I have to admit, that the profusion of those messages gives a very poor impression of that set of players. "Hammargays"? Really? Even in an IC message, that's a clearly derogatory and OOC inflammatory remark that simply shouldn't be said.
Many of these other messages, though sent IC, also have a derogatory tone that could easily be interpreted as referring to a player, and not a character. "'the one who cannot be named' behaves like a 5 year old"...
OOC cracks about the chosen realm name: "Or just go full egomaniac and name the realm Silverfiria?" ... again, could quite easily be taken as a poke at the player. Add to that the continued use of RL references as derogatory references to the realm: "Narnia" and "Silnarnia"...
(Aside to Vellos: This is completely different than the "Farronite Repubic" jokes, as the ruler of FR realm actually named the realm that by mistake. If TH had actually named his realm Silnarnia by accident, then I would expect some joking to follow.)
The comment of "handling of Merlin, who continues to prove that he can play his fellow Corians (sorry, Silnarians) like cheap fiddles." as an OOC comment .. if I were a player with a character in Silnaria at the time, I sure wouldn't take that as a compliment.
The whole thing taken together portrays a very childish attitude among the group. I'm not sure if the set of messages provided rises quite to the level of a Magistrates case, but that's just my impression. I could see how someone else might take it like that. And perhaps that's the whole point. If TH is sincere in his complaint, and he's actually that offended by the behavior exhibited, then perhaps we as a community need to take that into consideration, and see what we can do to improve it. As Anaris says, just because one message doesn't cross the line, doesn't mean that a complete set of them, in aggregate, can't cross over that line.
However... This *is* a PvP game. Tempers will get hot from time to time, and there will be some confrontational incidents between players. You *have* to have a thick skin to play these kinds of games. Just like, from time to time, your friends piss you off, you can expect the same thing to happen here.
This one is really a tough call...
