Drow - Getting Faithed

[Velius]

I was wondering how you get faithed as a drow. If more drow brought into the faith, it'd be awesome. Considering that every drow is supposed to follow Lloth (I don't think you can follow Selvetarm or any of the other drow gods), I think that it would be a good idea if like once a month (which is an in-game year) there was a graduation ceremony like in the R.A. Salvatore novel Homeland. During said graduation Lloth hopefuls would get faithed. The graduation would generate a lot of RP, it could take place the last friday of each month, and it would be supervised by the staff. What happens during said graduation would be discussed by all.

Not everyone would get faithed on the fly though either. There is a requirement that you be level 10 in order to enter the academy, and you would have to have classed/graduated in order to be part of the event. Those who are already faithed can help in the graduation, such as in the novel Homeland when the houses sent members of their house to help train other drow in the academy to demonstrate their power.

This would help get more drow faithed, which in turn, would raise the drow population. You wouldn't have to worry about it taking away from surface RP because, like all other drow events, would take place on fridays, and a lot more drow would get faithed.

[Duranamir]

I personally am against mechanistically giving faith membership to all Drow, it should be a goal to be RP'd for like with every other faith. But I do understand the current issues all too well.

To help in the general discussion I am going to state the current situation as far as Drow and faithing goes before stating my own opinion of a possible solution.

Current situation:

There are currently 4 FM's of Lloths faith these are the Matron Mothers of the 4 great houses. They are as far as i am aware auction characters and not played very often. However from my experience when they are played they are played well .

I am not aware of Lloth as a deity having an active player behind them thoug i could be wrong/unobservant.

The only method currently of getting faithed for non priests is via the application system. This does work but i would not suggest this as the best method of resolving the issue.

Possible solution:

Appoint one or more priestesses to a position such as head/deputy head of the academy and give them the powers of an FM. I personally think that this should be a political appointment as it would give the priestesses something to scheme and plot over and therefore be a spur to ongoing RP. This is a position that exists in the canon source and i can see no reason why it should not be given to a player. It would not disturb the current house structures or prevent the Matron mothers from faithing the members of there own houses if they so wished.

Duranamir

[Caelnai]

This has been discussed here and here.

As I understand it, Matrons do NOT have players, so we depend on kindly imm-intervention to see a Matron. For drow this has the same effect as an absent FM in the surface faiths...noting drow generally only have 1 faith to pick from.

BUT I have found that imms notice active new drow and create an RP to get them faithed after a couple months at the latest. This is a lot faster than intervention for many surface faiths! Personally, I don't think the lack of Lloth's FM is as big a problem as the lack of Matrons and other coded support for Lloth priestesses.

The Matrons are VERY important to drow RP, and their absence has led to the very un-drow reality of the most powerful drow in the game being male (or in one case a male who doesn't follow Lloth!) People say drow priestesses should "just step up" but the reality is the current drow players who have a lock on trade and other things had the opportunity of active Matrons or other active non-priest drow to help them grow powerful. That's just not available to current priestesses on the rise who struggle to dominate classes who can solo better.

[Gwain]

Possible solution:

Appoint one or more priestesses to a position such as head/deputy head of the academy and give them the powers of an FM. I personally think that this should be a political appointment as it would give the priestesses something to scheme and plot over and therefore be a spur to ongoing RP. This is a position that exists in the canon source and i can see no reason why it should not be given to a player. It would not disturb the current house structures or prevent the Matron mothers from faithing the members of there own houses if they so wished.

Currently female priestesses have a means to be faithed by the code in place (which makes sense because Lolth is the only god a female drow priestess should follow)

Matrons were removed from being playable on pc's for imm sponsored roleplays. Which makes sense, because the pursuit of playing an established literary character goes contrary to this mud's roleplay aspect. You can't be expected to deviate or originate the rp of an established literary character. This tends to lead to workman-like rp.

I like Duranamir's idea, because a single active fm should be given reign over drow faithing, and the establishment of them as academy leader could cement this icly.

As for powerful males though, if anything, the time and dedication that some players put into their drow over others reflects heavily on the amount of power someone has. A fly-by-night player that only logs on once a year will of course be less powerful than others that put time into their characters. This however is pointless when placed into the sphere of drow rp. The world's most powerful drow male should bend knee to a weak priestess unless he wants to die.

[Mele]

Matron mothers are no longer played by players.

Auction characters no longer exist.

[Caelnai]

Currently female priestesses have a means to be faithed by the code in place

That quest was changed a long time ago to no longer grant a symbol. ...unless something has changed recently?

I like Duranamir's idea, because a single active fm should be given reign over drow faithing, and the establishment of them as academy leader could cement this icly.

I'm not fond of the single FM idea. It's hard for surface faiths with a single FM...and I don't think any could ask someone to make their primary character a drow and be fairly available to all drow. (The idea that everyone can get critical spell components through a single PC sort of crashed too. )

I rather like the idea of a semi-organized event to faith drow. That's basically what happens now when some kind imm gets tired of our whining. This way it would allow people to know the schedule in advance to be able to get there. (And anything for an RP meet-up!)

[Gwain]

It has not changed. You may not meet the requirements for it though. If you do and it still does not work. I recommend posting it as a bug report to either the builder email or the forums where appropriate.

[Duranamir]

First things first, a big thank you to the IMM's for organizing an impromptu faithing event for the Drow last night. !

And this does rather prove that an IMM run faithing can work and to be honest i would be happy with this approach especially as a scheduled event.

Caelnai thanks for including the links, my own skills in forum stuff was not upto that .

But i am still going to push the idea of putting Lloths faith on the same footing as surface faiths a little further. My main reason for this is as a spur for Drow priestess RP. Drow are by there nature and faith fiercely competitive and it would give the priestesses something to compete for. This may help with the current stagnation among high level Drow as well because of the political manoeuvrings around such an appointment.

As far as males being more powerful than they should be. I am not actually in agreement, while I suppose Duranamir or Solaghar for example could beat a priestess in a fair fight that is NEVER going to be allowed to happen. A priestesses power is through her position as a direct mouthpiece of Lloth, not to mention the fact that they are all nobles as well ! it is not through any game skills/level. Duranamir as a matter of principle defers and grovels to even a lowly level 10 priestess straight out of the academy. He is a commoner, and any priestess could order him killed if she felt she had good enough reason, and he knows it !.


Duranamir