Phellan

Great to see this update. Also backer portal worked well for me.

To take from your idea of why would anyone care about the gods or what happens - a basic karmic belief could be used. You want to do well because in your next life the person you will be will benefit from it. Alternatively, a faith that believes something negative happens to the souls of those who commit crimes (or that it's the "soul" itself that suffers in the void between lives) would be a strong belief system, providing the necessary societal norm requirements or something "Bad" happens to you when you die. Additionally such a faith might have a component to "attone" for your past lives and increase the overall "goodness" of your soul. In a story sense, such teachings would likely strengthen the tie between the person and their soul, likely a story mechanic or world mechanic for how you attune and gain powers from your Soul.

I think the easiest way to explain it might be as follows. Your soul is who you are - but you are not necesarily ALL of your soul. The person who is alive at the moment is a portion of the soul and that soul could have a large number of previous lives. When you are alive there is a "wall" up between the currently alive personality and former personalities that make up the greater soul. Any crack in that wall could allow opinions, memories, or beliefs of the main Soul to influence the current personality. The alive person is part of a greater whole - their Soul. They are independant of it, but it can still influence them through various means (dreams, feelings, sense of right/wrong etc). That's the way I've taken what OE has given us so far. One major factor being the dissonance/resonance between the current personality and the former lives. I imagine the Paladin whose former lives were full of vice and injustices might have a serious psychological issue from what he needs to do and from the guilt of what he believes he has done previously (or how he plans to "attone" for it), just as an example.

There is no reason to expect that the physique of the average highly trained adventurer/warrior should be the same as the physique of the average American civilian. Yes, this is a good point. If this is analogous to 16th century, being fat should be very rare, and mostly exclusive to royalty and aristocracy. Having a fat diplomat companion with no combat skills but great charisma and intelligence would be acceptable. Bringing this up should bring an important note - being heavy set / fat in the era this game will be set is actually seen as being "attractive". It should not be outside the realm of possibility that characters who are referred to in game as being beautiful or attractive are not necessarily what 20th century post-modernist culture will find beautiful and attractive. Indeed, given the likelihood of starvation, plagues, etc it should be expected that characters who fit today's archetypes of beauty likely won't be such in the game world. And I would hope OE makes that a point. Additionally having cultures or societies in game that have a variety of views and beliefs about men and women that differ drastically from 20th Cent. Western norms would just add to the fantasy setting and allow for a greater array of believability and social clashes I bet. It would be extremely interesting to see how Souls and Gender are done - since access to past lives is possible it should be expected that a soul has experienced life as both a man and a woman previously which would bring all sorts of questions to bear - remembering a life where as one gender you were seen as a lesser could no doubt influence how you live your next life (assuming you remember previous lives!).

Didn't one of the OE guys say they were looking into a chat client of some kind? Something so we can still have the unrelenting stream of commentary that was the KS?

Awesome update, I'm impressed anyone got work done today after last nights celebrations.

I agree it shouldn't be easy to leave - an expedition into the depths is hardly exciting without the risk of getting lost or trapped because you're unprepared for the journey. That being said the solution of a mini-boss every few levels and then a significant increase in difficulty on the next section down (with an exit somewhere around the mini-boss) seems appropriate. A clear indicator that you've reached one portion of the depths (or plot even, depending on the kind of lore OE puts in), but that your next delve into the darkness is going to be substantially more . . .difficult. At the current depth a clear of 4-5 levels before finding some secret way out of the dungeon seems appropriate. If you want to go back before then. . hike your way out.

All right, increased my pledge for the expansion and OO. I think perhaps I shall take: Phellan, Oathkeeper of the Obsidian Order If it is still an option!

Actually, to be fair - the time frame is smaller and it's your conscious awareness of the decision being made. That is to say - there is a small time delay between the processes that make the "decision" and it being "perceived" by you. Like lag for your stream of consciousness Still kinda trippy though

To maintain power? Power from/ over what? How? Over the people. They are probably either powered by faith (like in Discworld) or just powerful who are very mortal and need followers because of their limitations. In that, they don't need to be malicious but my curent concern is that this may make them mere human beings with special powers. The current description makes me think more of the Greek Gods - given to interfering when it benefited them, or when they felt they had been slighted by other gods or mortals. Gods, yes - but with all the vices and arrogance found in mortals to boot.