Chapter Five: Tebro Confronts His Mentor

West of Home, Tebro worked in his uncle’s tower. Tebro knew he would inherit the tower in ten weeks, unless he pushed magic beyond all bounds of the previous centuries. The thought galled him. The goblin air had cleared his head, though, and given him an insight. The components of the spells, the words and gestures, might exhibit a structural similarity to the sphere invoked. Or perhaps some rule is involved, the shape of the lips and throat complementing the gestures, the breath with the mindset.
Diagrams of lips and lungs, lines and arrows over parchment superimposed on the square and phoenix, spilled over his desk or were gummed onto the stone walls. Boradi, the younger aide, entered with Tebro’s evening meal. He looked around at the charts.  “Master Tebro?”
“Yes? What do you want, Boradi?” Tebro’s voice was tired, but he kept his focus on a table of syllables which he was attempting to complete.
“There is news of Stone Harbor,” said the young aide.
“You mean from Stone Harbor, don’t you?” said Tebro.
“No, master. We have reports from scouts. Shortly after we left, the goblins…”
“Goblins?” Tebro turned in his seat, looking quizzically over his shoulder at Boradi.
“It is what the scout called the creatures. They sealed off the entrance to the mountains and set a guard on the valley and harbor.”
“Stop, Boradi.” Tebro turned back to his work and spoke to his young aide without facing him, “Did I not say that under no circumstances was I to be told the outcome of the attack?”
“Not exactly, master, you…”
“It is a distraction. I must not be distracted if I am to complete my work in time. Please, Boradi, your job is to keep distraction from me.”
“Yes, of course master Tebro.” Boradi again looked at the charts and diagrams as he entered the room with the dinner tray.
“Your esteemed uncle,” Boradi said hurriedly, “once found system in breaking the incantations into pieces as it seems you are attempting to do with the words themselves.”
Tebro said nothing, so the aide continued, “If I may be so bold as to suggest, perhaps he could find the system here. You should see him.” Boradi set the meal down on the table and cleared away the remains of the previous.
“Thank you, Boradi,” Tebro said tiredly, “that will be all.”
“Master Tebro…”
Tebro turned suddenly in his chair, his voice rose, lamplight glinted in his eyes, “Go away, Boradi!” Boradi turned and ran out of the room.
Tebro scratched at his arm. He felt pinpricks in his fingers, aftereffects of the gnome air. He looked back down at his chart. The regularity that had hovered on the edge of his consciousness was gone. He sighed as he went to his bed and sat on its edge, pulling off his boots. He lay back on the bed. Perhaps Boradi is right, he thought, it might take me years to work out the proper system, even with an apprentice… which I don’t have. If I go to Genro now, though, he will ask me to write his history, and I can’t do that. I have to stop his final death. I have to find a way to save his existence. He sat up and put his boots on again, gathered up the most complete of his new charts. I will just have to be firm. He left his study and started down the tower to the room where his uncle lay, weak in his last months.
Tebro listened at the door. He heard the sound of his uncle’s voice, but could not make out the words. He knocked. The sound stopped and seconds later the door was opened by Tebro’s older aide, Dor. Again Tebro felt regret that Dor had not displayed the capacity for apprenticeship.
“Master Tebro, please… please come in. Master Genro will be delighted.” Dor stood aside and beckoned Tebro in.
Genro was as tall as Tebro, and even more slender and especially frail in his decline. He was propped up with pillows into a reclined sitting position. His huge but neatly trimmed beard covered the top quarter of the blanket. He smiled broadly when he saw Tebro.
“My dear nephew… hello. It’s good to see you. I heard that you had some business at Home. How are your esteemed parents?” Genro’s voice was still strong, although not the powerful basso of his prime.
“I did not have the opportunity to see them, master Genro.”
“Ah, well, that is much what I had expected. Do please look them up next time you are there. My sister, she will be following me in a few short years, and your father not long after that.” Genro smiled again to take the sting out of his words. “Sit with me. Tell me about your work.”
Tebro launched into his theory, explained how the syllables of incantation were not random, that they reflected the gestures, and that careful study of both might lead to the construction of other spheres of magical influence. He attempted to show Genro his notes, but Genro gently pushed them aside.
“It’s no longer my concern, young Tebro.”
Not so young, Tebro thought, as he pictured himself old and helpless on the same bed.
“You will find an apprentice,” Genro said, “and together the two of you will find the system. Or together you will prove that there does not exist such a system. You were more help than you realize in the construction of the square and phoenix.” A twinkle came into Genro’s eye. “It might all be random, you know. We might be looking for order where there isn‘t any.”
Tebro looked at his uncle, speechless.
“Hah,” Genro laughed, “I suppose I am getting heretical in my old age.” He looked stern for once. “That’s my prerogative. I’m glad, in a way, that Dor is writing my history. You would pretty it up.”
Tebro was now speechless and hurt. Genro put out his hand and touched Tebro on the arm, smiled once again and said, “Wizards usually don’t have time for a family. I know that. I know that better than most. You might try though.” He sat back on the bed. “Let’s pick up where we left off, Dor. Tebro, you are welcome to stay, if you would like.”
Tebro found his voice, “No. No, uncle," Tebro paused, stood, and said, "I will not accept that this is inevitable. I will find the magic for the soul. I will not let you die!” It was Genro’s turn now to be speechless. His eyes widened as he looked at his nephew, who was now pacing the floor. Tebro punctuated his words with gestures in the air. “It is absurd that a person should be annihilated, that you should be annihilated, ashes thrown on the mountains!”
“Tebro, stop,” Genro pleaded, “my work is done, my history will pass onto my family, to you. I am tired, boy. Let me rest.”
Tebro had stopped pacing, a shiver shook his body. “You will see. You will get your drive back with your energy. I will make you young again. You’ll see!” Tebro left the room quickly, shut the door behind him, and ran up to his study to pour himself into the work.

Chapter Four: The First Hero

Far to the north-west of the Channel Sea, deep in ancient woods are cities whose delicate, sky reaching towers testify to the fact that the builders, as well as having a highly developed aesthetic sensibility, have a lot of time on their hands. Living wood is coaxed out of trees huge enough to be towers in their own right and shaped into buttresses. These are joined without nail or peg, into hardened and varnished wood, which is in turn shaped with metal and stone. Looking at these structures, it is usually difficult to tell where the tree ends and the building begins. Simpler, and yet gracefully proportioned structures cluster around these duoliths.
The elves that live in these cities are long lived, subject to the same cycle of resurrection which rules all the races. Gracelessness and ignorance are the exception rather than the rule among these people, although gracefulness (in bodily dexterity, at least) and intelligence can be the attributes of monsters as well, as Oshayamora had seen.
Over the past six days, the creatures which had attacked her town, Woodhaven, had shown surprising cunning, and there was no doubt about their agility. They had scaled walls as if they were running over level ground, and they had outrun the elves that they chased down. They threw their bolas with exquisite skill. They were hideous, skin the color of ash and slime, fangs slightly protruding from their mouth. Their ears bore a resemblance to the pointed ears of her own race, which made Oshayamora shudder.
Oshayamora crouched in front of her young nephew. Her hands were bound behind her. She was an example of uncommon physical strength among her people, but she had tried the cords and knew she had no chance to break them. One of the monsters (who had said, “I am flayer,” indicating by gesture all of its kind, when it had been asked its name) had been brutally whipping the youth before Oshayamora had placed herself between the child and the whip.
“So, it does not like pain to the little one?” the flayer said with a sneer in its voice. (the fangs made it impossible to properly sneer with its face) “Perhaps it likes pain to itself more?” It brought the whip down in a wide sweep and the crack slashed a line from bare shoulder, across bare chest, to bare hip. Her clothes had been shredded over the past days by whip, knife, and sword. The flayers did not seem to notice clothing, they were naked themselves, but lacked any sexual characteristics, either primary or secondary. Another flayer approached with a whip, its tips were worked with tiny blades. One would bleed to death slowly under that whip.
“What about pain to the wrinkled one?” the second flayer said. It drew back the bladed whip, preparing to swing. At the last moment, Oshayamora threw herself into its path, protecting her grandfather. She twisted in the air, presenting her back and bound wrists. The whip tore wide gashes in her back, but missed the cords binding her wrists. Both of the flayers laughed as Oshayamora curled in pain, but she did not make a sound. For six days she had refused to cry out in pain. Unfortunately, this seemed to make her a challenge in the eyes of the flayers.
Laughing, dancing, one of the flayers said, “It likes the pain! It wants it! I gives, I gives!” slashing again with the whip.

From their omniscient vantage point, the gods looked down on Stone Harbor, they looked down on the Ophidian capitol, now under siege, and they especially looked down on Woodhaven and Oshayamora. They had come to a decision.
We cannot reverse our decree. Something hinders us.
We must fight this hideousness, but we dare not manifest ourselves, lest we unmake our creation.
Therefore let us raise Heroes from those most worthy.
This one is particularly enduring. We shall give her the endurance and strength of the ancient oaks, which her race esteems.
And remove her bonds.

Oshayamora felt a strength flow through her, and realized, as she lay bleeding, that her limbs were no longer tied. The flayers were still dancing, and the one with the bladed whip was preparing to swing again. She twisted, taking the whip-strike on her shoulder. It stung as it had before, but her new endurance kept her wits clear. She grabbed the end of the whip and lunged at the flayer, sinking the blades into its neck. It choked and fell back. The other flayer removed the bola from its belt and stepped back for a throw.  Oshayamora’s fists, like pistons, tore into the face of the first flayer. She moved to position it between herself and the second flayer, who was beginning to twirl the bola. Having briefly rattled the first, she tore the crude but sharp short sword from the belt of her opponent.
Naked, but now armed, Oshayamora waded into her erstwhile captors. She sliced the bola cord in half as it flew, and approached the thrower. Blow and parry were exchanged. The injured one had run off as the other shouted, “Get more me, bigger me!” The flayer brought down his sword on Oshayamora’s left arm as she cut into the waist of the flayer. The wound oozed only a trickle of blood. The flayer seemed infuriated by this and pressed the attack harder, but pressing, left itself open to the slice and cut of the weapon wielded by Oshayamora. She cut several times deep into the belly of the flayer, without seeming to slow it. Hearing the shouts of approaching reinforcements, she ignored the hacking blows of the flayer and plunged her blade into the gash she had made and upward, twisting the blade in a stirring motion. The flayer grunted, fell, and finally was still.
Oshayamora turned to her grandfather and nephew, bound hand and foot and lying on the steps of the town shrine. For the past six days they had been repeatedly killed on these steps. “Thank you, granddaughter,” said Tathor, as Oshayamora cut his bonds, “we should leave now and move so as to be closer to a shrine in a city not taken by these beasts.” He struggled to his feet. His clothes still hung about him, although shredded from many cuts. His face was wrinkled with care and age, but in normal circumstances he was still hale and vigorous. He gathered up a discarded cloak that lay nearby and held it out to Oshayamora as she cut away her young nephew’s bonds. “Can you walk, Findecino?” she asked him as she fastened the robe about herself.
“Yes, I think so,” he said. He was young, slight and pale. There was a large hole in his shirt where the flayers had disemboweled him. He touched the frayed edge of the hole and winced at the memory. “We should get bows.”
“Then quickly,” said Tathor, taking the boy by the hand and running toward the nearest house in the opposite direction from the approaching sound of the flayers. Oshayamora stood outside the door while Tathor and Findecino searched the house. The flayers had just come into sight. She glanced in the door. Tathor came out, handing a beautifully wrought great sword to Oshayamora. He carried a longbow and a large quiver of arrows. Findecino followed him out, carrying a smaller bow. The three elves ran for the forest edge.
The flayers caught sight of them and followed swiftly. Twenty flayers made up the pursuit, and with them was a creature standing several feet taller. The larger creature lagged somewhat behind the swift pursuit of the flayers, but its sheer bulk of muscle and twisted face radiated menace. As the elves ran, Tathor and Findecino shot several arrows expertly into their pursuers.
“They are not stopped lightly,” Oshayamora said as they ran, “concentrate your fire.”
“Yes, fire. A good thought,” said Tathor. He swung the quiver around and searched through it, picking out a particularly fine arrow. “Kashtat-Kemetat,” he intoned. The arrow shone briefly with a fiery aura, which was absorbed into the arrow. Tathor stopped, turned, and fired. The arrow sunk into the nearest flayer, between the eyes, and burst into flame. The elves continued their run, not pausing to see the head of the flayer explode and the rest of the flayers pause briefly, puzzled, to examine the body.  Several of the flayers ripped strips of flesh off the corpse just before it dissolved into a black, oily mass, and stuffed the strips into their mouths as they continued the pursuit.
Findecino glanced over his shoulder. “I believe that bought us some time,” he said, as the three entered the deeper woods at the outskirts of the town.
They plunged into the wood, running, trying to lose their pursuers in the thick foliage. “What were those things, great grandfather?” Findecino asked after some time, “I have never heard of anything like them.”
“I do not know,” Tathor said, levelly, “I have never heard of, read about, dreamed, nor imagined such viciousness. Our philosophers have speculated on the perfection of good and evil. I believe we may have just experienced the perfection of evil.” He looked back, troubled, as the three of them crested a hillock and started downward, towards a stream.
“I hope you are right, grandfather,” said Oshayamora.
“Why do you say that, child?” Tathor gripped young trees for balance as he half ran, half slipped down the steep, leafy slope.  Ahead of them the forest spread, dense, trackless and green.
Oshayamora urged the others on to greater speed. “Because I wish never to meet worse.”

Villains: Trolling And Griefing In Ironman Mode

  Every game has Trolls and Griefers.  Give them an open PvP system and they crawl out of the woodwork.  The Orison philosophy toward these is: give them an outlet and make them part of the player-driven drama in a special way.  It makes little sense for a player to go around randomly killing other players, and it is this that makes those people particularly annoying who, when confronted about their griefing say, "I'm role-playing a villain."  On the other hand, the Card-Carrying Villain is a recognized trope.  If the guy who just smacked you down for no reason is someone marked on your map by a red, flashy dot and surrounded with a black aura, well... you didn't run fast enough.
  So, how do these players go about collecting their Villain card.  Two things have to be done here in the design of the system.  First, make being a Villain irresistible to griefers.  Second, rig the system so that the Villain population naturally declines in the absence of players taking up the status of Villain.  It is similar to the concept of Rubber Band Systems.
  How to become a Villain:

• Level to somewhere in the late middle levels.  Early enough that natural griefers have something close to shoot for, but not so early that a player can make a Villain in a few days.
• Enter one of the dark temples.  There are four small temples, two medium, and one large.  These are circular mazes with rotating walls that open a door once every six hours real time.  Each temple has an inner and outer rotating wall.  The medium temples have an additional wall midway through, and the large temple has two walls one-third and two-thirds of the way through.  This means that it takes a minimum of six hours to traverse a small, twelve for a medium, and eighteen for the large.
• Touch the orb in the center of the temple.  The player is prompted that they are about to be severed from the wheel of life.  Proceed.  The player is now a Villain and has a resurrection stone of the level of the temple.

  What does it mean that the Villain is severed from the wheel of life?  It means that they don't res at temples like other players.  When a Villain dies, if they have a resurrection stone, then they become a ghost and can wander around without interacting until they activate the stone.  When they activate the stone, it is consumed and they return to life in that place.

• Small stone - lose a level of xp on res.
• Medium stone - lose no xp.
• Large stone - gain half a level of xp.

  A Villain can enter one of the dark temples and make his way through to collect resurrection stones, but they can carry only two at once.  If a Villain dies with no resurrection stone, all their gold and equipment drop and their character is deleted.
  Any time a Villain dies, they drop a soul shard valuable for crafting based on their level.  They also drop the key to their residence in the Villain town, if they have one.  Yes, Villains have their own town, but it deserves a post all of its own.

Chapter Three: In Which a Pirate Offers to Help

After a long swim, Torroran climbed dripping out of the water and onto one of the docks. The shore crews looked at him askance. “Bastard pirates!” said one to another, quietly, “Why can’t the city do something about him?”
“Like what?” The sailor kept fairing line, playing it out on the dock in large lines packed against each other, never overlapping.
“Lock him up! That’s what.”
“Never work. He’s got his crew, don’t he. They’d have him out in a jiffy, one way or the other.”
“Then lock up the whole bloody crew.”
The sailor finished fairing the line, stood facing the younger man, “Yes, like what they did in Ba Morton.”
“Where?”
“Exactly. Every pirate ship on the sea and every fighting ship and man of The Black Isle… they didn’t leave a single stone on top of another. They raked the ashes flat. They even planted trees and grasses, so the city would be completely erased.” The old sailor sat on a box. “The way to get a pirate is to kill him at sea. Ships can’t carry a shrine, the crew pops back on shore. Take his ship. Without its ship, the crew breaks up, don’t it. Then nobody will sell to the captain, buy from the captain, he’s landlocked. Torroran’s going to have a hard time of it when he finally looses the Whitecap. Almost feel sorry for the bastard.”
“I don’t,” said the younger sailor.


Torroran walked through the market, strutting; his boot heels clicking on the cobblestones.  He had stopped by his safe house, making very sure that he had not been followed. He had changed his clothes for a dry pair of pantaloons, a vest, and boots. He’d filled a pouch with coins and was now entering a bar to celebrate his victory with nobody in particular.
“Round of drinks on me!” Torroran said as he swung open the door.
There was a general turn of heads toward Torroran, some attempt at a cheer from visitors to the city. Many shook their heads in disapproval, a few nodded their thanks. Torroran stepped briskly up to the bar, “Shot of Serpent’s Tears, Trony.”
Entronias, better known as ‘Trony’ or ’barkeep,’ poured the drink, “Caught another fish, have you? Who was it this time, Baskane?”
“Hiegler.”
The door swung open again.
“Well, speak the name of Brigid…,” Trony said. Hiegler was standing in the doorway, a bright new scar across his face, running ear to ear, just under the eyes.
Torroran whirled around, drawing one of his swords and smirking, “Hiegler! Three times this month, and now twice today. I would think you would be tired of dying by now.” The patrons of the bar variously drew their weapons or crouched lower in their seats, ready to flip tables into impromptu barricades.
“Drown it, Torroran! You really have no conception of what you have done.” Hiegler did not draw his weapon, he sighed. “Put your weapon down. Let’s have a drink and talk about it.”
“Well, when you put it like that,” said Torroran, attaching his blade to its accustomed place on his sash, “how can I refuse?” They walked to a booth. “Bottle of Tears and two glasses,” he said over his shoulder to Trony.
“So, you pay for the drinks and talk ‘til your heart’s content, Hiegler”
“Hmph."  They sat.  Hiegler sighed and looked over to the bar.  It was just past noon and several people were having a late lunch.  "Ever starved to death, Torroran?”  Hiegler asked.
“Can’t say that I have, why?”
“Terrible death,” said Hiegler as the drinks arrived. He poured the drinks into the tiny glasses and swallowed his at a gulp, “lingering, painful at times, affects the mind in a bad way.”
“Sure, but there’s farmland everywhere. You starve and its likely to be through stupidity, so you learn better next time and find some work for some food.” Torroran tossed back his drink.
“And if you can’t move?”
“You mean like in a prison... and can’t kill yourself to get out? Nobody would do that to a prisoner. Everyone would be on them at once. Pirates, military, everybody.”
“One would hope,” Hiegler said as he looked through the side of his empty glass, turning it this way and that. “So here’s the reality: the town of Stone Harbor, down along the east coast, has been surrounded by some sort of monster. Baskane called them Din, from some old myth. Anyway, they burned the crops and are capturing anyone trying to get out, flaying them alive, by some accounts. These dwarves are starving to death, coming back at the town shrine, and starving to death again... and again. These Din are torturing the townspeople. They are bringing hell to earth. So that shipment was going to be replacement for the crops, and the fighting men that your crew just put to shore were going to try to break the siege.
Torroran leaned back heavily in his seat, looked hard at Hiegler and poured himself another drink. He lifted the drink, smelled it, then put it back onto the table. “Where’d you hear this?”
“Baskane,” said Hiegler, “I’d wager my existence on his word.”
“And what’s he doing about the problem?”
“He’s a merchant, not a fighting man.”
“What about the military?” Torroran asked, “Surely they would step in.”
“Nobody with the power to move troops believes the reports. They’ve sent scouts, but those people are suffering now. It will take days, if not weeks, to get the military there.”
“Then yeah...  I'd guess we’ve got to do something. If we ride fast, we can go south of the capitol, along the coast, and catch the Whitecap at Mountain Pass.” He drank the shot of Tears. “No time to finish the bottle,” he stood up, “I’ll meet you at the stables south of the city. Be quick.” He left.  Heigler raised an eyebrow at Torroran's departing back, then he capped the bottle and tossed some coins on the table.

PvP: Who Can I Kill, And When?

  It is the best of mechanics, it is the worst of mechanics.  Testing one's mettle against a truly tough opponent is a rush, (and so is, for some, smacking down a helpless newb) but getting beat down unexpectedly, when you are in the middle of trying to accomplish something stinks like week old fish entrails.  Striking the balance is difficult, but I think that a rather open and broad stance toward PvP is critical for many of the other systems of Orison.

  One example: assassination.  What use is that shiny prestige poison if you cannot attack a politician with a dagger soaked in it?  Sure, attacking a politician with this sort of poison could be an exception to the normal PvP rules, but what about the politician who wants to use guards to beat down anyone who approaches them in a suspicious way?  I suppose 'guarding a politician' could be a thing in the PvP system, which would trigger another exception, but why not incorporate all this behavior into the base rule of the system?

  One way this has been done is with 'factions.'  A character is in a faction (which could be a guild)  which can be at war with any number of other factions.  The most successful implementation of this system is, in my opinion, EVE Online.  Done badly, this system is very restrictive and actually reduces PvP to pre-set border battlefields that go back and forth, giving one faction or other bonuses.  Guild Wars took this concept to an extreme.

  Another example is trade.  Theft and piracy make for a good story for those on the winning side, and revenge makes a good story for those on the losing side.  This means fairly open PvP out in the areas between towns.

  Instead of making a long list of who can attack who, where and when, I'm going to make a short list of the conditions under which a player cannot be attacked.

• A player under a certain low level cannot be attacked unless they attack first (and cannot carry trade goods in any case).  The exception is that a Villain can attack players of any level.
• A player may not attack a member of his own party.

  That's it as far as conditions go, now for the consequences.

• If one player initiates combat, inside the borders of a political unit (PU), with a player other than a Villain or someone marked as Criminal in that political unit, the initiating player loses prestige in that PU.
• NPC guards might get involved.  This depends on the settings put in place by either the PU leader, or the player to which the leader delegates the position of sheriff/captain/general. (collectively known as 'warchief' WC)
• A player that initiates a combat which would result in loss of prestige (whether or not the player actually has that prestige to lose) is reported to the leader or WC of the PU.  The leader or WC may then mark the player as a criminal.  (The leader or WC can mark anyone as a criminal at any time, but the system prompts them about these players.)

  Only Villains gain experience for killing another player with the exception that any player (even a Villain) gains experience from killing a Villain.
  One other thing.  Whenever a player dies, a fraction of their gold is lootable from their corpse, and there is a chance that one or more pieces of their equipment also drop.

Chapter Two: A Particularly Proud Dwarf

“I would like to say that it is a pleasure to meet you all… but that would be a lie. The chance that any of you will have the aptitude and inclination, not to mention the perseverance, to pursue research into higher magical theory is less than even.” The speaker, Tebro, was a tall man, lean and fragile for a dwarf, and the fact that his students were all sitting gave him a menacing height advantage as he spoke. The twelve broad bands on the shoulders and sleeves of his robe increased his power of intimidation over the students. Among the aspiring researchers assembled, there were two with three bands, five with two, and the rest were split evenly between those with one band and those wearing the unadorned robe of a graduate wizard. The students were all less than forty years old, young men and women.
The hall was low roofed, wood and stone predominant in the construction. Sturdy tables were set in rows on either side of a central aisle. On one side of the hall, a large fireplace stood empty, the weather being mild, and the windows were open, letting in light and a soft breeze. The walls were unadorned except for two large diagrams sewn into cloths. These were on the wall opposite the door, and it was in front of these that Tebro paced as he spoke.
He continued his opening tirade, “But just possibly one of you might amount to something. If that happens, it will be my glad duty to abstract and compress fifty years of learning and research into an incredibly intense forty year program of study, leaving you with a double handful of years to extend that knowledge, with a responsibility to transmit that knowledge,” Tebro’s voice became a shout, “undistorted, to the next generation. That being said, let us progress to an overview of those most useful of symbols, the phoenix and the square. The strength of these symbols are that they break the whole cloth of magic into distinct areas of influence, allowing us to deduce the mindset, gestures, and incantations necessary to produce the desired effect. In short, they form the basis for all magic theory and free us from the drudgery of meticulous record keeping and memorization.” Tebro spread his hands and lowered his gaze, “Our exalted ancestors are to be praised for this work, which has made possible the derivation of these symbols by my own esteemed uncle, Genro.”

The Square of the Elements

“First the square. The square represents the world of matter divided into the components of earth, air, fire and water. The whole structure, when invoked simultaneously, calls upon the power of…”
The door to the training hall was thrown open suddenly enough that it banged into the stone lower half of the wall. The newcomer trotted into the hall and caught himself against the back row of tables, placing his other hand on his side as he caught his breath. His cloak, a deep blue trimmed with grey, and his mail, marked him as a member of the town watch. Tebro watched him impatiently.
“Under attack,” the guard panted, “crops are burning… Tebro, you must come quickly.” The students shifted nervously in their seats and gave off a general murmur of alarm.  Some stood, among them the two third degree wizards and three of the second degree.
Tebro, however, strode quickly down the aisle and recovered his outer cloak from where it had been slung over the seat at the front of the hall.  He turned to the guard and said, “I will not. The defense of your town is not my concern.” Tebro walked back to the front of the room, finished packing his notes into a small valise and rolled up the diagrams. “Obviously this is, at this moment, no fit place to find an apprentice. If any of you care enough, come to Genro’s tower, it is to the west of the capitol. The tavern master of the Stout Porter will know the way.” He made for the door.
The guard stood in his way. “Please, Tebro, for the sake of the honor of your ancestors. These attackers, they are monstrous, like nothing I have ever seen.”  Several of the students now stood around the doorway; the guard pointed a general direction to them, and they rushed off toward the distant smoke.
“Then defend the town,” said Tebro impatiently, “If you and your comrades are more willing to suffer the pain of injury and death than the attackers, you will necessarily win: die a thousand times, ten thousand times for your town. If you are not willing to do that,” Tebro pushed past the guard, “then the town is not worth keeping and you should return to the mountains of our ancestors."  Tebro paused.  "As I said, this is not my problem.”


The smoke of the burned farmland rose black against the southern sky as Tebro left the hall. He walked past several residences toward the passage into the mountain. The mountain loomed gigantic across the narrow valley from the sea. All industry and most residences of the town were contained in this narrow valley. To the south, the valley widened into excellent farmland, now on fire.
At the doorway to the tavern, Tebro’s aides, who had been looking at the smoke and at the guards running in the direction of the farms, saw Tebro leave the hall and rushed to accompany him. As they approached, Tebro spoke without preamble or slowing his stride, “The attack is obviously motivated by simple economy,” he said, “an investigation of nearby towns which currently produce an excess of food, textiles, herbs, or plant-based intoxicants should quickly reveal the offending parties.”
“Then what, master Tebro,” said Boradi, the younger of the two aides, deferentially, “should be done after the guilty parties are found?”
“Obtain the cooperation of all cities and towns within the distance of profitable trade under conditions of extreme scarcity,” Tebro said, “and institute complete embargo, nothing into the town, nothing out. A force of guards sufficient to overwhelm any trade caravan must be stationed at the offending town. Eventually the lack of some crucial product will cause the town to be unsustainable. The inhabitants will find other places to live and the city will be emptied. When it is empty, it should be burned to the ground.”
“I will inform the lord mayor, master Tebro.” Boradi continued to walk alongside Tebro, awaiting a word of assent or final instruction.
“On no account,” said Tebro, “inform me of the results of the investigation or subsequent action. I have more important matters to attend to. You may go.”
The aide left at a run.
“May one inquire into the nature of these important matters?” asked Dor, the remaining aide. His traveling cloak was draped over his arm, and five stripes were on the sleeves of his robe. He had been with Tebro for many years, and they had taken to dropping formality when in private.
“It’s my esteemed uncle Genro. He is approaching his final death.”
“Yes, I know. It credits you well that you wish to remain with your exalted uncle in his final months. Are you writing his history during that time? I wrote my father’s, you know. It was heart-wrenching to know that soon he would no longer be with me. My cousin wrote for my mother, and she said…”
“I will not be writing, Dor.” Tebro interrupted, “I will not be seeing him.”
The aide stopped, shocked, “What? Tebro, you can’t be serious!"  Tebro stopped and turned to look at Dor.  Dor continued, "You are going to allow his history… your own history, to die with him? Genro is a great man, the greatest wizard this world has ever produced! And, by all the gods, he taught you everything he knows… everything you know.”
“Which is exactly why I will not see him. He has nothing more to teach… and I need to learn.” Tebro turned his back on Dor. “Magic affects everything; matter, force, energy. There must be a magic that affects the soul. I must find that. If I do, it might be possible to keep Genro from final death.”
Dor spoke softly, insistently, “Tebro, reconsider. It is not possible, and even if it were, what you are talking about is defying the plan of the gods. The final death is part of the gods’ design.”
Tebro clenched his fist, held it at his side.  His face contorted as he looked up at the sky.  “Then may the gods die unremembered," he said, "and may they be buried far from their fathers.”


The capitol of the dwarven kingdom, and the mountain in which it was constructed shared a name, "Home."  Hundreds of feet underground, in places, and in others poking through the surface of the mountain with towers, spires and balconies.  For hundreds of miles the land and mountains about were tunneled through.  Vast, labyrinthe series of tunnels and corridors, quite a few leading to traps or dead-ends.  It behooved visitors to have a good map of the route which they were to enter from and on which they intended to leave.  The dwarves did not need any map.  To a dwarf, the passages seemed to resonate with a shared cunning, and it was as natural as breathing to know that this passage led to safety and this passage led into a trap.  To find a new passage in a new design, containing pitfalls and dangers previously unsuspected, was a joy for any dwarf.  A perplexed dwarf was a happy dwarf.
In the center of these radiating passages was tunneled, built, and carved the city "Home."  Here also visitors were well advised to bring a map.  In the center, a vast natural cavern.  In the center of the cavern, a huge stone base fit for a towering monument.  No monument sat atop the base.  An inscription, large enough to read a furlong away, read, "To the ancestors of our ancestors, and to the gods.  They are known only to themselves, but remembered always."  The cavern itself was some half of a mile in diameter, and from its sides descended stairways and extruded walls, windows and balconies.

Deep inside Home, Tebro stood outside a doorway and hesitated. The greater part of the city had been dug directly into the mountain. In this area, the rock overhead came down, meeting the tops of the buildings, so that the effect was that of long corridors and rooms carved into rock rather than buildings. Tebro was alone. He had sent Dor on ahead to his uncle, claiming pressing business in the capitol. Damned gnomes and their damned air, Tebro thought, my head is too full… and I’m picking at my arms again. I’ll clear my head. With a clear head the inspiration can come. Perhaps I will get some work done, have a breakthrough. Three months! Great grandfather, help me. He went in.

The Phoenix of the Spheres of Magic

The room was warm and comfortably furnished. A rug with a fractal pattern covered the floor. Several armchairs were arranged around a fireplace. Tebro knew the fire to be fake, the smokeless product of gnomish tinkering with magic and machinery. This was the only type of fire possible where chimneys weren’t. A dozen other padded wooden arm chairs were placed around tables. There was a group of young dwarves sitting at one of these tables. They looked up as Tebro entered, and quickly turned their attention back to each other and to their drinks. A counter intersected the far left wall and bent to nearly touch the far wall. Bottles and barrels were set behind it, and glasses set in racks above.
A gnome walked around the bar and toward Tebro, “And what can I do for you, sir?”  The gnome’s expression and tone were exactly the same as when Tebro had first entered the place, years before. Tebro knew the gnome, Airfinge, by sight, and had no doubt that the gnome recognized him.
“A room suitable for study, please,” said Tebro.
“Certainly, sir. I have just the place. If you will follow me.”
Tebro followed the gnome down a hallway flanked with doors. There were fourteen doors, seven to each side, set widely apart. Tebro knew that most of the space between these rooms was rock wall, drilled with voids which were filled with some material or other. No sound traveled from room to room, so it was impossible for an occupant of one room to tell whether the adjacent room was occupied. Lining the walls of the hallway were the same lamps as lit the whole of the city. These were more elaborate than most. Some of the metalwork was so delicate that Tebro could have sworn it was actually lace. The gnome opened the fourth door on the left, and stood aside to let Tebro in.
The room was much the same as the entry; the same rug, only smaller; the same warmth; the same fire; and the same armchairs, two of them. Beside one armchair was a small table suitable for holding a drink and a book as well as the lamp. In front of the chairs was a desk. The middle sunk to accommodate tired feet, drinks, books… anything the occupants might want near their knees. The ends of the desk were raised and curved toward the chairs, and would allow the occupants to write without quite getting up. Tebro turned to the gnome. “Lemon water and some air, please.”
“Right away, sir.” The gnome left, shutting the door quietly behind him. Tebro sat in one of the armchairs, waiting. He got a book out of his pack and read until the gnome came back. The gnome carried a large, metal canister in one hand. A hose was attached to the top of the canister, it was covered in braid and had an ivory mouthpiece. In the other hand, the gnome carried a large glass with ice floating in a slightly yellow, translucent liquid. Tebro handed the gnome two silver coins. The gnome placed the glass on the table, the canister on the floor, and took the coins. He bowed slightly and left.
Tebro twisted a knob on the valve connecting the canister and the hose, then sucked at the mouthpiece in a long draw. He sank back into the chair, contented, his eyes unfocused.  After a few seconds he produced a parchment and pen from his pack, had another pull from the canister and set to work.

A Villain's Life

Day 1
It's hard to find good, quick fights in this game.  When I heard about Orison, the MMO that Mobs Inc Software was putting out, I was thrilled.  When I started playing, I was less thrilled.  The whole design seems to push the fun stuff to the endgame.
I started off in one of the major cities, like everyone else.  One NPC walked up to me and asked me to kill an imp that had taken up residence in her house.  A starting quest, peh.  So I kill the imp, but the damned thing grabs me and says, 'come meet my family.'  And so I'm slogging through an underworld, stabbing imps for the next ten minutes.  I get a couple of levels.  Meh.
There's a cavern that I read about on the 'getting started' section of the wiki.  It's 'used as a training ground for those seeking to hone their combat skills.'  Well, I try it.  I get four different offers to group in there before I find the way to turn invites off.  Not my thing.  It takes a while going down until I find a place that hasn't been cleared out yet.  Why this place is not instanced baffles me.  Just a bad design decision in my opinion.  When I finally find some enemies, there are five of them in a group.  I run in, target, roll, stab.  One down.  And I start getting hit from the back and sides.  Roll away.  They start with this cackling laugh.  No.  Jumping attack, another down... and so am I.  Yeah, not your standard difficulty, but that's fine with me.  Grinding easy mobs gets boring.
So I'm back on the wiki looking up quick fights.  Turns out you can go to the tavern, rent a room for a bit of nothing, and get experience by dreaming about fighting.  Hah!  So I try it, and I battle through a few of their 'dreamscapes.'  Stupid crazy stuff, some of them.  Then I try talking to the glowing bug that is always next to me at the start of a dreamscape.  It says it is a dreamlinker.  Yes!  PvP!

Day 10
I'm still mostly playing the dreaming PvP.  I tried doing some non-dreaming stuff.  I escorted a trade caravan to a small town.  They said something about medicines and herbs for food or some such.  Useless flavor text.  And it wasn't even a well designed quest.  Most of the time was just walking from one place to another.  Three other players in the group and they are all in character, talking about the governor and the trademaster and so on, they said there is a group of goblins close to the town we are heading toward.  I suggest we take them out once we get there.
Kobolds attack the caravan.  These other guys rely on their equipment way too much.  I backstab four of the kobolds while the other three players are hacking away like this was World of Warcraft or something.  The caravan rolls into town, and the goods are sold.  I get my cut; nice to have some gold finally.  Maybe I'll get a real world longsword.  No exp for completing the run?  What is this 'prestige' junk?  I ask the others.  One offers his cut of the coin for the prestige I got.  Sure thing!  Good trade!
We go clear out the goblins.  More exp, more prestige, another trade of coin for prestige.  The one I'm trading to says that he is trying to usurp the mayor of this town.  Yeah, good for you, but who would want to be Mayor of a fake town?

Day 100
Most of my skill points have gone to my longsword skill, offhand shortsword, and combo crafting.  I've had to relocate to a city with a dojo so I can put combos together.  The GUI for combos shows you frames saved and endurance saved by stringing together different animations.  Of course, some animations don't go well together and there are extra transition frames and endurance cost.  Combos are really necessary for high level PvP (the city also has an arena, hello wagers) because of all the animations that the skills unlock, you can only map two to the combo slots.  So put two combos onto a weapon and put that setup into a weapon slot.  PvP pre-planning for the win!  Roll, Roll, see an opening, 1, 1, get blocked, roll out to break the combo, see another opening and start in on my 2 combo.  The only thing that really makes me mad about the arena are these no-talent mages.
I've got a sort of sponsor now.  All the prestige I get in the arena goes to him and he keeps my equipment up to par with my level.  He says that he gets his gold from trade goods and buys the equipment from adventurers or craftsmen.  I've done some of what he calls 'adventuring.'  There are always these items, 'gifts of the gods,' being put in ruins, down caverns, stolen by imps and hidden in demonic realms, etcetera.  Oracles, in cities whose leaders can afford to employ them, reveal the location of these gifts, and the race is on.  It sucks because except for crafting materials, the gift is all that drops.  And if you are in a group of five, you are not likely to roll it.  (you also get the gods-can-it-be-more-annoying prestige to trade away)  You can get more equipment by clearing out a group of NPC that have targeted a town or city, but most of that is just your basic trash loot.

Day 150
Time to get serious about top end PvP.  Heroes and Villains is where it is at.  You've got to be one of the two at endgame to get the extended level cap.  Heroes, now, they advance by grouping with non-Heroes, by protecting trade runs, and protecting cities.  Villains get their experience killing people.  Villain it is!  It's hardcore ironman mode, though.  If a Villain is killed, their character is deleted; with one important exception.  The quest to become a Villain involves entering one of the temples to the dark gods.  The outer door is open for only ten minutes out of an entire day.  (there are several temples with different times)  At the end of the run is a protected spot and a door that is only open for the same ten minutes of the day.  Needless to say, the run takes half an hour or so.  So you go back the next day, another run to the altar, and there you get a 'resurrection stone.'  You can only carry two, there are three types, and the better ones require three and four day runs.

Day 155
Hah!  That was awesome.  There were three Heroes camping the temple waiting to kill any Villain going for another res stone, but they couldn't touch me because I was not a Villain yet.  They just kept sending me messages: “Come on, you don't want to be a professional griefer,” “Be a Hero instead, it's fun,” “If you get through this, I will find you and kill you.”  Priceless.
Into the Villain town today.  A violent place, according to the forums.  It's on a separate plane, only accessible to Villains.  There are only 15 residences.  Ten of them are small, four larger, and the last one is the tower in the center of town.  Residences give combat bonuses based on their size and have portals leading to different parts of the world.  Thing is, when a Villain is killed (even if they have a res stone) they drop the key to their residence, if they own one.  Only another Villain can pick it up.  And yes, you can attack another Villain in town.
I hear that the Heroes have their own place as well, but that we can invade it.  They get their bonuses from a totem in the center of their town.  Well, if a Villain steals the totem, it becomes a powerful weapon and the Heroes lose their bonus until that Villain is killed.
So much PvP.  I think I will go ransack a village and kill some low level players to put myself on the Heroes' radar.

Chapter One: In Which A Ship Is Taken By Pirates

“Nothing good dies until its allotted span is completed. Nothing evil dies until it is vanquished.”
-from The Teachings of S’s’os’ayn

On his ship, the Whitecap, Torroran pondered the absence of the Margate fleet.  He had heard about a large food shipment coming from the easternmost towns of the Halflings, and had hoped that Hiegler would take his ships down the channel and through the passage under the mountains, rather than risk an encounter with the serpent that the fleet was busy with off the east coast.  His hope was been rewarded when the lookout spotted the cruiser and its pathetically small compliment of escorts.  Torroran ordered that the escorts be disabled, driven off, or destroyed, the crews killed, and the cruiser captured.
The Whitecap caught one of the escorts in a sneak attack as the fleet was passing by the city. It was on fire by the time the Whitecap came abreast of the cruiser and Torroran swung onto its foredeck.  Torroran landed, rolled, and slashed the leg of a sailor who had tried to take advantage of Torroran’s momentary imbalance. On his feet, he brought his other sword around and separated the sailor’s head from its body. The air was alive with shouts, the clash of steel, and the boom of the ship guns. Hiegler came running up the ladder from the main deck to the foredeck, and stood facing Torroran.
Torroran stood tall and unarmored. His hair hidden under a tied rag, a scar beside his right eye, and a black goatee framing his smirk. His chest was a network of scars. His pants were light and baggy, tied at the ankles, and his webbed feet were bare.
Hiegler was a man in his prime, blond and muscular. He wore his armor with a casual ease and wielded his large broadsword with easy, powerful motions. He scowled. “Damn you, Torroran! Not this time. You don’t know why this shipment…” With a clash of steel, he brought his sword up to block Torroran’s blades, which were headed for his neck.
Two more sailors jumped at Torroran from behind, and were dispatched, a blade in each chest.  Blood splashed in lines on the deck as Torroran swept the blades out of the torsos and spun them around to threaten Heigler again.
“Back!” shouted Hiegler, “This fight is mine.” Then to Torroran, “This shipment is different.  Crops were burned in…” A quick twisting motion of the broadsword parried two attacks from different angles, one of which deflected into his chest plate, glancing off.
“If the crops were burned, that just means higher prices. You aren’t helping your case at all here, Hiegler.” Torroran feinted high, drew the broadsword up, and slipped the left blade under the chest plate. Hiegler grunted, and Torroran neatly sliced his head in half from ear to ear.
Torroran strode to the edge of the foredeck and shouted down at the fighters, “Your captain has been killed and your ship taken. You are between the sword and the sea, choose!” The bodies of the dead on deck were beginning to dissolve into a shimmering smoke.  Blood and weapons likewise vanished from the deck.  Some of the cruiser's crew dived over the main-deck railing and into the water.  Others continued to fight, resigned expressions on their face notwithstanding.
The fight was over in a matter of minutes. Torroran was met by one of his own sailors. “Leave half the crew on the cruiser.” Torroran said, “The others will man the Whitecap and escort her through Mountain Pass and down to The Black Island.”
“And if word reaches Mountain Pass about this before we get there?”
“Sail fast.” Torroran replied, “I’ll stay in Margate. Don’t spend my cut of the profit on the way back.” Torroran ran to the edge of the ship, and jumped into the water in a long dive.
“Good luck back in town, sir!” the sailor shouted after him.

Races: Who do you want to be today?

Time for some flavor.  Orison is heavily influenced by the four classical elements, water, earth, fire and wind.  Each of the four main races and their portion of the world is designed to reflect one of these elements.  Each of the four races have a capitol which is the center of their kingdom.  The four minor races have no capitol and their land is initially unclaimed by any kingdom.  In an example of a rubber band system, areas that are claimed by a kingdom, but have no political unit activity revert to unclaimed after a time.

Humans:  Water aspected, Humans have webbed hands and feet and gills running down their neck. They inhabit the northeast portion of Orison.  Bays, rivers, streams, and fjords dominate the landscape.  The human racial benefit is that they can breathe water for a short time, and so can remain underwater for twenty minutes before dying.

Dwarfs:  Earth aspected, Dwarves are short, powerfully built, and bearded.  They inhabit the southeast portion of Orison.  Mountains, caves, mountain valleys, and rocky slopes dominate their landscape.  The dwarf racial benefit is that they can detect traps automatically.

Ophidians:  Fire aspected, the body of an Ophidian does not separate into legs at the waist, but tapers into a long tail on which they slither.  They inhabit the southwest portion of Orison.  Lava flows, ash plains, dead lava tube systems, and sun-drenched farmland dominate the landscape.  The Ophidian racial benefit is that they are immune to fire damage.  Their racial drawback is that the characters only last one year real-time before they die of old age, never to return.  Ophidian villains and heroes are an exception to this rule.

Elves:  Wind aspected, tall, thin, and light, Elves can jump half again as high as other races.  They inhabit the northwest portion of Orison.  Tall old-growth forests, rolling hills, and spires of wind carved rock dominate the landscape.  The Elven racial benefit is that they move half again as fast as any other race over land.

Halflings:  Shorter than dwarves, and not as stocky.  Inhabiting the rolling hills of the north between the Elves and the Humans, the Halfling racial benefit is the ability to shed all agro and become invisible to NPCs once every 30 minutes.

Sartroni:  Taller still than the elves, but powerfully built.  Inhabiting the flat island off the eastern coast between the Human and Dwarven civilizations, the Sartroni racial benefit is that they have a 100 percent HP bonus.  Their racial drawback is that they will not wear the heavier armors.

Gnomes:  As short as the Halflings, but with straight hair, long noses ears and fingers.  Inhabiting the hidden island off the southern coast of the main continent of Orison, the Gnomish racial benefit is a 100 percent bonus to all crafting efforts.

Pteradons:  The lightest of all the races, lacking muscle except where their wings join to the middle of their back.  Inhabiting the craggy island of the west coast of Orison, the Pteradons have the ability to glide from one place to another.  Their physical abilities are blunted by one quarter.

Land Ownership: I'm sorry, you cannot use that claim certificate here.

So, we have a huge world, with lots of open spaces.  Lots of coastlines for the humans, lots of mountain passages for the dwarfs, lots of volcanic spill-plains for the ophidians, and lots of old-growth forests for the elves.  As well, there are some spaces for the halflings, barbarians, gnomes, and pteradons to build some political units unaffiliated with a kingdom.
  How exactly does land ownership work?  Well, land ownership is of two types, personal and political.  For a player to own land personally, all they have to do is obtain the design of the structure, some base materials, and find a plot that is not personally or politically owned.  The building starts to take shape as soon as they click on the blueprint and place the structure on the ground.

Some see a barren wasteland, others, a gold mine.

  Political ownership is a bit more complicated.  A political land grant for a town is issued by a Governor of a city or the King of a kingdom.  It includes a radius of 1000ft or so from a point to be zoned for city center structures.  This is to include residences, barracks, city hall, tavern, warehouse, shrines, and monuments.  There is another radius that extends to 3000ft which is to be used for fields, mines, loggeries, ranches and such.  Any personally owned land that is within either of these radii continues to be personally owned until the owner cedes control to the engulfing political unit or the structure is destroyed.
  When the town meets certain benchmarks for growth, it turns into a city.  The radii are then expanded, and GMs step in to help the players with beautifying the area and giving the city flavor.  There are only four kingdoms to a server.  The capitols can be ransacked, but never taken over.  A kingdom may have its holdings completely reduced to zero, but it still has a king.  Also, the king is of the same race as the kingdom.  This is the only instance in which racism is enforced.  A halfling may be the governor of an ophidian city, but a human will never rule the kingdom of the dwarfs.
  Once an area is owned, then any player with the appropriate privileges can place a building on that land.  These buildings will produce resources according to their condition and location and will consume resources according to their building type.  Balance must be determined before launch for every location.  No location should be able to support a town in the long term.  A town in any location must, without imports, languish.  This is the same philosophy as that behind the RBS.  One thing that prevents a town from flourishing without imports is that many of its buildings require medicine as a resource, and a town cannot build an apothecary.  A city may build an apothecary, but not a Royal Apothecary.  A capitol may have a Royal Apothecary that produces royal medicine that can sustain any of these buildings for months, but does not produce enough to supply all the towns that a kingdom can make.
  As always, details are upcoming.

Politics: How to Use Friends and Influence NPCs

  So, if there is to be no main storyline, where does the fun, the drama, the meaning come in?  One of the only modern MMOs to ditch the storyline, Eve Online, gives us a clue.  In the hinterland of the Eve galaxy, groups of players conquer star systems and build systems for extracting resources and making valuable items.  These player owned systems can be vastly profitable, but need constant attention and are vulnerable to Marauding players and NPCs.  Experienced players of Eve will tell you, "nullsec is where the REAL game is."  And there is no storyline out there except the political ebb and flow that the players make for themselves.

Think of all the man-hours put into preparing for this battle.

  In Orison, this is done by players claiming parts of the vast, empty spaces of continent.  Perhaps one section starts as a cluster of farms, a mine, and a loggery.  Then some player is granted a writ of township by whichever king (a player) holds sway over that land.  He and his guild builds a town hall and coerces the surrounding farms, mine, and loggery to join the town.  The player who used the writ in the first place becomes the mayor of the town and gains a number of 'prestige points' with that town.  These points dwindle over time.  New points are granted to the mayor whenever the town expands, when a threat to the town in neutralized with the help of the town's NPCs or those PCs who are designated the town's elite guard.  The mayor loses points whenever a town structure falls into disrepair from lack of proper resources or is destroyed by a threat.  If trade is making the town prosperous, the mayor gains points.  If trade is stagnant, the mayor loses points.  When a mayor is out walking about town or socializing in the tavern, he gains points. (or loses them more slowly)  When he sits at his desk behind locked doors and guards, he loses points more quickly.
  Now, other players can gain prestige in the town as well.  Whenever a player completes a trade run that benefits the town, he gains prestige.  Whenever a player disposes of a threat to the town, he gains prestige.  Just sitting in the town tavern, a player slowly accumulates prestige.  Anyone can, at the tavern (or the town hall) register their desire to rule the town as the mayor.  The prestige totals of every player who does this are publicly available.  Every week (every three weeks for cities, every two months for kingdoms) the person with the most town prestige becomes the mayor.  If the mayor himself has the most prestige, he remains mayor.

Schemed his way to the top.

  The key to this system is that these points are tradeable. Prestige can be traded with other players in the same trade UI as items and coin.  Prestige can be sent in the mail.  A mayor with an entire guild giving him half their prestige will soon become very hard to supplant.  Please note, however, that this leaves mayors, governors, and kings vulnerable to revolution, as their supporters can withdraw their support at any time.
  Prestige operates in tiers.  Ten points of town prestige can be converted into a point of prestige in the city (if any) that the town is subject to.  Likewise, ten points of city prestige or 100 points of town prestige can be converted into kingdom prestige.  All of these prestige types are tradeable and giftable.
  Another wrinkle that could be included to increase the competition and ruthlessness of these political intrigues is to pay the leaders in real money.  Town mayors receiving $500 per month are likely to treat Orison as a part time job.  City governors receiving $1500 per month are likely to treat Orison as their main job and have part-time real-life work on the side.  Kings receiving $3000 per month are likely to treat Orison as a full time job.  Kings and governors have the option to transfer any amount of their pay to their Lieutenants and subject governors and mayors.  This is only possible if Orison is not free to play, but charges something like $15 per month to play.  Four kings, twenty governors, and one hundred mayors per server costs $92,000 per month, which is more than made up by 6200 players.  Eve online has had ten times that many players on its server at one time.
  Now, in this system, it is very likely that a small group of players seize power and hold onto it with ruthless efficiency.  Where is the drama in that?  One word: assassination.  In the hidden places of the world grows a flower that, when processed properly, makes a poison which does not damage a player's health, but instead damages their prestige.

Storylines, and why they should die

Find your own fun.  Make your own fun.
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Back in my post on Rubber band systems I touched on the disconnect that a player feels when they are told by an NPC that they are special and that the fate of the world rests on their shoulders.  The disconnect arises when the player realizes that every other player is being told the same lie and that nothing really hinges on their actions.  There are a couple points here.  First, it is not really true that player actions make no difference.  One member can make the difference between a successful and an unsccessful raid.  One vibrant member can be the heart and soul of a guild.  Second, this disconnect is caused by the same design philosophy that causes 'quests' and a linear progression through the map. Causing players to chase the main story line, and incidentally causing congestion of same level players in certain areas.  This also causes people to leave the game!  If the interest in the game, the driving force, the thing that causes players to move from one place to another, is a line, then once they reach the end of that line, they leave.  This causes companies to have to put out expansion after expansion with 'endgame raid content' and increased level caps to keep the experienced players' interests.  The flawed design philosophy is, in short, building a single player game and tacking on player to player interaction.  The really screwy part of this is that MMOs did not start out this way.  In the early days of MUDs, there were no main story lines.  Very few of these had any 'quests' at all.  This disease was picked up (as far as I can tell) in Everquest, and MMOs have been sick ever since.

Now, let it never be said that I am merely a complainer.  I would not bring this up unless there were some reasonably workable solution.  First, scrap the main storyline.  This frees up a lot of time and energy on the part of the design and writing team.  Part of this effort should be put into building RBS.  Another part put into quests that are sent via mail to players who spend prestige at a tavern to request work.  A delay of a day (realtime) or so before a sidequest is sent to the player serves two functions.  First, this gives players a sort of manditory downtime.  This encourages the player to look around for things to do in the world instead of merely chasing a line.  Second, this gives GMs an entrance to slip into an NPC and play with a player in a quest of the GMs making.  Even a hundred GMs cannot guide tens of thousands of player experiences, but a score or so, playing through two quests per shift, will reach over 43 thousand players during the course of a year.  Enough that everybody will have heard of somebody that has adventured with a GM.  Third, quests should be made that are not merely contingent on the state of the player, but the state of the RBS in the world, and these should for the most part serve to push these RBS out of their ground state.  In this way, these quests will make a difference to the state of the world and will be more than meaningless exercises.

Rubber Band Systems

  I almost called this article 'Rubber band zones,' but that does not really capture the idea.  The word 'zone' seems to imply something self contained, and while the concept of a single rubber band system (RBS) must be well defined and may be localized, there may be many RBS operating in the same game area.  RBS is critical in Orison to achieve the ballance between simulation of a living world where player actions change the game state on one hand, and ease of implementation on the other.

The Simplest RBS

Every RBS in Orison is designed to have a 'ground state' to which the system will eventually return in the absence of player involvement.  The simplest possible RBS would be a two-state system in which one state is the ground.  Some sort of player action could cause the state to transition into the other state and further action may be able to keep the system in this state, however, in the absense of this further action, the system will eventually transition back to its ground state.  It is desirable for a scrited event to accompany a state transition, and if it is possible for a player to interrupt this script in any way, then those interruptions must result in the system transitioning into a valid state.
By way of example:
Rats in Undertown: Ground state: Undertown is empty of NPCs.  There are NPCs in the city above who talk about their homes back in Undertown.  NPCs in the city above give PCs information about the rat infestation and reward players for rat tails and offer a large reward for a dire rat tail.  If a rat is killed inside Undertown, a one minute counter (invisible to the players) starts.  After this counter runs down, a rat is spawned at one of the rat-holes in the sewers and a rat currently in the sewers moves to take the place of the killed rat in Undertown.  If the dire rat in the center of Undertown is killed, the system moves to state 1.
Transition script from ground state to state 1: Enough rats in the sewers move back to the rat-holes and de-pop to make spaces in the sewer for the rats left in undertown.  The rats in Undertown move to take their places.  If a rat is killed during the script, then a one minute timer starts before another rat pops at the rat-holes to take its place.  NPCs in the city above walk to undertown.  (NPCs that are killed repop, as always, at the altar and make their way back to their daily routene)

A more complex RBS

State 1: Undertown is populated with NPCs who tell about the dangerous rats in the sewer and give rewards for rat-tails.  Several NPCs in the city above say that the residents of undertown give rewards for rat-tails.  Rats are on routes in the sewer, once every two minutes, a rat attacks an undertown guard, is killed, and another rat pops to take its place.  A timer starts at 20 minutes, every time a rat is killed in the sewers, one minute is added to the timer.  If the timer reaches zero, state transitions to state 2, if the timer is ever above 30 minutes then the state transitions back to ground.



Transition from state 1 to ground: You get the point.
Transition from state 1 to state 2: You get the point.
State 2: You get the point.
Transition from state 2 to state 1:  If you really don't get the point, leave a comment.

Welcome to Orison

 I have been playing MMOGs since 1996, when I made a character in Medievia, a text-based MUD. I've played a good selection of MMOs since then, and I have greatly enjoyed my time in some of these virtual worlds. I believe, though, that MMOs have a serious flaw, one that is basic to the design philosophy of nearly all of these games. The flaw is that these games are not actually designed as multiplayer games. These games should more appropriately be called Massively Single Player Online games.

Medievia: It's all downhill from here

Ask yourself this: apart from the player interaction, is there any difference in design between, say, World of Warcraft and Skyrim? I hear you saying, 'apart from player interaction? I saw you palm that card. Player interaction is what makes a multiplayer game multiplayer. If you remove that, you should not be surprised to get a single player game.' My point, though, is that if you remove player interaction from a multiplayer game and are still left with a game that makes sense, then what you started with was not really designed as a multiplayer game. Instead it was designed with one player in mind and tools for player interaction are tacked on.
Let me give you a concrete example. I start a character in Arche Age (I'm not picking particularly on Arche Age, all MMOs are guilty of this, but AA had so much promise ruined so early) and find that I'm knee deep in a pond... with a hundred other people who look almost exactly like me. I see an NPC with a golden exclamation mark over her head and I talk to her. She recognizes me and implies by her dialogue that she knows me and that I am the only one around. Two VERY bad things are happening here. First, I am now psychologically separated from my character. I don't know this NPC, and she does not know me. She knows my character. So now I am distinct from my character no matter how much suspension of disbelief I had when I started up the game. Second, the world that my character inhabits does not agree with the evidence of my eyes and I have an incentive to ignore all other players in order to make the story make sense.
Now, let's look at the story. Every story in every MMO. I am special. I am the chosen one. There is a great evil in the world and I am destined to end it.

Lots of words.

Once again, no matter how much suspension of disbelief I can muster, I know that there are hundreds of characters, just in my character's immediate area that are being told this exact same lie. That is not to mention the other thousands on the server and the other tens of thousands on other servers. This is very demoralizing. I talk to a farmer who says he is having trouble with wolves or something and wants my character to bring him five tails. Well, I go to where the wolves are popping out of thin air (and not hurting the sheep at all, by the way) and there are a dozen characters all killing wolves as hard as possible. I know that these wolves are never going to harm the sheep, that the farm makes no economic difference to anyone, and that if I and everyone else found a way to skip this thing (I can't bring myself to call it a quest) then the farmer would still be permanently standing in that one spot, night and day (for games that even have a night/day cycle) with that exclamation point over his head waiting to give out a bit of gold (materializing out of nowhere) to kill wolves (that are also materializing out of nowhere) that are just standing there waiting to be killed.
Now, you could say to me, “wait a minute, you want enough meaningful, interacting systems programmed in to keep tens of thousands of level 1 players busy for the five minutes that it takes them to reach level 2? If we had an army of angels programming away for a century, it could not be done!”
To the first part I say, 'yes,' and to the second I say, 'with a change in the design philosophy it could be done with a reasonable amount of work.'  Granted, it will be more work than is currently put into MMOs, but that isn't really saying anything as the whole genre has descended into a contest of who can tantalize their player base with these couple of new features in the end-game long enough to keep them pushing through our Everquest knock-off for a hundred hours or so.
But how? That is what this blog is about. Here I will expound upon a concept MMO that I call Orison. I have been working on these concepts for ten years and I feel that I just have to tell somebody about them. I had a dream a while back of building up a video game company from scratch just to make this game, but I can't do that without support any more than I can pick myself up by pulling on my shoelaces.

So read, enjoy, ponder these articles, and possibly you will, like me derive much pleasure in simply living in this world in your own mind.