New Guild Ideas - Geneticists, Smugglers, and the Possessed

[dyzmal]

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Smuggler's Ring [Subguild]
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The dirty side of the merchant's guild, the Smuggler's Ring is a
quest-oriented guild that deals with sneaking merchandise to and from the general store of Vaerlon's black market. The guild is based in a secret location in Graemor and you advance through it by doing missions, such as stealing packages or money from travelling caravans. No one is sure why the merchant at the black market is dealing with shady characters in Graemor, except for the highest members of the subguild.

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Geneticists
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A guild that uses magic to twist their own genetic make-up, granting them special abilities. Sometimes the spells can go awry and the casters can make harmful changes to their genetic code creating weaknesses or horrible physical mutations. If everything goes right, they can bend their body's genes so that they heal at a faster rate, move at a faster rate, teleport (not to travel, but in battle like the phase spider aspect of the Gaesati), give them unnatural strength, grow claws, or give them strange unnatural abilities; like the ability to create a forcefield, throw an object with their mind, turn the energy around them into an offensive blast, etc. However, it takes a great amount of skill to achieve these bonuses, and you can only change your genetic code three times: once at level 15, once at level 40, and once at level 70.

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Gathering of the Possessed
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There have been rumors of people being possessed by spirits now that the Earth Priests have emerged in Graemor. Apparently since the Earth Priests have been turning corpses into minions, the former spirits that inhabited the corpses are becoming disturbed and are returning to the material plane through possession. Victims of these possessions have gathered together in an attempt to use what was once considered a threat to their existance to their advantage. The guild is initiating members using a ritual that causes a spirit from the netherworld to possess them, and as they advance through the guild to higher levels they can do the ritual again in an attempt to be possessed by a more powerful spirit. Initiates of the guild are unable to wear any glowing equipment because it may disrupt the effects of the ritual and disrupt the new bond between their body and the soul, and are given a set of ceremonial rags to wear until they reach level 15, at which they are able to wear whatever they want.

[moraq]

IMHO genetic mutations or whatever don't fit in Icesus - that's more like a scifi(tm) thing.

[dyzmal]

1. With the smugglers I was going for something like a quest-based guild, no real skills involved except for maybe move silently or something, if that. You advance through quests. Say like.. a level for every 5-10 quests you do for the guild. Most quests would be like, "go get this and bring it here" kind of quests, but maybe with plot twists, etc. I dunno. Just thought it would be neat to have some sort of subguild for people that like quests moreso than EXPing.

2. Geneticists, lol. I was going for a sort of X-men sort of thing here. You're right though, doesn't fit in Icesus.

3. Wow glad you like the idea. Don't really like the idea of "becoming" an undead though. Maybe there should be some sort of chance that when you call upon your spirit it will completely take over your body, killing you, and creating an undead mob of you (Zombie resembling Allanon) where you were.

[apex]

I like the possess one.. it'd sort of be like a channelers guild... - but an idea- what if you started as the spirit and were given the body to inhabit by the guild? at certain levels you would posses more powerful villagers etc. with requirements (perhaps monetary or quest-related) that lead to better hosts... -and you could use your own powers to fight, etc...
??

just an added idea:

your idea sounds great just like it is, i think it wuold be fun.

[moraq]

3. Wow glad you like the idea. Don't really like the idea of "becoming" an undead though. Maybe there should be some sort of chance that when you call upon your spirit it will completely take over your body, killing you, and creating an undead mob of you (Zombie resembling Allanon) where you were.

When you die and none digs a grave players can already become zombies.

[dyzmal]

That would be cool too, maybe at higher levels you could learn a ritual that would let you leave your body and then inhabit another (Non-Player) creature. I overheard some Wizards talking about planning a guild similar to that, where instead of shifting into set creatures you could shift into creatures you have fought, etc. Maybe this could tie into that or something, I don't know.

[suron]

Unfortunately, talking about guild ideas is useless. If you want something to be done, do it yourself. (ask wizards about coding stuff to icesus)

I'm just saying that posting new guild ideas is pretty much pointless as the wizards do have their own ideas to work with and generally like to code only ideas that they (themselves) hold dear (ie. their ideas). Of course ideas of all kinds are still appriciated and you never know if some of your (not pointed at anyone specifically) brain ramblings might just catch some wind under it and float its way to the game. But these ideas are smaller things, features really, not guilds.

[solar]

Agreed, Suron (as usual) is correct. Posting your ideas here is a waste of time. It is actually even bad for your 'image' should the guildidea be crappy. Moreover, several separate guildidea threads take space, flooding your screen and make it harder to find anything 'worthwhile' to comment.

I kinda mentioned the idea of Spider Gaesati to Belannaer and like few months later he actually had coded them. Had I posted it here, it could have received too much negative feedback from other players to have been coded.

The sorry thing is that even players who are not interested in a particular guildidea might want to utilize their 'veto' right, even if they wouldn't even care to play the guild - Just because they can't see themselves benefitting from it. "If I don't want it, then none shall have it!"

(I don't like monks (well, I like martial arts, but monks... no), but I don't go about wanting them removed!)

And the wizards WILL hate me for directing 'spam' to them

[dyzmal]

If enough people seem to like any of these ideas I might talk to Thoran about coding them but if it I find out here, in the forms, that it seems like they are unwanted or unneccessary or don't fit into game then it saves Thoran the trouble of telling me, "No.", himself. I don't care what people think of me, if you haven't noticed. I'm just interested in what we can do to make Icesus better.

Either way, continue to give feedback both negative and positive, but stop with the "this is pointless" bullshit, because it's not pointless.

When you die and none digs a grave players can already become zombies.

Am aware, just thought that maybe the whole failed-spell == you-become-a-zombie thing would be good for balancing, and fit in with the guild.

[khade]

would a sorcerer have potential control over the possessed?
and if the geneticists ever do get into the game, they should have a subguild joinable with the infecti, as their guilds are almost similar.

[dyzmal]

With the Geneticists, in my head, it was more on the lines of an almost customizable guild. You know how in the mage's guild you can choose which element you want to use, etc.? Well in the Geneticists you would be able to choose from X-men-like special abilities, so it would depend on which mutations you chose on whether or not it was anything like Psionicists. Either way that particular guild is probably not the *best* idea in the world. ;P

With the sorcerers I don't see why they shouldn't be able to do something that would mess with the possessed.

[artic]

I think the 'posessed' would make a super cool free-for-all sub-guild. Like you would make a pact with a spirit that still has some unfinished business in this world and needs a host. In return the spirit would offer his life-time experience.
Before the ceremony you get to choose witch spirit you want to host: Spirit of a bandit, spirit of a arcane mage etc.
Different spirits would give you different effects: like the spirit of bandit might give good bonuses to some sneak/stab/dagger/poisons skills maybe even some special commands for something that bandits do during their lifetime (like consider a wictims purse). In return the spirit would force you to do hes evil bidding, stuff that you wouldnt normally do. The mage spirit would give bonuses to caster skills and maybe even insight into some spells (a way to mix up the world - picture casting militia). There would be many-many more spirits with many-many more effects, yet they all would force you to do stuff you wouldnt normally do. With more levels in the 'posessed' guild you could get more and more powerful spirits. And with better skills in the guild you could make more use of the effects of the spirits (like the skill-bonuses would be better etc). At once you could only host one spirit, but you could change spirits after a long while. If you deside to change spirits and try to get rid of the old spirit (or if you displease the spirit in some other way) the spirit would hurt you, maybe take over control of you body completely and do something stupid.

[apex]

Artic I like it!
Perhaps things like going Berserk (think orc brew) or being unable to retreat, etc etc etc

[artic]

Artic I like it!
Perhaps things like going Berserk (think orc brew) or being unable to retreat, etc etc etc

Yes, those are all the effect and more : picture bandit spirit seeing a merchants purse and going graZy with immortal greed making you attack merchant.
Or picture a warrior spirit refusing to retreat or a priest spirit suddenly desiding he dont want to hurt anyone any more and assigning all battle points to defence or a mage spirit forcing you to spend hours studying in the library or some acolyte spirit suddenly sacrificing all your collected hearts to a god you don't worship (to buy redemtion for the spirit) etc etc etc.

all sorts of bad things including time and effort consuming quests given by the spirit to finish off those unfinished business that made the spirit want a host in the first place. But in return you get special spells, special skills, special commands, bonuses such as skill/spell/regen/stat bonuses.