the cult of Bloodmoon

[DoctorHarte]

I might have to look into that if I'm able to get down there.. uhg.. so farish, but not really.

[Glaumring the Fox]

And for hundreds and thousands of years there have been those who felt that this was all just a bunch of crap. Some people probably thought the drug addicts were just misguided, and some probably thought they were blatant charlatans and con artists.

And, yes, some people did think they were perfectly valid visions from the gods.

For the people doing the drugs, you may be right. For some of the people observing it, and for some of the people trying it out, too, the idea that eating a fruit can make god talk to you is ridiculous.

Look, I'm not saying that your RP is dumb, invalid, immature, naive, etc. I'm just giving my character's personal opinion on the subject of drug-induced divine visions.

Perhaps it is you that would most benefit from eating the fruit of the Bloodmoon.

[Igelfeld]

Not to the point where they get drunk. At least the formal practice of imbibing wine is not intended to make the drinker drunk. Now, let's move away from the real world religions, shall we?

What is pretty clear here is that the guys eating the bloodmoon fruit aren't just taking a few nibbles to give a small boost to their mental faculties. Instead, they are eating it to the point of hallucinating. Sounds like abuse right there.

;D I am a Christian and a relatively devout one at that. "Drunk" is an ambiguous term that needs interpretation, and as it so happens my drinking practices would be condemned by a majority of modern Christians, but that is beside the point.

More to the point Christians don't drink abundant amounts in order to have a religious experience of God, so this is a little different.

I like the idea of Bloodmoon fruit and will be an active member of the guild. It is always fun to write tripy RP's.

[Glaumring the Fox]

Join the cult of Bloodmoon we are the Steppen wolf of guilds. 8) The groovy tune in turn on and tune out of Dwilight, the counter-culture, the beatniks and poets, fear and loathing in Vakreno heaps,  girls in flowered body paint dancing in cages while we watch  fractals explode on the dungeon walls... yeah man

[Glaumring the Fox]

The cult page on wiki has been updated a bit and will slowly change as ideas come along and more members join and add to it.

[Indirik]

Join the cult of Bloodmoon we are the Steppen wolf of guilds. 8) The groovy tune in turn on and tune out of Dwilight, the counter-culture, the beatniks and poets, fear and loathing in Vakreno heaps,  girls in flowered body paint dancing in cages while we watch  fractals explode on the dungeon walls... yeah man

Maybe it's just me, but this is the kind of attitude that turns me away from the Cult of Bloodmoon. The hippie-stoner attitude just completely turns my stomach. I ran into the same thing when people briefly RPd about "Kif", or whatever it was, that was obviously supposed to be marijuana. Instead of trying to RP it in a mature way, they instantly dropped into the hippie-stoner stereotype.

As always, this is just my personal opinion of the subject.

[Glaumring the Fox]

Maybe it's just me, but this is the kind of attitude that turns me away from the Cult of Bloodmoon. The hippie-stoner attitude just completely turns my stomach. I ran into the same thing when people briefly RPd about "Kif", or whatever it was, that was obviously supposed to be marijuana. Instead of trying to RP it in a mature way, they instantly dropped into the hippie-stoner stereotype.

As always, this is just my personal opinion of the subject.

Harsh cards dude, That was a joke... I don't smoke grass at all. I know you seem to really have had a bad experience with drugs or maybe your a cop or whatever, who cares. This isn't an excuse to roleplay stoners online. If you have studied history at all you will know that mind altering drugs, shamanism, cults and esoteric belief, entrail reading goes way way way back in the real world. I am sorry for wanting to add something new to Dwilight and piss off your established order of what is allowed and not allowed, perhaps next time I should make a quasi-catholic religion.

And another thing I had never heard of the word 'Bloodmoon' before until I heard about morrowind, and I made up my bloodmoon stuff before I heard about it, so it wasnt a reaction to Bloodstars etc.

The cult of Bloodmoon offers a different path from the current form of realism based science and history type guilds and offers and outlet for people to add myth and elements of superstition and culture that is outside of normal roleplayed rigid and stringent belief structures that a player will gravitate towards instead of creating a very different and more rich version of how players view Dwilight. I am sure we could explain the Bloodstars like we do in the real world and have a very hard science behind it like Asimov, but isn't it more interesting to say that the world rests on a massive turtle that is floating in an ether. Or perhaps the Bloodmoon fruit allows communication with monsters, or even plant based life on the continents, new monster forms like giant walking venus fly traps that wander regions killing peasants. I know you might disagree with these things and probably have a very basic view of your character and his interactions with the world of Dwilight. I offer a cult of thought that perhaps one day will have generals and leaders of nations asking their high-priests to read entrail and divine objects in order to judge whether an action is approved of by the gods and elements. In order to create interesting culture on Dwilight you have to think outside of the box and be happy that people are trying hard to create different cultural elements that are beyond the norm.

If you think that 'Cult of Bloodmoon' is just an excuse to rp stoners, perhaps you should read Shardik by Richard Adams, or Robert E. Howard Conan or Sumerian history, or even the ancient greeks, or any ancient civilization. From what I reckon the medieval times were ignorant and superstitious times and they believed in many strange things.

If Dwilight was a wild untamed place before the arrival of the eastern empires, then what were the original Dwilli doing during that time? Were they living in safety or were they living like aboriginals in a basically apocalyptical situation in burned out monster ravaged cities? I believe they lived in true dark ages... Glaumring didn't come from another continent of refined laws and culture, he came from the harsh world of Dwilight, he grew up without civilization, he lived in a world of ignorance and terror, it wasn't until the colonists came that he saw the world could be different, yet that doesn't mean he threw out his old beliefs and culture. He now tries to live in this new order and teach the new ones about what existed before Dwilight was carved by kingdoms... At time before when superstition and esoteric belief ruled the world... And still does to this day in Dwilight... So open your mind to the vast realm of imagination.

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Some people like it, some don't. SA has an entire thread dedicated to the many opinions about it, so the fact that this guild even drew the attention of some player with clout on Dwi indicates that it at least might go somewhere.

[Glaumring the Fox]

Here, just to prove I didn't pull this idea out of my ass just so my character could get stoned online with my dudes...

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/psychopharm.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1174878/

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2009/01/07/4350270-good-times-in-ancient-times

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woad

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areca_nut

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entheogenic_drugs_and_the_archaeological_record

http://www.widdershins.org/vol6iss2/06.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruspex

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augur

[Indirik]

or maybe your a cop

doh! The jig is up, you got me. I've been patrolling BattleMaster for 5+ years now, looking for stoners to bust. Expect the black helicopters to be visiting your house any minute now.   ::)

It has nothing to do with the fact that people are PRing using drugs to have religious experiences. I've thought about doing something similar myself. Never quite around to doing it, though.

Anyway, you seem to be stuck on the idea that I object to the RP of the use of drugs in religious experiences, or that I somehow deny that it happened/happens. I'm sorry if I gave that impression, or did not make myself clear. I am have no problem whatsoever with the fact that these things did happen, and probably do still happen. Nor do I object to people using this in RPs or religious experiences. Where I get derailed is the manner in which these things are handled.

Take, for instance, the short-lived "Nomudou" religion on Dwilight. They had religious experiences after getting completely wasted. Their priests were "Hosts" and "Servers", and their noble followers were "Patrons". Their founding temple was "The Central Church and Tavern". You want to create a religion that revolves around mind-altering chemicals and ultra-strong drink? Fine. But handle it in a mature, intelligent way. Especially on Dwilight, where we're supposed to be "serious" about this kind of stuff.

That doesn't mean you can't have some fun with it.  But if you're going to worship pastries (a la Dunkontology) or be a pot-smoking hippie Rastafarian, don't do it on Dwilight.

Yes, I understood that post of your was supposed to be a joke. I didn't think you really did RP Steppenwolf and beatnik poets on Dwilight.

[Glaumring the Fox]

Understood, I appreciate your explanation and in no way do I want 'Bloodmoon' etc to be campy and goofy. I am really into gritty dirty paleolithic fantasy stories along the lines of Shardik. No magic but there is magic in everything but its because the people of the time knew nothing of their world. I hope to emulate that to a degree. I want to use Bloodmoon as the catalyst, but it is not the main drive behind the guild or idea, its merely one way to start this idea of introducing different concepts into Dwilight culture, maybe some will catch on, maybe they won't. Who knows. I do believe that Dwilight is more fun if it really begins to act like a real world, where travelling across the map will actually feel like travelling between cultures and not just between different colored flags.

Hey, todays 4/20 doods 8)

[vanKaya]

I object to Rastafarianian culture being merely a "pot smoking" thing. There's a lot more to Rastafari culture than weed and the fact that you would say it like that borders on religious insensitivity.

I feel like this Bloodmoon cult is going to be a lot more like a Rastafarian "religion" in the sense that the Bloodmoon is a tool that is used to gain introspection into oneself and the universe that reaffirms the teachings of the "church"

Also, on another note, weed was prevalent throughout the middle ages in Europe but especially in the Arabic, Indian and Chinese empires. In the BM world there is nothing that violates SMA about a character smoking "herb" and feeling effects similar to that of marijuana (ie. calm, empathetic, in good humour).

I know my character on Dwilight couldn't deal with all the chaos around him without puffing on his pipe once in a while. But then again maybe that's one of those things in my IC character that reflects my own personal views....

[Nosferatus]

If you use psychoactives, most of them they create a ppsychoses.
Don't suspect to act normal or serious in such state.

I do agree that alot more depth could be given to the way some substances are role-played in BM.
back in the days they didn't know that our brain works on chemcials which are altered thanks to these substances.
They usually thought you where comunicating with the devine.
that the substance is for example the telephone to call to god.
If you'd believe that, you'd never have a recreational attitude towards these (psychoactive) substances.

If there would be Marijuana in the game world, it could be used recreational like alcohol, but not with mind/reality altering plants like mushrooms or ayuahsca or mescaline cactus plants.
Thats a world of difference.

it is interesting to read alot more about native use of psychedelics in cultures.
These cultures tend to be the most interesting cultures with knowledge on some mathers(like on the flora of the amazone) greater than our own. (yes i am serious)
They take there rites very serious and do exactly that  to guide there 'journey' in the right direction.
Music, certain rythems, settings, dosage etc are all very important.
you can't just get in to contact with the gods by taking a single mushroom either.
The ayuasca people in the amazone even made up a complicated chemical combination  for the body to be able to digest the dmt in the ayuasca. Without this almost impossible combination, nothing would be noticeable of the effects. It blocks a certain enzyme that naturally disintegrates/neutralizes the dmt.

Theres lots of very interesting and amazing background information on these aspects of religious ceremonies.
The above almost seems like these people have gotten divine intervention from there gods as discovering this on trial and error base in an area with over a hundred thousand kind of species a square km is just unbelievably incredible.

The funny thing is these people with so much knowledge on there surrounding claim to get all of there knowledge from this ayuasca.
thanks to ayuasca they claim to have developed one of the most important medicines in the world, which they used to inter vainly tranquillize the muscles of monkeys without poisoning them. which is now used by western pharmacy after coping it into a synthetic version, for lots of common diseases or seizures.
Yes lots of very incredible and important (western) medicine are actually invented by these native people!
example: http://www.ehow.com/info-tip_8164909_plants-used-make-tranquilizer-darts.html (detail: the boiling process is extremely dangerous and takes many many hours, the fumes that come of it are deadly).

Please go on with the project, but seriously go into reading alot about these shamans that exist in our own world.
It's not a simple culture, it's complex and mysterious.
I think that is also what Inidirik means with being mores serious about it.
Cause all of these shamans do take it very serious.

[Glaumring the Fox]

I don't think there was anywhere I wasn't being serious, asides from when I was kind of mockingly joking Indirik and Artemesias kind of knee jerk reaction to my forming of the guild. I had no previous knowledge of any ingame guilds or religions that used 'Kif' or 'divine wine' or whatever. It was something I came up from my own experience living in Taiwan with people chewing betel nut and some other shamanic things and rituals I saw while living with Taiwan aboriginals in the south of Taiwan on a small island called 'Orchid island'.

I have a blog that I maintain about my time there, its mostly pictures and a few videos of life there and things I was doing. Not much writing yet, but mainly I have mixed and fused my roleplay with my life there and kind of made Glaumring into a Dwilight aboriginal forced to co-exist with outsiders and different cultures. Anyways the link is there if anyone interested in understanding my mind a little bit more.

http://lanyuisland.blogspot.com/