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Character of the organizations
So... I am trying to get a handle of the character of the organizations for the histories of my second char. I know I am going to oversimplify things, but here is what I have gathered so far:
Celest is a theocracy. It seems to me that they do pretty good at being a decent, but can sometimes be very corrupt.
Hallifax is a meritocracy, in theory. I'm sure some politicking goes on and of course burocracy gets in the way sometimes by it's very nature.
Serenwilde seems to be the average Elvish treehugging place.
Glomdoring seems to me to be more chaotic and deceptive, but I really have not gotten any kind of accurate read on Glom yet.
Gaudiguch seems to be ultimately individualistic, and certainly chaotic to a degree because of that. Even if everyone is following their own compass about what "perfection" is, that doesn't necessarily make for any kind of unity.
Magnagora just seems evil to me. I would typify them as lawful evil based on the help file. I mean... nihilism is like the exact opposite of the Celestial specialty. And... it's also called nihilism >.>
Judging by the discussion asking this question started on the Newbie channel I am looking forward to some interesting comments 
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(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
Serenwilde is a bit off. Primarly that's the stereotype for the forest where elves live and Serenwilde seems to get labelled with this...
<img src="http://joker.mirar.org/lotro/singing_1stdraft.jpg" />
Realistically, that is part of Serenwilde. But it's also an ancient and mysterious forest, one that holds many secrets within it (sometimes literally), they are the last forest and they will fight an unending war against all that would harm nature.
Joy and love are parts of life, but so are death and destruction, and if the destruction of the cities is needed to protect the natural world then Serenwilde would happily raze them all to the ground, just like when they let the people of old Celest die when they could have chosen to help them or when they went to war with Gaudiguch over the experiements they were performing on helpless animals (they didn't picket the pyramids, they went into a bloody war that ended up branding the forest and tearing it apart).
There's more depth than seems to be explored as often as it should, which can be a bummer. I guess because again, the stereotype of hippies when really they whole forest could be more like... a chaotic good to chaotic neutral entity that will leave you alone, will help you when it suits its purposes and will just as easily take advantage of a moment of weakness or hunt you down for whatever reason it deems worthy.
Plus now, you know... treehugging means that the tree is slamming you against their trunk and breaking your bones.
Hallifax's founding document is the Collectivist Manifesto. Which is a very obvious expy of the Communist Manifesto which some differences, such as having a caste system and being focused on Art and Science instead of uplifting the proles.
Serenwilde is nature untouched by outside influences. How the world was before the Divine Wars, the Taint Wars and all those other wars. Glomdoring is nature torn apart by those same wars then put back together in a way that is stronger in some ways but weaker in others. Both forests can be cruel and harsh, but that's because they're forests.
Magnagora Nihilism and real life Nihilism have absolutely nothing to do with each other. It's called that because the naming scheme in the Old Celestine Empire went "Foo-ilism is the skill developed by mages studying Foo on the Foo Plane." To Celestialism from Celestia, Fatalism from the Fates, Elementalism from the Elements and Nihilism from Nil.
Celest has a redemption-based message, where the world used to be awesome but now it's bad, but if you do obey the Supernals, the badness will go away and the world can become awesome again. Nihilism is salvation-based. Things were bad and still are bad, but if you obey the Demon Lords, they will transform you into something strong enough to overcome the inherent badness of the world and become awesome yourself.
Being the Warlord of Gaudiguch, I may be a bit biased, but that is essentially the opposite of what Gaudiguch is about. Gaudiguch is about being free to do as you please, so long as it does not encroach upon the freedom of another. We have One Law, and that is Love, and you may not do anything that may prevent that love.
Hallifax is all about rules, so I'd put them closer in relation government-wise to Magnagora than Gaudiguch.
Not to say that people haven't used and abused power in Gaudiguch, but that also happens everywhere else.
Every org thinks their way is the best way. You say Celest is "good at being decent", but why punish Viscanti citizens because they came out of the Portal as a viscanti? Illithoid aren't inherently evil any more than a merian or an elf, so why ban them just because a Soulless Goddess half-splintered and made them? Should you really punish someone for something their "Mother" did?
Celest and every other city can convert the "fae", or nature spirits, into their counterparts (angels, demons, whatnot". Sometime when you're on faethorn, find one of the brownies or other creatures and ask them about Celestia.
Celest is the city of Light - its ideals are very powerful and 'good' beliefs, centreing on Love, Hope, Devotion, protecting the innocent, champion a righteous cause, mercy and justice hand-in-hand. The Supernals are divine embodiments of these ideas, almost extremes (though not always in a bad way). Raziela is oft the most ragged on Supernal, but she's naively beautiful and innocent, full of love for everything and everyone. She doesn't understand violence, she doesn't understand hate - they're ideas she's just not capable of processing. Those ideals are sometimes taken to the wrong extremes - mortals are flawed, the ideas are not. Power can be abused, and ultimately, Bad Things can happen when bad people do bad things (or good people make poor decisions). Indeed, the Supernals were fully behind the Cosmic Hope project, but they could not foresee the possibility that Kethuru was sealed on the Supra Plane. They, like the gods, are not omnipotent, but they are very close to the ideals they espouse themselves. Celest isn't big on mechanical technology, per se, but they do employ magic and faith to achieve the same and greater results. I always mentally associate Celest with a very (intended to be, but not always successful at being) utopian Atlantis, in my mind.
Serenwilde is the last bastion of Nature - they're your archetypical communey forest people, but that's almost kind of degrading to label them so. There's some really powerful underlying motifs with Moon, Hart and their association with ancestral spirits and Nature. They often fashion themselves as protectors of the Fae, even though the Fae sometimes don't really want their protection. I'll touch on it here - Maeve, Queen of the Fae is a very fractured entity who is composed of all the forest fae, including Night and Moon and Sun and River, and that does not make for a very healthy mental state. Serenwilde often times finds themselves protecting the fae from their own (ie Glomdoring), who probably don't usually espouse the most wholesome of ideals and intentions for Nature. Serenwilde, in terms of technology, are very conservative. Like Celest but in a very different way, it's high magic - they utilize nature magick to achieve those things. They often find themselves in the role of healers of the land, and while their ideals are often 'good' ones, they've become fairly pragmatic (and always have been - see, Farella Lunseer). There's a long history of internal conflict, though, about that pragmatism, and doing what's 'right' versus what's 'necessary'.
Magnagora is the city of the taint, the Engine of Transformation. They herald the Taint as a vehicle for change, and it's pretty apt. Viscanti are an amalgam of races that have been diluted by one another, and have taken on a very corrupted appearance. I think to understand Magnagora and the Taint in general you need to ask what the Taint is - that being the essence of the Soulless God Kethuru. It, at least appears to, on the surface, corrupts and defiles that which it comes in contact with (though much of its bite is removed without Kethuru), changing it into a very dark reflection of itself. For example, Nifilhema, once the queen of beauty and with tones of sensuality and love, has been corrupted into the Queen of Suffering, who delights in torture (and being tortured). Instead of deriving pleasure from 'good' and positive sources, she derives it from causing and feeling pain. There's a lot more than that to Magnagora, though - there's a very classical steampunk feel to the city, toxic and pollutive, and a very strict social hierarchy. If you've read Wheel of Time, the Daes Daem'ar (the Game of Houses) is taken to a whole other level between the eight noble houses of Magnagora, and includes a Ninth House that served the sole purpose of keeping the houses in check. The city's social and political arena seems to move in accordance with the Invisible Hand theory - if everyone acts in their own self-interest, everything works out in the end. And then there's a secretive sect that makes sure things don't tip too far in any direction. There's the Nihilists (once the Fatalists) who take their name very seriously, who also practice necromancy, Geomancers (usually quite mad) who commune with the fractured and defiled Earth Plane (and are usually crazy). Did I mention Geomancers are a bit unhinged? There's a lot more to it, it's just so much to cover, so I'll leave it there.
Hallifax tends towards high-science and a very pragmatic ideology, with little value in free will. It's a strict social caste based on their adherence to the twin paths of the cities, that being Science and Art. People tend to look at Hallifax as all Science and bureaucracy, but there's definitely a very different side to it. Artists tend towards valuing higher emotions (Love, Beauty, Aestheticism), and actively embrace them. The city itself, in terms of culture, tends to have a very Jane Austin, Pride and Prejudice feel to it, especially amongst the high artist caste. The city's history is varied, with points in which slavery was not only accepted but actively employed. Like I said, little value in life unless that life proves itself useful. The city is high tech, with crystal displays and logic crystals and the general futuristic sci-fi expectation one might have when looking at it. The city, physically, is a series of floating spires connected by bridges. Order and Harmony are paramount.
Boy, I think I covered everyone that exists. Again, a lot of that is just a brief overview, and all the guilds are really varied and the cities are very broad. I'm always somewhat partial for Celest, but it's my baby, so I'm allowed to be. If you're interested in the Tahtetso...
The Tahtetso are monks who focus on spiritual self-expansion. They adhere to the ideologies of the Light, though they sometimes are mistaken for being co-habitative, not followers thereof. Not so! Their ideal goal is to expand the soul and imbue it with the Light (they call that Lumosis). It's a state that existed long before the Tahtetso, once the province of a few Celestines throughout the Empire, wherein they became one with the Light, called Saints.
Boy, I'm way out of steam. I did the Tahtetso no justice whatsoever. They're really cool, though!
That said, Celest does have light undertones of racism. Not in the sense of Jim Crowe but that they have always had a sense of merians being the 'superior race' - and understandably so. They were the first race to raise a Vernal God, raised the majority of the most powerful and of the Nine (d'Varsha, Juliana, Dionamus) and built an Empire that spanned more than half a millenia. They don't look down their gills at other races, though - it's simply a serene recognition that they believe themselves the better race, and a sense of duty and responsibility to care for those less fortunate than themselves. They're still mortal, though, and so are flawed - and aren't immune to bad eggs.
When Cosmic Hope went through, the Taint cloud burst out of the nexus in Magnagora and was spotted by Glorianan observers. The Raven Circle, under King Brennan set up demenses along the border and Rowena called upon Night and the Fae to protect the forest, but Nintoba, the leader of the Centaur tribe of Gloriana fled northwest to Serenwilde and urged the elfen in the forest to do the same. They didn't do so.
The entire Summer Court was killed and revived as undead, Brennan and Rowena as intelligent liches and the other nobles as mindless skeletons. The spiders in the forest grew giant, the vines awakened into Thorn Beasts, the earth itself into Loamadores and so forth. Raven lost an eye, sprouted an extra pair of wings and started calling himself Crow, Master of Death. Night was possessed by Kethuru and ordered Rowena to start pillaging Faethorn to feed the Soulless. When they fae would call out "D’or glom!" (fae for "have mercy!") she yelled out "F’ai glomdoring!" ("I have no mercy!") and that's how the forest got renamed. They also abducted Gib Gladheart, the High Druid of Ackleberry, and turned him into the Ebonglom Wyrm, a gigantic intelligent worm that fed on taint.
Then Kethuru was knocked out of Time by the loss of Gaudiguch and Hallifax. Night was no longer possessed, but remained cruel and vain and wished to continue on with her plan of taking over the Basin for Glomdoring. This continued on for about two centuries, with Glomdoring becoming a full fledged commune, the Shadowdancers and Blacktalon being established, the forest taking overvillages, etc. But then in the year 133 CE, the Elder Goddessses Isune and Viravain worked together to transform the taint in Glomdoring into something else. Isune tried to make it more beautiful and friendly while Viravain tried to make it more powerful and potent. The result is the Glomdoring you see today. Beautiful, cruel, powerful, rotten, convinced that it is better than unaugmented nature and obsessed with world domination.
They're not evil, they're just willing to do the things others can't, or won't.
I see a lot of grey areas in each of the organisations within the basin, there's no real "black and white" or "good and evil."
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
There're certainly lots of philosophical arguments that can be had about orgs, their purpose, their nature, and their justifications for their actions, and it's unlikely any one answer can be lauded as the one correct answer. There are some underlying storyline and plot hooks that give orgs and org philosophy their uniqueness and their structure, but interpreting this and expressing this is part of the fun.