I'm planning on making a heavy armored guy who channels a bit of divine energy, although physical strength is his main thing. He'd be from a foreign, lesser known monastery who train their disciples to strive for physical strength and purity of body, while memorizing thick holy books and living by them. He's here on his holy pilgrimage, and joins you guys since he sees it as a trial. I haven't decided on what God to pick, I can't really find one that combines both wisdom and strength. But does this sort of concept work for you guys? I'm joining really late, so I don't want to disturb what you guys already have going.

Don't worry about disturbing things, the way this RP works is sufficiently organic that it can adapt to just about anything, and when it comes to the character working as a part of the group, I think disturbances would come down to personality and motivations over actual combat ability (and other abilities, for that matter; far from every problem is solved by fighting, even though it might not seem like that sometimes).
A god of wisdom and strength sounds like Deliph, the god of tactical warfare, to me, if it's specifically those two qualities you're looking for. At least I think it'd be the best fit without me having to create a new deity.

Yay, for the first time in 2015 - three days into the year - I'm actually able to connect to the RPGuild again! Happy New Year, everyone!
...Seriously, screw this site. I'm pissed. You can't run a roleplay while only being able to check in on it once a week. I may not post often, but I'll be damned if I don't check on it at least several times a day.
*sigh* Let's see for how long we're allowed to connect this time...

Yup, happy new one.
You're right, RPG is currently not a viable platform for roleplaying. I could deal with the absence of any kind of text formatting (barring extremely basic tools), but these downtimes only seem to be getting worse. We should probably consider alternative sites, temporarily or permanently.

Before RPGuild becomes unavailable again: who is waiting for who right now, and what suggestions do you all have as to what to do about the mess that is the current RPGuild?

I know that Zerul is probably waiting on me to post (I had been unable to due to work and the site being down). While Mahz has said that he is working on the code for the forum to become more stable, we don't know how long that is going to take, so we can face future inaccessibility to the RP. I have a high preference in moving it onto another forum.

M3

The owner is trying to fix it up. It might actually get better.

Yeah, Mahz is rewriting the core of the Guild to increase stability. I'm pretty sure he's also moving it to a better server so that it can handle the traffic it's getting. So if anything the downtimes, once he has finished the updates, will become waaay less common. Hell, when the Guild goes up between him working on it, it is working and loading way more reliably and smoothly.

Oeh... Happy new year, Jack! And happy new year everyone else, too!

@Jack: I don't know whether you've noticed, but I actually did put the editing system pre-alpha up ... some days ago? [There is a login link at te footer of the page - a strange place to keep your login link, but it is also a login link most visitors have no business with.] As said, it is indeed very pre-alpha at the time being, but it is functional. I'll see whether I can get you buttons for HTML tags when I am a bit more awake ... easy enough with singular fields, might need a bit of thinking with cyclic constructs. (Could probably self-invent less and fetch some plugin, but self-inventing is more interesting.)
The test table is generally for either of of us to play around with - see whether some tags work and what not -, but, eh, it might be preferable if you don't touch it while it has this big red "WORKING" written next to it. Undesirable things may happen. Maybe. Who knows? (Mainly confusion; breaking the test table cannot harm the actual Compendium.)
You will also be able to edit things that come up in search shortly (probably once I've reinvented formatting buttons), as well as alter the sidebar (add more categories and whatnot). I'd probably also have to tell you what logic the category/subcategory/sortby fields follow. Put up some kind of explanatory text, most likely, and insert a check for uniqueness. Might do something with the dictionary editing, too, as dictionaries are structured a bit differently.
See whether you can log in just fine? [The session should last for as long as your browser stays open - if you'd like I can add cookies and remembering devices.] And if there is anything I forgot to determine the color of, let me know immediately (I am not sure about the tooltips and scrollbars myself; there may be a thing at the foot of the test table page which has white buttons,, that I know). Else ... have fun editing, I guess? The database has been backed up and it should be impossible to do something worse than delete an entry you didn't intend to delete or break a hider tag.

As for RPG ... I have to agree it has been rather annoying lately. Seems to be a rather common opinion. The only serious alternative that has been suggested (aside of RPA [http://role-player.net], which is vBulletin and tends to hate some devices and is hated by some Internet providers) is Iwaku [https://www.iwakuroleplay.com] - which is a bit smaller site than RPG, and has quite some more things to it than just the forums, but it has been stably up and running, which is something that cannot be said about RPG.
(The only direct complaint I have about the site is the colors used - it took me all of dozen minutes to go from "this looks awfully contrasted" to "the damn thing hurts." The price I pay for good nightvision and being able to tell apart colors quarter of a hue removed, I guess... (I was very inclined to just try looking at it with sunglasses, as I had already absolutely minimized the contrast and brightness of my laptop screen, but sadly both pairs of sunglasses I own were sitting on a shelf at my home more than two hundred kilometers away at that time.) As it turned out, though, I was not the only person to have problems looking at the site, so the admin added another theme (must commend them for listening to their users and acting on what they said) which is at least mostly viewable (barring the neon tags and some gray-on-teal text). Sadly the new theme is light, not dark, but eh, it is something, and I am quite certain that if we specifically asked for a "faded" dark theme, it would be added, too.)
The RP would probably be a bit annoying to move with how branched it has become, but if the majority desired so, I'd wager it could be done. As for me, I am willing to give Mahz's site one more chance now that he is allegedly doing something again, but I am not against moving the RP, either (and will certainly support it, should RPG persist to be more down than up for several more weeks despite the attempts to fix it).

Hrm ... Cast a vote?
To anyone concerned: I have all posts, so at least those are safe.

As for posting order: Legion/ASTA in one collab, Nessa in the other, Ashgan with Jillian, Merc/Rhae in Zerul? Don't think I can post myself, regrettably... I should also have more time from now on. Relatively, anyway. (Right now I may ramble, for I am overly tired. People waking me up at unfortunate times, mostly.)

---

@Veridis Quo: Just in case the site goes down for an elongated period of time (which we cannot say with absolute certainty won't happen), do you have some form of e-mail/Skype/etc you're willing to give out (not necessarily publicly; you can PM me)? It was quite the pain, gathering all the players back up when old RPG died...

Okay, good, I just wanted to be sure that no one was actually waiting for me (particularly in the Zerul-scene, since I was quite uncertain whether Rhaevnn or Merc were actually going to post). I've been pondering whether to post in our collab, but always end up deciding against it due to things having occurred that I figure would be important to Thaler to have a chance to react to, at least, and that the collab has almost outlived its usefulness as the characters there will return to the main thread.

I don't know about a lot of roleplaying sites, but I, too, have noted Iwaku being mentioned here as the destination of a migration from RPGuild. And I'll grant you that while I do not share your problem born from an apparently very acute color-vision (being quite blind to hues myself across most if not all of the spectrum), there are some cases of pretty sharp colors, and when I switched the style to "medium light" and "light"... it was horrible. So blindingly bright. That said I know next to nothing about the site (apart from having observed that they divide their RPs into more categories then RPGuild does and seem more lenient as to what content they allow), but since I have no alternatives, if the players want it, I suppose it would serve as a temporary base for The Prophecy, at least until Mahz gets RPGuild working properly again.

And I hadn't noticed the addition of a login-link at the Compendium, no, but I just went to test it, and while I was indeed able to log in, when I try to access any of the sections while being so I simply get

Unable to connect to database [Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: NO)]

Hrn. That is an interesting error... Not that it were particularly mysterious ... quite the opposite, I know precisely what that means, even if I don't know why'd you get it, as I myself didn't have the issue on three different computers, several browsers each, or even my cell phone with Firefox/FF Beta/Chrome/native browser (excluding closing the browser and trying to directly access the editing section without going through the login).* I believe you were using Firefox (as I recall you mentioning it one time when you didn't have internet) and some manner of Windows?
- It means that either your computer decided to eat the session key, or it wasn't, for some reason, set for the page you're looking at (and thusly tried to connect to the database with the default values). Made the login page session start slightly more aggressive and temporarily added some slight debugging text - if you move to any other category from the login successful/failed page, the very upper left corner (above even the header title) should say "Session set active", and on the next line have a quite a few of seemingly random letters and numbers. See whether it says something; if not, then I'll probably add a few more different connections/sessions and hope that one of them will go through (which is a very common practice, to be fair, since people's computers apparently do not like types of connections and manners of storing session info all the time).

(Will probably also add a terminate session link at the footer of the edit page ... if for no other reason, then it would make logging back in more easier.)

*I was logging in with my own account, but that shouldn't make a difference in the session being maintained. If there was an issue with your privileges or password, it would have said something else.

Edit: Do we still have a Nessa amongst us?

(Hrn... I did remember you were quite color-shade-blind, and hence sort of assumed you probably wouldn't be able to fully relate what I was going at with the colors and contrast, but if both the person who is half-colorblind and the person who lives in a world that is often just too colorful and sharply contrasted have issues, then it probably goes to show that the situation with colors and contrast is bad indeed... In my case, though, the medium-light theme (coupled with the lowest brightness setting possible for the screen and the lights in the room turned on) is the least painful. The dark theme's pure white text, especially with the garish neon tags mingled in (which also have white text on them, despite all the brightness) is just too much - my contrast sensitivity simply cannot take it. Makes eyes adjust to the nice dark backround, which means that anything light is quadruple the brightness... I guess I know how Nightwalkers feel?)

Anyway, vote for migrating/not migrating to Iwaku? At the present, I am neutral, since I am sort of willing to see whether whatever Mahz is doing now works. If the situation hasn't improved after two weeks, I'll probably move my vote.

For moving: 3 (Legion, Mercinus, ASTA)
Neutral: 5 (Shien, Nessa(n/s), Ashgan(n/s), Rhae, Veridis)
For staying: 2 (Yoshua(n/s), TNY)
(10/11)

I myself am somewhat neutral, though I'd prefer to stay. If it comes to moving I will still move with everyone else though. As to Mahz's work on the Guild, this is a sample of how it's going to end up looking.



and a link if you prefer to click rather than view in my post.

WIP Guild

Granted, it's hard to say how long it'll take him to do what he's doing, but if stability improves and it's going to look like that then I know that I at least will be very pleased with the new appearance. Whether or not it is properly functional is something I cannot speak for though, since we'll have to wait to witness that I suppose. In Zerul I believe Shien is correct, since I posted.

Guess we can wait for Rhae and Merc to say whether or not they'd like to reply before you do, DJ :)

P.S. Count my vote as "staying" since I'd prefer to stay.

@All i am so sorry for my sudden disappearance guys, turns out the holiday's were a lot harder for me than I had assumed they'd be and I've been battling a few 'invisible' problems during/since. The one time i did try and drop you all a message to say 'I'm not dead' the site was down and I sort of was too wrapped up in 'me' problems to remember to post. Sorry DJ.

@Shien I am also neutral, I don't like signing up to new sites (makes it too hard for me to manage them all) but I'm happy to trail along with others on this, I do love The Prophecy.

Since we're casting votes I suppose I should chime in. My call ultimately depends on Mahz's efforts and future factors; if RPG stays in its current state (merely talking about stability), then I would absolutely vote to move, because the downtimes are ridiculous. If, however, he can fix them (and especially if maybe we get a few more luxury features down the line), then I would probably be in favor of staying, as it makes things easier, and I've always liked RPG. In practical terms, you could sign me up as neutral or staying, for the time being. If we experience another wave of downtime in the coming days/weeks, I would revise my choice.

I'm neutral in the whole matter of moving. Whatever keeps the story alive. :3

I probably won't leave the site, so I'll halt my CS until you've made up your mind.

It seems that there is a pretty wide agreement that it would definitely be preferable to stay here, but a willingness to endure a temporary move - until this site works properly - if conditions here do indeed prove unsustainable. Collecting the other half of the votes isn't really necessary, I think, since I suspect the opinion will be much the same. So the decision ends up being that we stay, but if more of these downtimes that make RPGuild inaccessible for several days at a time come around, we'll find somewhere more stable to keep the RP active until RPGuild is back in working condition.

It's all right, Nessa; I know that you've had it rough for a long time now, and I've always stressed with you all how real life must take priority over the RP. Although I admit that a post would be extraordinarily welcome, I won't blame you if you have to delay for personal reasons... within reason, of course.

And I am indeed quite colorblind; you may recall some of the earliest maps I made for the early iterations of The Prophecy-RP, and how weird the colors on those were (I've been told that I made the oceans a shade of green back then... teal, I think?). I'm so very happy that most programs nowadays have text that announce the name of colors, which I can then check the definition of, or things I made now would be just as horrid as back then.
I tried logging into the Compendium again, and it does indeed notify me in the corner that "Session set active", but there are no random numbers and letters and it still gives me the exact same message when I try to view one of the sections. I do use Firefox and run Windows 7 (pauses to check) Home Premium, if that makes any difference. Whatever it is, it seems that the Compendium does not like me.

I'm fine with whatever in terms of moving or not.

Just finished my character. I haven't spellchecked twice yet:

The Vanguard

---

Name: Kaedan

Age: 19

Appearance:



Kaedan’s body is a product of what the human will can achieve. Every bit of him is developed in muscle, he is a walking embodiment of strength. He was already blessed with a towering figure, and even with such height was able to sculpt a heavyset body, with every inch hardened flesh. Without his armour, Kaedan seems as though he has stepped out of a painting, or broken free from the casting of a titanic statue. With his armor he looks even larger, but most of his impressive body is hidden away within the metal surface.

The armour that Kaedan wears is thick, heavy, and simple. As a newly graduated neophyte (and now consequentially an initiate), Kaedan does not have access to the lavishly decorated and blessed sets of armour housed by his creed. Instead, what he wears is designed with only function in mind, and as such, looks dull and unimpressive from an artistic viewpoint. It covers all of his vital points with thick plated metal, and gives him a necessary amount of freedom of movement. He carries a one-handed battle hammer and a large tower shield, neither of which are particularly outstanding. On his back is a worn grey cloak, with tattered edges, as it was passed down from a superior. Most of Kaedan’s supplies are kept in an old leather satchel, which is tied around the back of his waist. His only personal belonging of value is a thick tome that hangs from the side of his hip. The tome is of a deep red colour, signifying Deliph. It’s thousand pages are of a stained yellow, and its cover has a few scratches. This is Deliph’s Book of the Soldier, which Kaedan has already memorized from his training as a neophyte. It is one of the many holy books which the followers of Deliph derive their knowledge from, and just like the others, it is a heavy tome.

His skin is tanned, like the colour of sand or dirt, and his eyes are a faded gray-blue. Kaedan’s golden hair is usually messy and unkept, and he supports the beginnings of a beard around his face.

Biography:

Kaedan is an initiate within the Brotherhood of the Cardinal; one of the many religious creeds dedicated to Deliph. This sect has only a few remaining monasteries scattered around the known world. Although their numbers are small, the Red Brothers, as they are sometimes called, have high ambitions and heavy expectations of those who wish to be in their ranks. One who comes across their monasteries will note the unusual number of boulders found within the yards of their churches.

From a very early age, children accepted into the monastery are trained to achieve strength far beyond their years. They exercise in many ways, most notably in pushing or lifting the large boulders commonly found around the monasteries. Weakness of the body is punished abruptly, but second chances are always given. The children are also expected to memorize heavy volumes of text, most of which is dedicated to Deliph’s wisdom, or historical excerpts from wars past. Weakness of the mind is also punished if a student fails to recite chapters accordingly. But just as with the body, there are always second chances given. With the heart, however, there is no room for error. The slightest misjudgement is enough to be met with death.

For the Brotherhood of the Cardinal, purity of the mind and soul are just as important as strength of the body. They achieve this in their pupils through rigorous indoctrination, and every member of the church, from the newest members to the most sacred elders, take part in meditative trances daily.

Due to his physique and lifelong training, Kaedan can carry all of his gear for long periods of time. But during combat, the impact of his gear is definitely noticeable. His armour slows him down and restricts his movement. This limits the amount of fighting styles that Kaedan can employ. Many of Kaedan’s brothers from his sect are trained to value strength over speed, which makes them apt in the roles of fighting in the front-lines to protect others. Like his brothers, Kaedan can call upon the divine favor of Deliph to bolster his capabilities, or support others, but his powers are very limited in this regard.

The toughest challenge for initiates to overcome is the pilgrimage. When a neophyte is ready to become an initiate, he must prepare to leave the monastery in search of strife and conflict. The Brotherhood of the Cardinal believes that only by fighting for good can the follower find Deliph. When a neophyte is found to be ready, his masters will tell him to make his preparations before allowing him to leave. Most students begin their pilgrimage at the age of 17, but Kaedan has only been granted leave for his journey at the age of 19. He does not know why his calling was delayed as such.

Kaedan is just as devout as one would expect, and he spends most of his free time meditating or re-reading his holy tome, as any follower should. But unlike others of his kin, who are known for being harshly judgemental when it comes to moral actions, Kaedan is more willing to let things slide and let others be. The Red Brothers in particular have a vicious reputation for showing no mercy to those who have wronged, even to the point of savagery. Kaedan feels he does not share the same contempt for evil as his brothers, and for this he has been scolded and estranged by his masters and peers alike. As an orphan, he was found and raised by the Brotherhood of the Cardinal. There is very little he knows of the world outside the monastery walls. His monastery was from the deserts to the south-east, which explains the tan of his skin. Kaedan finds the absence of sand finding its way into everything he owns to be comforting, but is still having trouble adapting to colder winds.

...Okay. Legion claims that he still hasn't been able to access the site the entire day, and as such quite strongly prefers to move as, well, not being able to access the site quite strongly hinders one's ability to RP.

---

@Jack: You made Jevog Denum and the associated mountains teal (which is a color you get when you mix green with cyan (and white) ... a sort of blueish green), and were quite surprised when Nihlus specifically referred to a location adjacent to the region as "near the teal mountains". You said you thought it was gray, and asked why no one told you... To be fair, it actually didn't look out of place to me, so it'd have never occurred to me that it was unintentional. We talked about painting the ocean purple on accident (you stated that you were surprised that you didn't manage to do it while you were at it) and how your father used to have a purple car which he thought was blue (and how my mother used to have a car which people with perfect color vision could not agree upon whether was green or blue ... it was midday summer sky blue for me personally; what green car? My camera and computer agreed with me, the very least....), too, but as far as I know, the ocean itself has always been blue, or at the least it has been so ever since you first uploaded the map.

(The names of colors used in many places are perhaps more often than not misleading, though... "Red" on old RPG was some odd faded pink, for instance. At other times, you're likely to end up with something that is less "green" and more "neon pain".)

Hrn... So it still doesn't want to let you access it. As for the specific outcome, that essentially means that the site handles the session just fine, but your computer either doesn't bother to store the session key or does not permit retrieving it for validification (the only thing that is stored on your side is the key; the actual session sits on the server and the server merely checks whether or not it belongs to your device), so it would perhaps be more apt to say that your computer does not like the Compendium (if it is of any condolence, then the control panel thingy uses the exact same type of session authentication, and the source is the exact same, so you most likely wouldn't have been able to access that, either).
Win 7 Ultimate with Firefox worked just fine in my case. See whether at least the login failed/succeeded now has Session status: [should be 2] and the aforementioned random numbers and letters beneath it? (Although beneath the login succeeded/failed text and the little explanatory paragraph, not upper left corner). I am quite certain it is your computer mismanaging the session key (somehow), but just in case...
Else ... eh, I guess I'll do what I said earlier on and set up a few more types of sessions if your computer insists on not liking the Compendium, see whether it is okay with one of them and in the worst case scenario just implement bothsided key-forwarding, maybe tomorrow evening. Win 7 inherently shouldn't be a problem, Firefox pretty much cannot be a problem (this type of session does not have cookies of anything, although I might add some to see whether those work), your firewall/antivirus, perhaps? What do you have on those terms?

On a random note, I am on and off quite tempted to add another deity of mine ... one I am not even sure what for would be used.

---

@Veridis Quo: He would be the youngest character in this RP, I believe - by absolute age, anyway (Jaelnec is twenty, but appears younger due to being a nightwalker, as those age somewhat slower). Hrm, and how tall is he, exactly? (Mainly asking because my personal understanding of relative height tends to be a bit skewed compared to most of the rest of the world.) Else looks quite interesting to me; remains to be seen how much, say, my character's and your's morals differ. (Especially since his people - although with a strong warrior-culture - most likely consider Deliph a devil for glorifying war. "There is no honor in killing nor glory in war," their most important text starts out with.) - My own character is not particularly religious, though, and likewise tends to judge people a bit more laxly than his cultural background would dictate.

^ I want him to be the biggest human in the group, he's especially gigantic, even for his religious group (who pretty much lift since an early age). I'm usually hesitant to name an actual height because I end up changing my mind so often (if someone really pressured me to pick one I'd go with 6'8 or 6'10. Something like that). From what I remember, your character sheet didn't say anything about your character's beliefs. Did you end up having a new CS sheet that wasn't updated or something?