Perfect Tuluk

[Dar]

Heya.

So, Tuluk has been closed. I do not actually know the IG reasons for it's closure. How it happened, what IC events transpired during it's closure, etc. I 'imagine' those things will affect what the Tuluk will become once it opens. But let's just assume they will not.

So. I invite the playerbase to create their perfect Tuluk! Imagine that upon re-opening of Tuluk, everything and anything can be changed. Things that made Tuluk suck completely nixed, or made virtual. Things that made Tuluk rock left alone, improved, or made pre-dominant.  Things that made Tuluk hurtful to the game, removed, changed, or completely rewritten.  There are literally no barriers. An empty canvas that can be rebranded near completely. As long as it's existence isnt entirely jarring and out of whack in Zalanthas Universe.

If Tuluk opens. How would you like it to be? What would change? What would be added? What removed? How do you see it working?  

[Delirium]

What do I want to see in Tuluk?

Creepy ruins, pockets of hostile survivors, and the occasional wandering baghead.

The idea of Tuluk was (almost always) better than the reality. When it was good, it required a TON of work. The game is large enough now. The problem with Tuluk as it stands is more straightforward than re-designing and re-opening it: the problem is that the city is simply in a strange, jarring limbo, part of the story and yet not.

So do something with it, instead of leaving the white elephant lingering around forever. Put it out of its misery.

Destroying Tuluk for good will need to mean destroying Allanak's power to a certain degree, or else they'd simply roll out over the land and conquer everything. (In fact, why haven't they already done that, with Tuluk's gates shut and it being so obviously embroiled in some bitter internal fighting?)

While an Allanak-dominated Known might be fun, once you run out of enemies that it can easily crush, you're left with no real conflict save internal. PVE conflict and large-scale, overarching conflict has a real place in keeping life interesting, so we can't have a single all-encompassing power.

So. Kill both of the Sorcerer-Kings, lower the enormity of the glass ceiling, blast Tuluk to creepy, nilaz-infested rubble, drop some wandering bagheads and hostile survivors in there. Bolster the strength of the tribes out in the wastes so that they stand a chance against the remnants of Allanak. Bolster all the villages and outposts to make room for players to live, grow, and build long-term (Luir's, Morin's, Red Storm, DE Outpost) so that the playerbase has viable indie and clan options beyond "Allanak or Kurac". Have GMH conflict over Kurac's stranglehold on Luir's.

Boom. Done.

[Desertman]

In-fighting within the walls of Tuluk between the powers on high has resulted in those powers having decimated themselves. Whatever the source of their psionic abilities was previously, that is now gone and all Tuluki Templars follow the path of the Jihaen order with the exception of a few elite psionic (on par with Black Robes) survivors that now rule with an iron fist.

(No PC psion Templars to lord over every decision everyone in the city makes.)

During the fighting and the crazy mind control era of "the gates being closed" a large number of civilians escaped into the underground tunnels beneath the city. They have lived there on the verge of destruction, illegally, all of this time. Through necessity they have excelled at criminal activity and black market smuggling and they are now the primary/key criminal organization in Tuluk.

(This provides something actually interesting on the criminal front in Tuluk for shady characters to participate in, and potentially a super interesting source of opposition for The Guild.)

The noble Houses of Tuluk were mostly shattered to shit with only a small handful remaining. Even those Houses are now shadows of their former selves and the era of "treat the common man well, come ring our shiny bell" is fucking over. The nobility shit on the commoners in Tuluk openly just as much as they always have in Allanak. It's a tok eat tok world in Tuluk now and there is no place for niceties across the social castes, or even feigning niceties.


Famine is a concern in the city as much of the trade, agriculture, and commerce in general has all but dried up in the past many years of semi-isolation from the rest of the Known, including the lifelines of the great Merchant Houses. Some Merchant Houses have even closed up shop entirely in Tuluk. It just wasn't worth keeping their holdings there open and paying the costs to protect them in the hard times. They might come back one day, but for now, only a couple of GMH's actually remain in Tuluk.

Bonus points on this one as it opens up the possibility for player ran MMH groups to try and erect something from the ashes here without having to get wiped out by or suck the dicks of the GMH's that have a monopoly on every feasibly profitable craft in the game. I would love to see a couple of MMH aspiring groups be given free reign to try and establish themselves as Tuluk's arms dealers or spice sources or something along those lines. As it sits, the fact most everything in the game is monopolized by a great power really limits this whole process down to a practice in tedious annoyance.




Basically, Tuluk gets a "ground up" shit kicking and has its dick knocked into the dirt. What would re-open would more or less be a "skeleton crew" of leadership roles compared to what was previously ridiculous huge numbers of leaders and no followers.

The city actually becomes gritty and harsh for the first time in a very long time on par with what makes Allanak the reason people chose it over Tuluk to begin with.


From the bones that are erected we can slowly over time form Tuluk into something that's actually interesting and worth playing in.


One of if not the primary reasons Tuluk was closed as I understand was that it was simply becoming too much of a work-load hassle for staff to deal with. Fine, this takes a lot of the workload away. It is now, more or less, a desolate outpost with only a handful of key players running things at any time. You don't have nine nobles and four Templars reporting to you. You have three of four and from there people can build up, or not, as the playerbase decides.

Tuluk was too big to be sustained based on the number of people who actually found it interesting enough to be there.

This cuts down on the number of people required to populate it while simultaneously making it potentially interesting enough/gritty enough to attract more players to begin with.


(Needless to say, the silly shartist crap is gone.)

[Large Hero]

I'd do away with the old emphasis on arts, culture, craftsmanship, social mobility, and the 'we did it together' feeling that rose out of the occupation and manifested in ways like commoners and nobles nodding to each other. That made sense for the way things evolved, but I never really felt that it fit the game setting.

I'd strongly play up the Big Brother/Stalinist Russia/Pyongyang aspect. The powers that be have been heavily shaken by whatever internal problems are going on in Tuluk now, and they've responded by heavily monitoring the population for signs of dissent to crush behind closed doors.

They do this the old fashioned way: infiltration with spies, and terrorizing 'innocents' to rat on their friends and family.

The big change: psionic abilities no longer function inside the walls of Tuluk, and can't penetrate from the outside.

IC reason: maybe something weird happened with Muk Utep. Maybe the government has decided that people are easier to control if they can't organize and communicate via the Way.

OOC reason: I think it'd be cool to see what Armageddon is like without psionics (I think it'd be an improvement), and it would make the two cities VERY different.

Kill both of the Sorcerer-Kings, lower the enormity of the glass ceiling, blast Tuluk to....rubble

Do this too. The government of Tuluk is frightened, and its highest level is low Black/high Red-tier templars. The sorcerer kings are pretty much Not Good for storytelling.

The noble Houses of Tuluk were mostly shattered to shit with only a small handful remaining. Even those Houses are now shadows of their former selves and the era of "treat the common man well, come ring our shiny bell" is fucking over

And do this also. The remaining noble houses are struggling to keep their place. They become cultural enforcers for the Templarate, and assist in keeping an iron grip of Stalinist conformity on the population. Powerful families trying to stay in the good graces of Kim Jong.

[Reiloth]

I see dynamic struggling Fiefdoms attempting to control areas of the city, with only a small part of the 'old city' being re opened for play, so a highly condensed horizontal portion of the city. Expanding up and down provides hierarchy to the criminal elements, and the disenfranchised Nobility and Templars.

Akin to 'Tyr' in Dark Sun, most of the Templarate loses their granted powers by Muk Utep, and are required to rely on physical prowess and political acumen to survive and put the thumb on similarly powerless Nobles.

The streets at night are beyond dangerous -- Mindless, aggressive thralls under the control of a select few Templars, disciples to the 'New Power' within the Pyramid (likely an offshoot of or directly Jurinia Winrothol)t, attempt to subdue and drag anyone found on the streets to the Pyramid, or kill and eat those who struggle. People for the most part hole up at dusk.

The Heart, The Noble Quarter, and the whole 'Eastern/Southeastern' part of the city is closed for play -- It's just a bunch of creepy walls that no one can get behind, and is a no-man's land you'd just die in.

The Warrens and the Red Sun Commons are open. The rooftops and an underground tunnel network are added to provide three dimensions to the areas.

No automatic crime code, period. If a soldier NPC catches you doing a crime, they lock you up in a public gibbet.

The culture of Tuluk survives, albeit on a limited basis. People can still play a bard of the Poet's Circle, but the functioning Circle is gone. The vibe of 'Everything is Great in Good Old Tuluk!' is gone. Things are clearly fucked up, and people are just trying to survive, but they find moments to share the oral history of what Tuluk once was, while they attempt to remake it into something livable, under the nebulous yoke of the frightening creatures within the Pyramid and the Heart.



Key points:

-It is uncertain what is or is not in the Heart and the Pyramid. This remains mysterious, but the 'things' that come out of there are decidedly not human, and they only come out of the Heart at night. The idea that people 'disappear' becomes quite real.

-It is not safe. The only reason people stay in Tuluk is the naïveté that they can rebuild and restructure it, that the Nobles and Templars who survived can resist the 'power' within the Pyramid.

-Muk Utep is gone. He isn't dead, he just took off and left Tuluk to live or die based on its own merit.

-The culture survives, it's not gone, it's just reliant on the players to accentuate or deaccentuate what they want to remember or forget.

-Noble Houses are gone. Templarate is gone. There are just 'survivors' from some of the Houses. New Fiefs are formed, and the city becomes a territorial partition, akin to the Capulets and Montagues. Without vague 'soldiers' to uphold law and order, each Fief makes its own rules and enforces them. Walls are built, torn down, and rebuilt as bloody skirmishes erupt on the streets in the day, only for the bodies to disappear overnight.

-Make it the last vestige of Tuluk. Perhaps the Nobles and Templars can destroy the dark power within the Pyramid, if they band together or if they find a means. Perhaps they are defeated, destroyed, and ruined. But it will add a final closing chapter to Tuluk either way.

[Dar]

Due to the psychic schisms of whatever the hell is happening, a great portion of population, common and noble have been driven underground. Deep within, a special moss was discovered and experimented on by the Dasari survivors. The Dasari have managed to concoct a substance that if mixed with another produces gas that has strange affect on other beings. Whoever inhales the gas becomes protected from everything psionic. Strangely, the substance have began affecting the magick users as well. Making elementalists incapable of using magick while under effect of the gas, and whoever bears magickal afflictions on themselves become dejected and visibly sick.

The topside of Tuluk is ruled by psychicly mindless zombies and their psychic overlords. While their purpose, reasons, motivations are unknown. As a military might, the topside of Tuluk remains powerful enough to resist any organized invasion, despite being rather isolationist in itself.

The Undertuluk became a thriving city in on itself. Due to enclosed terrain, it became possible for Dasari to permanently coat the entire confines of the commune in the Dasari gas. Protecting them from the abominations, as well as the prying thoughts and will of the Templarate itching for more bodies for their mindless zombie armies.  

It became possible to create small gourds with the substance, enabling Tulukies to produce the gas outside of Undertuluk. Though the affect is short lived, it gave the surviving citizenry some fighting chance against the magickally cursed abominations that they may encounter in close vicinity of Tuluk. The gourds are expensive and closely monitored by the Dasari.

While the exact recipie for the gas is unknown. Some special moss growing in dangerous depths of the UnderTuluk is known to be the key ingredient for it. That moss alone is enough to create the gas in close proximity of it's growth. But to permeate the entire Undertuluk and create the confined gourds, more ingredients are required. One of them is Kzul berries. Forcing the denizens of Under Tuluk to venture top side, where the risks of losing their own mind, or being torn apart by the mindless servitors are high. One of the surviving Chosen houses became somewhat of a specialist in procurement of these berries. Whether by crossing the streets of zombie town, hoping the effects of the Dasari gas lingers, to procure the berries, or venturing into the depths of the Grey Forest to find them there. Some sort of a mixture of Thodeliv, Methelinoc, and Qel is also required, creating a dependency on Kurac, as well as a need to circumvent Kurac monopoly, to not be vulnerable to their whims. A fruit called Kaya, growing in mostly southern underground, or salt rich areas. A plant called Ocotillo, which unfortunately is almost predominantly grown by House Oash of Allanak. As well as ... some other type of moss that was found in small quantities in the depths of Under Tuluk, the Grey Forest, and in vast quantities underneath Allanak.

While the faith in Muk Utep is still strong. The survivalist nature of the Tuluki citizenry, as well as the schism and recantance of some of the Faithful that came down UnderTuluk as well, have shaken loyalty of the populace to the Faithful Orders. Effectively, the Dasari now have authority over the UnderTuluk commune since they alone have the means to create the gas in such quantities as to encompass the entire cavernous network. That authority though is shared with the remnants of the Legion that keeps the peace and order within the commune. As well as the organizations that risk their lives to procure the moss from the depths of UnderTuluk, as well as venturing out into the Known to attain other ingredients needed.

With the brightest, most ambitious, most passionate, and energetic minds that survived delving into the Under Tuluk. A series of new discoveries have been found within it's depths. Bringing forth odd new materials, ranging from fabric, foods, brews, and various other, as of yet unknown to Zalanthas. Survivors of Akai Sjir and Tenneshi work on making sure the Cavernous Network is solid and collapse free. They are the ones making sure the mindless servitors from topside do not dig down, as well as doing some digging of their own to expand the limited space, create exits to the known beyond the topside Tuluk walls, and monitoring the general health and infrastructure of the commune.

[RogueGunslinger]

I massive crater in the ground, with mutant kryl-men crawling out to take over the world.

[Dresan]

I basically support Deliriums Post 100 percent. The sorcerer kings and their cronies, with their ridiculous virtual power ceiling need to go...

[The Lonely Hunter]

Tuluk pre-rebuild (during Allanaki occupation). That was pretty much perfect, imo. It was like a little hunting village...except you had rebels, spies, assassinations, sabotage plots, and just general coolness.

[Aruven]

The city actually becomes gritty and harsh for the first time in a very long time on par with what makes Allanak the reason people chose it over Tuluk to begin with.

Stop perpetuating this bullshit myth and I will have an adult conversation about this topic.

[Suhuy]

By now it seems the bulk of the players admit that Tuluk (as it was over the past several years) was an OOCly flawed concept. Re-opening it in its current form is probably a bad idea. So what then?

I prefer a "two city-state solution" because it means when I die with one character, I can easily switch over to the other side for a while in the next incarnation. Right now your option is to either play right back where you died, or be out in the wild frontier. Those are essentially your only two options, city-slicker or outdoors type. I liked the option of a second city, one which was equipped with its own form of templars and noble houses, etc., though I realize not everyone will feel the same.

If Tuluk were to be re-opened I would hope the following points are considered.

• An IC explanation given for why it's now "re-opened"
• An IC event that severely alters the current state of Tuluk into something new and improved
• The new version of Tuluk be carefully considered in advance (many other posters mentioned how its concept works great in a novel, but fails in gaming terms -- I agree, and hopefully any changes made for a Newer New Tuluk will be carefully planned)
• The Keep it Simple Stupid rule be strictly adhered to. Failure to abide by this was, in my opinion, why Tuluk fell (OOCly fell, not ICly). When Tuluk was liberated there were desperate attempts to differentiate it from Allanak so that it would not be seen as an "Allanak 2". I believe the efforts were too strong that the result was an overly complicated system
• That the past remain intact. Yes, it failed in many ways, but don't just retcon everything that happened
• Don't just repeat the fun part of history as it already happened. The Rebellion was the absolute best time for the game, in my opinion, but repeating it exactly the same way would come across as contrived. Whatever happens to Tuluk to make it rise and fall and rise a second time, make it a unique story

[Dar]

Suhuy, I'm pretty sure a great vast amount of the playerbase, if not the majority have drawn the same conclusions. The question is what form Tuluk would take to achieve all these points and prerequisites you're making. How do you envision it?

[Aruven]

*nvm

[Suhuy]

Suhuy, I'm pretty sure a great vast amount of the playerbase, if not the majority have drawn the same conclusions.

It truly warms my heart if that's the case.

For the longest time any and all criticism of the state of Tuluk was railed against. Consequently, the city couldn't be improved because pointing out its glaring flaws would be stomped upon and silenced. The fact that New Tuluk was a flawed design, and the more it got worked and reworked the more complicated and convoluted it became, is not intended to hurt anyone's feelings. It's just a fact (or to use your words, it's the majority opinion).

The question is what form Tuluk would take to achieve all these points and prerequisites you're making. How do you envision it?

I don't think it's a particularly overwhelming list. And a Newer New Tuluk could take any form really. Hell, it could even become a sci-fi city! What form it takes is less a concern in my mind than how that new form is implemented. I just think it needs IC explanations and advance planning. Obviously no one thought ahead about what a George Orwell Tuluk would be like to play in (however cool it may sound on paper). And that's fine. We all make mistakes. But recognize that mistake rather than hide from it so the same thing doesn't happen again.

Talking here about what exactly a Newer New Tuluk might look like would remove the mystery when and if it ever came to be. I'd love it if staff invited players to privately submit their suggestions and took them into consideration at some point (even if the suggestion is wipe it off the map).

[Dakota]

Tuluk has become Moscow.

Scumbags and cool PC's have gone down into UnderTuluk. They have a safe house in the warrens. The Akai are brainwashed by the Templars and then slaughtered by other organized c-elf gangs save for a family or two who are grandfathered into a new smattering tribe that accepts humans and dwarves as underlings.

The laws in UnderTuluk have become like Bartertown in Mad Max. They have a thunderdome. Deep below in the further reaches is something else and far more powerful and dangerous. It keeps those above, who know vaguely what is down there, out of the narrows.

[a french mans shirt]

1. Divide Tuluk into two religious denominations--- the purifiers, who believe in the outright extermination of nonhumans, and the classicals, everyone else.
2. Keep the nodding, but do away with the weird niceties-for-no-reason, or restrict them to the upper tiers of society, aides and above.
3. For the sake of consolidation, keep GMH presence in Tuluk null for now, and add in the civil war as the reason. The shops change stock often enough.
4. Re-open a manageable portion of undertuluk, including the settlement.
5. For the first staff-driven plot, make the purifiers slowly climb their way up the social ladder, and cause them to shut down the glass escalator that the city had compared to everyone else.
6. Religious persecution by and to both sects follows.


I always thought it was weird we didn't have violent religious denominations (or denominations at all), but I think it would work to help 'normalize' Tuluk.

And for gods sakes get RID of the weird niceties and I'm going to kill you smiles. I stopped playing in Tuluk because of I didn't feel I could roleplay it well, and I doubt I'm the only one.

[Desertman]

The city actually becomes gritty and harsh for the first time in a very long time on par with what makes Allanak the reason people chose it over Tuluk to begin with.

Stop perpetuating this bullshit myth and I will have an adult conversation about this topic.

I'm sorry you feel this way but I can't help you there. I agree to disagree.

[Delirium]

Allanak's "gritty and harsh" often ends up feeling like a room full of wannabe fratboy toughs, but I admire what it's aiming for.

[Desertman]

Allanak's "gritty and harsh" often ends up feeling like a room full of wannabe fratboy toughs, but I admire what it's aiming for.

Yeah, as with anything it depends on the quality of the players involved.

[a french mans shirt]

Tuluk was gritty and harsh, in its own way. It was just hard to see and find if you were independent--- if you could get through the sea of "Join our house!" without getting swallowed by it, then the Tuluk underneath seemed completely pleasant if you followed all the rules, which it shouldn't have. You should have stood a good chance of disappearing if you kept walking through the streets at night alone, but you didn't. People who disappeared in Tuluk appeared to be either neck-deep in plotting or were asking for it. I want that to change, if Tuluk comes back.

Granted, that would mean ensuing changes in Allanak, as well. Which would be good, in my opinion. Right now, douchebags and undesirables in Allanak don't have a single thing to fear from anyone they don't directly harm, unless there's an active, indiscriminate murderer around. I would prefer realism over an unrealistically increased chance of survival, and for people to actually have 'its safer here' as a reason to flee to Luir's and Red Storm. I just feel like protection from a clan should mean what its supposed to mean, and not just be a 'just in case' aspect of the job, or a buffer because you're about to be a dick to someone with a uniform. In real life, now and in the past, regular, unprotected citizens were genuinely afraid of upsetting the wrong people. The way things are, the only people you buy drinks for are soldiers. If you buy a drink for a Kadian crafter everyone assumes you're trying to get into her bed or at least make genuine friends.

[Refugee]

Allanak seizes the opportunity provided by thousands of refugees from the current regime in Tuluk to fund/organize an underground movement against the odious overlords, somehow protecting agents from whatever exactly it is they're doing up there.  This would be very fun to play, as an agent or a Nakki involved in organizing them, but only if there were PC Tulukis to oppose them and expose them.  So I guess it wouldn't work at all, given the size of our pbase.

Fun idea though.

[a french mans shirt]

An underground rebel movement would be sweet. I see a movement by Allanaki citizens, in Allanak, that is sekrit and reaches out to attack Tuluk on its own occasionally (or vice versa) to be more doable than rebels hiding in the target city. For one thing, from an OOC perspective its much easier to recruit. More people are available there, and people who don't want to risk themselves are more likely to join, probably for non-risky positions.

[Refugee]

That would work better...

[Dresan]

I don't know what people's definition of gritty or harsh is but Tuluk was as cruel and brutal as any other place I played since.  

What people forget about Tuluk:

1. It had a healthy population all the way up to the war.
2. A number of people were indies doing their own thing with very little support running their own crews.
3. A lot of fun in tuluk was created by the players, events people have been attempting to copy usually with poorer results.

We didn't need a rinth because crime could be healthy if given a chance, its not like all my southern pickpockets, assassins and burglars live in the rinth after all. We didn't even need clans like the byn, kadius and salarr (beyond the merchants to sell us really high end stuff sometimes) because between the commoners and nobility, people ran their own crews, even before there was any real support/documentation for them.  

The only thing that people playing were asking for is to get rid of the mindworm templars walking the streets. That's it. This would have allowed more thematical freedom to create plots, use unsanctioned crime, and play hidden magickers without feeling like a twink. Nothing else needed to be touched, the players would have handled and created the rest themselves from there just like they had done in the past. Instead, we got many changes, except the one we asked for, and as a result population dropped. The place we enjoyed was gone, and the place we hoped it could become wasn't happening. And eventually it closed.

Do I want it opened again? Not really, we don't need duplicate GMH houses but then again not like there weren't ideas to break those monopolies. I feel with the direction the game is going, Delirium's idea seems the most fun instead.

[KankWhisperer]

Personally I would like to see perhaps a little episodic content. Have a few short story episodes, where people who participate can get a peek into what is going on as we watch the Staff try and write themselves out of their corner. Let players create their "Tuluk" characters and if they die, they can't make another until the next episode. Each episode would be a small event, perhaps one weekend RL, and maybe two three a year.