Naunet

Isn't this a contradiction? I mean, I get that in a society of 10-50♀/1♂ ratio that there is no way that all the decision and influence will reside with the male gender, but if there is inherent influences in being male (creation a new tribe/family/leader like the U tribe/teacher and authority/passing one's name), as well having the entire society shaped around "patriarchs" (a Nunh by any other name...), couldn't they be considered Eorzea's equivalent of patriarchy? (And not the more familiar patriarchy of our world. I'm arguing from a Watsonian rather than Doylist point of view here.) Again: "Nunh status does not equate to leadership within a tribe, and in fact, very few nunh ever become leaders." This does not suggest that being a nunh comes with any innate influence beyond the fact that he gets to be the father of all the kids. It's unfortunate that the U tribe in-game completely contradicts Squeenix's own statement on Seeker lore, but we have to assume that the U tribe is one of those outlier tribes.

I disagree with the premise that the passing of a family name defines whether a culture is matriarchal or patriarchal. It's got more to do with the power of a gender within the society and who is looked to when making important decisions.

I'd like to point out, as per the naming convention page on the lore forums: "Nunh status does not equate to leadership within a tribe, and in fact, very few nunh ever become leaders." It's annoyingly silly that Squee contradicts itself by turning that around completely with the one actual Seeker tribe portrayed in the game. I half expect they just couldn't stand the thought of men not having much say in their family and so went with "Nunh leads the U tribe" regardless of their own established lore. But yea, based off what we're given by Squeenix, I wouldn't say Seeker culture is patriarchal. Nunhs are certainly important due to the simple fact that they're responsible for continuing the tribe, but that doesn't mean they control their family units.

I was talking about Eastern Thanalan, hence my comments about Drybone and rain. xP There's a small, likely ephemeral watering hole there, but that's about it. The greenery around the goobbue is all new and brought by the goobbue. Things start to transition once you cross Highbridge, but everything west of that is very New Mexico-y. That doesn't mean it can't support life, and during the rainy season the whole land will be transformed. And of course, wherever you have water (there is a river running through central Thanalan), you will have a concentration of life. Hence, the plantation.

I'd love to see a source! That said, I'm more liable to believe it's just another moment of game mechanics trumping lore (just like the sizes of the zones - though really, Squee, couldn't you have made them just a teensy tiny bit bigger? They're so cramped!)

It's pretty obviously an Arizona/New Mexico mirror based on the types of plants you see around and the degree of vegetation. The soil looks far too hard packed in some places, too sandy in others to support agriculture. That's why mining is the biggest economy there. La Noscea's where the ag stuff thrives.

Antimony (K'piru) is currently staying in Ul'dah while she investigates potential money fraud and/or some other underhanded dealings between a unit of the Brass Blades and a certain D tribe family group in the city. In case folk didn't know.

I'd like to add onto this and say one more thing: Eastern Thanalan does not get rain as much as it does in-game. If it did, it would quite literally not be a desert anymore. So can folk please stop making IC comments about how it rains constantly in Drybone? Pretend it's the rainy season now, sure, but a month or so down the line, it should be dry as a... well, a bone. Certainly reasonable, yes.

^Illira's post is basically why I'm just gonna ignore any references of "It took me two hours to run from Gridania to Drybone!" or whatever and just go with distances that seem reasonable (and give enough wiggle room to be forgiving across multiple micro-canons), because from a logical perspective, it's all complete bullcrap.

Through mining and botany it's actually possible to estimate the size of each area and they are tiny. The gate to Ul'dah is only 360 yalms/yards (a fifth of a mile) from the ore in Copperbell Mines, which means the entire Western Thanalan area would span maybe just above a mile diagonally. D| I just refuse to believe the world is really that small. It makes no sense. Squeenix sucks at distance and that's it.

I love this book. But I also kind of hated it because you just don't do that to an animal in fiction, come ON man. *cries*

For further insight, a Lalafell NPC in Horizon (next to a sleeping Chocobo) says the trip from Gridania, on chocobo, nonstop, took a day. That seems really, incredibly, unbelievably short. Like, impossibly so. Horizon is way the fuck away from Gridania. >_> I'm more inclined to think Squeenix is just really freaking bad at distance. The Hipparion tribe has been RPing that it takes 2ish days to get from the Forgotten Springs to Ul'dah, accounting for the unknown length of the Red Labyrinth and crossing the northern half of Southern Thanalan. More if more frequent stops are taken, of course. In RP back in the betas, I had it take a week to get from Gridania back to Limsa Lominsa. Keep in mind that not only are the zones significantly larger than they appear in game (if they weren't, it would make no sense), but also that most of the zones don't even line up border-for-border. Often when you pass into another zone, you're quite obviously skipping a pretty large chunk of area.

You killed your character within the first three months of the game? Impressive! Reminds me of the RP I did when TERA was still in beta, where the person I was roleplaying with killed her character before the game even launched. I always felt kinda bad about that, but then it was their choice... As for Anti... She's befriended a tiny husband-killer, a grumpy old thief-murderer-assassin, and a former (?) pirate. I think she needs better people-judging skills. After surviving two assassination attempts (pre-launch rp), she's settled into a groove with her lalafell friend. She experienced her first All Saint's Wake (and it was a nightmare!). And recently, she's begun an investigation into potential financial corruption between a unit of the Brass Blades and a mafia-like Seeker tribe in Ul'dah. Nothing could possibly go wrong there! Oh, and she's come disturbingly close to interacting with former tribe members. Stressful times!

The most straightforward (if disappointing) answer is: we don't really know the details.

That's cool and all, but I've found it's extremely hard to develop characters' stories and plots without some OOC communication, which is why I asked for specifics regarding your character.

The problem with this is, such a passive emote doesn't give the characters anything to RP off of. They may not react to your character's idle arching of brow and vague look, but that doesn't mean they aren't open to interacting with your character. If you wanna get involved with a scene you see, you've gotta be proactive - especially ICly, but OOCly can help as well.

What kinds of plottiness are you looking for, per chance? I ask because my little amoeba of friends are extremely plot-prone and have a habit of going a bit nuts with how extensive our RP is, so you might find working your character into the weave of our characters' stories interesting.

Twin and I had a couple bandit characters we liked to RP on occasion in TERA. It was really hard to get people to go along with us trying to ambush them on a road or whatever to steal their shit (which is funny, because it's not like we were gonna god mode or whatever - the times we did actually get to banditize someone, our characters were defeated miserably). So, I understand your conflict completely. That said, don't give up. I know it can be kinda nerve wracking trying to initiate a scene like that with random strangers, but be persistent! If your first shout doesn't stop someone, try again, and this time elaborate a bit (they might not have understood what you were trying to do, or even not realized your shout had been directed at them). If they don't react well, don't worry. Just roll with the punches, so to speak, and move on to find your next potential victim. But to answer your question more directly: RP like that is never bad.

Antimony didn't understand why Ul'dah's walls were so high. She had gone from open swaths of desert to an endless horizon of ocean, but one thing had remained constant - nothing stood between her and the edge of the world. Or, at least, the figurative edge, as she was fairly certain their world was not flat. But not so for Ul'dah, whose walls vaulted dizzyingly above head, blocking much of the sky and the sun and the horizon, leaving only the oppressive heat and sweat and stink of the desert and a people mired in poverty. Perhaps this was why it was so difficult to avoid certain people in the city. Perhaps she had the walls to blame for the two nights she had so far spent in the Quicksand, two nights that had seen little sleep but much unwanted thought on faces and places she would rather forget. At least she had Ulanan, and her work - always her work - to distract her. Perhaps it was hypocritical of her to value the walls of her room and mind while damning the stifling, social claustrophobia imposed by those of the city itself, but for now that was not a distinction Antimony cared to justify.

Character journals are a slog to get through and scattered between numerous other threads. The bulletin board is for flash fiction-length (or slightly more, but not much) updates on the life your character(s). This is the thread I modeled it off of. Some posts are little between-snippets, some are quick updates on ongoing plot, some are just random one-off thoughts. The point is to have a one-stop-shop for quick, easy to digest information on what's going on in the community's IC lives.

As promised, the Balmung Bulletin Board. Looks like Twin's already posted something. I've got something I'll write up later today. ^^

Something I have missed in every roleplay community I've been involved in since my time with the Ravenholdt server in WoW is a sense of connectedness between players across guild and RP circle boundaries. The community's "bulletin board" was a tool I felt did wonderfully to encourage this feeling, and as I wholly intend to make this community my home for the foreseeable future, I've decided to establish a bulletin board of Balmung's very own. An MMO server encompasses a dizzying spread of story potential, from grandiose epics to private, touching moments to humble evenings at a local tavern. The diversity in roleplay is reflected in an equal diversity of thought, attitude, style, and dedication amongst the community's members. For this reason, it can often feel nigh on impossible to wholly grasp the scope of your server's roleplaying world. Not everyone has the inclination or confidence to participate in threads on the forums, or to post lengthy summations of their intricate plot-lines. Likewise, not everyone has the time to sift through dozens upon dozens of threads to keep abreast of the latest happenings and community lore. In comes the bulletin board! Treat this as a character blog of sorts, a place where we can communicate, in easily digestible posts, the goings on of our characters' lives. Is your character reeling from a sudden, nasty break up? How exactly did it feel to have their arm sliced clean off in their latest, unfortunate brawl? What terrors lurk in their nightmares, or hopes in their dreams? Or maybe your lucky guy or gal just happened to have a wonderful morning and you want to share it with the world! All of this and more can be fair game. The hope is that it will encourage others to take an interest in the lives of those they play alongside but, perhaps, had not yet had the opportunity to interact with. It might also serve as a useful little tool for rumor-mongering, depending on the content of the post, but shush now, you didn't hear that from me. Some guidelines to keep in mind when posting in this thread: 1. All posts are to be in-character. 2. No back-and-forth threading here, only one-off posts of reasonable (no more than a few paragraphs) length. However, if you happen to read a post that caught your eye, don't hesitate to follow up on it through other means (PMs, in-game, or just more RP in another thread/location!) 3. Try to post no more than once a day, per character. With that in mind, happy roleplaying!

It's not quite the same, but I do know one thing that can help keep people "updated" on interesting happenings with plots. The Ravenholdt RP Sanctum, which I'm still very much a part of and continue to moderate even though I don't play WoW anymore, has a wonderful thread called the Ravenholdt Bulletin Board. It's meant as a place for people to post little snippets of RP - sometimes summarizing an event their character just experienced, or a glimpse into the aftermath of something, or just a little peek into the every day life of a character and their thoughts, or anything else that can be contained within a single post. It's something I read religiously to keep up with what was an extremely diverse RP community, and if I saw something interesting, I was then able to poke the players to learn more. I think I'll write up a little something and get the ball rolling on a Balmung Bulletin Board.

You also followed it up with, "If you want in, all you gotta do is ask!" But how do you expect people to ask if they have no idea something is going on? I'm personally not a fan of "multiple universes". I try to keep my story as closely aligned with every other roleplayer's story as possible. If something big happens amongst one group - and by big, I mean something that by all accounts should have resulted in some kind of general gossip across a town or whatever, even if it's just "Hey, did you hear those strange noises? It sounded like explosions. The hell happened?" That's why I post 99% of the roleplay I do onto the forum, because you never know what might be a potential hook for another player, or even if someone just wants to pull on an event casually to keep the world they roleplay in feeling real. To be fair, the community of that other game was horrible.

Explosions in Limsa? @.@ That all sounds rather dramatic and something a citizen of the city-state should at least have overheard. Care to elaborate? Cause I had no idea anything had happened!