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[Esna Pitoojee]

A couple questions though...where do the Tetrimon/Theocrats end and the Ardishapur start?  Really, aren't both of them holding to the old scriptures before the Moral Reforms?

I don't think the modern Ardishapur oppose the Moral Reforms - the past they look to is in the more (relatively) recent timeframe, i.e., before the Minmatar rebellions, the formation of CONCORD, and the grudging recognition of any state other than the Empire and its vassals. It's important to remember here that while the formation of what could be considered New Eden's "modern era" - CONCORD, the "Big 4" nations, Sansha's Nation, etc - have all happened within the last few hundred years. The Moral Reforms were roughly 1,500 years prior to the current date.

Also, are there any more 'complete' Scriptures?  Going off of the EVE wiki, there only seem to be a few tidbits to use.  What is the story behind it, for example why are the prophets included as part of it?

Welcome to one of the greatest difficulties in RPing an Amarr - the fundamental base of the faith is only given to us in snips and pieces. Some of the more important figures - Dano Gheinok, Amash-Akura - have their own Evelopedia pages, but they are the exception rather than the norm.

[lallara zhuul]

Personally I would advice about not going to the evelopedia.

All the articles are clearly biased and I believe that you should do your own homework instead of ingesting somebody elses worldview on New Eden.

Check the chrons and the rest of the old PF material: http://community.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=534154
Some old news: http://community.eveonline.com/iNgameboard.asp?a=lastposts&cid=1123597529

There is plenty of more current things that you should be aware of.

One of the things is that Tetrimon is dead.

There may be some of them still in the Kingdom but they were decimated by the Navy for spying on the Empire.

Then there is the link between the Sarum and the Ardishapur house.

Basically Ardishapur hold the keys to the granary of the Empire and the Sarum Navy (and the Imperial one) is reliant on them which makes them bedfellows of sort. They pretty much run the Royal Amarr Institute together.

[Publius Valerius]

Personally I would advice about not going to the evelopedia.

All the articles are clearly biased and I believe that you should do your own homework instead of ingesting somebody elses worldview on New Eden.

Have you any links for me? Which shows this "clearly biased" articles. I think the wiki is even still better than some other ressources, clearly better the IGS (no offence, but as I already told in this forum IGS isnt all the RP and the english speaking community isnt all of RP etc...) (to lazy the link to my earlier comments)..... And I for myself have a great problem with this "american" insular religiousness as it can be seen in the IGS and the amarrian RP (to lazy the link to my earlier comments on that topic). But that would be a whole big new topic, about people which put their own amarr religion together (They are close in my hate to them which copy & past some text form their local christian "sect" and just enter amarr now and there ). But Im off topic now. Have you a link for a CLEARLY BIASED article?

And dont forget I get all the stuff here near ramstein too: From AFN over CNN to FOX News... to music video style docus...  Oh yeah Patton yeah (by the way I love patton but think this series is shit, both is possible.) to general docus which even less content and just a the brawndo voice. So I have already a tick skin when is comes to bias, and I even dont comment anymore on shit here or in the E-O-Forum, when some lets out a brainfart ) (to lazy the link to my earlier comments... but would love if you would ask me... plz ).

But overall, I like this line "your own homework instead of ingesting somebody elses worldview on New Eden." And like some other already mention, dont get RL in the way of RP... amarrians arent southern slaveholders, or moustache twiler, etc.... They also very TRADITIONAL, CONSERVATIVE, SERIOUS about their religion, if you most search for a real world parallel, than dont take a some pietistic christian roots (my personal hate rand is now over, and will never mention again, back to normal ).

Then there is the link between the Sarum and the Ardishapur house.

Basically Ardishapur hold the keys to the granary of the Empire and the Sarum Navy (and the Imperial one) is reliant on them which makes them bedfellows of sort. They pretty much run the Royal Amarr Institute together.

Ehm.... I know Further Foodstuffs ("fleets of Ardishapur and Sarum will never lack for food.").... but what is with "granary of the Empire"? I think you forget Nurtura and Joint Hervesting? Have you some links?

About "They pretty much run the Royal Amarr Institute together." Have you a link for me?

[Horatius Caul]

where do the Tetrimon/Theocrats end and the Ardishapur start?  Really, aren't both of them holding to the old scriptures before the Moral Reforms?

You can think of them like Ardishapur being a hardline conservative faction while Tetrimon are religious fundamentalists - not in the militant terrorist way, but they believe the Scriptures have been corrupted and that the true Scriptures proscribe that the Empire should be led by the Apostles.

The Ardishapurs wouldn't want to return to the Tetrimon view of the Empire, because that would mean having less power. Together with the other royal houses, Ardishapur coup d'etated the Apostles out of power during the Moral Reforms. Being politically motivated by faith doesn't mean the Ardishapur want to return to the old order again, it means they simply want to ensure that the new order doesn't leave the faith behind.

[Lyn Farel]

A couple questions though...where do the Tetrimon/Theocrats end and the Ardishapur start?  Really, aren't both of them holding to the old scriptures before the Moral Reforms?

Also, are there any more 'complete' Scriptures?  Going off of the EVE wiki, there only seem to be a few tidbits to use.  What is the story behind it, for example why are the prophets included as part of it?

The line between Tetrimon, Theocrats and Ardishapur is mainly drawn in a question of political moderation.

Where Tetrimon are extremists, Theocrats ultraconservatives, and Ardishapur moderate conservatives, Tetrimon believe unconditionally that the Empire shall be ruled by a full Theocracy leaded by the religious corpus, in the case of the first Empire, the Council of Apostles. Theocrats believe the same, but I would say that they are kindof what the Sani Sabik is to the Blood Raiders : a bigger entity, less extreme and more moderated. Tetrimon are Theocrats, but the opposite is not always true. At least, to my mind.

What divides theocrats and the rest of the empire is not so much a question of Faith or culture. What keeps them divided is a question that is mostly political, covered with religious doctrines and beliefs. The Empire (all the ones not branded heretics, in short) believes in what is comparable to the Middle Age, where leaders were from the nobility and supported (or not) by the clergy. And contrary to the common belief, there is a separation between the state and the religion in the Empire. The Emperor may be the sole and unique representant of God, he is not the head of the clergy either. Of course, we have no clues of any pope or patriarch in the Amarrian religion, but the TC holds that role pretty well. As long as the emperor is in good terms with them, all is fine.

The theocrats believe in an Empire where the nobility IS the clergy. This is why the whole concept of a sacred Emperor is alien to them. This is why I like to call them Theocrats, but I doubt there are any PF material calling them theocrats.

For the Scriptures, we have only bits, but keep in mind that anyway, the Scriptures ARE the Empire, more or less. Every text, technology, encyclopedia, is part of them, so... You will hardly find an exhaustive source for the amarrian scriptures on the internet :p



EDIT : Even if I am not a fan of RL comparison, at least this one brings a lot of food for thought : relevant link. Earthly power (absolute king) vs spiritual power (clergy).

[Rodj Blake]

There are so many liberal Amarrians knocking around these days that playing a hardcore loyalist would probably be classed as trying something different!

Feel free to contact me in-game if you have any questions about Amarrian history etc.

[Malcolm Khross]

I know a lot of RP is really based on personal preference, but any direction would be helpful as well.  At first it seemed like there was too little variation, and know too much.  I am sure it will become easier the more I pay attention, but also know it is better to stay vague at the start rather than tie myself to a story.

I know that I don't want to be the only (or one of a couple) person taking the approach I end up using.  I did that on my first attempt at RP and it crashed and burned (also because I wasn't sure what to do).  I pretty much decided to take a break from it for a while so that I could make sure I do it right.  I'll study up on it some more, and any more advice would be terrific.

Very good choice to "stay quiet" early on, this allows you to observe and learn before making vocal decisions on where to go and what to do, which should ultimately make whatever path you choose to take a lot more fun in the long run. Regarding what PF to use as IC and what should remain OOC, I find that the best thing to do is read it "from perspective."

For example, regarding the Cult of Tetrimon and the fact that the Scriptures were re-written for a more political purpose (meaning they're not the original Holy Scriptures anymore) is something you can bet the Empire has gone through great lengths to keep quiet. Would it be impossible to find this information? Absolutely not. Difficult? Most certainly. If it's difficult to obtain, it's probably not something you want to go around blabbing about, because it's likely to get you a lot of negative attention. (From an in-character perspective).

When you read something in PF, ask yourself the following questions:

• Does it threaten the Imperial establishment?
• Does it implicate the Theology Council, Privy Council or Empress?
• Does it challenge the aristocracy in the Empire?
• Does it threaten the current religious climate?

If the answer to any of those questions is "yes," then what you're reading is something that your character would likely keep quiet about, even if he/she knew about it.

Determining IC from OOC?

• Does it openly discuss hidden motives or agendas for public actions? If so, that knowledge is OOC.
• Does it have corresponding in-character PF (like news articles)? If so, then it's fair game but use the news article to determine what's in-character knowledge and what's not.

I'm not sure if any of that helps, but it's basically what I go through to determine what Malcolm knows and doesn't know and how he responds to things that are presented. Beyond that, determining the motivations, goals, history and loyalties of your character is important, but I'd recommend keeping them listed somewhere (like notepad) so that you can reference/adjust them. Whenever you're faced with something that you're unsure about, read over your character's history and so on and make sure you stay consistent with them. Consistency goes a LONG way in RP.

[Sentar Dethahal]

Esna/Horatius - Ok, I guess I was under the impression that since the Ardishapur were more focused on the scriptures, that they would also be interested in returning to the way it was before.  I missed the wiki entry that they actually sided with emperor against the council of apostles.

lallara - Thank you for the links.  I haven't gotten around to reading all of the chronicles yet, but the discussion about the religious documents from the Tetrimon was especially enlightening.  A lot of the people involved gave some pretty impressive history lessons there.  Out of curiousity, what ever happened with the documents?

Publius - Very good to know stuff.  I kind of wondered if people were making up stuff to go in the scriptures.  It seems that would be the perfect time to consider it heresy?  Or is that still only the responsibility of the Theology Council?

Lyn - Thank you very much for the great explanation.  I have definitely noticed the parallels to the Medieval time period.  Are there any hints at CCP expanding the scriptures?  Or have they really stepped back from RP and the events as a whole?

Rodj - I appreciate the offer, and will almost certainly be taking you up on that!

Malcolm - Ok, so pretty much anything not already known IC by people on the scriptures is unlikely to change unless CCP decides to change something?  Good set of questions to use, thank you.  Also thank you for the method of determining the difference between IC and OOC.

Thank you again to everyone.  ((goes off to study))

[Lyn Farel]

I do not know if CCP are planning to expand on the scripture bits we know. Maybe, even if I doubt it considering how they seem to have abandonned most of the PF developpement now...

But as I said, considering the Scriptures could fill thousands of libraries as stated in the PF, since they deal with almost every piece of knowledge of the Amarr Empire, expanding on it will never answer to all our questions nor cover everything.

[Sentar Dethahal]

I don't suppose there is a specific dev or section to hound about more PF content is there?

[Horatius Caul]

CCP Abraxas seems to be in charge of fluff now. He's heavily insinuated that, as the company is very heavy on doing "what the players want" these days, keeping the pressure up on the forums (EVE Fiction section) will make it easier for him to argue for more resources to the storyline and content groups in CCP.

[Ken]

I see some really good replies in this thread.  Amarr is not my specialty though.

Re: more PF content...

As I understand it, you can probably expect some fairly in depth Evelopedia articles on all of the factions, Amarr included, coming up sometime Soon^TM.  So you might get some more to work with through the official pipeline in the near future.

[Seriphyn]

As I understand it, you can probably expect some fairly in depth Evelopedia articles on all of the factions, Amarr included, coming up sometime Soon^TM.  So you might get some more to work with through the official pipeline in the near future.

Emphasis on the Soon tbh. When the FP first released, I pointed out that the current faction pages were just copy/pastes of old stuff onto one article. I pointed this out in the comments section of the news article that announced the FP, and Abraxas did say they intend to flesh it out properly. That was a while ago and :effort: in finding the posts where he said so.

[Yoshito Sanders]

If you want to be pro-Amarr/anti-Empress, play an Ardishapur loyalist. Yonis has been pretty subversive of Jamyl since she came to power. It's very low-level stuff, doing things like promoting saints who established Sacred Flesh and the like.

[Sentar Dethahal]

Yoshito - That's what I was kind of thinking.  After finding this link though... http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/State_of_the_Empire,_110.06.11, I am thinking my views may align more with the Sarumites.

I realize that's kind of an about face on opposing the Empress, but considering I haven't finished making the background yet   As it would be pointless to directly oppose her, I am more inclined to go with something I will be likely to stick with.  Being loyal to the Empress, and the Empire is something I can go with.

Now just to work on that backstory, and figure out what to do ingame to work with it.