AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic - Popular Opinion

Hey everyone!

For those of you interested in monks, I'm looking for some thoughts as a counterpoint to some brainstorming.

Would you rather see more representation of canon Monastic Orders, or prefer custom Orders?

A pro for canon orders is that they're already known about and there is potentially some history to draw upon.
The con is that there is very little information available on the majority them, meaning much of it has to be homebrew-added anyway. This can be problematic since opinions don't always match up on what the additions should be, and what one person has already filled in for their Long Death monk (for example) might be awkwardly contradictory to what another person has worked up for theirs.

I'm generally in favor of very little canon representation (but not none entirely), and instead making orders specific to our setting.

If there is an overwhelming love for any of the canon Monastic Orders, I'd like to hear about it! And specifically which Order(s)!

I voted for custom things, because as you said, there is not much to go with when it comes to canon orders. Sure, PCs can create their own fluff about 'em, but I still feel new, detailed monastic orders would be cooler to have. Just look at New Moon, for example. I have an IC initiative of my own brewing up on this front, but it'll take awhile before it becomes public.

There isn't many actual lore based monks besides the common Order of the Darkmoon and their counter part.... There never has been a lot of information on monks even in later editions and are just kinda started touching on lore based in 5th edition. So a set homebrew would be great so long as it was kinda a set thing? Or at least a long lived dojo with some sort of history built into it or able to have a history. Being the nature of complete self balance and possibly the seven paths I would love to see more created and sought on.

I would rather orders that make sense:

Sitting on the fence? Perhaps.

Let me explain in a bit better detail, but I'll try to be brief since the urge to sleep is calling.

Would it make sense for orders from mainland Amia to come to the region? If so, whether be a PC initiative or part of a DM plot I say that's what should happen.

If it makes more sense to have custom orders instead, then I say that those should be developed, with one , MAJOR, caveat.

Do not completely fly in the face of Faerunian Lore. If you're going to model it off pre-existing organizations, please try to stick to as much of the concept and spirit as you can. If you want to make something new which evolved completely in the region, hey that's cool and the gang but just keep Forgotten Realms as a setting in mind when you do it.

I voted custom.

But! I don't want to see you come up with great, ancient, international orders from thin air. The word "order" is misleading, really. Monk masters might gather a handful of disciples around them and form a "school" or "discipline" without ever establishing an order. It might not survive past the first generation, and if it does, it might splinter in two different directions. Some might gain more permanency by building a monastery where the community lives and trains, without ever spreading further out to establish daughter houses or a formal organisation.

More diversity of social circumstance. It's not as if every monk should belong to an international order affiliated with some major church (or not). And those with a background in one of the canon orders might have become frustrated with them and set out to create their own rule of observance. That's what happened with real monks all the time. So more local, group-specific history, and like Grymia said, more monks that make sense.

Such lack of faith! Disturbing.

Just so it's said, then: I don't intend to be swooping in with any ancient orders out of nowhere.

Well, you said "order", and order tends to refer to an organisation spanning more than a single monastery!

In fact, what would be coolest is something between custom and canon: the history of Western monasticism is full of constant reform. Monks are always reforming their houses or moving out to establish new ones in search of an uncorrupted golden age, the literal observance of their Rule, a more apostolic way of life, or whatever. Why, then, couldn't an Amian custom monastery/circle have its background in some canon order with which the master was dissatisfied and left to established his own, reformed observance?

I can neither confirm nor deny such things may already be in my notes.

I used Order mainly as a catch all for "group of any size" mainly because no one has bothered to call me on it until now. Curse you.

Voted Canon. There are dozens of canon orders that should be explored. Why would we invent a new one?

Which ones are you most interested by, Dead?

Long Death and Iron Gauntlet, yo.

What even is there on the Iron Gauntlet besides that tiny mention in Mara Kalaliv's blurb (and the scribe-made PrC on Candlekeep)?

Darkmoon Monks aside, I like homebrew stuff and will almost always side with going homebrew for everything. I guess I usually just prefer to be creative with things- that, and I'm not great with lore anyways. I think if we were to develop new Orders, there should only be three max (Evil, Neutral, and Good).

Well i already Added a homebrew to amia!

LetumLux wrote:

What even is there on the Iron Gauntlet besides that tiny mention in Mara Kalaliv's blurb (and the scribe-made PrC on Candlekeep)?

I still have my monk of the Iron Gauntlet. Back in the days of Banites, there was quite a bit of the activity. I'll try to dig up the old Banite files when I get home. See what I can find.

I can name three existing custom monasteries already on Amia (including Amarices). Will these be developed further or are you planning on adding more? I feel it would make sense to give these present ones some more depth since they are already established into Amia lore. I'm not saying I wouldn't support adding more but these ones are already under developed so it may be a case of spreading the monkeyness thinner by creating more.

I'd flesh out the Ruhn and Crouching Lemur's lore before adding new ones.

I agree completely, please dont add more monk orders before the allready present orders are more fleshed out.

that being said, i will allways prefer canon stuff to made up, as I believe one of the strongest points of Faerun is using its allready massive world of fantasy to build on and give some messure of correlation between all aspects of the setting.

I do not believe we should move futher away from faerun canon, but rather closer to it.

Ok, I'll just put my tantric order of the Wounded Orchid on the backburner for now.

There's some player-attempted lore on Ruhn, but few people have ever been interested.

viewtopic.php?f=103&t=67536

As for those who say "custom" is somehow contrary to the setting: Letum no doubt understands that custom doesn't mean just pulling stuff out of one's ass; it means looking at existing lore and building something plausible on that. It's how we create our characters too. Copying stuff from the books is very rarely setting-appropriate.

I prefer canon things, as it allows people to do some research on thier own.

And there is plently to monk orders that should be focused on before a new one is formed, there are far to many silent places that could be very alive.

I'm with Uberuce.

Completely. All I can add to that is Amarice' attempt with her Frozen Fist (?) Aurilite monks. I was interested, but I noticed they dissipated, like most Alternate Beginnings. Which is a shame. I really enjoy them. But yeh. FLESH OUT THE MONKS!

Edit: Also, I love the Void Disciple stuff between Letum and Autumn. I actually read through all of Mathus' monk techniques book. Gave me a lot of inspiration in fleshing out my own character, Kard. So thanks for that, dude.

LetumLux wrote:

The con is that there is very little information available on the majority them, meaning much of it has to be homebrew-added anyway. This can be problematic since opinions don't always match up on what the additions should be, and what one person has already filled in for their Long Death monk (for example) might be awkwardly contradictory to what another person has worked up for theirs.

We already talked about this but I agree with the above. It would be awesome to learn more about the Canon of things in general but Amia is not the place for it.

Grymia, I'm sorry if my monk order offended you or anyone else. I made it for me.

I see the point; on the other hand, since the basic unit of a monastic order is a single monastery, it is entirely possible that the guy leading a circle of X canon order monks in/to Amia has a different interpretation from the abbot of some mainland monastery, and neither of them might represent the average of "official" observance. As long as that distinction is respected and communicated both OOC and IC (though of course not directly, in the latter case), I see no problem fleshing out canon orders either.

Anything goes, really. I think it's important to find an angle people are interested to exploit and push further. I, for example, have not seen any actually monastic monks around; a community of monks who actually live enclosed in their monastic house, and go out only at times and for purposes allowed by their rule. Alright, enclosure might be a little inconvenient for an adventurer on Amia, but regular observance, daily routine, an explicitly articuated rule governing every aspect of life, is something I would like to see. And specifically of the communal kind, rather than individual ascetics and hermits practicing their own discipline. You could take inspiration from a mendicant rule, like the Franciscans, perhaps.

Or whatever. But whatever a monk order is based on should be something relevant to monks qua monks, as opposed to vague concepts of alignment or deity affiliation. What is the approach these monks, specifically, believe to be the best way to reach their spiritual goal, and what is that goal? Going custom has the advantage that the canon orders, so far as anything is known about them, are pretty shitty and based on cookie-cutter stereotypes, with no understanding for monasticism.

I'm not entirely happy with Homebrewed ideas, because they step on the base lore Amia was set on.

IronAngel wrote:

I see the point; on the other hand, since the basic unit of a monastic order is a single monastery, it is entirely possible that the guy leading a circle of X canon order monks in/to Amia has a different interpretation from the abbot of some mainland monastery, and neither of them might represent the average of "official" observance. As long as that distinction is respected and communicated both OOC and IC (though of course not directly, in the latter case), I see no problem fleshing out canon orders either.

This is heavily implied by everything that happens on this server ever, and indeed in 99.9999% of any D&D game that is based on a universe crafted by more than one person. I mean, I know there are people here who think they're doing God's Work maintaining the canon but there's just no way. The fact that there's very little "official" (I guess I could say "published in books you pay for") information about the monastic orders of Faerun is only part of the source of discrepancy - the majority of it is that people don't want to stick to canon.

IronAngel wrote:

Anything goes, really. I think it's important to find an angle people are interested to exploit and push further. I, for example, have not seen any actually monastic monks around; a community of monks who actually live enclosed in their monastic house, and go out only at times and for purposes allowed by their rule. Alright, enclosure might be a little inconvenient for an adventurer on Amia, but regular observance, daily routine, an explicitly articuated rule governing every aspect of life, is something I would like to see. And specifically of the communal kind, rather than individual ascetics and hermits practicing their own discipline. You could take inspiration from a mendicant rule, like the Franciscans, perhaps.

This has bothered me for a while with my monk, but I just slated it up to 'newness.' He's a self-made Master Ascetic. There's been no order around him outside of Ahsra. No ritual except what the two of them invent. No real asceticism, in the way most real world orders use that term. Since I haven't been playing I imagine that Mathus has developed a more traditionally monastic way of living, seclusion and contemplation. Like the Crouching Lemur, the two New Moons don't really need anything.

But yes, that is boring as hell, which is part of why I haven't been playing for a while. People can still send messages and ask me to play him for this or that, but I'm not going to sit in one place for 1-3 hours and do nothing anymore.

Nymph69 wrote:

...because they step on the base lore Amia was set on.

Hahahaha... wut

Nymph69 wrote:

I'm not entirely happy with Homebrewed ideas, because they step on the base lore Amia was set on.

A blanket statement that pigeon-holes all things homebrew.

I find a lot of D&D lore to be overly complex and re-done, or rehashed. The number of religions and gods by itself is way to crazy for me, and I would rather do without all of that junk and make things simple. I know this server is very dependent on what the books say and all that, and I know it won't change at the foundation- even tho the lack of simplicity seems to work against a server with the number of players we have. It just makes it hard for people to sync up and become compatible OOC and IC, and that's why it's so hard for noobs, or anyone really to group up and role-play. The monastic orders that exist currently are mildly interesting in general, but I understand that heaping more junk on top of junk doesn't really fix anything. The Alternate Beginnings thing seems the only outlet for a close group of characters to have fun without being too unique to fit in anywhere else.

CouncilofAutumn wrote:

LetumLux wrote:

The con is that there is very little information available on the majority them, meaning much of it has to be homebrew-added anyway. This can be problematic since opinions don't always match up on what the additions should be, and what one person has already filled in for their Long Death monk (for example) might be awkwardly contradictory to what another person has worked up for theirs.

We already talked about this but I agree with the above. It would be awesome to learn more about the Canon of things in general but Amia is not the place for it.

Grymia, I'm sorry if my monk order offended you or anyone else. I made it for me.

Actually Council, from what little interaction we've had your Monk hasn't been an offense. Next time we takl online I can explain with a bit more clarity.

Homebrew, Canon, custom, or however you like it. As long as you can make it interesting and with justified existence.

See, to me, it doesn't matter whether its made up or having to do with the canon lore. Both should be a spring board. The Canon lore doesn't ever describe every available monastic order. And even the original canon orders are far from extremely fleshed out. The fact of the matter is that canon lore is always insufficient.

For instance, if you've got the Order of the Iron Gauntlet, the sourcebooks might mention that they're affiliated with Banites, and that they perform a certain subset of tasks. But they don't go into the details of techniques, how religion intertwines with their Ki, what rituals they perform, etc, etc. It's always been up to the DM and player to further describe and detail beyond canon lore.

If you went purely by (And within the confines of) the books, you'd have a very dull concept. It would lack the necessary depth for a Persistent World server. If you want this monk order to be more famous and well-established, picking a canon lore base might help because you can justify its existence as popular without surprising players with a "New-but-really-ancient-and-powerful" monk order. BUT, if you're looking to create a fledgling monk discipleship, you are almost always going to find that designing something more specifically to the server of Amia will have a greater and more rewarding impact for its players. If it's something small, and has a reason for arriving on Amia-- and fits within the paradigm of Amian culture/players/history/resources, then by all means develop it as you like, with whatever homebrew you wish.
~~~

I would more personally desire a monk order that strayed from religious organizations. The wide variety of religions in the Forgotten Realms tends to deceive players and DM's alike into making them believe that by following even abstract deity dogmas to the code that they're producing unique concepts. Too many characters strive to be perfect images of their God's doctrine, and in the end they unconsciously pigeonhole themselves. As monk orders also usually strive for perfection, I would prefer to see a monk order that was designed around an ideal, a way of living, or some other abstract concept.

Those of you who answered Canon Orders and who have not already said: which of those Orders are you interested in?

One example I could see coming into the region would be the Order of the Sun Soul.

Right off, I can only thnk of that and I'm pretty sure there was an Ilmateri order but I can't remember what it's called (I want to say the Broken Ones but I might be mistaken)

Grymia wrote:

One example I could see coming into the region would be the Order of the Sun Soul.

Right off, I can only thnk of that and I'm pretty sure there was an Ilmateri order but I can't remember what it's called (I want to say the Broken Ones but I might be mistaken)

Something like that. There's also the Monks of the Yellow Rose, who are another influential group of Ilmatari monks (who more closely mimic the real-world model of Catholic monks than most monastic groups do), but they're tied rather closely to Damara.

Yes, the Broken Ones.

Didn't the Cleric Quintet books have a group of monks dedicated to Oghma, who were all huge, jolly wrasslers? Those guys would be fun to have around.

We actually have a PC of that variety!

They were just clerics/lorekeeperrs (the Oghmanyte specialty priest). Wrestling is part of Oghmanyte religion for whatever reason.

EDIT: As regards Hackums' religion comment, I think we lack properly polytheistic groups on Amia. There are several temples and factions in the Realms with multiple patrons that don't normally go together. So if a monk order were to have a set of values and goals that touch on several deities' portfolios, they could honor all those gods as their patrons and protectors without overemphasis on embodying the doctrines of any single one. You could come up with some unexpected combination based on a very specific interest, doctrine and discipline of the group.

I always really, really, *really* wanted to see monastic orders on the server. I very much like the idea of the custom ones that would best reflect the population of monks on Amia. One of my active toons, being a monk, would absolutely love to join some kind of SD monk thingie....Shadow Fist always sounded cool, and I'm pretty sure thats Homebrew.

I want. :mrgreen:

I had a wisdom based zen monk, pretty much a jedi master yoda style, that I could bring back around to train weapon masters and monks and the sort of ki folks.

IronAngel wrote:

EDIT: As regards Hackums' religion comment, I think we lack properly polytheistic groups on Amia. There are several temples and factions in the Realms with multiple patrons that don't normally go together. So if a monk order were to have a set of values and goals that touch on several deities' portfolios, they could honor all those gods as their patrons and protectors without overemphasis on embodying the doctrines of any single one. You could come up with some unexpected combination based on a very specific interest, doctrine and discipline of the group.

The Sun Soul follows Selune and Sune in addition to Lathander! #themoreyouknow

Monks are so cool, they follow Chaotic gods. :lol:

GreatPigeon wrote:

I had a wisdom based zen monk, pretty much a jedi master yoda style, that I could bring back around to train weapon masters and monks and the sort of ki folks.

I expect to see you at the Monastic Demonstration, then.

Some monk orders are just plain cool, but we also want at least one order to be easily access-able, without being completely generic. Amirite?

Personally I would like to see a lot more canon lore stuff be represented in Amia so I voted for canon orders.

Which Canon orders?

Some more Canon orders might be nice to see, though my vote went for Custom Orders 'cos I want to see what kind of shiz the DMs can cook up. Underdark themed monastic order, YOU KNOW YOU WANT IT.

Canon orders are great, but as it's been said several times before- even if the canon orders were here in name, all of the lore around them would be homebrew, because it doesn't exist in the sourcebooks. It's left that way on purpose, to give DMs wiggle room to interpret and be creative in tabletop campaigns.

I only know this because I've been considering making a monk lately and there is literally not more than 2 sentences of information on almost every canon monk order out there. So to keep saying "don't break canon lore" when... there isn't any doesn't really make sense.

I recall once having a conversation about how to diversify Tarkuul a bit. It went along the lines of...

'So we need something other than dudes in armor.'
'Warmages?'
'They're around I think.'
'Monks?'
'That'd be great, why aren't the Monks of the Long Death or Dark Moon in Tarkuul already anyway?'
'We don't know how to contact them.'
'Ah.'
'And they're super secretive, so they probably wouldn't like operating in a city with 24/7 total omniscience watching them.'
'And we don't like banites. We can't have that one banite order around...'
'Guess we'll have to make our own.'

And that's when a few members of the Living Guard started doing some monk stuff to get some monk RP going since there's pretty much nowhere suitable for the few evil canon orders to fit in around our largest evil settlement.

My answer: Non-canon please. It's not just a matter of getting the canon orders fleshed out, it's whether the setting we have established really has a place for those canon orders which would even make sense. A few of the canon orders would fit in the places which would welcome monastic orders (most likely in Kohlingen), but otherwise the whole server doesn't seem that friendly to major monk orders in any respect other than them occasionally passing through....

What if there were NPCs who each teach a technique specific of an established order, with one generic teacher who teaches a technique to the 'other' monks? That may be an interesting way of keeping some structure and incentive to monk orders, while also not penalizing monks not of an established order.

Months ahead of you.

I'll be closing this poll on December 31st, so if you have an interest in this and haven't voted yet, do so before then!

Thanks for casting your votes!

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