Found this on my drive today. It's messaging for a previously planned quest featuring a sentient Y'shai training device. Its been over a decade since it was planned, so I give it to you to fuel some speculation on what the Y'shai are up to / think in terms of.

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Thoughts enter your mind, alien and fully formed, "I guard the threshold in the name of Y'shai, the Chosen; those who sacrifice in service of the future. Stand and be judged."

Barbarian:
"Strong! If by strength alone were the Chosen, you would be welcomed here. Yet you act with the greatest arrogance: you are willfully ignorant. You shun the truth of the world as though it might burn you, yet still claim it is fire that moves you. You have my pity. Begone, flee into the shadows of your ignorance. There is no peace to be found here."

Bard:
"Your mind is open and your voice rings clear through the ages, but you look the wrong way. The value of the past does not meet the price the future shall demand. A pity. Begone, return to your joy and your contemplation of the past. There is no peace to be found here."

Cleric:
"Godbotherer, mystic, seeker of the divine. You reach so far and so high to the guiding light, yet to stare too long into the divine is to be blinded by its glare. You will never understand: there is a storm before the lightning, a tinderbox to spark the flame. Begone, return to the comfort of your gods. There is no peace to be found here."

Commoner:
"Eyes dim and future shrouded, yet there is a glimmer of potential. Your mind is as a child's. Look up into the skies and one day you might be worthy. Begone, child. There is no peace to be found here."

Empath:
"You know a secret, but that is all you know. You have betrayed the future to comfort the present. You have given up the wrong things, your sacrifice shall never be complete. Begone, return to your living martyrdom. There is no peace to be found here."

Necromancer:
"There are many things you could understand, but you will never be Chosen. You forsake life and you forsake the gods, how could I dare assume you would give what the future requires? You walk along the path, but your reasons are your own. Begone, play your games and discover your truths. There is no peace to be found here."

Paladin:
"Kindred spirit, but you are greedy. You cling to spiritual pleasures that the righteous must sacrifice. You cannot imagine the future that awaits. Begone, return to the comfort of your gods. There is no peace to be found here."

Ranger:
"Perhaps. You know something profound, yet you do not comprehend it. You are blind. There is yet greater things in the universe than your single world. No, you are not worthy. Begone, to your forests and your simple pleasures. There is no peace to be found here."

Thief:
"Your transcendent virtues are not enough. You sacrifice nothing and are blinded by your greed. You are an affront to what the Chosen save. Begone, return to your hedonism. There is no peace to be found here."

Trader:
"You look into the future but you do not see. There is nothing but profit for you. You do not have true vision, and for this I am thankful. What a terrible thing you would do with the gifts of the stars. Begone, return to your exploitation. There is no peace to be found here."

Warrior Mage:
"Close, so painfully close. Lanivel's children have a flaw: they work in the now. You have dedicated yourself to drama, you are the guardian of the inconsequential. The future comes and you will not make the sacrifice to face it. Begone, return to your hollow duty. There is no peace to be found here."

...

Moon Mage:
"There... is potential."

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

The Traders will not be among the Children of Grazhir.

This is important, even though Traders (and most Moon Mages) aren't exactly clear on what exactly that is and why it's so important.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

The messaging is an artifact of the past, which is why I felt okay with sharing it.

The actual background of the Y'shai is still something that might come up someday.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

Even a bit for commoners, very including. :)






"I, for one, think it's nice to have new folks who are excited and already care enough about the game to offer suggestions. We need more of that." -Solomon

Thanks for being in my corner Solomon, come back soon.

You can add GM posts to the wiki via this template https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Form:Post you don't really need their permission. If they posted it, they're pretty much cool with it (we have over 3000 forum posts on the wiki). Let us know if you have any questions on doing that, the template can be a little weird if you're using it the first time.

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Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

A tangent on a tangent, but waaay back when, GM Kheldun logged a Y'Shai into the Test instance of the game to mess around with some of us, since the NPCs have a bunch of baked-in mechanics to make them difficult to impossible to actually kill. Stuff like attempting to cast harmful spells at them stunning you and resulting in RT plus some sundry other things the GMs could do with them.

I got around this all by using the old version of Dazzle to trap him in 100 seconds of RT.

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Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com

"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

Even body guards have a mythology or narrative.

For the Y'shai in particular, they aren't blindsided by any of the repercussions of their choice. Something invites them to consider that sacrificing their souls and a large share of the pleasures of their mortality for... what, really?

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

>... for... what, really?

A common theme, it would seem. I'm hoping we get to discover more of the whats. Mystery is fun and engaging, but it can easily turn to frustration when there are too many whats. Since the game setting is pure living fantasy, the answers can be just as intriguing and mystifying as the whats (unlike in a setting like, say, Lost).

>Some mysteries are more permanent than others. The Y'shai stuff simply lacks the time and commitment on my part to actually tell the story in event form. Something more like "What's up with the G'nar Pethians and their wacky mystery religion?" is more a mystery for the sake of a mystery and is unlikely to be ever explicitly laid out.

I know plat did some experimentation with forums driven events.

I also know that wouldn't work in prime, but I'd love to see some forums-based lore posts regularly. Stuff you don't have time to fully event, but still 'happens'.

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I'm a badger, I be badgerin'