Theme Workshop for Harad

Harad OOC Room

This is the Umbar OOC Room. It has no solid floor, but is instead full of sand. There is a bar to one side, with a bartender who looks suspiciously like the late Arabas. A sign above his head says \"Daily Special: Pina Coladas Two for One Deal.\" One prominent feature of the room is a large Comfy_Chair which is set upon a raised dias, which receives visitors to the room. Arrayed about the large room are several loungers (with umbrellas, of course) and a Beach Volleyball court. There is also an Ultimate Frisbee field set up off to one side. There are no doors leaving here. As you look around here, you wonder how you could have missed noticing such a huge place from outside its walls. Probably, it\'s just more of that great Numenorean architecture.

Contents:

Viltz

Azradi

Obvious exits:

�Admin leads to Umbaradmin OOC Room.

Zaki flies into the room from somewhere in the ZMO... ... and lands PLOP in a large Comfy_Chair set up to receive visitors to the Umbar OOC Room.

Zigur-Ziguran flies into the room from somewhere in the ZMO... ... and lands PLOP in a large Comfy_Chair set up to receive visitors to the Umbar OOC Room.

Mara flies into the room from somewhere in the ZMO... ... and lands PLOP in a large Comfy_Chair set up to receive visitors to the Umbar OOC Room.

Mara waves. \"Hi. Sorry. This is what I get for staying up until 5am RPing:)\"

Viltz says, \"It\'s been a late night for all of us, I didn\'t get home till 8am\"

Azradi went to bed at a reasonable hour slackers. )

Eruphel says, \"Okay well, without further ado, and because my husband has fantasies of us going out to a movie or something, I think I\'ll get started on this. The more I think about Harad theme, the more it seems that it can\'t fit into just one seminar. But we could at least get started.\"

Mara grins and listens.

Eruphel says, \"Also, not everyone interprets theme the same, and other LAs might have different ideas. If we don\'t seem to agree, point it out to us so we can slog it out. )\"

Eruphel says, \"Out of all the cultures in Middle Earth, the Haradaic culture has to be one of the most mysterious and difficult cultures to play, so far as cannon is concerned. But that can also be good, because it gives us leeway to create something that is viable in a MUSHing medium and tailor it to our needs. But at the same time, there is a need to have something standard for theme, otherwise people in RP will be reacting to entirely different worlds, which leads to disjointed RP at best. We can put theme information into files on the game, but space is limited, and so what you find is really only a general overview, and does not address intricacies at all. For more detailed theme, we have some websites, and we will be adding to the closetgamers.com site soon.\"

Eruphel says, \"Also...PLEASE...if you have questions or comments or things to add (you guys have some expertise to offer, IMO) please speak up.\"

Eruphel says, \"Umbar has a long and detailed history, and it is glorious. It helps to know that history to get a sense of the theme. However odds are that your character would not know that history all that well. We trust you will act accordingly.\"

Eruphel says, \"Umbar traditionally has ben an oligarchal governmental system, made up of a council of Tower Lords, with each Lord having a vote on the Council, and in the case of a tie, the Senior Lord\'s vote counting as two. The High Priest(ess) of the Citadel also sits and votes on the Council.\"

Eruphel says, \"Recent history changed that for a while, and the power was consolidated under one character, and it became an Empire. And of course, very recent history reversed all that, and we became or are becoming an oligarchy again. That\'s one of the beauties of Harad theme to me. Your RP can count, and you can make an impact on the world, without getting into !theme.\"

Eruphel says, \"Any questions or comments so far?\"

Eruphel says, \"Okay then.\"

Mara will note, \"On the history, it\'s worth knowing you. You probably know recent history fairly well, but the older history, as with RL, will have been filtered through others and may have led to inaccurate myths/legends/etc.

Eruphel says, \"Oh yeah. Definitely. Which is why ancient history is not a must-read (thank goodness). )\"

Eruphel says, \"Each tower can be looked at structurally like an organized crime syndicate, in that the leader is the strongest (and sometimes most ruthless) of the tower, and the one that inspires others of the tower to follow. Relatives may belong to the tower, for example, and father may be fleet Master while the son may be a Corsair Captain, but positions in the tower are not inherited by blood (necessarily). In the event of the father\'s death, the son\'s personal performance is taken into consideration more than his blood ties to the father, and thus a tower is kept strong by keeping weak or inept children from inheriting important positions. This is not to say that the blood ties count for nothing though. It is human nature to lend the loyalty and devotion of the father to the son, and that is a card that can be played in the political struggle for positions.\"

Mara says, \"Though it can be a very fun read\"

Eruphel says, \"Towers are also like crime organizations in that your oath and your loyalty makes you like family. And this takes us into the ties to the city. It is quite obvious when you are a Corsair and all the ships belong to a tower that you need to join a Tower to fight on a ship, or if you want to be a soldier/guard you need to join. However towers are at the top of the economical foodchain, and need to purchase goods and sundries on a daily or weekly basis. Merchants and artisans and more common folk naturally find that having an allegiance to a particular tower secures that tower\'s commerce. It doesn\'t mean that they must do commerce exclusively with that tower, however. Money is money, after all. But one might also expect that their best work, or best product, is reserved for the tower they align themselves with. Aligning with a tower also provides a certain amount of protection against thieves or robbers, because should an incident arise, the merchant would go to the Tower Lord and complain, and the tower would vett out the problem. Of course, downside to alignment with a tower is that if the towers go to war, you are at risk as a target, even though the Tower would try to protect you. Of course, alignment to a tower also comes with a tithe. Monthly dues, as it were, which is a percentage of your earnings. But it is worth it.\"

Eruphel says, \"And that is one of the ways the towers produce money for its own continuance: through the tithe of many merchants and artisans in the city, and its houses. This is not to say however, that one\'s allegiance or the tithe it represents is enough to serve as a bargaining chip. Towers work with houses and merchants in this way because it makes everyone happy. But might makes right, especially in a cut-throat world like this. The same tower could easily turn on a house or merchant for attempting to strongarm it, and simply take the assets that it needs. But there are social and logistic ramifications to that, and so it is much better avoided. The towers are the military strength. The merchant needs the tower much more than the tower needs the merchant.\"

Azradi says, \"Is someone logging this?\"

Eruphel says, \"I am, but it never hurts to have a backup.\"

Azradi nods, \"I can\'t start logging now unless I include everything from the past 3 hours.\"

Mara is going to interject. \"There are huge advantages, as Su just outlined, to being part of a tower, but it isn\'t necessary. Merchants can also have powerbases, as does the Dark Citadel, tribals, etc. There\'s more than one way to be involved and change things and you don\'t have to be high up to do so.

Azradi says, \"I thought you had to be part of a Tower. Has that changed?\"

Eruphel says, \"Right. It used to be that people were required to belong to a tower. But we hope to change that soon, to give players options.\"

Azradi says, \"Won\'t that spread out the player base even more?\"

Eruphel says, \"For some, I think it will give them the incentive they need to join any scene, no matter which tower it is associated with.\"

Eruphel says, \"In the past, I think some people would look at scenes and say, \"Well, I\'m not in that tower, I can\'t go.\"\"

Mara nods. \"Exactly. I think it gives room for more variety, though it\'s still to most people\'s advantage to join a Tower.\"

Azradi says, \"But you don\'t think that will happen if they belong to a non-tower organization?\"

Eruphel says, \"But we\'d also like to stress that Towers are not an \"island unto themselves\" so it is important to maintain inter-tower relations.\"\"

Eruphel says, \"It might. We just want players to have the options they feel they need for joining RP.\"

Eruphel says, \"So if someone decides not to join a tower, and finds they don\'t feel they are in the thick of things because of it, then we should encourage them to join one.\"

Mara smiles. \"We\'ll see. We can always make adjustments if necessary, but I think this gives people more options. I got a lot of feedback that people felt uncomfortable joing Farside RP if they were Black, etc.\"

Azradi is skeptical but go ahead and give it a try, you never know. :)

Azradi is a highly self-motivated RPer and has found it rather difficult to come up with reasons to RP with others now that Farside has emptied out. I\'m afraid it\'s a problem of too many separate organizations rather than the Tower itself. But time will tell.

Azradi says, \"That is rather than the Tower system itself.\"

Eruphel says, \"So anyway, towers aren\'t landless. Towers are not wholly dependent on what is shipped in or produced in Umbar. Each tower possess a fief along the coastline of Harad, which is fertile and produces some food, and commodiites. These fiefs are not part of the grid, because it serves no purpose to take RP out to the fiefs. The fiefs are stewarded by a family, which consitiutes one of the houses which give fealty to the Tower. Usually this position is passed down in the family to direct or indirect heirs, as talent dictates. But should the house ever get the notion that the land is actually theirs, or that they can rebel against the tower, the tower usually has no compunctions about evicting the family and creating a new house that will be loyal. Among the towers, there is a general gentleman\'s agreement to offer military protection for each others fiefs when a tower has taken war north into Gondor, and also not to attack other towers fiefs during inter-tower disputes - though theft or confiscation of the produced items is fair game.\"

Zigur-Ziguran thinks that the system itself can be very beneficial in RP generation as long as it is clear that RP can be had. With these factions striving for dominance it creates clear RP tension

Azradi says, \"Right, but there needs to be a collection of small concentrations of RPers vying with one another. If you get a bunch of small orgs with one or two active players each...you are too spread out.\"

Mara nods. \"Well, this is a reasonable debate to be had and we can have it later, but right at the moment, let\'s let Su finish.\"

Mara says, \"Or you can page me.\"

Azradi says, \"Okay. Let her finish. :)\"

Eruphel says, \"Well, I guess I just wanted to say that that city-based Houses (as opposed to fief-based Houses) have some leeway in changing their Tower loyalties, as House Hilel did recently.\"

Eruphel says, \"Azradi, you are right, it is hard to RP inside the tower level. But between towers...like yesterday, ties to be made, alliances to be strengthened, raids to be organized, etc.\"

Zigur-Ziguran has disconnected.

Mara says, \"Su\'s done a great job of outlining the basic elements that constitute the setting of Umbar. And I want to note that we\'ll have a discussion/Q&A after I talk a bit\"

Mara says, \"What I want to do now is go over some elements of \'life in an evil culture.\'\"

Mara says, \"Evil does not mean psychopathic indeed psychopathic is as likely to get you killed here as anywhere else\"

Mara says, \"It does mean that the Haradrim are intensely xenophobic\"

Mara says, \"and indeed, regard anyone who is a non-Haradrim as somewhat...subhuman for the most part. They put up with the Easterlings or Mordain, but don\'t like it and most Haradrim do not think of the Gondorians as anything remotely like them\"

Mara says, \"Eye worship is the primary religion, but not the only one. Obviously the Dark Citadel thinks it is the only RIGHT one, but Harad is not completely under Sauron\'s sway at this point in time. As a sidenote, we would never say either Sauron (Which does not mean somethng nice) or Nazgul in RP\"

Mara says, \"My last point: advancement in evil cultures is often through death or other means that would be regarded as less than good in a goodie culture. Death is not a bad thing here, it gives room for advancement. No, we\'re not orcs, but we\'re not Gondorians either. That doesn\'t mean you shouldn\'t invest in a character, you should....but a certain amount of death and danger should be expected\"

Mara says, \"And I think that\'s probably enough to throw at you for one day. I\'m going to open the floor to questions now\"

Ali flies into the room from somewhere in the ZMO... ... and lands PLOP in a large Comfy_Chair set up to receive visitors to the Umbar OOC Room.

Azradi says, \"I don\'t really have any questions. I pretty much knew all that except the bit about the Houses. That was new, I\'ve never seen those in play before. :)\"

Mara says, \"They add an element, I suppose. One of the cool things that\'s happened with Harad\'s revitalization is that we have players who used tok play here WAY back and players who played here more recently nad new players, etc. and so people are bringing back favorite elements of what they remember\"

Azradi nods, \"Yeah, I\'m into RPed history depth. I like this mix.\"

Mara says, \"Me too. And I know we have some kinks to iron out because we\'ve grown from nothing to a pretty vibrant culture so fast, but rest assured, working on it. Please know that I\'m always more than happy to tlak\"

Mara says, \"or take complaints\"

Mara says, \"But for now, my houseguests are 45 minutes early, so I should tend to them:) I\'ll be back later though .Thanks for coming\"

Azradi says, \"Thanks, Di. :)\"

Eruphel says, \"BTW, was this useful/helpful? Should we do more of these?\"

Viltz thinks it was