Monsters and Cities

[Hush]

I just wanted to comment on this. This is why we can't have nice fishing villages like wharftown. Wharftown was destroyed due to years of conflict with cordor, yes. But another big reason was that surface pcs we're letting goblins, DROW (who have an aversion to sunlight so much they become moderately blind in it..), and kobolds running around Willy Nilly in said town. Kobolds, being technically both a surface and an underdarker race I can somewhat understand- but even then they don't just allow kobolds into normal human towns on faerun. Though it wasn't the only reason, this was likely a very large contribution.
There are real consequences to letting monster races roam your town, as well as being a monster race and roaming a town. Dms will come down on these characters/players because it's rediculous and immersion breaking. If you see a monster race running around in broad daylight in the middle of a settlement, report it. Or respond accordingly as many others have posted above.

[High Primate]

You know what, as her religious duty she kept warning travellers to ask random persons meeting on road to show faces . . . But noone ever seem to také it to heart (but save god if you put into description you are a Drow, before you managed to write down few sentences people kept turning on hostile and being agressive even if your character was concealed!).

That's because ordering heavily armed strangers in the middle of nowhere to show their faces is sometimes a bad idea.

[flower]

Showing a face is always polite gesture and in real life had been almost always expected. When someone tried to stay covered, it always was considered heavily suspious, least in medieval times.

(In other words, staying with concealed face meant you are most likely a criminal)

Hush: the reason for Wharftown being removed was pvp of its faction. The players got choice to back off and hand over leader but they decided to push it to trough full destruction of town.

[Cortex]

Better to keep them guessing than leaving no doubt.

[flower]

Better to keep them guessing than leaving no doubt.

Yes...but.- normal people would treat you carefuly if you tried to stay concealed. On Arelith it is taken as normal thing...that you travel along unknown stranger, who is fully armed up to teeth, and hiding its face and features. Well those people are asking for being murdered along way

[One Two Three Five]

Normal people don't walk around with swords belted on and magic books anyway. FR normal and earth normal are incredibly different.

[Cybernet21]

You know what, as her religious duty she kept warning travellers to ask random persons meeting on road to show faces . . . But noone ever seem to také it to heart (but save god if you put into description you are a Drow, before you managed to write down few sentences people kept turning on hostile and being agressive even if your character was concealed!).

My character met a drow once,with the description saying he's a drow,i RP'ed my character thinking he's an elf (seeing as most of the times he had his back turned to me with a hood and was with barskin on the whole time,when my character started noyicing his red eyes i RP'ed he was looking more and more suspiciouly at the "elf",when he confronted the drow about it,the underdarker ran away into the forest (Forest of Despair) and my character lost him XD

[susitsu]

if someone tried to force my HUMAN weapon master to take off his helm while travelling, he'd smash them because some absolutely random mofo is asking something they have no right to

Hush: the reason for Wharftown being removed was pvp of its faction. The players got choice to back off and hand over leader but they decided to push it to trough full destruction of town.

do you even know what you're talking about?

also, cybernet displayed a very good example of how to make an aggressive encounter much more interesting and fun for both parties.

[Diegovog]

if someone tried to force my HUMAN weapon master to take off his helm while travelling, he'd smash them because some absolutely random mofo is asking something they have no right to

very good example of how to make an aggressive encounter much more interesting and fun for both parties.

I'm getting mixed messages here.

[Sab1]

I just wanted to comment on this. This is why we can't have nice fishing villages like wharftown. Wharftown was destroyed due to years of conflict with cordor, yes. But another big reason was that surface pcs we're letting goblins, DROW (who have an aversion to sunlight so much they become moderately blind in it..), and kobolds running around Willy Nilly in said town. Kobolds, being technically both a surface and an underdarker race I can somewhat understand- but even then they don't just allow kobolds into normal human towns on faerun. Though it wasn't the only reason, this was likely a very large contribution.
There are real consequences to letting monster races roam your town, as well as being a monster race and roaming a town. Dms will come down on these characters/players because it's rediculous and immersion breaking. If you see a monster race running around in broad daylight in the middle of a settlement, report it. Or respond accordingly as many others have posted above.

And the reason kill scripts were introduced for a time, because things got out of hand with silliness like this. People need to remember there is a reason they are called monsterous races. Kobolds, goblins, drow, gnolls, ogres, orcs etc. all have very nasty reputations as being bloodthirsty killers, not the type you want to see walking about your town. To me that wharftown got to a state is just ridiculous. People always complained the surfacers lack fear of the UD, but I think it's also clear there isn't much fear in the UD about being on the surface where pretty much everyone should want you dead.

I think this describes it best from arelith wiki:

Goblins, Kobolds, Drow, Orogs, etc, are considered a "Monster Race". Part of the RP of being allowed (note the very careful phrasing) to continue to play a monster race is rping as if you are a monster, an unwelcome member in traditional surface society.

[Cerk Evermoore]

Monsters races and especially newer players go to the surface because surfacers are a lot less dangerous and less likely to attack you then Joe-Shmoe 30 WM who is just looking for an excuse to chop people and only ever logs in when they get called over discord because you messed with the wrong human/person.

Yeah, after that happens like three times and two people murder like ten people and afterwards you have to live in the Hub with those very same people who whenever you see them will just constantly talk trash on you and you see them in The Hub every day.

Folks just don't want to participate and contribute to a community that they view as power building garbage.

That's why UD races go to the surface. We'd rather just move to a new location where we don't get all the grief. If that is three minutes outside Bendir Dale or Cordor that is just a side effect of exiling all these people underground. Displacement of native underdark races.

[gilescorey]

calm down dude =)

[-XXX-]

If people are behaving like cheeseballs, you should take the issue to the DM.
If you stop having fun playing your current character for whatever reason, there is always the option of making a new one.

[Hatsune Miku]

If each of the monster races, including the drow, had their own proper cities and settlements and weren't shoehorned into the unstable and contradictory atmosphere of Andunor for reasons unknown - maybe, just maybe the vision would be more inline with lore and what's expected, and the rampant activity on the surface would cease.

But for some reason, only the Svirfneblin and the surface races are special enough to have their own little places. I honestly don't know how bad it was prior to the fabled flood event, but Sharps was not the solution to anything. It places one or two races in the spotlight and suffocates the others from differing ideals and cultures.

Honestly, as players of surface characters, you really shouldn't be surprised at the current status quo.

[-XXX-]

That used to be the case in the past. There was a drow city named Udos Dro'xun and a town for other underdarkers called Urblexis Grond. It didn't work - the UD population simply is not numerous enough to justify this. Both cities were empty for the most part.

[The GrumpyCat]

First off: What XXX said - if people are being ooc cheeseballs, report it to us. We can't deal with what we don't know about. Anything I say further to that, works under the presumption that the people arn't being ooc cheeseballs.

Secondly: When you make a Underdark character, you agree to play in the underdark. You agree to play a monster, literal or figerative, surrounded for the most part, by other monsters. Living down there isn't going to be nice, isn't going to be easy, it is, to an extent, Arelith Hard mode.

Don't like that? Ok that's perfectly fine. There is nothing wrong with that what so ever. My suggestion is to play a surface character, where the environs are more gentle.

But by agreeing to play a monster, you are cast out from 'good' society and have to put up with the harshness of living with a group of evil, selfish, dangerious creatures who will murder you if you appear weak. That's the deal you make. And that in a way is the biggest reason agianst monsters in cities.

It's sometimes a fault of some surface players to be too tolerant of monster characters. We've seen that already. And yes, Monster players may want to come up to the surface, which appears safer, and enjoy some of that tolerance, some of that lack of 'dagger to the throat' environment.

But that quickly leads to a Cordor full of monster races, just chilling on the street, a breakdown in the actual meaningful roleplay and environment of what it means to be a monster.

To put it another way. Think of it like this:
You have agreed to play a prisoner, wanted for the henious murder of 17 children.
This is what you want to play, for whatever reason.
Why should you then expect this prisoner to be allowed to roam free in civilised society? Why should you expect prison to be a nice place where everyone likes and loves you and gets on?

Again, if there's an amount of ooc cruelness going on, please report it. We'll look into it and deal with it. But beyond that, I'm afraid it's just the way things are.

[Sockss]

I don't understand the argument for Andunor being contradictory.

It is what it is, that is your environment as a monster race. If you choose to ignore the environment, you do it at your own peril. There's nothing /wrong/ or even /right/ about it. It's just how it is.

If you want to play a lowerdark hard-nosed drow that's spitting on everything other than themselves, that's fine, but in this environment you're probably going to get your head cut off by some epic-level goblin and vice-versa.

That's not a problem with the environment, that's a problem with your expectations.

Personally I like that it's chaotic and a melting pot of beliefs and ideals.

Personally I also like there not being a bunch of underdark settlements with 2 people in each.

[Aero Silver]

Personally I like that it's chaotic and a melting pot of beliefs and ideals.

It is more like a pot of mixed color beads, commingling but never assimilating.

I play a UD character. And a handful times, my character gets accidentally lost in the surface. I get separated from the party and forget where the portal is. (I am bad with pathfinding and locations in general), or i use the portal but click on the wrong location, which is a one way portal. so i end up moving with Disguise and MS at nighttime looking for familiar sites. Am i breaking the policy by not sticking to the UD? After all, i am trying to get there.

As for surfacers in monster cities, one of the problem being faced is that UD races need a place to call their own. How can drows feel all uppity and arrogant when "lesser races" wander the same place, breathe the same stale air, and heck! even dare to exist in the same location?

I heard a complaint in game that the drow priestesses' picking order is currently inefficient. Why would a priestess bow when humans and lessers wander free? This sort of interaction is valid only when properly segregated. Matrons cling to old ineffective social protocol that, in the current state of Arelith, is dooming the drow race as a whole.

Drows aren't the only ones. Same with gnolls and kobolds, where are the caves where they rear their young and hide their eggs? (i am not discussing the goblin Rabbids Invasion now).

Suggestion: if you can't or don't want to create a monster-only city, then at least, create a third district that is forbidden for non-slave surfacers to enter.

Then, we can see how many disguised humans and elves will try to sneak in.

[-XXX-]

How can drows feel all uppity and arrogant when "lesser races" wander the same place, breathe the same stale air, and heck! even dare to exist in the same location?

The paradigm of "drowness" is finding ways of survival in extremely inhospitable environment. This doesn't change, Arelith's setting only makes the drow less Menzoberanzanlike.

[PresidentCthulhu]

Maybe I can add a bit of a background to this... (EDIT: Although I see many did too with the same conclusion). I support wholeheartedly the tension between surfacers and darkers (strictly RP-wise) as it fits the setting well. Also I believe this shouldn't mean pointless slaughter of characters.

HOWEVER as things are now humans rule pretty much everything above and beyond with their sheer number of outcasts added with surfacers casually walking into Andunor (they can easily do it, there is no way to tell them apart). Monster RP is generally met with hostility in character and sometimes out character too saying Andunor is like Skullport. What this causes is that there is a "thriving" upperdark city where humans and monsters (sort of) peacefully co-exist and humans can successfully demand equal terms, even superiority. With all that monster races are not really welcome anywhere at this point so I can't blame them really for wandering up ESPECIALLY if they are not even evil.

I have no solution or anything to offer at all. I'm just saying l I think this appears to be a complex issue and I'm not sure that applying KoS rule anywhere would swing it to the right direction...

[flower]

I never liked Andunor.

A long time people tried to maintain numbers on monsters vs outcasts, and the only succesfull ones were Drow because of sheer numbers (and only in periods where noone from Drow cooperated with outcasts).

The superiority of humans in Sharps over time, kills tribal role play for kobolds, goblins and alike, Imho. When Briz was still in UD she daily heard stuff from humans like numbers of goblins/kobolds increased we gotta go pogroms again to drive them off and stuff.

But there is no solution to that. I just fully understand why kobold friend of Briz planning to keep his tribe neutral to surface and stay away from Andunor.

[gilescorey]

Arelith's setting only makes the drow less Menzoberanzanlike.

good

(they can easily do it, there is no way to tell them apart)

surfacers don't know undercommon =)

The superiority of humans in Sharps over time, kills tribal role play for kobolds, goblins and alike, Imho.

Doesn't a Hobgoblin currently rule the Sharps? Also, prior to him was Arakh, who was objectively pretty much the antithesis of "killing roleplay." (???)

I'm pretty sure this "Outcasts are BAD!!! >:-(" problem is entirely invented by people who can't stand being on equal ground with what they see as a surface race, let that sentiment bleed or translate entirely into their character's actions, and then get beat up -- instead of trying to do anything about their loss in game, the choice is to go and post textwalls on forums about how monsters aren't accepted anywhere.

[WhereButterfliesGoToDie]

As someone who mainly plays the Underdark, I've yet to take an issue with the frequency of humans. Humans in the Underdark isn't a new concept. It's not a breach of lore either for that matter, especially in an accessable, Skullport-esque merchant city like Andunor.

This 'us and them' mentality in regards to race from an OOC perspective is getting really, really tiresome. Vested character conflict is fine. Your character doesn't have to like something to realize that a setting is what it is, and cope with it accordingly. The Underdark's a harsh place in that regard. Either you use what resources you've at hand, or you'll cease to exist, and I for one believe Andunor to have been constructed with that air of reluctant cooperation in mind.

Also, as it stands currently, the Underdark is literally flooded with goblins, to a far greater degree than I've seen actively settlement-involved human outcasts. Goblins being another race who actually isn't native to the Underdark, but who by historical player perspective on Arelith is percieved as such. With Wharftown destroyed, and the vast majority of surface settlements since long nestled in the hands of either good aligned or bureaucratically oriented factions, Andunor as it happens, seems like a fairly sensible destination for the distraught from above to end up in.

To sum, I suppose I really don't see the problem. Drow, goblins, kobolds, orogs, duergar, so on, are all creatures with vested hatreds and a variety of superiority complexes against one another. Why would a drow for example, hold a goblin in higher regard than a human? They're both creatures percieved to be beneath them, so whoever's easier to work with likely gets the favor. The same can be said for literally any other race, with a variation on counterpart. An orog might favor a hobgoblin or half-orc, above a drow, human or goblin, on behalf of a more closely shared worldview.

Personally? I'm quite fond of the element outcasts from above adds to the table. Would I like to see an uprising of humans that suddenly end up as the ruling body of Andunor? No, I wouldn't, but beyond wild exaggerations, we've never seen anything akin to it.

[flower]

....

There was a long period where humans ruled Sharps. By tribal RP i meant factions of these, i knew several and all of them got destroyed by rulers in Sharps and Devils. I personally dont mind humans there, but I just dislike their huge number is all. I would prefer more gobbos and kobbos and duergars

[Ork]

I think the hardcore UD playerbase that has never played anything but the race they're avidly crusading for ought try another race and another setting. The US V. THEM mentality shouldn't have any place in a community like Arelith.