General Clarifications

[Rias]

I thought it would be good to make some clarifications on unclear or misunderstood things that come up fairly frequently, or particularly some understandable uncertainties given the current circumstances of reviving the game and making it work with the newer codebase. Some of this is technical stuff, some is more lore/history-related. I'm going to lock this thread for the sake of cleanliness and with the possibility of continuing to use it in the future for additional clarifications and whatnot, but feel free to start a separate thread of clarification requests if anyone has any!

P.S. Thinking about it, it might be good to have an official list somewhere of confirmed retcons, specifically. That kind of stuff is extra susceptible to confusion and erroneous claims.

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CLAIM: Higher-than-average-quality legacy items being reduced to average quality is intentional.
RESPONSE: False. If you have a legacy item that has a short description of exquisite or what have you but it examines as average, please report it with the BUG command and include a copy/paste of the item's full short description. Try to keep the item in your inventory or in your locker, which will make it easier to identify as the one belonging to you when we go searching for it.

CLAIM: Legendary-quality legacy items that were generated by the RNG crafting quality system have been reduced in quality.
RESPONSE: True. It didn't seem very legendary if it was just a result of random luck, and we want the term "legendary" to continue to mean something rather than have the game be flooded with items that claim to be so.

CLAIM: Item quality doesn't actually affect anything yet.
RESPONSE: False. You can see which mechanics quality affects by clicking here for the wiki article or typing "help quality" in-game. P.S. This is a work in progress, as quality is meant to affect more than it currently does. Here's to the future!

CLAIM: Brotherhood of the Fist is going to be removed as a guild.
RESPONSE: False.

CLAIM: Snowpine Lodge is going to be removed as a guild.
RESPONSE: False.

CLAIM: Wardens of the Grove is going to be removed as a guild.
RESPONSE: False.

CLAIM: Some of the Elemancer and Rook abilities were retconned.
RESPONSE: False. They just haven't had all their abilities (or aspects of their abilities) added back yet. That said, I haven't gone over every detail of the stuff that was added after I left, so there is potential for some retcons if the lore demands it.

CLAIM: The events involving Lapis were retconned.
RESPONSE: False. I haven't yet heard of any Lapis-based event that needed to be retconned (though I haven't gone over all of it with a fine-toothed comb either, so it's potentially possible some weird lore snag might come up that could need to be addressed). Rook Parlour reclaimed their spot in the graveyard, and while I hear Flannigan apparently suffered some major wounds in a conflict with them at some point, we do have some extremely potent healing methods available, so he got better. (Even then, he might get some of the scars back for history/cool factor. The real reason he doesn't have them at the moment is that I just didn't know this had happened, and the version of Flannigan I had didn't have the scars.)

CLAIM: The events surrounding Wellstone were retconned.
RESPONSE: False.

CLAIM: A Blood Cult event was retconned.
RESPONSE: Partially True. There was apparently a location added under the Ravenwood Trail outcrop, but the events that occurred there have been retconned in location only to instead have occurred in the more well-known previously-existing Blood Cult area instead. (I'm very picky about that outcrop for ... reasons.)

CLAIM: The random accidental and ignominious death of Itotia (one of the five Wyrvardn founders) at the hands of a new (at the time) player character has been retconned.
RESPONSE: True. Itotia is alive and well!

CLAIM: Mistral Lake was destroyed.
RESPONSE: False. Mistral Lake is still there, it's just that the people living there aren't allowing anyone else in at the moment. Well, mostly. There may be some people who have a limited form of access, confirming that the location still exists and is still populated with its residents.

CLAIM: Haiban was destroyed.
RESPONSE: True.

CLAIM: Shadgard is zealously intolerant of and bigoted against all things magical or occult, especially sorcery.
RESPONSE: False. Shadgard has always harbored various magic-using citizens (sorcerers included) and has even utilized occult means of various types to aid the town, mostly for defense and security purposes (even sorcerous ones!). Shadgardians are certainly *wary* of the occult however, and some occult powers are forbidden from being *practiced* within the town walls, such as sorcery, due to the potential dangers presented by using it in a crowded population center. (Honestly, pyromancy should probably be restricted as well.) This doesn't mean practitioners are not allowed to enter or live within the town, or that there is some powerful occult-intolerant bigotry on a societal level. Some individuals may be intolerant or bigoted about it, but they don't represent the entire town by any means.

CLAIM: Corvus Outpost is under new leadership.
RESPONSE: True. This should come more to the forefront once more of the critical technical aspects of the game are more fully developed/restored! To help drive their theme home of being the spooky scary villainous types who aren't afraid to show it: yes, the new leader is a bona fide skeletal lich who is making no attempt to hide this fact.

CLAIM: The Corvus Outpost faction is evil just for the lulz.
RESPONSE: False. While we want Corvus to be clearly identified as a villainous/antagonistic faction in the setting both in theme and deed, we also want them to have reasons for being the way they are.

CLAIM: The Corvus Outpost faction is actually made up of tragically misunderstood people who have become wrongly victimized and forced into reluctantly doing the things others claim to be bad or evil in order to survive in a society that has forsaken them.
RESPONSE: False. This kind of thing may be what was the tipping point for some of the people who have joined the faction, but overall, the Corvus Outpost faction is truly an overall nasty bunch with little regard for things like moral or ethical quibbles, or worry over how their goals are going to impact the rest of the people in the Lost Lands. They have motivations and aspirations beyond a mere "we want to be bad guys because we think it's cool," but they're still bad guys in the setting. That said, if you find yourself able to sympathize or even agree with some of their motivations or logic, that's great! Clearly-coded bad guys can (and ideally should) still have some level of nuance to them.

CLAIM: Thaumaturgy is granted as a reward for those characters who are exceptionally good and pure of heart.
RESPONSE: False. Look over the info in this wiki article or view it in-game by typing "help thaumaturgy".

CLAIM: All it takes to use thaumaturgy is to *believe* one is doing the right thing, so technically someone who just strongly believed they were doing the right thing could use thaumaturgy for all sorts of evil acts.
RESPONSE: False. Thaumaturgy is not some manifestation of righteousness or belief in one's own righteousness.

CLAIM: But this is how those scary Lapisians we saw in-game were able to use their powers despite doing some very scary things!
RESPONSE: False. There are also a lot of people who would argue that if you're seeing fire instead of golden light, what you're seeing isn't thaumaturgy. On the other hand: Yes, there are Lapisians that can legitimately use thaumaturgy. This could be taken as evidence that there may be more nuance to the Lapisians and their spiritual philosophy of the Sacred Flame than they've typically been given credit for among the playerbase.