Bring back the uniquely Zalanthan Drovian, Elkrosian and Nilazi

[John]

As per the other threads, it is clear that one year out from the change to magickers, staff will not entertain the idea of bringing back full fledged magickers.

it's unrealistic to hope that main guild elementalists will return.

In the interest of preserving those aspects of Armageddon which are uniquely Zalanthan and are unique from Athas or Dune, I would like to see if adding Drovian, Elkrosian or Nilazi subclasses is something staff are ever willing to entertain. Because their removal turned magick from "something weird, cool and very different from other game worlds, including Dark Sun" into "the tried and tired fire/water/air/earth clerics that is present in so much fiction and games, including Dark Sun".

Some of the greatest characters from my playing history (as in, those I've interacted with. I never got to play a successful Drovian and never had the karma for the rest) were members of these classes (along with plenty of awesome characters who were all mundane classes as well of course).

Much ado has been made about a handful of spells. I'd be okay for those spells to be changed or removed. But removing from the playerbase yet more Zalanthan flavoured aspects of the game is a decision that I do hope staff will change and would like to hear if staff is more open to this idea than they are other ideas. Given we can't play a Drovian/Elkrosian/Nilazi subclass to provide "informed feedback" (which is something staff currently value quite highly), I would also be interested on suggestions as to how the playerbase can convince staff to bring these elements of Zalanthas back into the player accessible portion of the game?

[Feco]

I've been pretty vocal about my thoughts regarding nilazi, drovians, and elkrosians, but I want to say again that I'd very much like to see them returned to play.

[Melkor]

Never had the pleasure of playing one, but knowing they were out there definitely added to the spooky factor of the world.

[Synthesis]

Yes, bring back the quasi-elements as subguilds.

Elkros - Augmentation, Concentration

Drov - Detection, Creation, Haunting

Nilaz - Necromancy, Travel, Protection

It's not that difficult.  Maybe break Elkros - concentration into two slightly different zorching subguilds the way Krathis apparently got split.

[Nergal]

The issue staff have with these elements is that they do not fit well in the game world and do not agree internally. That does not mean that they are removed forever - but to entertain the prospect of reintroducing them, we have to entertain the prospect of remaking them. Let's go through them one by one.

Drovians
Drovians have the power of Drov at their side, supposedly. They have a few shadow-related spells and they have some other random utility spells. Let's be honest here: the main draw of this class to the playerbase was a certain spell that destroys plots at no risk to the caster. Having such a spell proliferate makes the game painful to play, and cutting that skill from the class takes away one of the main draws of playing the class. They do not fit into the game world at present because they do not have enough features to clearly define themselves.

Elkrans
Elkrans have the power of Elkros, and energy and all that it entails. But what is energy? It has no real definition in Zalanthas, and Elkrans define it in two different ways: electricity and movement. It's a split personality situation. They don't fit into the game world at present because there's no clear decision on what they actually are. There's no mundane counterpart to Elkros - Vivaduans have water, Rukkians have stone, Whirans have wind, Krathis have fire, and Elkrans have... what?

Nilazis
Void elementalists are the antithesis of all the other elements. Oh and they're also necromancers. And they can do other crazy stuff. This is an even worse split personality situation than the Elkrans. They need to either be anti-elemental or focused on death magick but not both. We also don't want classes and subclasses that are inherently "evil", and Nilazis don't really fill any other niche than that in a world where everyone hates Nilazis. They don't fit into the world at present because there's no clear decision on what they actually are and there is no nuance to them.

To conclude, while these elements are uniquely Zalanthan, they're also a mess from a game design standpoint. Reintroducing them "as-is" would simply be irresponsible. Reintroducing them with changes is not entirely out of the question, but it's not something we're up to yet.

[Synthesis]

Stop worrying about the lore circlejerk and put some skillsets together, jeeeeez.

[Nergal]

While I'm sure you're kidding, just to be clear to everyone else, these concepts do have to exist in a world where they "make sense" in context to the rest of the setting.

[palomar]

Yes, bring back the quasi-elements as subguilds.

Elkros - Augmentation, Concentration

Drov - Detection, Creation, Haunting

Nilaz - Necromancy, Travel, Protection

It's not that difficult.  Maybe break Elkros - concentration into two slightly different zorching subguilds the way Krathis apparently got split.

Sounds interesting and playable to me. Might need to flesh out the spell trees a bit and perhaps even add some new goodies for it to work, but I'd be all for that.

I never got the feeling of Elkrans, but Drovians and Nilazi always felt appropriate to the game world. It's worth noting that the "plot killing spell" that Drovians got was not without risk or penalty. There is of course a huge difference between sitting in the safety of your Temple and being a rogue/tribal Drovian, and I only played the latter to much satisfaction. If anything Drovians felt weak compared to other full elementalists at the time. There definitely seemed to be metaphysical aspects of Drov that worked alongside the "pure" elements (spirits, darkness/absence of light etc etc).

As for Nilazi being inherently evil, heh... I used to hear you should put personality and character first and shouldn't let your guild define you. Just because some of their spells could be considered essentially evil (if there even is anything like that in Zalanthas) doesn't make the guild evil. I've seen some Nilazi PCs embrace the corruption and others who fought it.

That said, I'm sure there are game design issues with those quasi-element guilds. Personally, I'm one of those who'd like to see more magick or at least more depth to magick than what we currently have. My experience from the last few years is that it feels shallow compared to what it used to be. I think depth could be had without going back to how things were in the CAM/End of times era.

[Akaramu]

Synthesis' subguild suggestions sound solid. I like them.

[Feco]

I'll be honest, I don't think they really have to make sense.  They don't have to be distinct elements -- hence the term quasi-elements.  It may just be that, in Zalanthas, some individuals are attuned to the world and overlap the elements in a same way, generating distinct powers.  They draw sort of on the "rawness" of magick, rather than on strictly elemental prowess.  This makes them weird and difficult to understand.

I hesitate to make this suggestion publically, but I would like to see Drovians and Elkrosians put on par with Nilazi.  No gem.  Everyone hates them more than other magickers.  Why?  Exactly because they're weird as fuck, hard to understand, and thereby difficult to control.

[Molten Heart]

.

[Mazy]

I hesitate to make this suggestion publically, but I would like to see Drovians and Elkrosians put on par with Nilazi.  No gem.  Everyone hates them more than other magickers.  Why?  Exactly because they're weird as fuck, hard to understand, and thereby difficult to control.

One problem is some people would still want to use them instead of kill them even if they have those ultra-negative connotations.

But I'd be okay with this sort of hatred and revilement, especially towards Drovians.

[Armaddict]

The issue staff have with these elements is that they do not fit well in the game world and do not agree internally. That does not mean that they are removed forever - but to entertain the prospect of reintroducing them, we have to entertain the prospect of remaking them.

I'm alright with their return in subclass form.  I'm hoping the above statement says that staff is indeed looking to find a theme for them.

There's no mundane counterpart to Elkros - Vivaduans have water, Rukkians have stone, Whirans have wind, Krathis have fire, and Elkrans have... what?

Never viewed it as needing a physical form, but in a word, it would be storms.  There's been discussion in the past about how lightning does exist in Zalanthas, just not in 'cloud' form.  Static electricity is still a thing.  Elkrans are the one of the three that I'm most certain can belong in game gracefully.

Drovians

I think drovians would need a complete and total rework.  I'm not sure just how useful they'd be afterwards; as you said, people seemed most enchanted with their spywork facets.  I'd like the rework to make them more of a dark, sinister thing, like of like a warlock as compared to a wizard.  Have most of their spells be counter to Krathi.  If one increases the loss of water, make the other reduce the loss of water via shade.  So on and so forth.  I don't have this figured out, I have no real ideas, but the ideal would be to make that drovian/krathi rivalry a real one.

Nilazis

As you said.  Severe identity crisis.  I'd like it to focus more on the anti-magick side of things.  Adjust social docs to make them the most acceptable of mages, due to their 'role' being one of a protector against the unnatural.  Or something like that.  Leave the weird spells they got and necromancy to the realm of sorcery.

That's not a hard 'You should do this' presentation.  Just kind of some ideas to bring up when you guys discuss how to get their stories straight.

[Mazy]

It sounds like a lot of work.

I honestly don't know enough about the quasi-elementals to really contribute, but it'd take a lot of creativity and code. Instead of having the "touched", how about creating only two solid spell-sets for each that offer some use, versatility, and flare?

From what I do know, Nilazi might could be either a voidwalkers, who specialize in travel and death-magic, or a voidcaller, who specialize in summoning and antimagic.

I'm sure players who are savvy in both code and creativity could send in lists of individual suggestions for parts of skillsets, then the staff could review them to see what ideas they liked. Then, picking and choosing things to build a small, tidy kit that allows some of these classes to return to the game in some form would be easier. It's not like the drovians, elkrosians, and nilazi have all got the elemental kank plague and died either, they're still out there in the world lore wise unless I'm egregiously mistaken, and most of us want to see them return. We'd be willing to help in whatever reasonable way we can to reduce the taxing effort that would be their re-implementation.

[Feco]

I'll also add that there is precedent for sub-elements.  I see no problem with Elkros being a sub-element of Suk-Krath.

I also don't see any inconsistencies with Drov.  Drov fits "the ethereal," which is a ubiquitous part of a lot of magick.

Nilaz is the oddest, but that's what makes it so unique.  Yeah, it combines anti-magic, weird spatial magic, and death magic.  I see no reason to think it makes no sense, just that it doesn't fit what we normally expect from fantasy magic.  That's a good thing.

[Marauder Moe]

I know there's been a staff side push for primary elements only.  Earth, fire, wind, and water are a very classic elemental quartet.  They make for a nice, neat, balanced and symmetrical "system".

The problem for me is that this is Zalanthas.  It's not a typical fantasy world.  It's not a balanced world.  It's a broken world.  The fact that the elements (Ruk, Suk-Krath, Whira, Vivadu, Drov, Elkros, Nilaz, and Krok) don't fit in a neat symmetrical chart seems appropriate for the theme of the game.  The laws of magick were ravaged by the Dragon.  What's left is but a portion of what was known in the time of the Council of Kings.

(I once filled out a chart based on the relationships between existing elements and in a "complete" map there'd be like 18 elements.  Missing ones are also thematically appropriate, like metal, steam, plantlife, holy.)

While the lesser elements and their spells/guilds may not have been as well conceived, they are still an organic part of the game's history.  That sort of emergent lore should be cherished and supported, not retconned.

Also it seems like the majority of players support having Nilaz, Drov, and Elkros sub-guilds, even if only 1-2 each instead of the full 4 that the prime elements enjoy.

[Rathustra]

I know there's been a staff side push for primary elements only.  Earth, fire, wind, and water are a very classic elemental quartet.  They make for a nice, neat, balanced and symmetrical "system".

The problem for me is that this is Zalanthas.  It's not a typical fantasy world.  It's not a balanced world.  It's a broken world.  The fact that the elements (Ruk, Suk-Krath, Whira, Vivadu, Drov, Elkros, Nilaz, and Krok) don't fit in a neat symmetrical chart seems appropriate for the theme of the game.  The laws of magick were ravaged by the Dragon.  What's left is but a portion of what was known in the time of the Council of Kings.

(I once filled out a chart based on the relationships between existing elements and in a "complete" map there'd be like 18 elements.  Missing ones are also thematically appropriate, like metal, steam, plantlife, holy.)

While the lesser elements and their spells/guilds may not have been as well conceived, they are still an organic part of the game's history.  That sort of emergent lore should be cherished and supported, not retconned.

Also it seems like the majority of players support having Nilaz, Drov, and Elkros sub-guilds, even if only 1-2 each instead of the full 4 that the prime elements enjoy.

[boog]

I disagree with bringing these 'elements' back. The reason I was initially attracted to the game was because it was supposedly "low fantasy". Having shadows that ARE game breakers (legit - Drovians (hell, almost any main guild magicker could be trolly) were trolly and made plotting unfun many times), having everyone be capable of oodles and noodles of magick with main guilds, I just... I don't know.

I've always stayed away from magick. We're supposed to. This is a low-fantasy and low-tech world where magick should be weird. It's still weird and less gamebreaking the way it is now and I appreciate it.

If I wanted high-fantasy, I'd go play SOI.

[Lizzie]

I think Nergal's description of Nilaz is oversimplistic, which is why he's having trouble embracing it. As I understood it from way back in the day:

Nilaz was not anti-magick. It was anti-life. And life is comprised of all the elements. If the elements are disabled, then life ceases to exist. That's what the void is, by definition. The void is the space between air, fire, earth, water, energy, darkness, light, life, and death. It is "none of the above." The elements don't exist in the void, and life is not supported in the void, because life relies on water, sun, shade, solid (earth/ground/stone), air.

Necromancy is just an extension of the concept of Nilaz as anti-life.

[Riev]

Low- Fantasy doesn't necessarily mean low magick, it just means the general "main characters" aren't going to be level 18 wizards, fighting dragons and sitting in luxury. It means you are playing the dregs, the low-downs, the people who might get above their station, if temporarily, but the rest of the world has you under its thumb.

Though for what its worth, I like low-magick too. I like it to be creepy and spooky and "well I DO need to get across the desert... do I hire that filthy thing?"

[boog]

High fantasy to me is people sparkling with magickal shit.

I saw so many people sparkling with magickal shit my first character here I almost gave up.

I just think these quasi-elements are dumb, anyway. Drovians could scour the land basically uninhibited, Elkrosians ran all over the world better than a Sun Runner, and Nilazi summoned the dead. That's all way above the 'low-fantasy' mark for me.

[nessalin]

It would be for the best, probably, if points of view and arguments weren't based on ideas of how things were meant to be or how they were in the past.  There's a lot of past, and there's a lot of 'meant to be' eras.  Even wind elementalists have been through several iterations of what they're supposed to be and what their element represents.

[Xalle]

Also just to be clear, Nilazi, Drov and Elkros haven't been retconned. They still exist.

[seidhr]

I think Nergal's description of Nilaz is oversimplistic, which is why he's having trouble embracing it. As I understood it from way back in the day:

Nilaz was not anti-magick. It was anti-life. And life is comprised of all the elements. If the elements are disabled, then life ceases to exist. That's what the void is, by definition. The void is the space between air, fire, earth, water, energy, darkness, light, life, and death. It is "none of the above." The elements don't exist in the void, and life is not supported in the void, because life relies on water, sun, shade, solid (earth/ground/stone), air.

Necromancy is just an extension of the concept of Nilaz as anti-life.

Anti-life is closer to defiling than Nilazi.  I don't really want to say more because that delves into the fundamentals of sorcery and the magick system, but suffice to say that Nergal is not wrong.    "help gather" in-game goes into some detail about this.

[Marauder Moe]

Also just to be clear, Nilazi, Drov and Elkros haven't been retconned. They still exist.

Please.  Do you really think that's a satisfying platitude?  We see the writing on the wall.  You're erasing them from the face of Zalanthas for OOC reasons, just like kanks.