Death

[Aeriale]

I (Aeriale) had a conversation with Anabeth and Jake, a night or so ago (Sunday?), and the topic turned to whether of not we're dead. I haven't really talked to many people on this, so I was really surprised to hear that Anabeth and Jake were so insistent: we died, and the good doctor, who is also a necromancer, apparently, brought us to life.
I was just wondering if this is official Skotos stuff, or if it was just that a whole bunch of people sincerly believe it. Cuz that changes a lot of stuff for me. I have to make up a death for Aeriale, and I can't think of a thing.
I also don't like what Anabeth said about why we're here: to atone for our sins. It's funny, I've always despised being afraid people will get offended, but, here I am, getting offended. For us Christians, that's Christ's job. I realize it's a game, but I don't want to play that I'm atoning for my past sins. And what happens when we're done with that? We get to go to the Inner Bailey? Anyway, like I said that night, who died and made the Queen God? (Actually, since that's not very period, I asked what gave the Queen the right to decide this, but it's the same thing.)
So, basically, I'd like to have Skotos' endorsement on some of these things. I just want to know what is the game and what is ideas and rumors and thoughts and RPing. So I can adjust and RP right.
Thanx guys,
Aeriale

[SamW]

One of the interesting things about life in the Castle is that the players really don't have any idea what the truth is.

Some people believe that the characters are all dead, and have been returned to life (of a sort) within the Castle. Others believe that the characters were snatched from their mundane lives at a moment of crisis and transplanted into the Castle.

There are probably at least as many ideas of how and why characters come to live in Marrach as there are players - but so far no one has the full story.

To me, that's one of the wisest moves yet made by the fine folks at Skotos. When the mythology of a game becomes defined, options are inevitably removed. But in Marrach, because there is no definable right or wrong, people are able to roleplay their conflicting ideas effectively.

Now, maybe I'm wrong and someone does know the truth, but somehow I think it will be some time before we really understand the Castle and its inhabitants.

Just my $.02,

SamW

[Atama]

Ok, lemme tell you this much...

I have alot of info about how people got to this castle. This is from Lith, and that's about as official as it gets. http://www.skotos.net/ubb/smile.gif Yes, we all died, and were brought back to life. If you and Zero ever get to finish your Remembering, we can figure out how best to handle your death.

As for the atoning for sins... That is not necessarily official, as far as I know. And, even in-game, from what Zero understands, it isn't totally to repent for sins either. You can talk to him in-game for questions if you want (alot of people do).

And, by the way, I am a Christian in real life too. And I take these things seriously as well. I am pleased that Skotos has taken such a nuetral stand in regards to religion, which most RPGs do anyways. And you don't have to RP anything you don't want to. Look up Zero, I will help you out.

[Darren Brimhall]

I'm more enclined to believe that we were snatched from somewhere in a moment of crisis (as SamW suggests) because there are just too many odd factors that don't add up for me (why is there food, clothes, romance, ect., ect.).
I am willing to talk about what I believe is going on in Marrach, but off board. To post it here may screw things up for a lot of players, and I don't want to be the cause of such a occurance.

Darren Brimhall

[Aeriale]

Well, I'm still as confused as ever. I only wanted to know so I could Remember my death, if at all necessary. I don't want to. I'd prefer that we are brought here for the Queen's own purpose, no matter what that is. (My own OOC idea is that it's a foul purpose, but, that's not something you should say in-game.)
Anyway, Atama, thanx for the offer, but, I don't want Aeriale to Remember a death unless it's necessary. Give Anabeth and Jake and all them something to think about. Let's by all means continue the session, but, for now, Aeriale didn't die. (Even if she did, I wouldn't want to do it now.)

So, thanx everyone, I guess I can get on with her happy little exsistance knowing that she doesn't have to have died. http://www.skotos.net/ubb/smile.gif Thanx!
Aeriale

[Avenger]

Being able to reanimate the dead is a common theme in fantasy games, and although they usually end up as a perversion of life rather than life itself, perhaps the Queen and her minions has exceptional power and sorcercy and are truly able to ressurect the fallen(Or are we perversions of life?).

Being naturally suspicious, I suspect the Queen and especially the Royal Sorceress is ressurecting us as part of her plan of "preparing" us for some darker end.

Then again, I'm naturally a bit paranoid.

[Atama]

That's fine, Aeriale. Not everyone has their full memories, even after multiple sessions. Your background is entirely up to you, and you can do whatever you want with it. As a matter of fact... Even if you had died, perhaps it occured while you were unconcious, or in a trance... Not everyone who dies is aware of it at the time. Also, perhaps something happened to you to make it appear like you died, and it was all a mistake? Just giving you a couple of ideas to play with. http://www.skotos.net/ubb/smile.gif

[cedric]

Now for my 2¢.

Who's to say that we all came here the same way? Maybe whoever brought us here tries to snatch us in a moment of crises, but sometimes misses and has to collect and raise a dead body instead. Perhaps a few of us have materialized here as an embodiment of the subconscious thoughts of the rest of the people here. Some of us perhaps used to live right here in the castle, but for some reason decided to sacrifice their memories in order to hibernate for thousands of years to find out what would become of the castle. Perhaps some of us are here because whoever it is we call a god or gods has commanded us to atone for our sins by living among others in this place. And if that's true for one player, then why not have another who led such a saintly life that they have been given a chance to live a second life where they can experience all the sin and debauchery that they denied themselves before.

By not giving the players any concrete rules about where the characters came from, Skotos has freed us to decide for ourselves where we came from.

Personally, both characters that I play remember their deaths in vivid detail - it was the first thing either of them could recall. I also decided for plot reasons that both of them would remember, in vivid detail, much of their lives in very little time. And it's worked very well, so far.

So go wild!

Cedric

[Darren Brimhall]

A good gambler will never reveal what his hand is, be it gold or garbage. The answer of why the characters are here is a excellant motivator for action.
But I wonder, how will Skotos manage to work all the seperate character stories to keep Marrach interesting?
Or, what will they do to motivate characters into doing more than just wander around the castle? Some of us (admitingly me)need a little push upon hitting the dry spell. Right now, Jayland's looking for a invitation to the Winter Ball. He's too polite to simply ask another character if they have a spare invite, but I'm not expecting one to magicly appear out of thin air or be found on the ground (which would prompt him to seek out it's owner....
And speaking of finding things on the ground, a lot of us are becomming very untidy leaving food and wrappings on the floor. We all should be a lot neater than this..

Darren Brimhall

Darren Brimhall

[Aeriale]

Cedric, I was going to quote some cool things in your post, but the whole thing was just too long.
That's awesome. Thank you. Now I can RP with a light heart, knowing that just because Anabeth and Jake say we died doesn't mean we did. Or that I did. http://www.skotos.net/ubb/biggrin.gif
Thank you, again.
Aeriale

[ShannonA]

Originally posted by Aeriale:
I was just wondering if this is official Skotos stuff, or if it was just that a whole bunch of people sincerly believe it...

Castle Marrach is like life. You have to decide yourself what the answers to the big questions are.

I've heard some people say that they were reborn in Castle Marrach, others that they were taken from a previous life in some moment of crisis, and still others say that they were created from clay. I've heard some people say that they are in Marrach to atone for their sins, others that they are there solely for the Queen's entertainment, and still others say that some greater good has brought them to this place.

What is truth? What is wistful thinking? What is misunderstanding? What is falsehood?

That's one of the themes in Castle Marrach: finding the answers to mysteries.

Some people in the Castle may know some answers ... or at least their answers to some questions. Is Launfal's answer the truth? Lith's? Evayne's? Nadira's? All of them? None of them?

That's your decision.

Shannon

[Kas Sommers]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Darren Brimhall:

And speaking of finding things on the ground, a lot of us are becomming very untidy leaving food and wrappings on the floor. We all should be a lot neater than this..

Charmiam always chastises others when they drop things on the ground 'That makes such a mess for the other guests, and the servants don't seem to clean up as often as they should.' She is not backward about speaking up. People usually pick up their stuff, or she picks up stuff herself and puts the towels in the hamper, and gives trash to servants etc. ... keeps the place tidy and Charm would rather walk about in a tidy castle than one littered with dirty towels and old bandages.

"Charmiam"

[Atama]

Charmiam, you need to start up your own guild.

"The Clean Castle Society", the guild members can wander the castle, picking up garbage, cleaning the windows, scrubbing the floors...

I'm sure that the other guests will appreciate it. http://www.skotos.net/ubb/smile.gif

I love a game that is so realistic that people actually get concerned abotu keeping the place neat. (Then again, in Everquest I used to always pick up junk that people left like grubs and rusty weapons and destroyed them, so I'm the same way.)

A side note... I was in the Tailor's room a couple nights ago, and I saw a pile of over 20 sets of linen wrappings! Are there really that many newly Awakened showing up?

[ShannonA]

Originally posted by Atama:
A side note... I was in the Tailor's room a couple nights ago, and I saw a pile of over 20 sets of linen wrappings! Are there really that many newly Awakened showing up?

Yes. 300+ players have tried the game out in the last week.

Shannon

[Le]

I also don't like what Anabeth said about why we're here: to atone for our sins.
I did not say we were here to atone for our "sins", i said we were here because the queen wanted us here,and she gave us a second chance,at what?well thats up to you but dont put words into my mouth. as for being awakened from the dead?well just look at character generation for that,to me it is cut and dry.Plus i was told by my husband who did the character generation drawings that they were to be of a necromancer,and necromancers raise the dead.
thats my 2 cents

[Darren Brimhall]

It's quite possible that many characters are here for different reasons.
The big question is why?
And that's the mystery we must solve in our own seperate way.

Darren Brimhall

[Le]

oh btw, the who died and made the queen god comment?
well believe wht you like in this game. however in history the kings and queens of the past were considered to be dieites,hence you were never allowed to look them in the eyes because you were only mortal and that would be looking into the eyes of god. They dictated to the churches(henry 8th) etc,and this isnt an isolatd incodent...it had been happening for centuries the byzantine era is a prime example for the kings were worshiped along with Christ.

[Aeriale]

Anabeth, I'm sorry about the putting words in your mouth, I didn't mean to do that, but that's the way I remembered our conversation. I coulda sworn that's what you said, but I guess I was wrong. No offense meant.

However, what you said about the royalty/deity thing, that's not true. Maybe some were, but, a lot longer ago than Henry 8th.
(A note on Henry 8th: He wanted a male heir, and his first wife didn't give him a son, so he wanted to get rid of her, but the Catholic Church didn't allow divorce, so he started a new religion, the Church of England, which was a carbon-copy of Catholism, except that divorce was allowed.)
Anyway! The kings in the period of time you alluded to, if they were good rulers (which, most of them weren't), they were loved, but not considered diety. Most sucked at their job, and either got killed by their relatives, or the people revolted and overthrew them.

There may have been kings that were considered diety, and worshipped, but if so, much longer ago than what you were talking about. I've read it in fantasy books, but never in history books.
Sorry about all this. (I can't really give a good excuse that doesn't sound prissy or 'holier-than-thou' or anything like that, so I'll just apologize.)
Aeriale

[KathyN]

I think, as with relegion, death is a topic that we will have to agree to disagree on. And as to our form of government, my understanding regarding the Queen and her rule is that monarchs rule with the advice of their counselors, but if they are at all competant or strong then they have the final say. Also they rule by the grace of God (or the gods depending on what mythos you use) so their word is pretty much consider to be as if it came from the Deity. So yes... the gods do give monarchs their authority to govern over us! http://www.skotos.net/ubb/wink.gif

[Aeriale]

Kathy, I agree with that. Yes, the monarchs rule by divine right. That does not make them God (or whatever).

I'm getting a headache from this, so, I'm going to have to just live and let live. Right?

Later,
Aeriale

[Monkey]

I just wanted to second KathyN real quick (okay, real long http://www.skotos.net/ubb/wink.gif ). In Europe (which Castle Marrach strongly resembles), monarachs were/are often assumed to have 'divine mandate' to rule. This means that the divine, be it God, a host of gods, mother nature, karma, or whatever, is thought to back the monarch in whatever they do. In olden times, to go against the monarch was to go against the will of the divine.

This is why the monarch's closest heir gets to be the next monarch. They most closely have that bit of divinity that gives them the right to rule.

If you trace certain royal families back far enough, they often state that they really are descendants of various deities. While some geneaologists today say that whoever first compiled this information just made it up when they couldn't trace back any further, people back then really did believe that King so-and-so I was the great-grandson of Odin (or, if they didn't believe, they kept silent, because no remembered who his real great-grandfather was, and he had a bigger army).

Back on memories and death:

Aeriale, you don't have to remember anything you don't want to. Some characters remember detailed histories, and others remember no more than what the game provided for them in the beginning. I believe some folks even ignore those, and pick different memories entirely. Play in whatever way is fun for you.

--Monkey

[StaciD]

On the deification of rulers: it was really not uncommon in ancient cultures to consider their rulers divine. Most famous, from a Western point of view, were the Pharoahs of Egypt, who were considered to be the embodiement of Ra. Roman emperors were treated as dieties after their deaths. Many other, more primitive cultures believed in very strong ties between the divine force and the king of the land. The Celts come immediately to mind, and though I'm less familiar with their mythologies, I believe the same can be said of Chinese and Ancient Native American cultures.

More recently, the French kings of the late Middle Ages through the Rennaissance and right up to the Revoltion (all those Phillips), while not said to be gods themselves, ruled according to "divine right" and were thought to be the closest thing to God you could find on earth (with the possible exception of the Pope. http://www.skotos.net/ubb/smile.gif ).

I'm very interested to see this conversation develop, because one of my other hats is as the editor of a critical fantasy zine (http://www.phantastes.com). where we cover topics such as how relgion and mythology work within the fantasy genre. It's easy to brush away comments such as Aeriale's initial post with something like, "It's a Fantasy. There are no Christians in this world, so it doesn't apply." But that disregards the fact that some of the greatest fantasy written (namely, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings) have been very potent commentaries on religion, and Christianity in particular. While fantasy may seem to be escapist and all about other worlds, the best fantasy has a great deal to say about our own world.

Of course, most people aren't looking for that kind of deeper meaning when they are playing a game. But one of the things that attracted me to Skotos from the start was the emphasis on story telling. Castle Marrach is much more than whacking things with swords, or collecting treasure, or gaining levels. There is no way to win the game. Rather, each of you has joined us to interactively tell a single, grand story. If we do our job right, maybe some of that deeper meaning will be there after all...but it will be something created by you, the players, who are as much the authors of this story as we are, not just something we hand over to you.

Aeriale, I can't answer your questions right now, because the things you're asking are some of the basic mysteries of the castle. Most of what you've heard is speculation from other players, as we have not yet gotten to the point in the story where these questions are answered. Even when we do answer them, when you learn the real reasons why you're in the castle, it doesn't guarantee you'll learn any sort of Metaphysical Truth. As Shannon said, that's usually something each of us has to figure out for ourselves.

Of course, this is just a game. http://www.skotos.net/ubb/smile.gif We haven't set out to make any grand statements of theology or metaphysics, but are only trying to provide a dramatic backdrop for our story (and each of your characters' personal stories) to unfold. I hope you'll keep talking to us (or at least to me http://www.skotos.net/ubb/smile.gif ) as the story develops: I'd like to know more about how the story affects you on a personal level.

Staci

[Atama]

Well, since such a lively discussion about royalty and divine right to rule has popped up, I can't help but stick my nose in this.

I believe that Queen Vivienne is in a position that most real-life monarchs never found themselves in. So far, the entire world basically consists of the castle itself. Nobody can leave, whether it is due to a hostile environment outside the castle (which means being stuck in the castle is a good thing) or because the Queen wants us to stay there for her own agenda (in which case we are basically prisoners). Within this one-castle world, she has an ultimate authority. She has no other rulers to contend with, and noone within the castle can dispute her commands without commiting treason. Since her authority is absolute, as far as authority goes she is quite close to divinity.

She also has at her beck and call a powerful sorceress, an alchemist, a necromancer, and possibly a wizard. That means that, at least indirectly, she has the ability to call on some very powerful forces, giving her another sort of absolute authority. This also puts her on par with divinity. (I've never heard of her having any supernatural powers herself, besides having prophetic dreams... but nobody really knows that much about the Queen yet anyways.)

So, although I do not think of her as a literal Goddess (and neither does Zero), she does have some of the properties that can be attributed to divinity. I don't think that she is considered to literally be one, or that she has any sort of divine right (the official religion of the castle seems deistic, which means that there is no actual "God" but that there is a general "life force" that runs everything, or that "God" is the universe itself). But since noone has even seen the Queen, who knows?

[Aeriale]

Atama, hon, no matter what, it's a bad thing being stuck here. Remember, we were snatched from our own seperate worlds. Which means that, even if there is something terrible beyond the castle walls, we are still her prisoners. Yes, it's better here than out there, but we wouldn't even be here if it weren't for the Queen.
http://www.skotos.net/ubb/smile.gif Aeriale

[Paul]

Originally posted by Aeriale:
no matter what, it's a bad thing being stuck here.

Harwood thinks that the castle might be the best thing that ever happened to him. The last thing he remembers is everything he ever had burning down to the ground. He wouldn't want to return to that scenario when he gets free room and board. Plus, he can make snow angels (and maye someday, snowballs and snowmen) all year round. To Harwood, that's a bonus on top of an already sweet deal.

*clink, clink*

Paul (Harwood)

[Atama]

It depends on your situation. Zero, for example, lived basically a miserable life, in which he had pretty much no friends, only one loved one (who was terminally ill, bedridden and eventually mute) and died young in a most unfair and painful way.

Now, he is in a castle where he is liked and respected, with many friends, a woman he loves very much, and servants waiting on him constantly. To him, the castle is a futuristic wonderland (he's from ancient Greece after all) full of magic and romance. You couldn't force him to leave. http://www.skotos.net/ubb/smile.gif

[Aeriale]

Well, no, Aeriale is quite content to be here, she just resents the fact that the Queen ripped her from her very happy life. And the fact that she'll never she her children again.

How is snow all year round a blessing? I don't get it!

~A

[Atama]

Make snow angels with Punzel, Harwood and Sara and you might like it better. http://www.skotos.net/ubb/smile.gif

[Avenger]

My character comes from Naggarond, and is quite suspicious of everything and anything. He has a mild phobia of closed places, thus he keeps looking for a way out of the castle.

[Aeriale]

Naggarond?

[Avenger]

Its an fairly evil place, where assasination is an accepted means of promotion(so as long as you do it subtly enough), and where blackmail and scheming is daily.