Maroccidens!

[Galvez]

Lets say it was publicity for Barca. I had many discussions on IRC about it after the Zuma went on warpath. Luckily it all ended well.

[Shizzle]

So lesson learned I guess is, the Zuma aren't nice friendly drinking buddies and their lands aren't places to take your family on picnics. They are scary, they are fierce, and they have very long memories.

Nice Zuma propaganda:)

[songqu88@gmail.com]

What, thought they were friendly storytellers? Yeah right, most daimons in my experience see humans as a human would a fly.

[De-Legro]

Interesting. In the early D'Hara days the Zuma seemed much more accomidating, so long as we paid them the proper respect.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

By real world analogy, the early-contact natives of Middle America were fairly accommodating to the future conquistadors. Later, after their gold got stolen, and most of them got killed by disease, guns, and swords, they weren't so nice.

The funny thing about the in-game events is that Asriel Octavius insulted them (I even have the letters saved because it was so hilarious...ly a bad decision), Vesna Valentine stole about 2000 gold from them, Bowie Ironsides walked around crowing about being a bunch of stuff he wasn't, Joash Hamarson refused to bar Bowie Ironsides sanctuary in Summerdale and went so far as to say that they wouldn't bow to anyone (might have said something to tick off the daimons). I think that covers recent events. So, no dead natives yet, but gold was stolen by an outlander, and some of them have unleashed disease-ridden mouths spewing poorly chosen words on the Zuma. That covers 2 out of 3 things so far mentioned that would push just about any civilization to be more cynical and hostile than usual.

Of course, the aforementioned things might not have even mattered, but isn't it much better to think such a connection exists?

[Galvez]

How did Vesna steal 2000 gold from the Zuma?

[Vellos]

How did Vesna steal 2000 gold from the Zuma?

One of the great mysteries....

[Indirik]

Vesna was part of the zuma at one time. I think several players were. Stunts like Vesna pulled, and similar incidents during the invasion, are the reason that pretty much nobody gets to be part of the NPC realms anymore.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

The majority of PCs in NPC realms occurred on BT. In those cases, there were some things I guess. Those events occurred about two years ago and I didn't pay attention to it much until the 4th Invasion. As far as Dwilight is concerned, to my knowledge, only Vesna Valentine and Garret Artemesia have been true human characters in the Zuma Coalition/Netherworld (Dwilight). There was of course Banti of the Zuma, a "human", but played by a GM.

As far as Vesna's actions go, it was handled internally within the "realm". I won't go into it, nor the method by which the gold was taken. Suffice it to say, those in Terran know about the large sum he was carrying, and my character notified I think the judge of Terran shortly after he took the money.

Anyway, there will likely be no more NPC realms on BT, and on Dwilight the Zuma Coalition isn't supposed to distract focus away from fighting among human realms. So the message is: Be proud to be human and fighting each other! That's the spirit of the game.

[Bael]

What, thought they were friendly storytellers? Yeah right, most daimons in my experience see humans as a human would a fly.

Are they in fact daimons? I heard that they were something else.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

There are a lot of rumors and stories, no doubt. It's kind of the point.

If you're interested, go ask around. Other people will no doubt have stories to share. How much you want to believe them is another matter...

[Chenier]

Maroccidens is basically the area south of the Zuma and the Root River.

I have taken to calling the region between the Via Mountains and Maroccidens by the name of Mesoccidens.

The area above that is just "Caerwyn."

I am glad that Maroccidens has caught on as a term; I'm hoping other terms catch on too.

With Asylon expanding to Koshtlom, Terran starting to stabilize after the post-colony shocks, and D'Hara resurgent, it'll still be a hard winter, but next summer should be very fun. I suspect that by next autumn, most of Mesoccidens will be settled by Terran and Asylon (assuming Caerwyn doesn't completely collapse into a mess of monsters and undead and the Zuma don't get feisty), while I have high hopes that Barca will be able to expand given how heavily invested in its success Terran and D'Hara are; and if Terran's north gets more and more stable, we should be able to help Barca more.

I really invested a lot into sending caravans to all corners of the world this "year", I'm thinking we should fare better than last winter. We'll see how long my stocks last... especially since the other cities will probably be wanting slices of it.

[Geronus]

You know, once (and if) Barca and Aurvandil get on their feet, you could have some lovely little wars down there. It's a very nice compact set of regions that has multiple realms already attempting to fill the space. With any luck, it won't become a big monolithic bloc and we'll see some real political competition within the Maroccidens. Seems like an exciting place.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

It'll be a long while, possibly a never, before there are both enough nobles and low enough frequency of monsters to have any human conflicts down there. Aurvandil vs Madina is more due to the origins of Aurvandil, and otherwise would be an unfruitful conflict for both of them. (It is, either way)

Add to that the low income of all regions, and most people would probably get bored doing nothing but sitting in a few regions. That could be one of the reasons why most new characters are concentrated in places like Astrum and Morek Empire, because they can go out and fight stuff rather than monsters and low production all the time.

[vanKaya]

You really underestimate the fun of creating something out of nothing and living a difficult frontier type lifestyle.

On the other hand you're right, it takes a certain kind of person to join one of the smaller realms that don't offer immediate action or an easy lifestyle.