I think to anyone outside the highest circles of the Church or realm, it all came as a very sudden explosion. It was literally almost over by the time I actually caught up with all the letters and had a chance to start responding to events. I mean, I knew that there had been tension between Selene and Caspius, but they seemed to be getting along fine recently until this blew up all over everyone.
As for Theuderik, it shouldn't matter if his character was well known or not. A priest was murdered, at his own altar, in an extremely brutal fashion and his body was defiled. Holy War or not, that is a marked escalation. I find the lack of furious outrage as a result to be quite the let down, truth be told. I joined Sorraine specifically because of the Church and how it was advertised to be a religion-first, realm-second type of deal, but to be honest all of the dramatic conflict so far has been between the Church and the realm, not between the Church and other churches and it seems like at least half of the Church would rather make nice with other religions than play hardball. Some people are actually blaming Caspius for Theuderik's death...
I wanted to address this letter as an address to all the other ones speculating (I've not been checking forums for... 24 hours.)
Hokay, so! Big message time! I'll split this into two sections: the first as a reply to the quote, the second to everyone else.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$Selene and Caspius were "seemingly" getting along, but were truthfully bottling emotions as to their respective actions. Selene's authority was represented through Azgath and Aeneas, the later being the largest thorn in Caspius' ass. The more angry and zealous Caspius got, the more Aeneas preached of temperance, peace, and tolerance/Ibladeshi power. Selene would usually step in and side 75% for Aeneas, and 25% compromise with Caspius. So as arguments continuously repeated this cycle, Caspius and Selene were growing weary of one another. This is of course biased, but generally how I felt as a player integrating into Caspius' character.
From there, Caspius changed the standings of OoE and Way of the Dragon to evil on his own prerogative, stating at the end "I have an order of Inquisitors at my disposal, let me use them!", and Selene accepted them and said "yeah, lets do that to defend ourselves." So, as the leader of the sooper sekret order (that made me lol pretty hard, Indirik,) Caspius ordered the burnings, thinking
later that they were state sanctioned. Then everything went to hell; apparently, no one liked that.
To address the religion-first, realm-second ideal, that was my overall goal as a player and character; I've argued constantly on the side of religious wars, religious competition, religious authority, and religious intolerance on a continent-wide scale. Heck! My motto below this post is one of your quotes surrounding that very topic! But from what I saw in a good portion of the elder and full member base, it seemed we were throwing away the whole "we preach to the god of war" thing, taking up the "lets be pansies like everyone else" instead. I took it upon myself to stir things up and bring back a piece of our identity
.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$To the several other post concerning the "planned" feel, most of you are wrong. Everything up to Caspius' public letter to the Church of Sartan, outlining the charge of heresy against him by Selene, was completely spontaneous and unplanned. From there, Selene's player and I talked OOCly about the general direction we were going to take, which was "Caspius is going to die." Everything after that I strummed up on my own. Caspius intended to have Mathilda take the throne because she was the one who
BURNED the temples down. He had hopes that she'd live up to his legacy and keep stirring up religious strife, since he was boned by Selene in every way imaginable. It was simply miraculous that Selene also wanted Mathilda on the throne. (Lots of private messages, if you want them posted, I can add them to that page that was linked (
http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Arundel_Family/Caspius/The_Day_Sorraine_Stood_Still)) Also, Caspius felt like he had no reason to live any longer. He felt Sartan beckon him to his death, and after his excommunication, that was pretty much sealed and done.
Selene's player shared some ideas around what he was going to do, but I didn't really tell him how I'd react. He wanted to auto da fe, but I was a priest so it didn't work. He then tried to brand me a traitor in the realm through a call for rebellion, and I responded (without any OOC notification) by exiling her. When I play the game, I assume the role of my character in a very personal way. I try to feel the feelings they would feel, and stick to the character. So Caspius felt OUTRAGED, and I reacted accordingly, regardless of any planning.
About Arke! Well, to those who payed attention to her intro letters in Sorraine, a strong image of rivalry and childhood hatred was displayed between her and Caspius. Arke disliked him a lot, and Caspius hated her even, but the latter respected the conduct of family, while the former continued to insult him. So I had that develop into a more dramatic intensity in order to highlight some key points around Arke's character (since she'll now be my FEI character.) Though I agree it was a very "that escalated quickly" moment, it was nevertheless essential to the plot I had in mind.
Caspius NEEDED to die. That was my overall goal when this all started. He was going to keep on talking with Mathilda if Arke wasn't there, having himself offered a life on the Dark Isle even, and I told myself "Okay, so if Mathilda decides to kill me now, we'll run with that. If she keeps talking and pressing for his exile, Arke's gonna kill him." then boom, Arke killed him.
Yes, Arke was intended for BT (To help Norrel out with his religion, since I contributed,) but Norrel's character f*cked that up ICly by William ordering the inquisitors to kill him. So I had her stay after a long moment of hesitation on the matter (I also had a lot of ideas I wanted to add to the CoS theology that I found lacking, but Caspius WAS NOT the character for the job,) leading to the quick escalation. I felt it the only way to keep playing on FEI with proper cannon, instead of plopping a new character in and simply saying "Oh hey guys!" I'm also sorry for those who found it confusing; I didn't expect it progress so rapidly - everybody was online at the same time, incredibly - and it was tremendously difficult to keep track of everything as we went along. I tried sharing what was necessary between Sorraine and the Church of Sartan, but by the time... I had actual time to do it.... there was too much to share.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$Okay, done. Bedtime.... after I check battlemaster again.
