Proposed Changes to Drow Ranks and Requlations

Setting up your own Faction/Being a Illharess/Illharn:

Quote :

THE QU'ELLAR

New Changes wrote:

Requirements:

A - You agree by becomming a Group Leader that you will work along side the Staff.

B - Ilharess/Illharn needs to have influence enough to construct and Survive their the web of chaos.

C - To be reconised as a Illythiiri of note and power by the other Qu’ellars and Yath.

D - Any Legal Class

E - Must have at least five followers (five players in your group)

F - To have the power to back up their clame, be it personal power, political or magical.

Replacing the Matron:

G - All of the Above

H - Have at least half of the House Masters/Officers on your side.

I - You Must keep one of the UD DM's Informed oh your skull diggery.

J - You must defeat the current Matron in combat, be it Physical, Political or other means.

More Changes

K - There Can only be one Yathtaller in an Qu'ellar, The illharess if a yathrin can challenge her own Yathtaller for her rank, or if she was a Yathtaller to start with she can keep her Yathtaller title (and the respouncibiltys & power)

L - Becoming a Illharess does not automaticly entile you to a seat on the Council and that importent vote in Illthiri matters however, you a permitted to win/take a seat. (There is now a set number of seats on the council, eight. if you wish a seat, if one is empty you can petition the council and they will vote on your worthyness, or can simply challenge a seat holder.

M - A illharess who is apart of the Yath still needs to perform her Dutys or be held accountable by the Yath Council.

N - The Status and Prestige of being a Noble house will be earned in game and will be bestowed upon House the UlathTaller and her Council deem Noble in the eyes of Lolth and her Yath. (or if they murder all houses in their way of Nobility!)

As a point for those males characters wishing to get one the council, unless your invited to attend it is very very unlikely your character will ever enter the council room, let alone join the council.. however.. there is nothing wrong with you having a Jalil puppet to do your bidding, just dont get caught.

I'm kind of against putting the leadership feat down as a requirement. Its essentially a dead feat only bards have any use out of that feat whatsoever.

In addition not everyone plans to be illharess from the get-go. Mi for example was never meant to be illharess when i created her, her peak was supposed to be yath'tallar but circumstances led to her taking the position.

Generally Id be much happier if you remove requiring a certain feat and keep the RP restrictions as anyone can be an illharess if they are able to gather enough influence to construct the web.

Also in addition merchant and noble quellars are constructed differently considering the amount of time that would be required to get a guild house then to get the damn thing in. Overall Dabelkith was about for over a RL year if im right in thinking before we got our guild hall in, a good amount of that being waiting for it to be put ingame.
If someone sets out to make a noble quellar then I say let them without branding them as a merchant quellar, a merchant quellar doesnt always have the various strands such as velguks, yath, fahiel as why would they need them? They are merchants and slavers and do all the work and jobs the noble quellars consider too low for them. This is why they are lower in the ranking because they lack these strands often.
I'm not sure making a would-be quellar wait what would potentially be over a year before they can actually hold any propper influence that inviting for people to create new ones (a noble quellar will always be able to overrule a merchant one)

So i'm going to vote for no while it requires leadership and would sort of like a bit less you must tick these boxes to be this and more go with the rp

Agreed with Gandruff, with the same reason, so voted no as well. An unused feat like that would only weaken a characther who rather should be the strongest in the Qu'ellar...

What about if the leadership ment something, that you actually get npc forces you can use in speciat follower missions and a cohort that perhap can be a specialist role? I agree with the rest of what gan said though, good point.

I think it should be an RP thing not a feat gives you X thing.
For example Mi'reli doesnt have leadership however it has been established that Quellar Dabel'kith has an army. Why wouldnt she be able to call members of that to her aid.

I generally dont agree with giving people a dead feat that can only be used if a DM's around when technically if a DM's around you can point out btw I have an army why can't i call them.

Unless your planning to change the leadership feat to being a summon companion feat at which point theres the balance issue and would require a lot of work to get working

I agree that there shouldn't be any mechanical requirements to be an Ilharess. The character sheet should generally reflect RP but shouldn't be a restriction. I already really disliked the level requirement because character level is OOC for the most part.

Especially in a drow society, a person's OOC character sheet should not prevent then from gaining any position, Ilharess or otherwise if they maneuvered themselves into it through RP.

If you insist on a feat requirement, make it a custom DM-granted feat that has to be earned through IC action and that doesn't count towards the feats earned through normal leveling.

Blood Moth wrote:

If you insist on a feat requirement, make it a custom DM-granted feat that has to be earned through IC action and that doesn't count towards the feats earned through normal leveling.

This. Spoke my mind on the matter.

I voted “No & I explained why” based partly on the factors given below.

A while back, the Zau’Afin guild had a candid discussion regarding guild membership, which is somewhat related to this threads proposed change. Current guild members and a number of DMs provided input. Summarizing from those that chimed in on the topic, most guild mates and the DMs seemed to frown upon any DM revelation of a character sheet in the guild membership process. The mechanical means for players to view another player’s character sheet exists as well, for instance using the spell shadow simulacrum. Again, those sort of mechanical means seemed to be frowned upon by most guild mates and DMs.

In the end, the largest consensus was to let a character’s IC rp be the primary factor, but a bit of OOC explanation and clarification had a place as well to attempt to minimize misunderstandings. The result was the current draft of the Zau’Afin Guild Guidelines for Full Membership as shown in completeness below:

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Zau'Afin Guild Guidelines for Full Membership (We’re still working on it. Guidelines last updated on 7/9/2012.)
(a four-step process)

Step 1.
IC: Convince the Zau’Afin leadership that your character is both powerful and a Lolthite.
OOC: A brief OOC acknowledgment that the player wants to be in the guild. Pass along basic guild info.

Step 2.
IC: Pass the Zau’Afin entrance trials.
OOC: Typically involves defeating a house enemy. (The house may arrange an appropriate encounter or might work with the DM to make this an event.)

Step 3.
IC: Complete induction ceremony into the house.
OOC: Character last name changed to Zau’Afin. Give access to the Zau’Afin private guild forums.

Step 4.
IC: Convince the underdark Lolthites that your character is a Lolthite.
OOC: Remain in guild barring excessive public punishment rulings, excessive public heresy trials, or ulathtallar declaration of heresy. If problems arise, then a case-by-case OOC discussion may occur with the guild and/or DMs.

+1 to Adventurer, and everyone else's opinions are sound as well.

Not that I entirely disagree with a the whole proposal, with a little editing I would come around. My guess is many of the no votes would as well since the sticking point seems to be the feat requirement, something neither of the two current player ilharess characters have.

If a feat is to be required, any one or two of a number of certain feats. For example, leadership, diplomacy, epic gate, are just a few feats that come to mind that a typical Matron may have, but not necessarily all of those feats. Though I would prefer not to have any feat requirements for many of the reasons stated above.

A couple of other questions arise as my mind churns while I type as well.

I don't think the Matron should loose her vote. This will enable the Matron to have pretty much no voice with in the Yath. A Priestess Matron is kind of like a Yath'tellar or Yathrin with an army backing her, she should have some clout. My suggestion would be something more along the lines of giving the Matron 3 votes, 1 for her and 2 for her Yath'tellar. This way in most circumstances the Matron and the Yath'tellar vote as one, but in an extreme case where the Yath'tellar feels the Matron is steering the house out of Lolth's favor, she can vote against the Matron and overrule her by 2 to 1. This may also come in hand in instances where the church itself (not lolth) desires one thing and the house desires another. In this case the Yath'ellar can choose to split her vote between church and state (the house). This also does not render the house yath itself powerless if the Yath'tellar is not around and a vote is held. I don't mean if the Yath'tellar is taking a break, by saying she is not around either, Votes on punishment and such should be aloud to be fluid and spontaneous.

For example, what if a jaluk of house A is to be punished and the Yath votes on the punishment? Why would the Yath wait even a couple of hours to get a quorum? This could rule heavily in favor of house b or c and not a, for no other reason then the Yath'tellar player is at work, or sleeping or whatever.

Iv removed the bit about the illharess losing her former rank, in my mind when you rise to illharess you still have that former rank but also have the grandur of having a house behind you too. basicly nothing is set in stone yet, I want you all to help me come up with some reqirments for what a player needs to meet to become an illharess and more towards the rp aspect that level. and I put the leadership feat in because I though it might be a fun quirk. anyhow discus and lets work this out.

My main suggestion for becoming a Matron Mother is this; (obviously) only females, only High Priestesses of Lolth (in other words, clerics - multiclassor not), the favor of Lolth (which comes through a series of chaotic acts that are spun in the web that the Spider Queen has formed for her people -- through RP and DM approval, I'd say).

I don't know if it is a required to be a High Priestess of Lolth right now, but it would only seem realistic if Matron Mothers were supposed to, as they are the head of their house, so a deep understanding in Lolth's ways should be important.

So this would mean that whatever it takes to become a High Priestess, so too do the requirements count for becoming a Matron Mother (with a few extras).

EDIT: Actually, I take that back. As long as Matron Mothers have some education in the Yath, they can become an Ilharess.

I also think it should be mostly a roleplaying oriented thing rather than a requirement of feats or levels.

I wont be restricting it it Divine Spell Caster, yes it will be alot easyer for a Divine spell caster to get accepted and reconised but I dislike limiting peoples rp oppitunitys, also bear in mind this talk is also covering merc houses and trade house as well as noble houses.

gandruff wrote:

I'm kind of against putting the leadership feat down as a requirement. Its essentially a dead feat only bards have any use out of that feat whatsoever.

In addition not everyone plans to be illharess from the get-go. Mi for example was never meant to be illharess when i created her, her peak was supposed to be yath'tallar but circumstances led to her taking the position.

Generally Id be much happier if you remove requiring a certain feat and keep the RP restrictions as anyone can be an illharess if they are able to gather enough influence to construct the web.

Also in addition merchant and noble quellars are constructed differently considering the amount of time that would be required to get a guild house then to get the damn thing in. Overall Dabelkith was about for over a RL year if im right in thinking before we got our guild hall in, a good amount of that being waiting for it to be put ingame.
If someone sets out to make a noble quellar then I say let them without branding them as a merchant quellar, a merchant quellar doesnt always have the various strands such as velguks, yath, fahiel as why would they need them? They are merchants and slavers and do all the work and jobs the noble quellars consider too low for them. This is why they are lower in the ranking because they lack these strands often.
I'm not sure making a would-be quellar wait what would potentially be over a year before they can actually hold any propper influence that inviting for people to create new ones (a noble quellar will always be able to overrule a merchant one)

So i'm going to vote for no while it requires leadership and would sort of like a bit less you must tick these boxes to be this and more go with the rp

I agree with this view.

Maybe make it a requirement for cleric spellcasting to set up a noble quellar but not for making a merchant quellar?

gandruff wrote:

Maybe make it a requirement for cleric spellcasting to set up a noble quellar but not for making a merchant quellar?

I really don't think we need such hard requirements. It just isn't necessary on an OOC level, because it will already be taken care of on an IC level. If someone can pull off the impossible IC then they deserve to have done it. People's natural IC reactions will police this much more dynamically than any rule.

I have no objection if that is a ic thing policed by the players, but saying that I do not want to make it a mechanical restriction, for example the cunning Rogue Illharess that invests alot into bluff and use magic device so she can use scrolls, rods and wands ect to give the appearences of a yath, woe be tibe her and her house if she ever got caught out though.

as a side note:
There are also examples sprinkled here and there in lore of non priestesses holding a matron rank. Both drow groups, merchant houses and Nobe houses are typically ruled by a matriarch, but not necessarily a priestess. In the merchant houses (MH) case, one could find an MH under the boot of a male, but this would be rare.

Current rules regarding the priesthood create complications in requiring a character to hold High Priestess rank to become Matron. Put simply, there can currently be only one HP for each house and only one HP amongst the Shebali. In Zau'Afin's case adventurer (who plays High Priestess Ala), has never shown much interest in being a matron and among the Yathrin the eldest (and most active) of them is Talasprina, and she does not yet meet the Yath'tellar requirements. So if I don't log in with Gin for say a month, it makes replacing Gin rather difficult. After the almost 10 page Yath debate I don't think anybody wants to re-litigate the Yath structure.

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I was however, one of those who was for allowing more than one HP to exist, but disagreed with commoner high priestess. There of course should be only one high priestess in charge of the house yath, but I will probably never like the idea of limits on the number of players that can hold HP church rank.

Ok then at least put down illharesses of a noble quellar are normally expected to be in the favor of lolth and such it is usually expected of them to be a yath or something like that

Maybe simply require a Noble Matron to be able to cast 3rd lvl divine spells. This way the character has some, albeit small, connection to the Yath. I disagree with heavy class restrictions though.

I just don't understand why having a divine spellcasting requirement is necessary. If other character let a non-divine drow become Ilharess then that's on them. If they don't like it, they can kill her. They're drow, people.

Blood Moth wrote:

I just don't understand why having a divine spellcasting requirement is necessary. If other character let a non-divine drow become Ilharess then that's on them. If they don't like it, they can kill her. They're drow, people.

They respawn. Back the next day. Easier said than done.

This very precise thing caused a lot of turmoil in the UD on this server to begin with.

Eh, the divine spell casting requirement is a suggested compromise.

In the past, characters with no divine ability have been Matrons and it created tremendous problems around the Yath and for the house. Problems that have rippled and left scars not just the house but the entire server UD community. It's part of the reason people are suggesting class requirements for Matron. I actually agree with you Blood Moth, but past experience has shown me why some sort of divine connection is immensely helpful in keeping things in balance from an OOC stand point.

Generally how I see it you really should have or at the very least appear to be a yath if you are trying to set up a noble quellar
For a merchant quellar people care less about wether they have a yath at the reins because they are lower than noble quellars, infact some lower down merchant quellars are run by half-drow

If you search drow merchant houses online, you find some information that is interesting. This seems to agree with the short merchant house FR wicki information...

Quote :

There is another major social group within every drow society that offers those who were born male--or of other lesser social standing--hope and something to strive towards: The Merchant Clans. Though the ruling priestesses within Lolthian society outwardly repudiate the worth of such Clans, no one can truly deny that they are vital to the survival of the drow.
Merchant clans vary in organization. They are usually headed by an "inner ring" or council of the most experienced and/or wealthy merchant members, and hence are usually led by males (the "demeaning" and dangerous occupation of trading with outsiders is an almost exclusively male one). The membership of the inner ring of a given merchant clan consists primarily of male wizards who have either passed or evaded The Test. Removed as they are from drow society at large, the merchant clans have no compunction about dealing with the surface world and other Underdark societies. In fact, a great number of the "second ring", or managers, are non-drow of various races.
The lowest rank in the merchant clan, the "assets", are nearly all non-drow. These are the laborers and soldiery of the merchant house. Together, the merchant clans form the trade links with the outside world that enables the Noble Houses to survive.

Work
Like the people on the surface, most dark elves have some sort of work that keeps them busy, whether farming, crafting items, working in a shop, or other similarly mundane tasks. Most go about their work day in a similar fashion to surface folk, maintaining old feuds, engaging in gossip, and trying to support themselves and their families. Hovering above this mundane façade are the shadows of the Spider Queen's clerics, who nominally are expected to compensate merchants for their goods, but are fully within their rights to claim whatever they want in the name of the Spider Queen. Many times has a jeweler or gemsmith been reduced to poverty because his works are so greatly desired by clerics unwilling to pay; after mortgaging their homes and selling off their possessions to stay in business, these poor souls are often consigned to work in the temples or noble houses as little more than talented slaves to pay off their debts. Such cruel irony is a delicious form of humor to the spider-priestesses.

Unlike surface communities, drow cities never have a problem with unemployment or homelessness. Those drow put into such a situation quickly become victims, whether of slavery, murder sport by bored nobles, sacrifices to Lolth, or indiscriminate violence practiced against those who have no house, church, or family to protect them. Because of this grim spectre looming near all poor drow, most choose to sign on with the military forces of the city or a noble house, since they can always use more soldiers, no matter how poorly trained. After all, life as a soldier at least provides meals and shelter, and, despite the occasional risk of death in combat, it is a far safer choice than living homeless in the streets where the spider-clerics walk.

So it seems my initial thought that merchant houses are typically ruled by a Matriarch is incorrect. Though to be such would likely get the merchant house noble backing I would think.