Ashan 718 Ryncheck.

[Pegasus]

Hello (Again) Ryncheck!!

Hey everyone!

So - Plague, Basilisk and I are super aware that you've had a lot of mod coming and going over the last while, and we're wanting to really get a grip on the lore and the stories you're all telling. So. What we'd like to do is to build on the excellent work done by Muse and Khy in terms of getting plots going etc.

The next two months IRL, we're going to be working on the Lore. But we want to hear from you. Let us know, if you would -

1. What's happening for your PC atm in terms of Ryn?
2. Is there anything you're stalled on? Anything that you might need some help with?
3. Would you be prepared to do some Guest STing to help another player out? (slipped that one in there, did you notice?)
4. What feedback do you have regarding Ryn - what would you like to see? what do you love? what do you want more / less of? (that we can deliver... and no, no dragons).
5. Give us a list of your priorities - what do you want out of your mods? What do you want out of us looking at the lore?

Any and all comments are great - just please keep them constructive. Thanks! !

[Alistair]

Heeyy. I'm going to participate in this just because I'm still occasionally a Ryn, lol. Just been banished to the Eastern Settlements, is all.

1. Nothing much. Ali's been exiled so I can't do much.

2. Nah, I'm fine.

3. If we both like and agree on the plot, sure.

4. My feedback would be to offer the players powerful positions within the city. I know what we think about the King, and how it's dumb to just want to kill him... but what Ryn has right now isn't working. Kill the King, overthrow the establishment, make it go into a chaotic mess where the Duchies all vie for control. Kill off some of the Dukes - let PCs into truly powerful positions. Mix it all up. Unfortunately, Rynmere just isn't very inspiring for mods or players right now, and I genuinely - perhaps pessimistically - think that no mod will ever come around and truly revitalize it the way it needs to be revitalized.

I think we should give players high autonomy and just let them have at it. If it fails, well... the city is pretty much eternally dead anyway, so. No real losses, lol.

5. Even if it's dumb and messy, Rynmere needs to be reborn in fire and blood. Everyone knows it - it's just... a dying man right now, with an incurable disease.

[Val Valencia]

1. What's happening for your PC atm in terms of Ryn? She's trying to make standing for herself within the city and wishes to become involved with whats essentially the civil rights movements happening in and around Andaris.

2. Is there anything you're stalled on? Anything that you might need some help with? Actually getting up there in politics, Ryn is a little dead, with so many plots over so many mods (so it seems, I haven't been around long to truly gauge) and everything needs to be condensed and formalized into a manner more easily written with the PCs in terms of not always needing a mod.

3. Would you be prepared to do some Guest STing to help another player out? (slipped that one in there, did you notice?) Don't know how good I'd be but I'd love to actually.

4. What feedback do you have regarding Ryn - what would you like to see? what do you love? what do you want more / less of? (that we can deliver... and no, no dragons). I'd like to see the politics and brewing civil unrest actually come to a head, reading over the last few seasonal calendars shows it keeps peaking and then just...stops? I like how political Ryn is but I'd love to see more of the cities actually shine, theres so many faucets of Ryn but really on Andaris issues are played upon, what about the other duchies? I love its essentially its own little country with separate states but that never is really in use except for on paper, so to speak.

5. Give us a list of your priorities - what do you want out of your mods? What do you want out of us looking at the lore? An active mod? In the sense that we have one. In my opinion, Ryn is fairly fleshed out, what it lacks if cohesive direction by one person because without that direction the players are left to flounder in a bunch of different plots with no resolution. Basically, I don't think Ryn really needs additions to the lore, it needs to be finished and fix whats already here then from there maybe change direction and it doesn't even need to have the mods do it. There are some PCs that of high stature, let them make the waves and direct the flow within the lines of feasibility.

Considering I haven't been around long I don't know how much of this actually is true or makes sense, its just what I've seen so far.

--V

[Tristan Venora]

1. Not much. Tristan got closer to Valeria Burhan, was frustrated by King Cassander's anti-mage law and planned a trip to Scalvoris in order to meet with Faith.

2. I'd like to get a second Blessing and reach Adored Elithem. Muse was supposed to help me with that, but she retired.

3. yes

4. I agree with Alistair. Something big needs to happen. Rynmere isn't working right now. Almost none of the noble PCs are posting anymore. Tristan's a duke, but I don't have the feeling that I can truly affect anything. I have to write three job threads every season since the rules for noble PCs were changed though - which means somewhat pointless solos since there are no political events that I can take part in, and I cannot control any powerful NPCs. I'd appreciate meetings between the dukes, meetings between the nobles and the king etc.

Rynmere needs to change. It needs more opportunities for the PCs to get involved.

5. Regular moderation. That's the biggest issue right now. The Nobility Information Thread also needs to be looked at and updated. It doesn't really tell you anything about what a normal noble/baron/duke can or cannot do and what kind of perks you get for being a noble and in exchange for writing more job threads than the average PC. I would also suggest letting the player pick their noble's gender and their exact age and play as PCs that aren't in the direct line of succession. I also noticed that the nobles on those family trees haven't aged in the past two years. Lastly, the merchant families need to be written up sometime.

[Valeria Burhan]

1. In late Zi'da, Val was basically called back to Senlin and put under something akin to house arrest, being allowed back to Andaris thanks to the fact that she caught Tristan's eye. Her mother allowed her back on the condition that she effectively seduce him into a betrothal by Saun. Details of that here. She's gotten closer to Tristan obviously and she appears to be moving into a political apprenticeship type thing with Kura Wolfsdotter so she'll likely take a trip to Scalvoris next season. It's been in the offing since... Zi'da, I think? Other than that, I guess things are a bit up in the air.

2. Not stalled on anything. In terms of help, I'm aiming for Adored Elithem some point in the future but when that'll be feasible... I'm not really sure.

3. Yes, I'd be prepared to guest ST although I'm very shaky on magic so it depends on the plot and whether I can get some help if necessary.

4. Tidying things up is definitely necessary. There are inconsistencies in places but you're going to be sorting that anyway so I think that's me covered. As far as Ryn as a whole goes, I think that Tristan and Alistair bring up good points. It probably doesn't help that when major events have occurred that the mods involved in them tend to disappear or an event goes on for so long that it affects other plots and then it just seems to kill people's muses. I think that's made things difficult but people come and go and then others don't reply for awhile and that holds things up. These things happen and I understand that.

Hence, I think if we want to have big events, where possible, I feel like it should be player driven. When there was a charity ball in Venora, it involved an intro post and while that it was done by a player, it left plenty of room for others to pick and choose who they interacted with and how, allowed them to move at their own pace, etc. Allowing players to drive their own stories with supervision could be looked into, I think.

5. Tidying first before any other projects happen, I think. I know that there's something called the White Well where the Avari River begins and there are inconsistencies there that I discussed with Muse when I started working on Val's home barony, Senlin (which I really need to finish). Um... other than that, there are sections in the link map for the Duchies (which is listed in Andaris by the way and there are no links in the actual locations section in the Duchies forum) where things haven't been filled in so I suppose filling in those gaps would be good.

Thank you in advance for undertaking this!

[Pegasus]

Thank you to all who have so far answered this - please keep it coming. We really appreciate your thoughts and want to make sure that you feel heard and that your voices / opinions are acted on.

Thanks!

[Kirei Qe'Azour]

1. What's happening for your PC atm in terms of Ryn?

Kirei has been spending most of her time working at Elyari's Hope, or on her farm just outside the city. I have a couple of long term plots I am planning out for her, but neither is ready to be launched yet. So she's just sort of hanging around for the moment, and trying to get used to being a free woman. The anti Mage sentiments and Mage burnings have left her with some very mixed feelings. While not a Mage, or Mage supporter herself, she feels that condemning someone just for being a Mage is wrong. Especially when the Mage is liable to be burned alive for the crime of existing. Kirei feels more that a Mage who has done wrong should be punished while one who has not (or who has done good) should be left alone. Having said this, she knows very little about magic, and her views might change somewhat if she ever learned about Necromancy, or some of the other branches of magic that exist.

At the moment, her views on the subject have her feeling ill at ease with those who are in charge of such things.


2. Is there anything you're stalled on? Anything that you might need some help with?

Kirei has Celarion (first level). I have been meaning to work on her learning about the abilities she currently has, and gaining some new ones. Any help or advice in this area would be welcome.


3. Would you be prepared to do some Guest STing to help another player out? (slipped that one in there, did you notice?)

Not at this time, sorry.


4. What feedback do you have regarding Ryn - what would you like to see? what do you love? what do you want more / less of? (that we can deliver... and no, no dragons).

Aww...I wanted dragons! What about gryphons? Can we have those? Please? Or maybe unicorns?

On a more serious note, I would like to see where the anti Mage sentiments are going. Will there be more burnings? Will the Mages left in Rynmere form some kind of alliance and fight back - either joining Faction VII as I saw mentioned, or an alliance of their own? Is this something that could lead to war?

It might also be interesting so see what kind of impact a natural disaster would create. Something big enough to affect the entire kingdom; an earthquake in Andaris, perhaps. Would something like that serve to unite the various factions? Or drive them even further apart? Would the various duchies rally to support Andaris...or use the disaster as a power play to further their own goals?


5. Give us a list of your priorities - what do you want out of your mods? What do you want out of us looking at the lore?

To be honest, I am not really sure what to put here. As a non noble who has no real interest in politics (IC or OOC), I've been focused mostly on developing who Kirei is, and how she interacts with her own little segment of the city (Elyari's Hope). Lore wise, I am not sure what needs to be done, or doesn't need working on.

[Hart]

1. What's happening for your PC atm in terms of Ryn?
Hart is cluing into the fact that he's a mortalborn (which, interestingly, is a sort of common occurrence in the Rynmeran noble houses). Besides that, he's trying to find a certain balance in his life, between shenanigans and the things he gets up to, and family and everything else. He's still figuring it all out. He's also becoming more interested politically, especially when it comes to philanthropy and activism.

2. Is there anything you're stalled on? Anything that you might need some help with?
Not really. I'll make sure to PM if I need to ask about anything.

3. Would you be prepared to do some Guest STing to help another player out? (slipped that one in there, did you notice?)
Maybe. I don't really feel comfortable ST'ing bc I've never done it before and I'm afraid I wouldn't be good at it. But, I might if someone needed it, or asked.

4. What feedback do you have regarding Ryn - what would you like to see? what do you love? what do you want more / less of? (that we can deliver... and no, no dragons).
I'd just like to see a steady mod presence, really, even if there aren't a whole lot of modded threads/events for a while. I came to Rynmere, way back when, for the political intrigue and the civil war, though back then Hart was merely an NPC and didn't really believe he was Venoran. As a player, I like the storyline with the mages. I like the idea of all these groups in Rynmere vying for power (the common people, noble houses, Eastern Settlement, military, RCA, VII, the crown, the faith, Order of the Mantis, etc). If we could see more of that, or an exploration of the power balances and imbalances in Rynmere, that would be cool. I feel like with all these factions, there's a lot of potential. And, as always, I'd love to see more involvement between cities (Rynmere and Ne'haer and Etzos, for instance).

5. Give us a list of your priorities - what do you want out of your mods? What do you want out of us looking at the lore?
Basically I'd just like Rynmere up and running smoothly. Personally, I'm willing to help if anyone (the mods or whoever) need something.

[Velaine Krome]

1. What's happening for your PC atm in terms of Ryn?
With the whole mage hunt going on, Velaine had been in a tight spot (she is a mage, after all). She's trying her best to keep her secret because her end goal was to take over Krome.

2. Is there anything you're stalled on? Anything that you might need some help with?
There are actually a couple of things I have stalled and a lot of them I probably need help with. First thing is Velaine's rising as a baroness. It has been discussed with previous Rynmods that Velaine will do her best to make her father seem unfit to rule and in turn appoint her as the ruling baroness since she's the only heir left. It involves a bit of empathy magic for Velaine to make her father seem mad and in the end, she would arrange a meeting with the Duke of Krome to bring that up. This should have gone down in Cylus, but alas here we are.

The second thing is the whole business with the Mantises, another plot I've discussed with the Rynmods. Basically after a series of unfortunate events, including her mentor getting killed by the mage hunters, Velaine will start to considering the idea of going against the Crown. She finds the whole mage burnings unfair and will try to turn her family's barony into a sanctuary of some sort (which is why I needed to get her to become baroness).

Lastly is Velaine gaining the Nalos. I have got an approved PSF ticket already and I need to thread to build up to that. I've prepared some placeholders in need of some writing and that's actually what I'll be trying to do first right now. After all, the gaining of the mark would be a turning point for Velaine and will start leading her to the path of trying to save other mages.

Right now, I don't know if all of that is possible with what's going on in Ryn.

3. Would you be prepared to do some Guest STing to help another player out?
I have never GST before, but I see no reason not to try. Although admittedly, I would prefer to get all my own plots caught first!!

4. What feedback do you have regarding Ryn - what would you like to see? what do you love? what do you want more / less of?
Politics, definitely. I have always been a sucker for noble politics and would love to see Velaine get involved in it as she tried to gain more power. OH! I definitely want the Mantis to stick - on the contrary to what people might believe. I love the whole anti-mage plot despite being a mage myself, because it provides a lot of drama and tension. I hope they stick around. I want to be that underdog who fights back the oppressors after all.

5. Give us a list of your priorities - what do you want out of your mods? What do you want out of us looking at the lore?
Well, I really like Rynmere and I would really love to see it return to its former glory! And I also don't mind helping around! Regarding priorities, I mostly just want to catch up on all those plots I have mentioned above.