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If Ascension Failed...
Wandering thoughts make me curious while I ponder the inevitability of another successful Ascension (and while I wait for Estarra or one of the admin to take a look at that rules thread for confirmation). I mean, really - the benefits of True Ascendancy will always mean there will be candidates aplenty, but the mechanics of it all mean that as long as any one person holds onto that staff for an hour with no time limit made for the trial, Ascension would save the world again. Thematically, we're all happy happy, but mechanically, it's just back to normal, everyday things. No actual sense of e-danger encountered cause there's no way to mechanically 'fail'.
But what if the playerbase could indeed fail? What if Ascension actually had a time limit and no one succeeds in that given time period? A deleted game is just fun for no one, but thinking about possibilities always seems to be a fun hobby. Post-apocalyptic Lusternia? A Soulless God running rampant while Elders get squirreled away by their orders? Organizations and nexii toppled or corrupted?
If Ascension actually failed one year, what if the following year during Ascension time, the opportunity presents itself for an Ascension to undo the damage? Different dynamics could also arise wherein a faction who came into prominence during the e-apocalypse would strive to make sure the next Ascension, the attempt to seal the Soulless away would fail again.
Theorycrafting is fun, and I might just be babbling, but I wonder what others think.
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(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
But, we saw the cities and communes falling one by one, the old magics failing without nexii, and new magics rising to replace them (Aquachemantics & co), life on the run, and eventually an elaborate trap that killed Stepasha, but at a great cost.
A year of struggling to survive, and all of the orgs banding together to fight this thing. Could be interesting! Could even have to create new seals throughout the year with big events like all of the Goloth/Gnafia/etc. ones that we have throughout the year!
It could slowly progress down the planes throughout the year. Astral being the most dangerous the entire time. Then they reach cosmic, where they constantly battle the cosmic beings, then Elemental, where the Elemental Lords fight them off, and then Ethereal, which is defended by Maeve, the fae, and the denizens of each ethereal forest, and finally they reach prime, just as the last seal is being reconstructed. Then 9 Ascendants must be raised in order to empower each of the seals, each one a victor of each seperate ascension event. In the end, these 9 Ascendants get together, fight back Kethuru, and then Avechna is reborn from their essence, making them all revert back to demigods (even if they weren't before) and these now demigods must compete in the Ascension event for the honour of being given a permanent Ascension by Estarra and Avechna to True Ascendant.
And this is me just having fun!
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Soulless made a habit of wiping out thousand year old civilizations and dozens of Gods for breakfast. Kethuru bloated to cover up the entire world, by the end of the Vernal Wars.
There wouldn't be much "repercussions" for Players to deal with. You'd be wiped out with barely half a thought. Just by looking at Viravain when a fraction of Kethuru's presence coursed through her killed anyone and everyone instantly. We're talking about terrible cosmic beings that have spent aeons feeding on other Soulless and Gods, growing stronger and stronger.
Were the Seals to break, there would be no Lusternia pretty quickly. That's why the threat of the Seals breaking is perceived to be a big thing - once that happens, you're done for.
Terentia, Maylea, Hoaracle, Isune and I will go chill on Eroee while you all distract the Soulless.
I guess Zvoltz can come too.
Well, not to draw another Achaea comparison, but violent, shocking events like dropping an entire org into an ocean really shake up the RP of the game. I think it's interesting. I wouldn't be opposed to something of that scale happening in Lusternia (mirrored is scale, not in the story line) , orgs getting wiped or taken over for a while and refugees hiding in the wyrden isle or some such. That being said, I predict epic complaining if that were to happen, so I doubt it ever would.
I might be wrong, but my impression on the reason why Lusternia didn't just implode during the Vernal wars was because (or it was implied) the races had spread out across the entire world and were taking the Soulless time and effort to crush. They were like cockroaches, you could squish one city and another would be there where you last scratched your ass on.
A possible theoretical ending could be that Kethuru comes back and sits on the entire Basin, flattening it, and everyone is evacuated out of the Basin to some of the remaining pockets of life (there should be some) to continue to fight the good fight. After a few millenia, we manage to raise a few thousand Vernal Ascendants (because no one can create Vernal Gods anymore) and they all sacrifice themselves to create Avechna ver 2. Basically, delete the Basin and start with a new "continent". Partial destruction of the Basin is probably not going to fly ICly, because it's probably a safe bet that Kethuru's priority #1 if he ever returns is to piss acid on the 6 orgs that managed to foil his prison break 6 times in a row. And there's no IC technology or weapon available to the people living in the Basin to fight the Soulless except the Seals.
Now, if the Ascension event was tied to something NOT the seals, with a big-bad that wasn't the Soulless, we could certainly see a failure. (OOCly, they'd still have to crown a winner, most likely) Not sure if that will give any fresh new sense of e-danger to the event, though. I still don't think any City will end up destroyed due to the outcome of the ascension event. That will feel too much like a punishment for not winning the competition. They could nuke a City as those usual one-track events, something that happens period kind of thing. Judging from the kind of resistance to merge Guilds, though, bombing Cities out of existence probably ranks right down there with Kethuru turning out to be that misunderstood fatty everyone in the class bullied because he was always pouting and smelled bad.
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But then I realized I was being silly.
Was hoping for the Goloths to be black dragons, and the red and green Dracnoris dragons would swoop in to our rescue, and then we'd find their homeland, and they'd be weak to cold and excorable.
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