Keeper opens

[Davairus]

[KEEPER] - Keepers of Balance

A long dormant cabal originally conceived by the ancient god Rahkashe, the Keepers
of Balance are the sentinels and guardians of Balance against overly-powerful
individuals and cabals alike. Long have they watched Thera from the shadows of
history as wars and even a great purging have swept across the realms. Now, the
Keepers have arisen at last to side against those who would use raw power to upset
Thera's stability.

A central tenet of the Keepers is the danger that powerful artifacts pose to Thera's
stability. Champions -- both good and evil -- have amassed and wielded rare and
even unique artifacts to ensure their domination over others. Keepers seek to
liberate these powerful items from being concentrated so dangerously in the hands of
a few individuals, by force if a peaceful solution cannot be found.

Despite being matched against the powerful, Keepers are forbidden to match their
opponents' power in items with their own. All Keepers swear off all rare, unique,
and non-cabal random items to follow the path of diplomacy, alliances, coordination,
cunning, and courage, depending on the situation. Keepers are tasked to deal with
any individual who gains too many powerful items, until those item-holders are
either peacefully or forcefully disarmed of their items; conversely, Keepers are
at peace with those who do not use many powerful items, for conflicts among those
of only moderate power will not spill over to threaten Thera's greater stability.

Although they are nominally at peace with all other cabals, Keepers have also
charged with preventing any single cabal from becoming too powerful. Therefore,
unless to disarm specifically marked individuals of their wares, Keepers will ONLY
involve themselves in cabal warfare when they have been specifically mobilized to
join the weaker side in cabal conflicts, especially to liberate captured cabal items.
However, because shifts in power can occur rapidly, any alliance with the Keepers
is temporary at best, and Keepers tend to have few friends outside of their own
cabal. This is because Keepers are unreliable allies, and have been known to turn
sides the moment their cabal judges their former peers to have grown too powerful.
The life of Keepers is always to challenge those whose power threaten the stability
of the realms, and Keepers view their actions not in terms of good or evil, but as
being wholly necessary to Thera's continued survival.

Entrance requirements:

1) Must be of neutral ethos AND neutral alignment.
2) Must have Timaran hometown.
3) Must have application submitted at or before level 30.
4) Must have background.
5) Must not advance beyond level 40 prior to induction.

If you believe you have the dedication to preserve Thera's stability by challenging
the powerful, then the life of a Keeper may be for you. You may apply by submitting
an APPLICATION TO KEEPER at or before level 30 detailing your accomplishments and
reasons for joining.

[Davairus]

Expect loose ends, just because of the way its been worked on. Please read the helpfile carefully before you jump into applying.

[Mendek]

Not what I expected. Awesome.

I assume this means no rares before induction also?

[The Zealot]

Very interesting. Half expected, half completely unexpected. I hope they get insanely cheap random item gambling from the cabal shop, otherwise shit is going to be painful.

A couple of questions

- I half remember someone saying they were going to be a non-mage cabal (warrior classes, rogues). Is this right?

- I assume they have a flag to use against uber pimped people. What are the requirements for being flagged? (also, for curiosity's sake, what's it called?)

- Who's the cabal Imm?

Thanks for all the work!

[Slade]

Thats a much better vision than first in the works. The danger with keepers is that focused on cabals they become just gangbang artists, at all times having an excuse to pile on whoever they deem strong. Switching to the stance of fighting dangerous individuals is beneficial in a number of ways:

(1) Easier to police numbers game based honor code which should be added to some degree if not already there
(2) Rared out powerhouses can handle the pressure and may even welcome the extra fighting. More importantly its a good game function if they are managed to be taken down at a higher rate because of this - especially the human shaman justice types and what not
(3) Anti-rare is a nice touch. That in combination with the challenge based (take down powerhouses) experience, especially if you push honor and integrity hard, gives it a nice hint of warlords. A good way to take some of the nice things of the old way with new utility and flavor.

[Merindol]

does this mean any race/class that is neutral can join?

[Davairus]

Neutral/neutral, no bards.

[Xerties]

Does the no rares/gambled extend to forging?

[Erlwith]

It'll be interesting to see how Keepers and Legion interact.

[Mahkan]

are there any applicants as of right now?

[Davairus]

One thing that you should know is that the Keeper of Artifacts (who you aren't acquainted with yet) is a retrieval mechanic for lost rares. What I'm saying is you can kill the Keeper to regain whatever anyone has sacced or been purged of. There's no need to depend on an IMM to reload everything anymore. A catch though, he's not an easy fight (especially solo) and he might drop crap. I'd suggest save running him for when you can guarantee finding something good from him, and maybe not being so quick to sac every dud rare you find (unless you're a Keeper, you can obviously give it to a friend instead of gimping your runs), as the item is chosen from anything presently out of circulation. Imms will still reload rares at the usual rarely-ever rate, so you won't need to farm him all day. But its a good reason for a raid and something to do while camping if you're there on other business.

As with anything else Keeper-related this is all subject to change, I would expect the cabal to go through several iterations and tweaks before the dust finally settles, but I do want to stress that this is a feature we especially wanted to include.

[_Clifton_]

Hahaha... if it drops shit you can blame those hoarding healers with mystic aliases.

[Erlwith]

Any reason Keepers aren't on motd if they're open?

[Louis]

basically they are going to sac rares and go after hoarders

and ppl who want rares will band against them

[Devin_Smoth]

Yeah, I have a huge feeling that these guys are going to go nowhere... even worse than Warlords... and at least their concept was fun to play.

[Blarg]

When it comes down to it, there's no better satisfaction than bringing down a veteran player in uber gear. Doing it without fancy items will appeal to some of Ar's elite, possibly some that don't have the time to maintain their own set of rares.

[Erlwith]

[Davairus]

Meh, some people prefer duelling over cabal warfare. I think its lame but I still coded an arena to serve that player. Warlords rarely participated in cabal warfare because without their powers they were such a joke. The few players who did good Warlords deserve to be remembered for what they achieved, but dont pretend like it wasnt a stream of inactive Ferdinos /Galhea -type douchebags flocking to the 100% training = forms joke for most of its life.

the keepers will have powers, and wont have to worry about the idle purge at the end of every month, which makes them great for uncaballed semi-actives, that still want to fight pk. It also is an advantage over just being uncaballed. That alone is enough to make them "better" than normal. By now the cabal defending drawback is something everyone is used to.

[Mahkan]

woah, i didn't notice that aspect.

So theyre almost like assassins too...

[Louis]

how do you figure? they would be assassins' (and now legions') prime targets...