Perfect Tuluk

[Reiloth]

*eyebrow wagging*

And I wonder if this secret role call is exactly that...

[The Lonely Hunter]

Allanak sends spies and all is quiet.
They set to attack, seizing on the weakened state. They bust open the gates - it is a wasteland.

Allanak occupies Tuluk. Tuluk returns to an occupied state (as it was before the rebuild). Some pockets of Tuluki loyalists have survived and form a rebellion/terrorist organization.

Ta-da...Tuluk is awesome again.

[Erythil]

I don't think that Tuluk should lose its core flavor as being the more artisinal and beautiful of the two cities.  I think the orwellian nature of Tuluk, a frightening place beneath a pleasant exterior, is a nice contrast to the south.  The flaw was to my mind mostly in implementation -- psionics are anti-fun.  They make plots die, when in the hands of the state.

I would say:  Make it so that psionics can only be used outside of the city, or on targets outside of the city, and you're already halfway there.  Now you actually need spies, and the paranoia comes from 'can I trust my friends' rather than 'Is Lady Q online right now?'

Wanting to make Tuluk a blasted wasteland doesn't seem fun to me.  We've got plenty of blasted wasteland as is. Though Muk Utep being dormant again, and there being a couple of prominent factions scheming for influence on the player level -- maybe with benefits to whichever side has more PC supporters -- might be more fun.

[ShaLeah]

Occupied by Allanak. Period.

[Reiloth]

Occupied by Allanak. Period.

Boring.

[KankWhisperer]

Zombie apocalypse.

[Dar]

The problem of Tuluki psionics is that they need "something" to balance the power of Allanak.

It's true now that Drovians are gone, or soon to be gone, Allanak have lost it's very simple and cheap method of espionage. Unless of course one of the Templar subguilds got the drovian spell list. But even aside that. Imagine an Allanaki force with ranger/elementalists in power. Casting on themselves "and" other mundane troops like AoD, pc and npc alike. Add to it the magick of Templars themselves. One PC of Allanaki force becomes the equavelent of 2-5 of Tuluki ones.  What can Tuluki force do to balance the scales?

Before, this was Psionics. Jihaen powers were grand and scary, but honestly, not as scary as the psionic ones. Remove psionics from the equation, and a particularly code savvy and very skilled ranger/ruk could probably one by one depopulate the entire PC part of the Legion, Templars included.  This will of course never happen, due to virtual presence of the City State, but you cant really rely on virtual power only, what is the point of the Templarate at all then.

Therefore. If you open Tuluk as a complete and self sufficient city, then you must account for its power. Its power must equal that of Allanak. So we'll either have to substantially drop Allanaki magickal power, or give something to Tuluk that balances the odds.  Currently, it's psionics. But legal psionicism makes playing in Tuluk uninteresting, due to its sheer omniscience factor.

If you remove psionics, then what do you give them back? Do you bring elementalism back to Tuluk? Is that what you want?  

I could go behind that actually. Make Nilaz legal in Tuluk. Give the Templars Nilazi powers that work of sorcery as well.


PS: I suggested alchemy and gas bombs that nullify psionics/magick. That version also had zombies. But noone lurved my idea.


sob

[Yam]

Casting on themselves "and" other mundane troops like AoD, pc and npc alike.

This... probably shouldn't be happening. This ain't World of Warcraft.

[a french mans shirt]

Right before Tyn Dashra battle commenced the Templar asked us if we wanted magick armor and less under half of the soldiers said yes. I suppose this was a change in heart coming from the fact that if the witch screwed up the Templar would probably make them go the to battlefield first (in the times before magick subguilds) but the whole thing was definitely iffy. There was a physical air of 'iffy' over that room for a few minutes before we turned our attention to other matters.

I would say that some of the city's best shadow artists, virtual, npc and pc, would balance things out a bit, but Allanak would still have virtual and npc drovians and there'd be invisible whirans. I dunno what the ratio of the kind of shadow artists they'd bring are compared to those witches and witches overall but I imagine some shadow artists would be trying to find a way out of service as well. Are good shadow artists hard to come by? You'd probably be wanting to send them after high-ranking soldiers instead anyway. Better chance of success and coming back alive.

Giving Templars elementalism sounds like the easy way out. I say do that, and make a group of elite shadow artists who volunteer, give them a fancy name, and give them elementalism as well, if that's possible. Or find native witches in Tuluk and give them the choice of death or recruitment as a sekrit witch in this group. Train them in the shadow arts and such. Give only Templars the nilazi powers, and don't hire nilazi citizens but kill those.

It'd be even better if everyone in Tuluk -knew- that the Templars and that group no one ever talks about were all witches and that to insinuate so would mean disappearance. I love irony in Tuluk.

[gotdamnmiracle]

elite shadow artists who volunteer, give them a fancy name, and give them elementalism as well, if that's possible.

Maybe this could be where we stick Elkro, Drov, and Nilaz...

[palomar]

The attitude towards magick was one of the things with Tuluk that appealed to me. It was nice to avoid almost all magick by playing there, and whatever magick you encountered was hostile/the enemy (with very very few exceptions). While psionics were problematic on the PC level it did its job on a greater setting/environmental/virtual level in terms of countering magickal influence and Nak's reliance on magick. Jihaen martial arts abilities were unique and effective mostly in smaller scale situations. Personally, I'd hate seeing elementalism in Tuluk again, and even Nilaz magick would be really difficult to accept, all things considered. Nilaz magick comes with a nasty bagage that it makes no sense for Tuluk to accept. I would suggest reworking psionics and Jihaen powers into something unique for Tuluk. More powerful in some cases, less so in others.

[evilcabbage]

nilaz magick comes with the realization that the guy wielding that is not looking to benefit you, but probably a psychopath who wants to turn everybody into his own personal puppet show.

you do not want to be an audience member in -that- show.

trust me.

[Lizzie]

Perfect Tuluk:

The Noble houses were shattered during the last series of events, with Lyksae being the only house to survive intact. A few groups of "citizens who didn't end up corrupted by the "stuff" that happened" emerge, cautiously, to rebuild the city which was devastated by Civil War. The Undertuluk is once more a thing, but even scarier now because that's where some of the people who *were* corrupted by the "stuff that happened" went. It is not Labyrinth v.2, or the Tuluk version of the rinth. It is its own entity, an exploration into the depths of despair, depravity, and mental corruption that some of the Tuluk citizens never recovered from. This is where Masterbards, senior aides, senior nobles, and a few pre-war Lirathan templars ended up. The ones who wouldn't let go. And now they're not normal people anymore. Mutated in the mind, and now in the body as well thanks to their years spent underground, never seeing daylight again. Mix a little nilaz in down there to stir things up, and you have the UnderCity.

Meanwhile, topside, the ones who survived the "stuff that happened" unscathed are rebuilding. Think of it as Mad Max meets a dry version of WaterWorld, with Lyksae owning the choicest lot of land, and Kadius emerged to re-take New Freil's Rest.

And now - Go.

[The Lonely Hunter]

It looks like some people are assuming that the Tuluk rebuild was the 'core' Tuluk. To me the rebuilt Tuluk didn't even feel like Armageddon. On paper it seemed pretty neat but the actual execution made it seem like happy-flower-hippy-hug village. Maybe that contributed to so many players being more liberal and smoothing the grit from Zalanthas? I absolutely hated it (again, not intended Tuluk but executed Tuluk). If you started playing after the rebuild I guess that it would be hard to imagine Tuluk in any other way.

Tuluk during the Allanaki occupation was loads of fun and I played almost exclusively there. We had Templars but usually only one PC templar (one actually made Red, didn't he?), there was an occasional noble, merchant houses had a stake, plenty of independents, heck there were even roads named after actual players.

We had the rebellion using guerrilla tactics, sabotage, assassinations, and secret meetings - lots of neat plots. We had actual skirmishes between rebels and soldiers. Allanaki forces were present but limited enough that it didn't seem oppressive - they didn't seem to outnumber the rebels by too much and help was really far away. Playing a soldier there didn't nearly promise safety, it made you a target. I had a Borsail noble assassinated up. It really felt like living in a place recently captured by an enemy force.

Tuluk had the feel of being a remote hunting outpost across enemy lines (for both sides). Tuluk was far from boring during the Allanak occupation. It also wasn't a flowery love-fest.

[Molten Heart]

.

[gotdamnmiracle]

nilaz magick comes with the realization that the guy wielding that is not looking to benefit you, but probably a psychopath who wants to turn everybody into his own personal puppet show.

you do not want to be an audience member in -that- show.

trust me.

Isn't that the IG reason for closed Tuluk? Specifically the puppet show bit? I don't see why they'd favor one form of creepy evil over another.

[ShaLeah]

Occupied by Allanak. Period.

Boring.

That was tongue in cheek for not at all.

[Kankman]

It looks like some people are assuming that the Tuluk rebuild was the 'core' Tuluk. To me the rebuilt Tuluk didn't even feel like Armageddon. On paper it seemed pretty neat but the actual execution made it seem like happy-flower-hippy-hug village. Maybe that contributed to so many players being more liberal and smoothing the grit from Zalanthas? I absolutely hated it (again, not intended Tuluk but executed Tuluk). If you started playing after the rebuild I guess that it would be hard to imagine Tuluk in any other way.

Tuluk during the Allanaki occupation was loads of fun and I played almost exclusively there. We had Templars but usually only one PC templar (one actually made Red, didn't he?), there was an occasional noble, merchant houses had a stake, plenty of independents, heck there were even roads named after actual players.

We had the rebellion using guerrilla tactics, sabotage, assassinations, and secret meetings - lots of neat plots. We had actual skirmishes between rebels and soldiers. Allanaki forces were present but limited enough that it didn't seem oppressive - they didn't seem to outnumber the rebels by too much and help was really far away. Playing a soldier there didn't nearly promise safety, it made you a target. I had a Borsail noble assassinated up. It really felt like living in a place recently captured by an enemy force.

Tuluk had the feel of being a remote hunting outpost across enemy lines (for both sides). Tuluk was far from boring during the Allanak occupation. It also wasn't a flowery love-fest.

Yes. That, right there.

[a french mans shirt]

Trump arrives to the Known and takes over Tuluk. Nilazis for the win.