One of the ironic downsides to playing on a Roleplaying Server is having to actually deal with the Roleplaying Community. Yes, I’m aware how reality-warpingly absurd that statement sounds, so let me elaborate and get a few petty gripes out of my system in the process. If that’s not something you want to listen to, feel free to skip this post.
The Roleplaying Community has always been split, to some degree – we have people whose only contact with Warcraft is World of Warcraft itself, we have people who have played all the strategy games prior, we have people who throw themselves over sourcebooks to devour all the information they possibly can.. and then we have people who just want to play Forgotten Realms Drow or Warhammer Space Marines. Combine this with how roleplaying can often very much be about wish-fulfilment and you essentially end up with a powder keg of egos just waiting to explode, and some rather atrocious takes on the Lore to go along with it.
To bastardize a quote from Ian Malcolm: Many are so occupied with whether or not they could that they never stopped to think if they should.
The latest subject of my ire is the most recent Sentinel guild – a group that had me wary from the start because I’ve seen plenty of attempts at both Sentinel and Warden guilds and I’ve yet to come across a single one that actually suspended my disbelief – either if it is due to teenage drama, inability to grasp the chain of command or what their area of responsibility is, I’ve yet to be convinced such a guild isn’t doomed to fail. Of course, I’m slightly skating on thin ice saying that since Starwatch (or, the Kal’adore forward scouting Sentinel detachment) that old priestess Nhani Moonfall commands is technically a Sentinel guild, but their numbers are limited to a few fellow nubs that I trust are able to use salutes, proper formal address and capable of acting with professionalism and dignity.
I’d like to think I’m not unresonable – I can accept their members having Teenage Drama(tm) when in tabard (and therefore, on duty) though old Moonfall would describe such behaviour as unprofessional at best, I can accept them being unable to refer to Shandris Feathermoon in proper formal address (It’s General Feathermoon!) and I can accept some of their numbers being the xenophobic sort that don’t like non-Night elves around Darnassus and that they speak derogatively to such, though again Nhani would have a few words about improfessional and irresponsible behaviour. I can even live with how they seem to have both males and druids as a vast majority of their numbers, in spite of how much that means their leader(s) are essentially spitting all over tradition.
What I can not accept is when they decide that Sentinels – not the Temple of the Moon – are the ones who dictate Night elven policy; when they decide that they suddenly have the authority to throw out members of the Alliance out of Darnassus simply because they’re on a xenophobic power trip and when they decide that a lowly Sentinel of their ranks have more authority than a Priestess of the Moon.
Of course, I realize to a point I’m blowing my own whistle here, but I’m not going to appologize for claiming old Priestess Moonfall has authority over a single upstart Sentinel who demands human friends of hers will have to leave Darnassus mid-conversation because they are “trespassing”, especially not after the community happily had her represent the night elves when signing an agreement between the Alliance and the Horde!
Now I admit that Nhani came down pretty hard on the guy, but let’s face it – she has her own set ideas on what it means to be a Sentinel, and among those are to represent the best of the Night elves; being an undiciplined and upstart git to her face while in uniform is a fairly quick way to earn her ire. It was actually rather amusing how it ended, as it’d derailed to the point where old Moonfall was essentially throwing her full title and authority around, and our Sentinel goes “Prove it”. Now while I could have thrown a fair bit of retorts there that is basically his reality versus mine and would’ve gotten us nowhere.. a random passerby druid stops, goes “She is right.” and continues with how there are very few who don’t know of Nhani Moonfall. I’ll admit I was a little too busy having a wide grin on my face to respond when the Sentinel mumbled something about god moding and ran off with his tail between his legs.
Yes, it seems I can still out-fame people on rare occasions. I have no doubt this is just a start of a growing animosity however, nor that it’ll force me to play that politics game again, no matter how much I resent it. It’s rather ironic, though, because barely a week ago one of their number sent me a whisper saying that he felt Nhani should join their Sentinel order and I politely declined because she has her own duties to attend to. Now, a week later, I’m at a point where Nhani’d seriously consider publicly stating that their entire company be declared renegade and dismantled because their loyalty is clearly neither to the Temple nor Elune.



































