The Harvest Moon Consortium

[Winterhawk99]

This commentary is for the Narfell community and all of the NWN community being that I will be posting it on Harvest Moon Consortium as well as Narfell.


So, lately I’ve been vegetating on the server of Narfell as I think about the last Children of Hell novel in the trilogy. As those of you that read it I took the medieval Japanese society and twisted it to lawful evil to create a race of Psychopathic samurai. I did a lot of research on Japanese society during the time of the Shogunate to make the Elder fey’ri race.
I wanted to do a more traditional samurai character from these times. The whole of the idea is for my character who is steeped in eastern traditionism to have to handle western idealism. She became a very interesting character to play. And I believe I played her true to those ideas thus far. Perhaps a bit too true to the real thing. Miwa is a very traditionally raised Onna-bugeisha (female samurai for lack of a better term) of Kozakura raised by a lawful evil samurai father who had no male children. (you can find her story on harvest moon consortium)
It has come to my attention that certain members of the server are offended by her sexism, (even though she’s a girl,) and her accent. I’ve given it some thought and have talked to a few friends that I play with on Narfell. Everyone has said that I have played my pc correctly to the traditions of her home community. I wanted to make sure that was the case first.
As far as accent. I have played accents on NWN servers since 2003. I have both lived and visited several continents abroad the good ole USA and have a feeling for writing in accents. Something I’m very proud of. I have played characters on NWN servers with accents including, Scottish, Irish, German, Russian, Romanian, English, and even (pirate). In 20 years I have never had a problem playing an accent. That is until today. Funny isn’t it?
It will be very hard not to play Miwa as I have done, but here’s what I will do. With players that know Miwa well and who are not offended by my pc. I will play her normally. If I am not sure if a player is offended or not: Miwa will have yes or no answers only in common and will only speak full sentences in High Shou. She will not talk about her homeland and her culture to these people. If I know someone is offend by her for sure then I will take her off the server and play Cyr instead.
Cyr doesn’t offend anyone he’s a psychiatrist cleric of Selune. His job is not to be offensive. In that way anyone who may be offended by a realistic playing of a samurai need never be offended by Miwa’s presence.
I think that is a good work around on how to handle the situation. If you are personally offended by Miwa let me know so I can pull her off the server when you come in. either in tells, discord, or at the end of this forum post. My discord is Winterhawk99#9179. I will try to accommodate you.

[Winterhawk99]

It seems because of this commentary on Narfell I have been banned from the server.

I really thought about what I said to make it, so it was inoffensive. It seems they took offense.

It's perfectly ok. there are many other servers out there. Narfell is pretty good but also has its problems. I enjoyed my time there.

Thanks Winter.

[Winterhawk99]

Ok For those not on Narfell I need to clarify and add context to the above statement.

When I recently came back to Narfell to check out the server and see how it changed I carefully made a character for that server. He is Cyr Stafford, Lauriella’s last lieutenant before she died. I have a connect-ability to certain characters I play going all the way back to 2003 with my first character I played NWN servers on. Her name of course is Ammothrawen Hener of house Thaydrak.

I made him up based on some of what is in Lauriella’s last dance and then filled him in a bit. Changed his goddess from Sehanine to Selune. Easy to do because many equate the aspects as the same deity with aspects for different races. It’s debatable but plausible.

Hes a cleric/thief. A wandering lay priest that picks up different talents along the road for services rendered. So Hes not a classic thief in the regard of D&D Just someone that picked up various thief skills by being both a sailor and payment for help. So, a ranger may have taught him to hide and move silently for Cyr helping him with some tasks. Or a locksmith needed his daughter healed and was down on his luck so showed Cyr the basics of lockpicking. That kind of thing. Cyr wandered a few decades for the church. His main function becoming a psychiatrist priest of Selune. Selune’s clergy often run and operate asylums for the insane on Toril.

Cyr is not a hero character. He’s a very rp support character and I made him like this because I knew before I went back to Narfell that the server had a few problems. At the time of Lauriella 21/2 years ago the problem could be compensated for, and you could really have some fun with your character there.

So, I made Cyr sort of squishy so as not to disrupt the main cliché on the server. That is made up of mostly Dms and Admins. They like to be the heroes and heroines. If you're not in the cliché: The best, you can do or be is a sidekick or an extra in their play.

They make the rules and that’s well and good and I had already understood that. It’s why I made Cyr. But I also made a character that was sort of waiting in the wings. Miwa is a very traditional female samurai from the islands of Kozakura. Lawful neutral and very firm in the idealisms of her culture. Which according to lore fancies itself after medieval Japan during a time when the shogunate was strong and the emperor was week.

Miwa is my hero character, and she has a quest. The idea for her was to run around the server and collect enough xp to finish her personal quest becoming one with her sword. Basically, to become an epic weaponmaster.

So, Cyr got married to another player character and was out of play for several months. I had to play Miwa. I loved playing her don’t get me wrong, but I knew in the back of my head her traditional ways could potentially cause trouble for the big cliché on the server. Still if anyone knows me, I put 100% all the time into my pcs. I also do a whole lot of research about where they come from to develop their personality.

Miwa also had a low charisma overall, 11, and a low wisdom 9. I figured out a way to play it perfectly. In that she is so mired in her traditionalism that she has a hard time seeing other’s points of view.

So, while I’m playing Cyr and Miwa. Old friends would come to me and tell me about their wows with the cliché and the dm/admin team. In fact, one told me of a tower built by one of the cities called the fish fort. He told me of bad decisions a one of the dm’s made regarding this tower built by goblins beside a town full of dwarves. I’m not sure exactly what happened but whatever it was: it was bad. Several player’s left the server after that.

So, back to Miwa. I’ve been playing Miwa pretty hard of late. Which means she had to come into contact with people. And she did. And her personality definitely showed through with her very conservative viewpoint. Still her main job was to kill monsters gain xp and leave when she got to 20th level. This is a character. Not a real person. If you remember the last woman I played, was a bisexual ship’s captain with a courtly love romance on the side with a noblewoman that kept her crew absolutely ship shape and obedient to her wishes.

So, I’m playing Miwa and a dm comes on. He asks me if I have a moment. I say sure fine whatever. (I’ll be paraphrasing here)

He then tells me that I have to tone down Miwa. That she's coming off as sexist and people don’t like her broken English.

This took me totally by surprise however I did have two immediate thoughts. The first is I’m going to follow my rule and take all my characters off this server. The second is Narfell has gone WOKE in IC. In IC! Where we play in a fantasy world with several very brutal cultures that are racists and sexist within.
I was really scratching my head about that one.

So, I told him I think I can change her a bit for the WOKE squishy millennials and z generations that don’t have thick skins, or something like that.

He said that someone, he didn’t say who (this will be important later) made a complaint against me. About Miwa and her sexism (traditionalism along with her broken English (accent))

Then he said just do it.

I was pretty honestly perplexed about that and told one of my friends on the server what had happened. My friend got pretty enraged about it. He said keep Miwa just the way she is. She’s perfect the way she is. Then he told me he was also so enraged that the cliché had recently found 4 veins of adamantine a material that no one can find unless a dm drops it on their heads in a quest. While Miwa has been searching for months for adamantine for her sword with no luck. I had to agree with him on that one. Again, The cliché gets what they want and to bad so sad for anyone else. He also told me to find out who the hell made a complaint against me.

I thought about this some through Miwa’s one and only quest on the server. I also thought about how the cliché had treated Miwa and in fact my other character Cyr. With Cyr I was pretty careful not to raise hairs, however playing a samurai always raises hairs because of their lawfulness.

I decided to try to make a way so everyone would be happy, so I posted an idea on how to keep Miwa herself and not offend the woke people on the server. It did not go over too well. That’s usually what happens when you compromise anyway. You get bit for it. And I was temporarily band.

A dm came on discord and chastise me about my attitude. He then said my second strike was I used the word WOKE when I talked to the dm.

In other words: They went WOKE on my characters IC play then canceled me just like someone who is woke would do. Then they chastised me for using the very word that they did to me. He also said that the person who made the complaint wanted to remain anonymous. That sent immediate alarm bells in my head.

Believe me, even with my imagination, I can't make this shit up.

So, I meditated on this a few days and went through how the dms treated both my characters. Cyr was ok. The dms did try to stir me up a few times when interacting with him but Cyr is so squishy and malleable that he ignored many of the instigations the dms put against him. The player did not but again Cyr was made specifically for this server. Miwa however was not made for the server. Her strong-willed adherence to her customs was ultimately her downfall on the server and my own. I have a strong distaste for Narfell now as a whole.

In retrospect after going over my whole experience on the server I believe this anonymous complaint wasn’t really real. I think the cliché had it out for me from the beginning and needed an excuse to expel me from the server. A ‘legitimate reason.’ They couldn’t find it Cyr. They found it in Miwa.

If you play on this server. Always remember to watch your back as a player. Remember that you will always be nothing more than a sidekick to the main cliché of dms and admins and build a character that will not be in any way controversial. If they say you have to change your characters IC personality because they don't like it, do it. They are WOKE to the core even regarding IC.

For those that run the server of Narfell. I would highly recommend that you put a password on your server and kick out anyone other than your cliché. You are not customer friendly. The world itself is a good server. It only has one major problem. That is you who run it. If you want to run a world in the way you truly want. The server should be turned from a public server into a private server. In fact It already is this way. You just haven’t blocked the public from it yet.

Thank you


[font=Kunstler Script] "When the authorities are stupid, they will tend to side with the stupid children and acquiesce, at least tacitly, in rough treatment for those who show intelligence. In that case, a society will be produced in which all the important positions will be won by those whose stupidity enables them to please the herd."
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[Winterhawk99]

I can wrap this whole distasteful saga up now.

In the end I fell on my own sword. In fact, I did it on purpose for two specific purposes.

The first and most important is. I wanted to influence the Admins, and Dms that make up this cliche to read the above statement and start paying more attention to those not in their cliche. If They do that for a few months just to spite me and prove me wrong. Then others, outside the group like the Shalvaneys, The Z's, the Albions might be the focus for some dm quests and campaigns for a few months. Will it work? Probably not. I give it about 1/4 odds. I did make sure the fight it out to the end so to speak. But if they do my mission was accomplished and my objective achieved.

I do have to hand it to the admins of the server. They took me on one on one. That is the way to do these things. I still knew I wouldn't win my point, but they were at least somewhat respectful in that way. They didn't surround me and begin pounding on me En-masse.

The second reason is that I knew if I went back in after a temporary ban, the cliche would headhunt me and do everything they could to make my life on the server so miserable that I leave. They tried it already. At least that is what I believe once I reviewed everything that happened.

First an anonymous person was (oh god what do the young people call it now days?) Offended by my character's in game play. I have been an admin on at least 4 different servers in the past. If someone came up to me and said they were offended by another player, I would say in character or out of character. If they said out of character, I would most likely get the logs from the server go through them see if they have a case and get together with both players and work it out between the three of us. If it was harassment through tells and stuff, I would probably ban the player being offensive.

If they had said their play of their character in game. I probably would tell the offended player to grow a backbone. The character isn't a real person first of all. Second a lot of people play evil asshole characters to start with. They are meant to be offensive. There's no place in NWN for being offended by a character in game.

Second: When I tried to defend myself and offer a solution the admins and dms got more angry at me.

Third. After I posted here on Harvest moon the dm on discord suddenly got very diplomatic with me. After I said I thought I had been head hunted as a player. It was either because I had nailed it on the head and they were headhunting me, or it was because they forgot I had my own platform to make my case and forgot.

Personally, I think they were headhunting me the whole time. I just never gave them their 'legitimate reason' so they made one up to punch me in the mouth with. Not something good to do to an old crotchety tanker.

But like I said if some outside the group receive some attention now from the dms. I'll be happy about that.

So, some sage advice, about this whole thing. If you're a player and a dm or admin comes up to you and says "You can't play your character anymore the way you want too, you can only play your character the way we approve you do." Get out of there fast. It's not worth staying there. We play this game to have a bit of fun and to get a pit stop from the rigors of real life. There's no reason to play with people that hate you or are jealous of you for some reason or have some stick up their ass against you. They'll just try to make your fun time miserable.

Thank you
Winter.

[Angelhawk]

I just want to say. My man has devoted himself to this game for 20 years. I watch him play and this server from the start they did everything they could to knock him down. He say its a good server. Hes being kind. This server near destroyed him the first time. The second time I tell him Why you playing on this server again! You know it sucks.

He tell me he just need time between novels. I can see that. He work so hard and come home and puts more into this game. Sometimes he even forgets to do things round the house because he doing things or helping others in the game. Then I see these people do everything they can to do harm to him and him takeing it. thats not my winterhawk. I put my foot down and tell him to stand up like he use too.

Well he did and I'm proud of him. He's done so much and to have people wanting to hurt him so much cause he been around. Hes helped so many over the years in this place. I mean NWN and to have people want to hurt him just makes me sick to my stomach. No matter what happens I'm proud of him. He stood up. He stood up for himself and this site and all the people wronged by these assholes.

[Winterhawk99]

Thanks for the support love but its not needed. Already took care of the situation. I'll be home in a few days.