The Cathedral of Our Lady

Server: Antonia Bayle
Homeowner: Jazabelle
City: Freeport
Address: Secluded Sanctum
Leaderboard: Massive Homes
Name: The Cathedral of Our Lady


To begin with, yes, I built a cathedral to my character. No, I'm not that conceited. However, my character sees nothing wrong with people wanting to build a cathedral to worship her. After all, in roleplay, please remember that you are not your character! I play a vampire. That doesn't mean I'm going to run around drinking human blood. By the same token, things that my character finds normal, I find really creepy. If someone built a cathedral to me, I'd be outta there! Besides, the cathedral isn't a physical place in Norrath, according to the roleplay.

Anyway, back to the cathedral.

The view from the organ loft.

Three years ago, on March 30, 2012, I posted about the cathedral I built for Dolthaic in EQ2 on the Antonia Bayle server. It's still on the Leaderboards, under the Hall of Fame, though it's drifted a few pages back.

The build was a ton of fun (and took me over a year to complete, since I paused right after starting, to wait for building blocks to come out, though it only took me 5 days to build), but there were a lot of things I'd wished I could do differently.

For one, because of load times and the zone that Dolthaic chose, the Cathedral of Innoruuk could not be any longer than it was--any longer, and visitors would have to wait for the ground around them to load.

Second, I wasn't able to put in all of the details I'd originally envisioned, because at that point, building blocks counted towards the house item count, rather than having their own item count.

Third, this was my first ever home built with building blocks. I made it up as I went along, and hadn't learned a lot of the tricks that I've since discovered or been taught.

Finally, this was a cathedral owned by someone else. It wasn't my home, so the final opinion on things went to Dolthaic. If I liked one style, and he liked another, I went with what he preferred, since I was building to his tastes.

Fast forward three years. I have three years of experience working with building blocks. We have a whole new bunch of zones to choose from to decorate in. We have three years of new items. And for the past four years, I've been roleplaying that a cathedral is beneath Jazabelle's rose bush in her garden, and have been itching to build the zone that I see in my head every time I RP it.

"Beneath" is perhaps too simple a term to describe it. Jazabelle is a vampire. She inspires lavish devotion in her household via a combination of vampiric magic and pure coercion (yes, she's a coercer). Her household's cult-like worship of her has created a sort of mass hallucination centered around the rose bush, and the supposed cathedral beneath it.

This book at the entrance describes how you got here. ...you think. Maybe.

The vestibule, with the stoup in the left corner. A very simple room. Be sure to read the book!

The Cathedral of Our Lady is the result of that mass hallucination. When members of her household "visit the Cathedral," this zone is what they see.

Of course, it isn't just a mass hallucination. There's a magical component. Because of the years Jazabelle has spent feeding this one particular rose bush a rather ...interesting... diet...

The book of readings on the lectern. Yes, they're all this creepy.

...the rose bush is now a semi-sentient entity that craves blood. Also, it has thorns. Did I mention it has thorns? Be careful around the vines in the cathedral...

Since building blocks and items now have a separate count, I figured that I could go crazy in my cathedral, satisfying my desire to build things the way I envisioned them the first time.

As I said before, Dolthaic's cathedral was limited by how far away from the entrance point of the zone the teleport pad could be. Because this cathedral was built directly in the zone of the Secluded Sanctum, I didn't have to worry about teleport pads and loading times. Plus teleport pads annoy me. I know they're useful sometimes, but if I can create a zone that doesn't need to use them, I'd rather do that.

So I chose a zone where I wouldn't have to have a teleport pad.

Lefthand aisle with climbing vines. The rose bush has influence even here!

The sound of the fireplaces that I used for the base of the windows in Dolthaic's cathedral always irritated me. However, I couldn't think of anything else to use at that time, and I liked how they looked. So I left them.

When I built my cathedral, I tried to use fireplaces. Unfortunately, while I'd used 12 in Dolthaic's cathedral, I wound up using 44 in mine. 12 was bad. 44 was enough to send me to a mental institute. So I switched 'em to something else.

View of the altar and high altar.

The window frames were a touch of genius on Iosabella's part. I commissioned her to do a baptistery for the cathedral after seeing the wonderful job she did on Dolthaic's baptistery. (In fact, I commissioned her even before she'd finished his, because I liked it so much!) She's been working on the baptistery while I've been working on the cathedral, trying to match my style of build.

I ran in to visit the baptistery while she was working on it, and saw that she'd created an awesome gold frame around the windows she was working on. That meant that I immediately ran back to the cathedral to add gold frames to all of my windows. It took 76 copies of Rallos' Blessing and 135 copies of Conquering the Wastes to make those lovely borders.

Closeup view of the high altar, with a strangely familiar icon.

When it came time to do the interior decor, from the high altar, to the lectern, to the pipe organ, I was stumped. In Dolthaic's cathedral, I'd used building blocks almost exclusively on all of those items, and they were nice, but not ornate enough for what I wanted with this cathedral. We'd had all sorts of new items added, and so many of them were ornate, I knew I could find something to build things out of!

Which is when I remembered the High Keep furniture. Two ornate chests, four bookcases, five chests, and an ornate chair later (plus an emerald stained glass window, a house actor of Jaz, a rose, six eucalyptus candle sticks, and six candles ringed by roses), I had a high altar to be proud of!

View from the altar, looking back at the choir and organ loft.

The first time I saw the High Keep Long Bench, I knew I wanted to use it in whatever cathedral I built. However, the cream seating didn't go with the predominantly red-and-stone look of the cathedral. So I covered the cushions with burgundy spuncloth throw cushions. Better!

The pipe organ and choir.

And the pipe organ. Oh, the pipe organ. I spent longer on the pipe organ than I did on any other piece in the zone. It took me 16 hours (2 8 hour days) to build the pipe organ. In contrast, it took me FIVE days to build the entire zone, and five days to fill in all the zone details. One sixth of my entire decorating time was spent on the pipe organ!

Dolthaic's cathedral took me five days total to do.

This one took me 12 days, spread out over a month.

Dolthaic's cathedral will always have a place in my heart, because it was the first cathedral I built (and possibly the first player built cathedral in EQ2, I'm not sure). However, this cathedral is uniquely mine in a way that his never was. My voice had the final say over every detail (well, and the first say, the second say, and every other say in between).

This wasn't my second cathedral build, though! I tried two other times to build the cathedral. The first time was just a few months after I finished Dolthaic's. The second time was mid-2013, and I tried to build the Crimson Cathedral. It didn't work out.

Here, have a Facebook album of all of the iterations of The Cathedral of Our Lady, starting on April 22nd, 2015.

And the full manifest of what it took to make the cathedral (minus the prestige housing portals):

a long stone corner counter	35
a repaired piano	2
Black Marble Stair	5
Black Marble Tile	28
Block of Fancy Fulginate	152
Book of Hate	1
burgundy spuncloth throw cushion	184
Candle Ringed by Red Roses	50
Captive Audience	1
Cerulean Calm Bottle	1
Chalice of the Spurned	1
Chipped Freeport Celebration Cup	1
Coin of Winning	8
Conquering the Wastes	135
Crawling Captive	3
Crimson Stained Glass Square	60
Dangling Skull Collection	5
Decorative Vines	89
Doomed Ettin Skull	10
emerald stained glass oval	1
erudin screen	78
eucalyptus candlestick	6
Golden Wash Basin	1
Half Block of Adamantine	10
Half Dozen Roses in a Smooth Vase	49
Hedge Seeds	6
Hewn Stone Counter	17
High Keep Bar Stool	2
High Keep Bookcase	3
High Keep Chest	47
High Keep Dining Chair	15
High Keep End Table	3
High Keep Long Bench	24
High Keep Long Chandelier	10
High Keep Low Bookcase	4
High Keep Ornate Chair	5
High Keep Ornate Chest	7
High Keep Settle	1
House Actor	21
Large Circular High Keep Rug	1
Long High Keep Runner	2
Magic Door to the Guild Hall	1
Narrow Divider of Fancy Fulginate	246
Navigated Travels	1
Ornate Shadowed Stone Bookcase	170
Pile of Coin Square	8
Plain Gorowyn Door	2
plain sumac tile	8
Qeynos Sign	1
Quel'ule Notebook	3
Rack of Love Potions	25
Railing of Sumac	1
Rallos' Blessing	76
Red Roses Blooming with Love	18
Sacrificial Dagger of Fear	1
Seeping Shadow	1
Shackled Elf Skeleton	1
Shackled Human Skeleton	2
Shards of the Scorned	1
Short Column of Adamantine	91
Simple Antonican-Style Guild Tapestry	2
Single Red Rose	10
Single Red Rose	37
Square Cage	1
Stair of Fancy Fulginate	3
Stair of Redwood	3
Stair of Sumac	4
Stony Lichen Square	3
Strewn Scarlet Petals	12
Tall Column of Adamantine	390
Tall Divider of Fancy Fulginate	166
Trophy: Fang of Ichor	1
Wicker Demijohn	1
Woven Reed Bowl	2
Zlandicar's Heart	1

This cathedral has been a labor of love, and something I couldn't have finished without the help of my guild mates. Thank you to everyone who stopped by to help me error check, to give me ideas when I was stuck, and to the Creepy Crew who hung around for several hours, watching me decorate (you know who you are!). Also, to Iosabella for scaring the hell out of me by logging in on top of me more than once, and for those gorgeous, gorgeous window frames. And Blazewolf, thank you for pushing me to add those final finishing touches to the choir risers. I like them 1000x better now.

Danyella of Freeport was the first person I ever saw to use the High Keep chairs as door frames. Thank you for letting me use that lovely idea. It's perfect!

Of course, this entire cathedral wouldn't exist if Dolthaic hadn't commissioned me to make the first one back in 2011. Thanks, Dolthaic!

D'Morte, D'Ryil, and Freeblood

This post has nothing to do with housing, and only a passing reference to combat. Instead, it focuses on roleplay. More specifically, it focuses on what lore we have about the D'Morte, the D'Ryil, and the Freeblood.

I've been asked or seen people ask for the lore numerous times. I figured I would archive it all here for easy reference and updating as I find more lore hidden in the depths of the vast pit known as The Internet. Additionally, it keeps this lore "safe" just in case the sources of the lore disappear into the ether.

The D'Morte

This was posted by Vhalen on September 6th, 2006, on the old forums. It concerns a D'Morte holiday known as "Libation."

House D'Morte's seeds were sown in EQLive. Early on, pieces of their story began to appear within Neriak, namely, The Lodge of the Dead. Although their story was never fully told, the roots existed. There is a portion of old Neriak that used to hold their original villa and the agents charged with the ongoing hunt of the vampire house could be found.

Although Bloodline Chronicles holds a chapter or two of the saga of House D'Morte, it does not tell all. Unknown to most is the story of the chateau in the land of frost and ice. There rests a chapter of their lives that followed the great escape from Neriak. Only in such a hostile land could some of the D'Morte's hide from the slayers of The Dead.

Over time, the D'Morte's began to embrace their affliction. They even began a family holiday.

"Libation"

This “holiday” is in dedication of the event to which all the D`Morte house was turned into vampires. The typical D`Morte celebration on this day is a gathering in a grand hall they call the blood chamber. Here the elder of the house recites a history of the D`Morte saga, detailing its beginning, its trials, and its current status. During this recitation, lesser minions or prisoners are bled dry. After the recitation the results of the bleeding are imbibed by the D`Morte clan. A grand ball is held afterwards and often rages on until the edge of dawn. To the few "guests" that have gazed upon this site and (un)lived, they refer to this as "The Blood Ball". To House D'Morte, this is "Libation."

The tragic tale of the D'Morte's is related to Mistmoore's origins. That is evident to those that can piece the puzzle together properly. Sometime in the future we will see more pieces to that puzzle appear in the world of Norrath.

The D'Ryil

This is taken from an interview Stratics did with Elizabeth Sigmund, Game Designer II about Neriak.

Stratics: What was the story behind deciding to populate part of Neriak with vampires?

Liz: I'll drop some lore on you guys:

In Darklight Wood were the remnants of the D'Morte clan, mostly the vampires deemed too weak to journey with the rest of the clan. One of those left behind was a vampire named Lazarus D'Ryil. He was not physically powerful, but was skilled in the arts of intrigue, seduction and flattery. The power he craved was social and political.

Once the D'Morte clan was gone, Lazarus decided his best bet at survival would be to find someone stronger to protect him. So, he made contact with the agents of The Dead and agreed to share all he knew of the D'Morte vampires, vampirism in general and Mayong Mistmoore in exchange for a home in Neriak and the rights to sire his own clan.

The Dead and our lady Queen Cristanos have always been looking for new ways to gain power and immortality. They see some of what they are looking for in vampirism. The Queen agreed to Lazarus' proposal, with the one stipulation that his progeny could never number more than twenty and they were subject to the rule of The Dead, meaning that they could be taken for "research" at any time.

Lazarus agreed and he now lives happily ever after in Neriak with his clan.

The Freeblood

There are three "D'Ryil's Letters," parts 1, 2, and 3.

Part 1:

Verilos,

Please read what I have enclosed. I have gone through the notes that were brought to me from Mayong’s library, and I believe that the sections I have highlighted below are the most pertinent to our experiments. Familiarize yourself with these.

… exactly how these runes might fit together. I believe that these are separate from the runes on the inside of the ring, but their significance isn’t immediately apparent.

As an aside, I am still puzzled as to what happened back in the tower. I have pondered the failure, but the reasons to her dramatic transformation elude me. I have turned others of her race, and none have changed the way she did. There is something more to this, something that reacted violently to the gift of vampirism.

Utilizing magic as she does, I wondered at first if she might have entreated herself to a powerful dark force that might have lashed back against anything that could wrest control of its thrall from its grip, since she would become subservient to me. I believe, however, that the possessor would have revealed itself in some manner had this been the case. There was no message of any kind (no changes in voice uttering a warning, no disembodied spirit attempting to threaten me), so I don’t believe this to be the case.

I wonder if she might have been under another sort of protection spell. Perhaps she was attempting to protect herself from the vampirism using a weak warding magic. This is plausible, although I did not feel the presence of a ward, and she had drank from the goblet containing my blood without any signs of difficulty. I suspect that if there were a ward, I would have noticed it immediately.

I believe that there is something else at play here…

… to continue the search for the staff. I despise their incompetence, but they are indeed necessary to complete the task I have before me.

Once again, I must make note of my findings regarding Tserrina. After pondering and researching, I believe that something was different about her blood itself. I recall there being a taste to it, something that I did not recognize. I brushed this off at first as some manner of contamination, that perhaps her dabbling in necromantic or demonic arts had tainted her blood. It seems I should have not been so quick to dismiss that fact.

If indeed her blood was impure, or mixed somehow, then whatever it was that she had infused in her blood was likely the cause of the transformation. I have a few theories as to what this could be, but the truth of the matter is that any discovery I make now is largely moot in regards to her. She is locked in the tower now, and will rot with time. She is no longer my concern, although I believe that I can apply the lessons I’ve learned to a similar experiment. I am interested in how a mixture like this might apply to another stock of blood, such as dragon’s blood. The implications of this are quite intriguing.

I will, however, make sure and look for the same sort of tells, should I choose to take up another bride as such. I do not want to waste more time and resources on another failed venture such as that again.

It’s clear to me that we must locate the notes of Tserrina Sly’Tor as well. She has the other half of the information that Mayong was missing. If we can recover that, then I believe that we can combine the two pieces of research to accomplish our goal of strengthening our bloodline. Send a thrall into the library, and recover the notes of Tserrina.

Do not fail.

Part 2:

To the Esteemed Arelin Holst D’Ryil,

I must write to inform you of our current progress.

As you know, our experiments have been going very well. We’ve been able to extrapolate quite of bit of information from Mayong’s research notes, and I believe that your theories on the outcome of his attempted transformation were quite insightful. It was fortunate for us that we had the information he was missing from Tserrina’s notes.

Several of our experiments, at this point, have been failures – this was expected. We’ve destroyed the majority of the failed experiments, as requested. However, we’ve found that some of the failures have yielded some interesting information as they decay. We’re interested to watch this process, and thus have kept these failures alive, partially for analysis, but admittedly there is a fair amount of amusement in their agonized writhing and cries.

Finding the correct mixture of blood is, as you know, the essence to our experiments here. Too much of the mixture resulted in dramatic transformations that the recipients rarely survived. Too little, and they became ineffective, creating rebellious, angry, weakened vampires. Finding the correct balance has been a difficult endeavor.

One particular experiment, a human male, has proven quite promising, however. Initially, we expected a complete failure with him, as his mixture was only slightly varied from experiments we had tried and failed with. As with the others, he writhed through the night, pleasing us with gurgling screams as he transformed. I myself entered his chamber the following night, prepared for either a wide-eyed, stiffened corpse, or a vicious, drooling, mindless beast. Neither was the case. He looked at me and asked the usual questions, “What happened to me?”, “What have I become?”… the standard list of disbelieving queries we are all used to from new blood. This was promising.

In spite of all of this, I would hesitate from calling this one a success. He seems to lack many of the benefits of our race – his strength does not appear to be that over others of his original stock, he seems to lack any manner of significant regeneration, and, most fatal of all, he does not appear to be subservient to our house as he should be. This was unexpected, and regardless of all his other flaws, makes him quite useless to us on the whole.

I still want to keep him alive for the time being, as there might be more to be to learn from him still. Once he has outlived his usefulness, I will see him destroyed. I am pleased, though, that we are on the verge of success, and that this recent experiment proves this.

I will inform you of our progress once a significant breakthrough has been made.


For the D’Ryil,
Verilos

Part 3:

Alesandra,

I am writing to discuss a very troubling matter, one that is up the utmost importance to our House and family.

It seems that our brother, Aerlin, has acquired some very interesting notes. He was able to gather a tome of research from none other than Mayong himself, which seemed to detail Mayong’s encounter with Tserrina, and notes he took on his attempted, and failed, turning of her. Aerlin then managed to acquire Tserrina’s notes on her own experiments of immortality from the library of Neriak.

His work seemed to point toward something he called the “strengthening of the blood”, a mixing of the research of Mayong and Tserrina. According to my informant, these experiments were largely unsuccessful, although their processes were well thought out. They attempted to turn all manner of races, from the brutish ogres, to the hideous iksar, to the insignificant gnomes. It seems that of all the races, the only ones they were able to have any measure of success with were those of human and elven stock – any others simply died in writhing agony.

Although it appears they have not yet achieved their goal, they met a measure of success with a human male they refer to as “Sarkon”. While he was not what they were hoping for initially, he did survive his experiments and was able to evidently provide them with a wealth of information. Evidently, they found all they needed to know, and were planning to destroy him. That was, until they entered his chamber to find him missing. Sarkon had escaped.

The troubling piece of information here, is that Sarkon escaped during the daylight. I’ll repeat that: Sarkon fled his confinement during full sunlight. While the fools are scrambling to discern how this was possible, the implications of what happened are not to be understated. It appears that Sarkon can walk into the daylight, since no charred remains were found. Whether he had assistance with this act is irrelevant. Sarkon, while D’Ryil, is not subservient to the House as he should be, and could prove to be dangerous to all of the D’Ryil as a whole. He must be found, and ultimately, destroyed.

In the meantime, we must find Aerlin and his laboratory. My informant is not aware of the location of the experiments, but I believe it is of paramount importance to find a way to put a stop to their research before they endanger us any further. We must convene, and contemplate what our next move will be. I will contact you when it is time.

Farewell for now.

- Viktyr D’Ryil

Summary

The D'Ryil (specifically, Aerlin D'Ryil, with help from Verilos D'Ryil) were attempting to strengthen their bloodline. The D'Ryil are weak in comparison, especially considering they were begun by Lazarus D'Ryil, a member of the D'Morte clan so inferior, they left him behind when they left the Darklight Woods.

Their experiments combined the research of Mayong and Tserrina. Unfortunately, all experiements were considered failures. They tried all different races, but only those of Human and Elvish stock survived the transformation. Most deteriorated or were destroyed.

Then came the failure known as Sarkon D'Ryil. While he didn't have the strength or regenerative powers of the D'Ryil vampires, he also apparently didn't feel the need to be subservient to the House. He was slated for destruction, but somehow managed to escape in daylight. (The benefits of being a Freeblood: No subservience, no aversion to daylight, slight regeneration, slight increase in strength.)

Sarkon D'Ryil is the creator of the Freebloods. Our lore on how Freeblood are made is sketchy--in the flight quest for bat form, you bite someone, but the implication is that there could be more to the process than just a simple bite.

Because of the idea of the D'Ryil experimentation, most people tend to create their own take on a vampire and go with it. And also because of the experimentation creation story, having a variety of different styles of vampire for the Freeblood works.

Sometimes you just have to vent...

This isn't about housing. This is about roleplay. It isn't a nice piece about roleplay, either. If you don't care about roleplay, don't read further. If you don't want to hear me rant about a situation that happened to me, skip this post.

I've purposely left off names, including the name of the establishment. If you do figure out who and where I'm talking about, leave them alone. While I appreciate that you guys are protective of me, it's not necessary. I'm choosing to let this go. I just need to vent.

For the most part, I spend my time decorating. If I'm not decorating, I'm roleplaying. In general, I have fun roleplaying. I get to put on a persona and pretend to be something I'm not, while other people do the same.

Other times, roleplay isn't so fun. That happens most often when people take in character action for what they perceive as an out of character slight.

It all began when I decided to attend a venue with a name that can be taken as either innocent, descriptive, or naughty. If we were talking about a restaurant, I'd think of a family style barbecue restaurant reminiscent of a summertime barbecue in the yard. But a bar? Like it or not, a bar is more likely to call to mind sexual innuendo. It's something to do with alcohol and how it loosens inhibitions.

I invited a guildmate to come along. Rosaphina was eager to go, as she's still setting up her persona. She's a stuck-up Koada'Dal, and not afraid to show it. We entered the home and went upstairs to the bar, where we ordered drinks.

We had a little bit of private conversation about the bartender's mustache. Jazabelle thought it was to attract human females--perhaps more hair convinced them that the male was more virile? Rosaphina agreed that it was a possibility. Simple, silly banter between co-workers.

The trouble started when Rosaphina referenced that conversation in /say. She informed Jazabelle that their suppositions appeared true. Jazabelle pointed out that there were no human females present. Rosaphina shot back that not all whorehouses only have humans.

The proprietress corrected Rosaphina. The establishment is just a bar, not a whorehouse. Jazabelle pointed out that "the name implies a certain degree of sexual promiscuity on the premises, but perhaps that was unintentional." She then added, "A <removed to preserve anonymity of the establishment> may also imply a family style establishment, as in a <removed to preserve anonymity of the establishment>." That was the last Jazabelle spoke on the matter, aside from an inept apology for the incorrect assumption.

Rosaphina said a few more things, mostly explaining why she came to the assumption that there might be a whorehouse associated with the bar. She then apologized. Finished, right?

Not really.

As you see, I talk about Jazabelle in the third person when I talk about roleplay. Why? Because I am not the one making these assumptions. I knew very well that the establishment was just a bar, even though the name called to mind something naughty. Jazabelle isn't good at interacting with others. You might even say she's socially inept. She's learning, and it's been a learning process over the last few years of roleplaying her. But one thing she's not shy about is discussing mating habits of various intelligent species. She isn't a sexual creature, and finds the mating rituals of others worth study. She doesn't understand why they do it, and she wants to understand. Plus it gives me a reason to take a socially inept character to a bar. What better place to watch intelligent species engage in mating rituals?

I chose to go this route with her because it allows me to be funny while appearing to be completely serious. Jazabelle rarely jokes. For the most part, she's very serious. She takes everything seriously, and says some of the weirdest or dumbest things completely seriously. Deadpan is my preferred form of comic relief.

But that didn't happen here. She wasn't the one who said it was a whorehouse, although that's what it came off sounding like when Rosaphina spoke up about their private conversation. In fact, Jazabelle was the one who pointed out that the phrase used as the name can refer to something completely innocent.

Jazabelle dismissed the conversation after her own inept apology. She and Rosaphina moved on to discussing a "situation" at the office.

Rosaphina is--as I said--a stuck-up Koada'Dal. She's sharing office space with a bumbling, lewd, crude human pirate named Jadirah. Jadirah has a gas problem. Jadirah also has a potty mouth. Rosaphina took the time to complain about sharing an office with her.

Jazabelle pointed out that Jadirah is a filing clerk, and needs to be near the secretary to do her work effectively. She also pointed out that Jadirah is an investment--she's an inventor, and her inventions (when they're not exploding) bring the company good money. They also more than pay for the desks and chairs she routinely destroys.

Of course, not all of this was said. This is guild roleplay that was alluded to while we were talking.

Rosaphina and Jazabelle have a less-than-amiable relationship. Rosaphina hides it well, but she hates her employer in the same measure that she enjoys working with her. Working for Jazabelle allows Rosaphina to exercise skills she wouldn't otherwise be able to exercise. But she resents having to work in the first place.

Jazabelle was very firm in explaining to Rosaphina that she should simply give detailed instructions to Jadirah, and that office assignments would not switch, because that office was the best place for Jadirah.

Then things finally went bad.

See, the conversation earlier apparently upset the proprietress. She was roleplaying about being angry. Jazabelle ignored her, figuring the apologies had been enough. You can't help the assumptions you make, and it's not like they tried to hire whores or anything--not that either character would be interested in that. Jazabelle is not a sexual creature, as I said before, and Rosaphina is a prude. Besides, I assumed her anger was completely in character. Which it might have been, but there are just certain lines you don't cross if you're trying to run a venue.

But then one of the other customers said, "This hussy next to me seems rather mouthy, am I allowed to slap people?"

To be honest, I was extremely confused. I scrolled up and reread all of the nearby chat, wondering what I'd missed. Proprietress being angry? Nope, that can't be the mouthy hussy. Men talking. Probably not the mouthy hussy. Another woman saying the words "dirty wench?" No, that probably wasn't it. Maybe she was talking about Rosaphina, who was mouthing off to her boss about Jadirah? I sat back to see what would happen.

And then the proprietress crossed that line, and told the customer that she was free to slap people. So the customer "/e eats a few dragonflies and slaps Jazabelle across the face hard." Then said, "Quit treatin your client like crap heffer!"

I sat there in shock. First, when you take action against another character, it's generally polite to /e attempts to slap so-and-so. It's considered minor "god modding" to not give someone a chance to counter your action. Second, Jazabelle wasn't speaking to a client. Third, while Jazabelle was firm, she was polite to Rosaphina. Fourth, the proprietress encouraged the customer to take action against another customer.

So I chose to have Jazabelle "evade" the slap and inform the other customer that it was none of her business. Jazabelle wasn't talking to a client.

The customer compounded her rudeness by telling Rosaphina that "You are one of her little city whores, Rosa!" At the time, I had absolutely no idea where any of this came from.

I'm a firm believer in keeping in character issues in character, and not letting it affect out of character. I can easily roleplay an angry person when I'm happy, or roleplay a happy person with someone I detest. I try to avoid the second situation if I can, but I can do it. This however, felt like the proprietress and her friends were ganging up on me, both in character and out.

Not only did the proprietress give the customer permission to act out violence upon my character, but the bartender encouraged it, and took the customer's side when I spoke to Rosaphina about leaving since the venue apparently allowed violence. We'd been unaware of that when we entered.

I couldn't figure out what I'd done to gain their ire. Sure, Jazabelle bumbled a bit socially. Yes, her employee assumed it was a whorehouse. No, Jazabelle didn't assume it was a whorehouse, but perhaps I didn't make that clear in my roleplay. Jazabelle pointed out that it could be assumed based on the name, but that it could also imply wholesome, family style entertainment.

Then I realized that earlier today, after someone complimented my name in a public, out of character channel, the proprietress brought up the fact that my name is very similar to Jezebel. She further insisted that they have the same root. I pointed out to her that while Jazabelle is similar to Jezebel, that wasn't where my name came from. Several other people jumped to my defense. Eventually, the proprietress claimed to love the name, but to hate the base meaning (despite that I had pointed out that Jazabelle is not Jezebel, although the look is similar). "Belle" is the feminine version of the adjective meaning "beautiful" in French. There were a variety of reasons for me choosing "Jaza" as the prefix to "belle." I didn't go into any of that in the chat with the proprietress. I just left it that Jazabelle was not Jezebel.

The name Jazabelle does not appear on any baby-naming websites (or at least, did not when I chose the name about eight years ago in another game). It is a recent name, and each individual who has the name was given it for different reasons. It does not have the history associated with it that Jezebel does. Fine. The proprietress is welcome to think whatever she wants to about my character's name. That doesn't make what she thinks true. If she refuses to take my word for the fact that my name is not based off of Jezebel and the religious references tied to that name, there isn't anything I can do about it.

From her reaction this evening, I'm beginning to think she took it to be my fault that people defended my name. I exchanged a total of one sentence with her (my explanation about Jazabelle not being Jezebel), and left the conversation to the others. I didn't want her to feel like I was encouraging people to gang up on her by participating, especially since I choose my character's names for me, not for other people. I don't care if she thinks it's similar to Jezebel, just don't imply that I am similar to Jezebel.

Then of course, there is the fact that a few days ago, the proprietress advertised a clothing-optional event in a hot tub. I've since been told that that event may have caused quite a few people to accuse the proprietress of running a whorehouse. I wasn't aware of this when I went to the event, nor was Rosaphina. I found out about it later. They may have thought that Rosaphina was using in character as a chance to slander them. If that's the case, why did they attack me?

The proprietress even asked someone to "bounce" me, when I hadn't done a thing to anyone, and had in fact been the recipient of violence at her encouragement. I chose to leave the bar, rather than deal with people ganging up on me. I felt it was the mature thing to do. As I was leaving, she encouraged the customer who'd attempted to /slap my character to stay.

I'm told that once I left, the customer who tried to slap Jazabelle (and would have slapped her, had I not taken offense at the god modding) bragged about "running the hussy off."

It's no wonder that I tend to only roleplay with my friends, unless dragged out to bars. One of the rare times I decide to attend a bar of my own volition, the lack of maturity sends me right back to my houses.

I won't be attending that establishment again. I choose not to interact with any of the individuals who participated in encouraging someone to treat my character poorly.

Am I allowing in character actions to color out of character actions? Yes. In this case, when it appears that out of character actions were allowed to color their in character actions, I choose to end any association with these people. My play time is too valuable to be spent letting other people act nasty to me or my character (without my agreement and permission).

I have had raging in character fights with people, while happily discussing other things out of character. The difference between those situations and this one is that in those cases, warning and permission were given out of character before anything occurred. This was not like that.

Perhaps Rosaphina's player said it best. "This person is running a public venue, and chose to treat someone like shit based on their own OOC perceptions of that person. Even when I was tending my own venue, I tried to treat everyone with respect, even those who upset me. The venue is there for the public, not for the proprietor to wank over RPing with their approved circle."

This is exactly why I will not be attending this event again, and why I will not be interacting with those individuals again. If they choose to use the venue to stroke their own egos, I will choose to attend other venues where I do not have to deal with that level of immaturity.

All right, I'm done venting. Back to your regularly scheduled book and house discussions!