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Terentia said:

The Quizmaster turns their attention to the Divine.

1) In the spirit of Ephemeral Season closing, what motivated you to apply to be an Ephemeral?
2) What is one suggestion that you would give to anyone who may apply to be an Ephemeral in the future?
3) Who have been your favorite Ephemeral characters (note, not the admin because that is rude, but like, the persona that they portrayed; e.g. Kidaen, the Empyrean Bard)?
4) What has been the most enjoyable thing you created or contributed to the game? Bonus points if it was something that you did as an Ephemeral.

1) It's a combination of things. But at a certain point, I realized I'd achieved everything I wanted to as my old characters. I didn't feel a desire to be a player anymore, but I still wanted to add to the stories of Lusternia and its world. And this has been very fulfilling for me to do as an admin. The pressure is different in Havens; it's to be creative and engaged, instead of doing revolts, or politics, or what have you.

2) Patience is the key to success! Do a little bit every day. It is easier to tell yourself "I will write one room desc a day" than it is to say "I will build this whole thing in one weekend." Slow and steady really does win the race.

In a similar vein, don't be afraid to talk to other admin. We are a small team and it helps to have people to bounce ideas off of, especially at the start when you can't interact with players yet. No one will think less of you for not knowing how to do something. In fact, most of us are delighted to teach you what we do know.

3) Too many to name! The tea cup crashing escapade of Calythan and Tariel stands out.

4) When I was approved to take on Lantra, I was the final member to join the Holy Trinity of Celestian Goddesses. @Carakhan and @Terentia were in the middle of discussing the new guild revamp, and I was catching up to speed. I loved a lot of the ideas they came up with, so I was interjecting random final ideas as the newcomer. I had a few accepted contributions that I'm especially proud of.

One, the new name of the Magisterium. Two, the incredible tale of Saint Hamos, the Dragonslayer, which started out as me making a silly joke when everyone was debating what to do with the Ecclesiarchy tutor ("Hamos beats up a dragon one-on-one in mortal combat, guys. #SaintHamos2020"). This quickly became a much beloved idea and eventually an integral plot device for the guild revamp event. He'd be the first kephera saint! And not just any saint, but a kephera who had already boldly defended Elohora in the first guild revamp event, and then established the Ecclesiarchy, which was now being born anew as the Magisterium! What a way for the guild to go out with a bang!

I also got to write the kaiju fight scene between the massive water elemental and the blackened dragon. Seeing Celest cheer for a giant water monster as if it was a wrestling event was amazing. Sorry I killed your dragon, @Drocilla.

Ayisdra said:

Terentia said:

The Quizmaster turns their attention to the Divine.

3) Who have been your favorite Ephemeral characters (note, not the admin because that is rude, but like, the persona that they portrayed; e.g. Kidaen, the Empyrean Bard)?

As a general question from this, sometimes it feels Ephermeral characters are sometimes more loved than actual role you take. That everyone seems to go 'oooh, I wonder what is happening' when an ephemeral shows up, regardless of their 'org', whereas generally only the elder's home org will care about them when they show up.

From an RP pov, Do you feel like it is easier to be a full on god than an Ephermeral because of this small pool of people that care when such a being is visible?

I think it is 'easier' to be an ephemeral in the sense that your story is meant to be brief. It is not meant to inspire debate or invite controversy. You're not guiding members of an org in any meaningful capacity, just learning about the org and exploring its roleplay to broaden your knowledge of the game's world. It's meant to be a low-stakes role that allows you to get used to roleplaying a character again.

But it's easier, to me, to RP an Elder God because they hold strong histories, grudges, opinions and expectations. My ephemeral role did not have any of those things, but Lantra does in spades. And I find that more interesting and compelling to work with than my old ephemeral persona, and more rewarding as a result.  

Terentia said:

I might as well answer my own questions...

1) I was a generally lone player--I wasn't really connected to many people, even though I was a part of a family. But for the most part, I was doing a first-person campaign in a multiplayer game. So once there got to a point where I felt like there wasn't anything more interesting to do as a player, it felt natural to apply to the Havens. I think it was a smart move on my part. My time in the Havens, and then playing other roleplaying games, made me realise that I am not much of a fan of being a "player." Like, it's fun and whatnot, but I think I get a greater enjoyment by having a bird's eye view. 

Sounds eerily like me, except my epiphany was coming to terms with the fact that I simply don't enjoy/derive fun from MUD combat and having to start a new character to really let go of that.

I also have to second Ydryin, because he was such a great concept and I got sad when he stopped coming around because that was the soft signal that the story with his sister was going to lull into the background.

I might as well answer my own questions...

1) I was a generally lone player--I wasn't really connected to many people, even though I was a part of a family. But for the most part, I was doing a first-person campaign in a multiplayer game. So once there got to a point where I felt like there wasn't anything more interesting to do as a player, it felt natural to apply to the Havens. I think it was a smart move on my part. My time in the Havens, and then playing other roleplaying games, made me realise that I am not much of a fan of being a "player." Like, it's fun and whatnot, but I think I get a greater enjoyment by having a bird's eye view. 

2) There is a lot of advice that one could give for future Ephemerals; I think a lot of them will revolve around the task of creating that barrier between your former player experience and this new administrator experience. But I think the thing that I find really more helpful is trying to remember to keep things simple. In Havens, you have a lot of tools to play with, which means when you are designing or imagining new quests, areas, etc., it might be easy into what I have been calling "trickiness." I think that bogs a lot of the design down and maybe even makes the learning curve of learning our programming language more difficult. Lusternian players, I think, really value story versus "tricks," so it is always better to have a clearer story that you want to tell rather than trying to do a lot, mechanically. 

3) I mean, I mentioned Kidaen, so it is definitely Kidaen. I always enjoyed his plane-wide message about bards being strangled as they countdown for the Free-for-Alls. I really thought Ydryin, the Scorched Hamadryad was cool. 

4) I was the one who attempted to do the mirror puzzle in the first Isikathi event with the timequakes. This puzzle is something that is really quintessential to video games, so it was really fun trying to figure out how to translate the operations into our programming language (which was kind of difficult and did end up breaking when players were interfacing with it). I've come to conclusion that programming weird puzzles or other elements from games is something that I really enjoy, and I hope to both revise the original puzzle and make it more streamlined, but also to add other things in the future.

Ayisdra said:

As a general question from this, sometimes it feels Ephermeral characters are sometimes more loved than actual role you take. That everyone seems to go 'oooh, I wonder what is happening' when an ephemeral shows up, regardless of their 'org', whereas generally only the elder's home org will care about them when they show up.

From an RP pov, Do you feel like it is easier to be a full on god than an Ephermeral because of this small pool of people that care when such a being is visible?

I think one of the differences here is actually no longer an issue: affinity. I think because of the nature of Ephemerals, they were able to really exist "outside" their "home" org to a greater extent than the Gods, which might have allowed them to be more "beloved." It'll be interesting to see if that changes, especially since now we have Gods able to take on players from different orgs more liberally or have Gods who are more interested in interacting with folks outside their home orgs. 

I am not sure if it is much easier to be a God than an Ephemeral in this regard. And I say that because it isn't clear to me if visibility and care are translated or related terms. This got brought up above, where I think both Gods and Players need to negotiate interacting with Gods when they become visible or not. I think Ephemerals get to be more "freer," if only because their entire purpose is to be fleeting and somewhat carefree.