AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

The Shadow Legion

Final Revisions

What is it?
The Shadow Legion is a structured organization of assassins. Working in the shadows, it does the "dirty work" of other organizations and those who require assassins. Contracts accepted. Generally for sneaky players who want a bit more structure and bits of cool RP in the mix. Assassins come in all shapes and sizes, and as long as you aren't under 10 INT you should have no problem. Know we are not mercenaries and therefore you do not advertise your services openly.

Ranks

- Initiate - On trial time before becoming a member.
- Adept - A lesser of the guild, one who has not yet proven themselves as an assassin.
- Assassin - A true member of the guild.
- Master Assassin - Arcane Tricksters, Venom Blades, Field Assassins, Silent Whisper. Master Assassins are given their own title. A subcategory are specialty assassins which will be teachers of certain specializations.
- Grand Master - Deathblade.

Rules:

#1 A formal challenge to the guild master must be made to usurp him, otherwise defeating or killing a member to increase your place within the guild is permitted, but strongly discouraged. We aren't a chaotic guild, we aren't the drow. Keep it reasonable.
#2 Do not expose other members of the guild or the guild itself.
#3 Pay respect to your superiors in the guild.
#4 Always kill your target. Do not leave eye witnesses and do not leave the task unfinished.
#5 Plan the task well ahead and act in orderly fashion, also planning out means of escape.
#6 Prepare for the unexpected. Always have back-up plan.
#7 Stealth, subtlety and disguising are key to your success.

Punishment for an unfinished task will be ordered according to the damage or violation done ranging from jail and payments to death.

“We are not the judge, but the executioner.”

Know that you will be tested.

Private Forums: In time.

Alignments:
CE
NE
LE
CN
NN
LN

Lawful Evil, and Neutral Evil are preferred.. CE will need a more NE feel to it and doesn't really seem a good choice for an assassin. Why? Chaotic Evil is...well chaotic. Being a cool calculating assassin isn't going on a horrible killing spree and worshipping pretty much any chaotic evil god. This is not to say CE won't be accepted, but UNDERSTAND your character. An over chaotic assassin is living on the edge, and if this excess chaos causes you to fail a mission, you will be dealt with swiftly. Also, only MILD chaos is really needed, therefore if you want to be a more chaotic assassin, I would go with NE. Now, LN, NN, and CN are not necessarily recommended, however assassin's can kill for more than the pleasure of it, but more of tolerant thing to earn money. I'd stick to LE or NE. Neutral alignments should have a more compelling reason why they want to be assassins. Roleplay it out.

Religious free organization. This doesn't mean you can't have a religion. We do not enforce any faith within our ranks. Also we do not take any enforcing of faith

Common Sense Requirements (OOC):
Nobody under 10 intelligence is accepted, though 12 is recommended.
You must be able to sneak attack in some way. (This counts rp style sneak attacks, not just the feat. If you can't use it, be clever.)
Hired Killer job is not required.
No metagaming. Just being our hideout may be in one area doesn't mean it will be there the next time. Unless you KNOW where we all are on another character than don't jump on a paladin and try to catch us.
No good alignments

Most recommended classes:
Assassins
Shadowdancers
Rogues
Bards
Monks
Rangers

How to join?
Contact Shadows through this thread or private message and we will work out the IC meeting, and new characters and such. Finding the assassins in game will be much harder, but completely possible.

Present Status: Are open to any new recruits and such.

PM sent.

Noted.

You had my interest until you started placing way too many OOC restrictions.

Such as? It may have been my thinking as I wrote it, but the only restrictions are no obvious non assassin classes, int under 10, and you have to have assassin or SD levels 5 or higher to be an assassin. Thats really it. I honestly see no reason to allow the classes I denied. Can you be more specific as to the excess of OOC restrictions?

Ditto against OOC restrictions.

Alignment restrictions, mainly. To begin with, I disagree that neutral characters wouldn't want to be assassin-types, regardless of what the system thinks in terms of class. The main difference is that they basically need better reasons than "because it's fun/I want money/for the lulz". On the other hand, I can understand not wanting to deal with neutral people and their morals, whatever they may be, and it is your organisation so it's your prerogative to only have members who don't give (much of) a crap when it comes to killing. My point is that neutrals can still do it! Also, not all CEs are raving lunatics. Some are capable of being cold and calculating, they just have a flair for spontaneity and whatnot.

That aside, I don't think you can exactly test alignments IG, so someone can just lie to you about it OOC and unless you test it IG (which would mostly be metagamery and that is a bad thing!), and there's nothing really stopping people of inappropriate alignments joining just 'cos, as long as they act the part.

As for the class restrictions... well, it's your organisation, go with your preferred M.O.

Detect Alignment works, though you need consent of the players involved, as it is a PnP spell.

ShortSlasher wrote:

Detect Alignment works, though you need consent of the players involved, as it is a PnP spell.

If they're going to lie about their alignment, why would they consent? Unless you're going to refuse people who don't take it. Which works, but may hamstring you in the long run (evil assassiny types are notoriously untrusting in general!)

Makes a bit of sense yes. Every CE Character I see though that aren't drow are lunatics. They usually go on killing sprees and get killed rather fast. As for neutral characters, too me it just doesn't seem like they'd have a reason to do assassinations. MAYBE NN but still doesn't seem likely. It'd have to be how you look at the Neutral alignments. I think I'm going to allow them though, considering the point that I can't really test their alignments in game and my character does not detect alignments.

This has been revised in the Alignment section, because considering your points it actually made alot of sense, and I'd most likely be the guy to want to make a neutral assassin if it wasn't allowed.

I was more considering the class restriction bit of it. One does not -need- the Assassin or SD classes to be an "assassin". Any hired killer will have their own preferred method, be it stealthiness and slitting throats or overpowering someone and holding their head under water to drown them, or bludgeon them to death with a lead pipe in a back alley, get them with a Finger of Death out of Invisibility, Boom! Headshot! with an arrow....and any other number of methods..

Now, if it's your intention to be a master assassin who teaches recruits the tactics and methods and abilities of the Assassin class, then I can understand a bit better...

DerkDerkistan wrote:

I was more considering the class restriction bit of it. One does not -need- the Assassin or SD classes to be an "assassin". Any hired killer will have their own preferred method, be it stealthiness and slitting throats or overpowering someone and holding their head under water to drown them, or bludgeon them to death with a lead pipe in a back alley, get them with a Finger of Death out of Invisibility, Boom! Headshot! with an arrow....and any other number of methods..

Now, if it's your intention to be a master assassin who teaches recruits the tactics and methods and abilities of the Assassin class, then I can understand a bit better...

Agreed. It's cool if it were stated that you are trying to create an "Assassins Only" school or that, but keep in mind fluff wise that some people are great with poisons or other means of killing a victim.

Bladen-Kurst wrote:

Makes a bit of sense yes. Every CE Character I see though that aren't drow are lunatics. They usually go on killing sprees and get killed rather fast.

How would you have any clue whether this is true or not? That character standing next to you, looking innocent and biding her time, might be CE, and you'd never know. We don't have alignments floating over our heads next to our names.

Give it 2 weeks. Way to many pointless restrictions.

Yes from my perspective you have over restricted this. My one hash on this is respect your fellow brethren clause. The fun behind a faction of evil Assassins would be your ability to combat your way to the top.

I'd suggest removing the OOC restrictions and limiting it to Assassin levels OR Hired killer job preferred. Joining should involve an OOC agreement that if the character betrays the faction, there will be IC consequences and pre-accept that your character can be taken out without situational consent, which is the same as the Assassination rules on Amia. Thus negating the possibility that someone tries to infiltrate the group then OOCly wiggle out of IC consequences.

I'd also suggest making the faction more open to other classes to fill in other roles. Mages could be accepted to fill the role of "situational controllers", buffing team members prior to assassination and controlling enemy mages trough debuffs or counterspelling. Accepting melee oriented chars to act as enforcers to aid in money collecting and overseeing contacts to make sure everything goes as arranged, as well as backup should the assassin fail to take the target by surprise.

It'd make the faction less OOC restricted and open to more ideas or types while keeping as much as possible IC, thus excluding OOC metagamy knowledge of character alignment or classes prior to initiation. If you want to limit the ease of goodies trying to infiltrate the organization, you could implement some sort of initiation ritual where you HAVE to kill in cold blood infront of someone else, without knowledge of the target's identity, reason for the hit etc etc etc.

Having been involved in a fair bit of assassination style RP and groups myself over the years, the above suggestions come from experience and helped both the RP, feel and flow of the groups.

A little room should be given when it comes to CE or NN alignments, but I would not just have it restricted to the assassin class because characters can assassinate others without having the assassin class if you know what I mean.

Other than that, I give it a thumbs-up. :mrgreen:

Mages are also real useful at scrying to track down your marks.

Yes. I have accepted mages and such. The class restrictions is subject to change. This is only the first day its been up. But I do understand what you're saying now. BUT theres a few things I'll explain here on my intentions. I understand ANYONE can do assassinations, but thats not entirely where I'm going here. I'm going to revise this throughout the day. Once I do though, it won't be subject to change for awhile. There will still be class restrictions. But after reading one of the first comments of the day I have the OVERALL idea to change it a bit. However the reason why I didn't want to accept certain melee classes is because it seems like it would be too much of a "mercenary" type thing to me. But now that I am home today I have a few changes I'd like to make. And the rules aren't complete yet. I will post sometime today, perhaps sooner than later the last standing revisions. As for the kind of work your way to top aspect, thats a bit too CE for me. How I'd put it. Say the church of Cyric, and the drow society works their way to the top. They are both meant to be CE type structures. I know its not bound to CE, but this is how I'm seeing it. As I said I will revise a bit today and post the final revisions sooner than later.

Officially Revised to its final stages. Makes so much more sense than a single stealth only assassination group. Enjoy.

i still dont like the idea of alignment restrictions, it seem to be a safeguard for you to avoid spies, discover ic'ly if the person is what you want but dont put down ooc stats and figures that your char cant possibly know...just my 2 cents

I thought the same thing, Kraniumbrud, but then I realized that if I really wanted to, I could roll up a CG rogue shadowdancer that would say all the right things to infiltrate and none would be the wiser.

But then I thought that if the upstart guild could try and get fancy and do something to ICly discern a person's alignment, or rather ICly discern that the recruit is someone who wouldn't be a spy, it's much better. And no, I'm not talking about the spell Detect Alignment. That's a cop out and there are far more clever ways to do such, one is already mentioned in this thread.

Hmm, as one who used to run a guild of assassins, I like the idea. I don't like the faith restrictions since all FR realms folks have a faith. Lots of assassins worship evil gods. Yes, true, it doesn't have to be a faith based guild (probably shouldn't be) but all your members will worship a god most likely.

In anycase, if you want a strong assassin teacher for your guild, to train up the younglings, I'd be happy to play that part in your guild. I'd say my character is one of the oldest (in terms of time around) assassins on the server, and she's looking for a new purpose in life lately. She's had quite a number of kills under her belt too, so her credentials are there and her experience is lengthy.

That'd be great if you helped in the guild, especially with experience. As for the Alignment restrictions, I do not see the point of any good assassins. Of course anyone can infiltrate. But assassins aren't good therefore I don't see the problem with alignment restrictions on good alignments. You can't really be a good assassin sooo, I don't really think alignment restrictions at this point are a big deal. At some point I do want to discern alignments, but it's not top priority. At this point, the guild is recruiting assassins new and old, talent or not. Good alignment restrictions to me are kind of a given. Look at it this way. Alignment restrictions aren't completely forbidding alignments, because it cannot be discerned in the beginning, but WILL be discerned at some point. I'm setting the model really, because of course their could be spies in any organization, but you wouldn't have a willing good alignment in it. Also as for religion, perhaps you are reading it wrong. "We do not enforce any faith within our ranks. Also we do not take any enforcing of faith" You can have a faith no problem. Just don't try to forcibly make another take your faith. I'm not saying you can't have a faith, because that seems unreasonable.

good assassins?? theres a reason the prestige class is restricted mechanically to evil only >=D spys maybe but assassins, you be way off.

anyway, being an ooc thread I see this is the place to smooth over the cracks, so i'd like to agree that any restrictions should be put aside and left to whatever happens ICly, but I mean your not going to get far in this faction without some stealth, and if I we're grandmaster and I saw that your blade has about as much blood on it as a clean window i'd have my reservations about inviting those into the guild/faction.

seriously, if you believe CG is a viable alignment for the profession of assassinating living people for the reasons assassins in FR would do so...I have said my piece.

DerkDerkistan wrote:

I thought the same thing, Kraniumbrud, but then I realized that if I really wanted to, I could roll up a CG rogue shadowdancer that would say all the right things to infiltrate and none would be the wiser.

Read this part again, Glyph. Thanks.

Glyph has a point though. But the restrictions are there as it goes. None of the things are really asking much. An Assassin with int minus 10 is not going to happen. No metagaming is obvious. Even if you are a warrior, the whole point is to sneak attack your opponent, whether is is fighting or RP style. And good alignments will not be allowed. I understand your spy idea, but thats a different thing completely. As a spy you ARE infiltrating an organization you shouldn't be in, and precautions will be taken to find you out eventually. Thats all I'm saying. If you feel a good character is going to try that, be my guest. But there aren't good assassins, so the restriction stays. These are common sense restrictions, and really don't limit you. If you play an SD without SA If you RP it right and is clever, I'm not going to say no because you don't have sneak attack. As I said, it is a model.

you could in theory but your not getting my point, you would have to kill people, people you shouldn't be killing, and this would change your alignment. unless you are very very clever about it all. its like your saying 'I have a palemaster I want to roll up I think i'll join the EO' >_> at least thats what i'm feeling over here.

there has to be some conflict of characters in a faction, and this one is obviously better suited to evil than good, however I do understand the point being made and i'm sure it will be interesting to see how all the conflicts play out.

who knows anyway how the story would play out, if the toon would become more inclined to evil over the time or maintain a spy mission, thats the fun of it all

That sounds reasonable.

Le bumbade!

You have wiki pages now!

Kick ass!

So when is this going to get established in-game?

Getting a few more members that I need to meet in game. Then I will set up a date for all to meet.

I'd like to point out that the classes listed there are only those preferred.

You can apply if you are mage / priest / warrior / wuthevah. but you need to proove your worth and abilities to be useful in some way.

...I was looking for a little something to do on the side with a character of mine. And your last addendum was just what i needed. I refuse to make a new character to fit the concept, But i can gladly hop aboard with an allready existing character.

Very_Svensk wrote:

...I was looking for a little something to do on the side with a character of mine. And your last addendum was just what i needed. I refuse to make a new character to fit the concept, But i can gladly hop aboard with an allready existing character.

It was my pleasure to clarify this for everyone!

We don't enforce making new character for the SL.

Old characters are perfectly accepted, just as new ones are. But as said in by wise men in this forum, don't make character JUST for the faction! Have other reasons as well!

I would agree. Old characters are fine as well, just send me a message with the details.

Last edited by Dead on Sun, Mar 20 2011, 18:45 PM, edited 1 time in total.

1st thing. I dont think that all assassins are evil. IMHO assassin should be neutral. She kills fairly. Some enjoy the contracts but a true assassin should kill without any emotions. No anger, no joy, no remorse. If killing a man is by defalut an evil deed, than every character that ever killed some PC in PvP, regardless of the reason is evil. Therefore, neutrals should be allowed.

:arrow:

2nd thing. I think that your creed it a bit too complicated. Keep it simple. No need for 10 commandments. Use the idea from Assassins Creed. Three rules.

1. Stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent
2. Always be discreet
3. Never compromise the Brotherhood

No need to explain what happens if you compromise the brotherhood. I think its pretty much obvious.

:arrow:

3rd thing. You should have a goal. Peace, balance, power etc. Without a purpose, or for the spite of killing, the assassins guild cease to be interesting.

:arrow:

4th thing. No challenge to the leaders. At least not direct PvP challenge. Even the most powerful of characters rolls 1 sometimes. That's not a measure of power.

:arrow:

5th thing. You need to find a way to inform playerbase ICly of this. We can exchange PM but until my toons know of the organization, they won't be able to join it.

Dead wrote:

:arrow: 1st thing. I dont think that all assassins are evil. IMHO assassin should be neutral. She kills fairly. Some enjoy the contracts but a true assassin should kill without any emotions. No anger, no joy, no remorse. If killing a man is by defalut an evil deed, than every character that ever killed some PC in PvP, regardless of the reason is evil. Therefore, neutrals should be allowed.

:arrow:

2nd thing. I think that your creed it a bit too complicated. Keep it simple. No need for 10 commandments. Use the idea from Assassins Creed. Three rules.

1. Stay your blade from the flesh of an innocentEdit Stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent section
2. Always be discreet
3. Never compromise the Brotherhood

No need to explain what happens if you compromise the brotherhood. I think its pretty much obvious.

:arrow:

3rd thing. You should have a goal. Peace, balance, power etc. Without a purpose, or for the spite of killing, the assassins guild cease to be interesting.

:arrow:

4th thing. No challenge to the leaders. At least not direct PvP challenge. Even the most powerful of characters rolls 1 sometimes. That's not a measure of power.

:arrow:

5th thing. You need to find a way to inform playerbase ICly of this. We can exchange PM but until my toons know of the organization, they won't be able to join it.

Well 1st: Neither do I think all assassins should be evil, and it isn't limited to them.
2nd: Thats kind of too close to AC which I was avoiding.
3rd: The goals are not so outwardly said on the OOC forum, however one of the goals is balance.
4th: I say challenge to leader because simply killing the leaders, a bunch of times is iritating and gets nothing done, so if you can kill the leader at anytime its lame.
5th: and I totally agree, working on it.

2nd I didnt say that you should copy it. But you should make it simple. Three rules max. At least thats my vision of assassin brotherhood.

4th What would the challenge be if not PvP? Some quests? Now that would be most interesting. Making several quests for both the challenger and leader and seeing who's more capable and cunning. However, I would also enforce some additional rule such as 1 challenge per month or such to avoid constant attempts.

IDK, I'm keeping the challenge as it is for now. And it isn't completely Forbidding PVP, its just you have to challenge the master, not just attack him. Plus the guild is just starting a challenge instantly wouldn't be wise before the guild even has stability.

As for the rules, here are the three MAIN ones.

#1 A formal challenge to the guild master must be made to usurp him, otherwise defeating or killing a member to increase your place within the guild is permitted, but strongly discouraged. We aren't a chaotic guild, we aren't the drow. Keep it reasonable.

#2 Do not expose other members of the guild or the guild itself.

#7 Stealth, subtlety and disguising are key to your success.

The others are mere of subsets of these three.

What's up with this stuff? Should I pm you if im interested?

Aye, yes.

1. assassins in this setting are viewed as evil, and evil is viewed as a cosmic force rather than a perspective. unfortunatly, because I agree with the neutrality thing mainly because...

2. nothing is true, everything is permitted xD

actually that wasn't the full creed from assassins creed, it was something like never harm the innocent, don't comprimise the clan, and something else I forgot...

but yea, imo there needs to be something to variate between the common mercs of the island and the assassins, some restrictions are in order if only in words to show how its different than some regular bounty hunt. CN rogues could work well in your faction for example, as could SD mages, or a sneaky bard even.

as for challenge to leadership, isn't this the same right of passage type of thing of a certain class I shall not name for the benefit of those who haven't done it before?

I probably should leave it there, I don't currently have an applicable character for the faction but thought I should add some points. also you already know who may 'return from the mainland' at some point samal

Bladen-Kurst
I'm could be slowly working towards an entry in your faction, Or maybe i'm just trampling out a sidetrack, Or perhaps i'm not even here in this topic!
Whether i am, Or will be, or may at all join this faction, is up for time to decide.

But it's quite interesting!

Then I shall not, or may also sorta defiantly without proof, with solid evidence see you soon!

And Glyph :wink:

Glyph wrote:

actually that wasn't the full creed from assassins creed, it was something like never harm the innocent, don't comprimise the clan, and something else I forgot...

1. Stay your blade from the flesh of an innocentEdit Stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent section
2. Always be discreet
3. Never compromise the Brotherhood

How about the Sharran system? We dont have to know eachother. We can have a message board. Or even better Oblivion system.

1 listener, 4 speakers, rest assassins..

Got a bit of a different system, I'll explain in a message

A much needed BUMP.

We have more than enough to keep us busy, so it would be nice to have a few more members. Send a PM if you are interested.

[Faction] The Shadow Legion

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