set out to set the pace of progress: an admirable goal, but one that she would not personally see the organization making good on. With personal obligations and aspirations looming on the horizon, it became apparent both to her and those around her that she could not dedicate the time or energy needed into running the Company and making good on that promise. So she passed the torch. And the rest of the story is yet unwritten. [/align] ⸺ ON THE ARTIFICE OF REASON The Artifice of Reason is a research institute-based Free Company. Though they once locked their secrets away in the depths of their Institute, the space now opens its doors to anyone with an interest in enriching their mind and pursuing the knowledge they covet so much. In that, they strive toward ever-greater heights. This is the principle that guides their research into medicine, into aetheric manipulation, into the marial arts, into terra incognita. [align=center]TUMBLR | APPLICATION[/align]

[align=center]Recruitment Status: Open.[/align] We have decided to reopen applications, along with change up our recruitment process a little bit. Due to a lack of manpower, play-ins are no longer required, however they can be done upon request (because who doesn’t like some good ol’ fashioned RP?) and said play-ins are instead replaced with a short OOC interview, though ‘interview’ is probably not the most fitting term. Before granting access to the linkshell and the Discord, officers will instead strike up a conversation with prospective applicants to further ascertain whether they and their characters are a good fit for the linkshell. Additionally, several questions have been added to the application; however, many of these along with some questions that were previously required are now considered optional. One of our officers has also chosen to step down due to personal reasons. Our team is now comprised of: Leonnaux Altoix (yours truly) Edda Vincents Gwannes Oskwell Ma’sae Pohju Please contact one of the above listed officers in-game or via screaming up into the cold, empty night sky if you have any questions!

[align=center]Recruitment Status: Invitation-only.[/align] This is a temporary change to allow officers time to breathe, because we have some people that still need to be played in (who now are limited to a month to do so). This is partially because of upcoming changes regarding our recruitment and activity policy! The application on Google Forms can’t be filled out at this time, but if you want to see about getting into the LS anyway, please contact one of our officers in-game and we can see about working something out. Our officers are: Leonnaux Altoix (me!) Itara Irispyre Edda Vincents Ma’sae Pohju Gwannes Oskwell We apologize for any inconvenience. You could also send a PM to me on here, or send an ask to our Tumblr at EBONGUARDLS. In the meantime, we have some stuff going on that outsiders are naturally welcome to attend (as they take place in public places): a little social shindig tomorrow at 8PM CST, and the recurring Lucky #7 speakeasy openings every second and fourth Thursday at 7PM CST..

[align=center] After a short bit of debriefing and a bit of idle chatter, the four of them happened across their contact: Grackle, a middle-aged Miqo’te with red hair and mismatched eyes of gold who seemed very willing to help them in an effort to make up for some transgressions he perceived in the part of his sister for the rather… Cold reception that had been given to these people who were looking for the Lanner’s Eye’s caches... The Crow's Call, pt2[/align] [align=center][/align] [align=justify]Goblet Ward 4 Subdivision, Apartment 26 It’s been a long while since Ebonguard had a formal meet-up, and a lot has changed since the last one – linkpearls seem a little harder to come by and, increasingly, people come to do business rather than just sit around and chew the fat. But even as busy as the great and illustrious so-called leader of Ebonguard is (though, how much of a leader can he be with a disorganized network full of people who owe him no loyalty?), he can’t put things of such import off forever. Always the wary one, he opts for neutral ground, where he knows there will be watchful eyes who won’t stop the under-the-table deals from happening… But has faith in to break disputes up before they could get ugly. Given a recent influx of coin, too, he has expressed a willingness to have his Messenger pay for drinks bought by anyone who presents an Ebonguard linkpearl to the bartender… So long as these drinks aren’t top-shelf material.[/align] [align=center]Event Post[/align]

[align=center][/align] Ebonguard was not always what it is, so what was it like in the time before? What lead it down this path? How is membership of the network typically granted? What is the purpose of the Ebonguard logo if Ebonguard itself is not an organization in the truest sense of the word? The Ebonguard lore write-up has been updated, fleshed out, and redecorated, so hopefully it’s more complete now. Of course, complete is subjective, because very little of the history is actually defined – partially because it is something I would like to explore over the course of a story arc. But for now, this is a good starting point. [align=center]Read on: The Lore of Ebonguard (It's safe to assume that most if not all of the knowledge outlined in this document is readily accessible in-character to anyone who knows where to look.)[/align] [align=center]⸻⸻⸻⸻[/align] [align=center][/align] The Lucky No.7, a speakeasy owned by one of our officers, Itara Irispyre, is opening for the beginning of its run as a bi-weekly tavern on Thursday, February 9, 2017. it is located at Goblet Ward 11 Plot 39 Room 7. For more opening information, go here. I myself am not in charge of arranging or organizing anything official with the Lucky No.7, so for any questions with regards to that, Itara's your person to ask. [align=center]Information (Rules, Background) + Drink Menu[/align]

[align=center][/align] [align=center]This year will mark the fifteenth year since the open of a curious case since gone cold. While an unsavory thought to entertain, there are obviously some elements in the Twelveswood that are better left in the dark: the sort of business carried on by the Redbelly Wasps or the Couerlclaws… Or, in this infamous case, by an organization known as the “Lanner’s Eye.” The Story So Far[/align] A plotline in the making since the new year began is finally kicking off, with our first official session having been held tonight. Click the link above for a summary of the story so far, and some nice screenshots I took when my game's textures weren't deciding to bug out! (Odd cropping and bad angles are pretty much exclusively because my game decided that it didn't want to load some textures and made the ground of some parts of the South Shroud flash yellow. And made heads disappear. It was bad.) As well, recent applicants may have noticed that we’ve been a bit delayed in contacting them about the status of their application. For this, I take it upon myself to apologize! Life obligations have been kicking each and every one of our officer’s collective asses right now; while I (Crow) attempt to pick up the slack, there’s also quite a bit I’m focused on running outside of recruitment for Ebonguard – such as looking for a job, recruitment for my FC, and of course doing my best to GM the plot event Blackback, which has been in the works since the beginning of the year. Due to our new procedures in playing applicants into the LS, this means that we haven’t been able to get to everyone yet, though we do our best to welcome everyone into the Discord in a timely manner. But with time zones (we are pretty American) and obligations and occasionally, lack of alternate contact information given, this has gotten difficult. While we aren’t closing applications to the general public, I figured it would be best to let people know. Thank you for understanding! Any questions can, as always, be directed to our Tumblr, any officer in-game (but preferably Leonnaux Altoix), or here in the RPC thread.

Not gonna lie I get super excited for others' events -- usually more excited for theirs than my own when it comes to stories... Since when I write stories I need to overwork myself by accounting for everything. I'm not sure how to exactly go about encouraging people to make events though sadly beyond constantly plugging the ones they advertise in our events and announcements channel and encouraging them practically every other breath to feel absolutely free to get stuff going for themselves or even just try to suck the LS in general into whatever they happen to be doing. It's difficult to get stoked and sing praises about people who plan their own things or even help me plan things when I'm only ever the one involved in planning, unfortunately... Aside: I'll admit I laughed pretty hard at the kidnapping Sasuke thing. I'm not a huge fan of kidnapping RP; I'm not sure what the fascination is and I guess it could work in smaller plots but most of what I heard about it just locks a character in a damsel in distress position... Which needless to say is kind of boring and overused imo. Tropes Are Not Bad and all that, but when it comes to writing... Eh. I've participated in one event with my FC where it worked, but that was mostly because the 'kidnapping' happened as a result of our failure to win a combat instance (and it was NPCvP) and carried weight because of that. And the character died as a result, so I guess it doesn't really qualify because it wasn't and couldn't have ended up as a chronic thing. Yep, that first point is basically my philosophy when it regards storylines. Because I have a bit of trouble getting invested in plots that aren't tied to any characters at all (a villain that's just like, a giant space flea from nowhere... Is difficult for me to be invested in so I tend not to write them; when other people write them there's other ways for me to get into the story so I don't concern myself with the antagonist much until I'm in the moment) I tend to use my characters as instigators, but quickly send the story shooting off into a lot of other branching directions, so even if my characters kick-start the story they don't stay in the limelight for very long. I've only GM'd a total of one storyline so far on a totally different character and wit ha totally different cast, with an upcoming second, but even in terms of just general RP with my partners that hardly even constitute events, I prefer to play supporting/instigating roles and let others bask in the limelight. Doing one-off events that build toward the greater story is definitely something I'm going to try, though, because it gives more people the chance to get involved in the story and I can only handle so many people at a time because I'm a beginner at best and a know-nothing at worst but I still want to work anyone who's interested in being in... Well, in, and i think it's important to at least try to be inclusive of people unless they just like, totally won't work with you at all, like they're expressing interest OOC in a very general way but refuse or neglect to get to the more pointed stuff that would help to... Solve whatever issue they have, or the issue happens to have to do with the structure or setting of the story and it's like... I'm sorry there's... There's only so much I can do without re-planning the scenario entirely... (Which I don't honestly even plan that much; mostly I just plan the beginnings and let people go from there, but beginnings usually serve to set the stage, so...) Hahah, it happens! I should probably think about sprucing up my sig now that I'm trying to actively participate in forums and stuff but... Meh. Ahah, seems our styles are pretty opposite then. While I definitely don't enjoy plots that are completely and totally planned out from start to finish, I really really hate trying to make anything meaningful out of the little social interactions and characters more or less just getting to know each other; most of the time it feels more like trying to pull teeth than writing a story that would ever have a logical conclusion. So I tend to plan beginnings to try and hook people in and give the story event a general direction and turn people loose. It's mostly because of preference; I find it a lot easier to get invested in plotlines when my ideas are laid out in a semi-logical order and the 'background lore'/justification for the event happening is established, because participating in others' events I know I've had trouble getting invested specifically because I went in blind and ended up never really getting a reason for my character to be invested in the story IC or a reason for me to care OOC... so I dropped it and retconned it, because my character ended up never finding a reason to be there and I don't like having a lot of fluff lining my stories. We didn't used to have a channel for that because it doesn't seem like something most people are totally interested in; most of the applications we get don't link to a tumblr or RPC page and they don't tend to talk about it a whole lot so I assume that's because people don't want any information about what their character does to be public for whatever reason even if it would help OOC with figuring out how characters fit into the grand scheme, just as a general thing. But I made one anyway just now because it seems like a good idea because being able to easily refer back to character information is important! But yeah, I'm definitely feeling a little bit like Netflix given that even though the upcoming story is the only one I've gone out of my way to plan... The various socials we've held have borne no fruit with regards to stories or connections, even when one of the ones long before the Holiday season began was framed as a chance to basically sell your skills and get jobs out of the network because... IC, that's what it's for. the nature of the network isn't strictly insider info or anything. (Maybe 5 people showed up outside of myself, despite scheduling it about two to three weeks in advance. A tavern night held by one of our members later that same month rounded up about 20 of our members in the same room. Gee, I wonder where their priorities are...) Aside: I'd debate that we've ever broken lore to a major degree as a group; the main issue in my opinion lies in social RP since in my experience social RP has hardly done anything to further a plot or make something happen. It probably goes better for other people in general but all it's really gotten for me is naptime, screwed up character arcs, and talking about the weather... Mostly the latter, especially when it comes to the social events I've tried my best to organize. Events which make me feel as if people have not read up on the lore of the LS at all, which is kind of saddening.

To everyone who's weighed in so far with advice: I really appreciate it! My thoughts are actually pretty similar to what's been tossed out so far: we have OOC meetings periodically in an effort to address issues and give people a chance to toss out ideas and opinions but it ends up mostly being me talking at people and others giving me radio static (outside of my officers). But I'll definitely try sitting them down and having "The Talk" in text form and I'll definitely look toward cutting the fluff, though doing that will probably be difficult without a completely reliable way to gauge activity beyond manually keeping track of who all seems to be doing things with the group (which with an officer team of four including me to a total population of about 70, poses its own problems... But at the same time, no one seems active or reliable enough for me to expand the officer team, so I kinda have to work with what I have). Especially because I'd like to gauge activity more by participation with the group and less by "when did they log in last." This is a really good idea that I'll definitely look toward trying to do, since the idea of punishing people (an alternative I've considered because that's the style I've seen in some other places) for not doing something-or-another doesn't jive with me that much. How I'll reward them is a matter I'll have to consider with my officer team, but providing incentives outside of bribes would probably help breathe a little bit of... Actual Life into the LS. Given the fact that I'll be a second-time(!) GM if I manage to get this plot off the ground, I definitely do feel like smaller groups are better and the absolute limit to the number of people directly involved in what's going on at any given time is probably going to be capped at 7, but there are multiple parts even within parts of the event planned because of how it's structured in order to give anyone who wants in a chance to get in and stuff. I'd be definitely willing to dedicate more time to run big things though... but unfortunately, the problem lies in people simply not seeming interested in doing any big things. u_u;; This story is my first attempt at a plot so I'm kinda sticking to what I know and what's worked with a group I was much closer with. I would welcome it if people wanted to lend me a hand with running it too... But if people give me radio static when I ask who wants to participate, then it'd probably be like dead silence if I asked anyone to help out with GMing. I guess I should clarify that in my case it is actually an LS. I don't lead the FC I'm a member of (though I guess some of this advice would be helpful to me in that regard too because I'm an officer there). Actually, the LS I lead is probably the one you're referring to here... Trust me, as a leader, I'm really frustrated with the general atmosphere here because... Yeah. I intend to hand off social-planning responsibilities to people who actually like doing those things (not that I hate them; I just want something different for the group overall), but getting people to step up to the plate and do that is a whole 'nother can of worms. Maybe I'm just not trying hard enough... But yes this helps! I'll probably start trying to toss some more IC hooks into the LS soon,and get my officers to do the same; the hooks that set up the combat test minievent were pretty good and seemed to stir up some interest in addition to introducing what could easily become an arc for the LS in general, so I'll see if I can get more of that in particular going... I'll do my best! o7 And yeah, that realization is more or less why I made the thread; I feel like I spend so much time leading the group around but then they don't really... Do a whole lot. I have a lot of fun playing still, so I guess that's a sign I haven't burnt myself out yet (I think actually enjoying the gears and cogs of making things run semi-smoothly helps with that) with all this.