Mesalia Blog

[mesaliablog]

The Ko’Ban Meet

Posted 13th of April 2016 by Zarkaylia

Spring’s second moon came. And with it came the Ko’Ban tribe. Nightveil’s townsfolk had spent many days of hard work preparing for this crucial occasion and nervously awaited the moment to welcome their guests.

Nightveil greeted the Ko’Ban Chief and Shaman with gifts and well wishes and they in turn were met with the same. The meet came off at a good start. By the time the town’s Elder Zarkaylia, joined by her apprentice and in the matter advisor Hara, and the Ko’Ban Chief retreated to a tent for diplomatic discussions regarding the dragon and the devastation it had left in its wake, the atmosphere was good. Soon to be that of new and old friends dancing, eating and drinking together.

While their people enjoyed themselves outside the Chief and the Elder discussed what had happened: Nightveil’s scouting party had disturbed the dragon which in turn had attacked the Ko’Ban tribe, leaving many dead in its wake. Both old and wise and with peace in their interests settled for a trade agreement as well as Nightveil aiding in the Ko’Ban rebuilding. The matter of the dragon was however a tense topic. The Ko’Ban believing it a spirit or God and the Elder of Nightveil believing it needs to be destroyed not walking hand in hand. However, after a few tense exchanges Zarkaylia had to agree to Nightveil not disturbing the dragon again, under threat of consequences, whilst upholding the town’s rights to defend themselves. An agreement was made. And after hours of pleasant talk and exchange of stories Zarkaylia left the tent fully aware that nowhere in the agreement weren’t they allowed to kill the dragon in self-defence.

But all this was put aside for the partying was great! For days the meet lasted, days of joy and celebration. New friends were found and perhaps even new romances given the Ko’Ban were very open to new blood being added to their tribe. Dance competitions were held, Lien and Bishop having quite the audience, the tavern folk were flirty and the booze got to more than just Zaira’s and Kane’s heads.

But all good comes to an end and by the time it did, what had initiated the meet was nearly forgotten. The Ko’Ban departed as new allies and friends to Nightveil and its people.

[mesaliablog]

Nightveil’s Neighbors

Posted the 4th of February by Pinkie

Strangely, not long after the scouting mission went awry a new face showed up in town, one of distinct features, tribal wear and dark eyes. The hunter was a Ko’ban man, calling himself Sawanta. Sawanta came from a local tribe that has been living off hunting in the Aether Garden for years. While he wasn’t forthcoming with details as to where his tribe was located in the woods outside of nightveil, it was pretty clear the rumors and stories left behind from previous inhabitants were true. A Ko’ban tribe lived somewhere in the area outside of Nightveil.

Sawanta arrived under the pretense of peace, his people had suffered devastating losses to the local fire dragon which they had dubbed ‘Volten’. Upon speaking with Bishop, Sawanta was furious to hear the attack upon his people was likely sparked by Nightveil’s scouting party. Furious he left to counsel with his chief before returning again. Clearly still agitated by the news, Lien was the next unfortunate person to run into him. Thing’s nearly came to blows as she bashfully admitted having played a large part in upsetting the dragon. Thankfully Adrianna was there and managed to divert Sawanta’s attention. As she tried to work out what exactly was going on, Zarkaylia arrived.

After a tense conversation Zarkaylia managed to calm the man, offering condolences and asking what the Ko’ban want of them. Sawanta freely admitted he’d happily take revenge on those responsible, but that wasn’t what his chief wanted. The Ko’ban were left in a bad way after the dragon attack claimed a solid 3rd of their population. So instead a meet was proposed.

The Ko’ban tribe in it’s entirety would return to Nightveil. When they do they’re expecting to find the fair grounds prepared for what Sawanta called a ‘Great Meet’. The tribe and the towns folk would get to meet, and share in drink and food while Zark and the Chief discuss what should be done to settle things in relation to the dragon attack. Hopefully things will go well and the meeting will turn to festivities and celebration. If not, Sawanta warned of bloodshed. In the interest of avoiding just that, Adrianna suggested all parties arrive unarmed. While Sawanta didn’t personally like the idea, he reluctantly agreed.

Nightveil needs to prepare food, tables, drinks, and festivities! The spring fair will not come this year, there will be a meeting with Nightveil’s tribal neighbors instead!

Lets work out a date and time to have this event and see where this takes the citizens of Nightveil!

[mesaliablog]

Dragon Event II: Electric Barbeque

Posted 19th of January by Pinkie

With the dragon still fresh in people's minds, the denizens of Nightveil decide to send a scouting party to observe the terrible beast. Their orders from the town Elder were simply to observe and not to bother the Dragon. Lien, Raphael, Adreanna, and Terry volunteer for this task, armed with the alchemist Raphael’s concoctions just in case something goes awry.

They set out into the Northeastern woods, in the direction the dragon first fled in after it’s initial attack. The woods gave way to a grassy plains that came to an abrupt end as at the far side of a small creek was dead and burned earth, with trees scorched of life. What had been a forest was now dead and crispy badlands climbing up steep hills to dark volcanic peak.

Everything had seemed quiet, no initial sign of the dragon as they carefully approached what was clearly the dragons territory. It was obvious the dragon’s roost was not far from the Aether rich Garden, which likely offered lots of pray for the beasty. But that wasn’t what the beast had been hunting. Somewhere among the dark peeks they could hear screaming, human screaming.

They caught their first glimpse of the dragon as it circles it’s clearly terrified prey. Fire erupted from it and the screaming stopped as the dragon once more disappeared behind the peaks. With the beast distracted, Terry urged the group forward. They ran across the river and along the hillside to a large cave. Dry heat and the waft of filth and rot emanated from it. Terry seemed sure they were on the right path though Raphael was concerned by the stink of sulfur that the caves may have a fire risk to it. Thankfully their make-shift torch didn’t blow up in their faces.

They pressed on as the gray stone of the cave gave way to black volcanic rock. The volcanic rock then in turn gave way to what was frighteningly enough sharp jagged obsidian. The dragon nested in a cave made of the sturdy hard material. The heat became too much for the lucin who had to turn back before they found the roost. It was an animal den like any other, full of filth, scales, blood and bones that lined the bottom of the his den. The roof of the den was dug open from the inside with the sounds of the beast emanating from atop. Raphael and Terry went to get samples of the dragons nest.

Not long after that, the dragon deposited some of it’s left overs into the cave below, the burned and charred corpse was a terrifying warning which preempted the dragons return to its nest. While Lien and Raphael were able to get clear Terry was not fast enough to get out of the nest before it’s return.

It was still eating another body as it landed and went to settle in for a rest, Terry's attempt to escape was thwarted when he made too much noise climbing out of the nest. He called for the others to run. Lien almost ran out to him but Raphael restrained her. The Dragon promptly rolled onto it’s feet and tried to eat Terry. It got a hold of his foot and in her panic Lien tossed a flask given to her by Raphael.

The flask contained a foul stink bomb that burns the eyes with its offensiveness. Even it’s creator couldn’t help but gag at it’s intensity. The dragon let Terry go and started spitting fire all over his nest in an attempt to burn away the stink. Lien and Raphael managed to carry Terry out, Adreanna who was waiting outside stopped the bleeding as they escaped the now furious dragons den.

Recovering from their trip it’s clear things did not go as planned, and a sense of dread falls over Nightveil in the wake of poking the beast.

[mesaliablog]

Dragon Event Summary!

Posted 1st of November 2015 by Pinkie

A dragon flew into town from the north-west. It unleashed fire, chaos, and destruction on Nightveil! It swooped in and started burning and eating the Clark’s live stock. By the time it had finished, the farm was burning. Thankfully the dragons entrance and the screams of the Clark family as they fled their home didn’t go unnoticed. The guard and a few brave citizens immediately went into action. Saied rang the town bell to alert everyone of the trouble while Lien gathered some supplies and headed into the tunnels to established shelter for anyone who made it down there to hide from the beast. [Anyone unable to attend the event can safely assume their character managed just that.] Adreanna and Daryel went to round stragglers up and get Saied out of the bell tower as Zarkaylia, Kane, and Zaria all went to help the Clarks and see what fresh nether the Forbidden lands had unleashed on their town.

The ringing of the town bell had drawn the dragon's attention, he spotted the Clarks as they attempted to flee and gave chase. Only to be diverted by a well aimed and narrow miss of its eye from one of Kane’s throwing knives. Outraged at the attempted attack the dragon chased Kane instead. The brewery and the forest surrounding was set afire when much to the beasts frustration, Kane disappeared into the forest with a terrified Hara.

The beast turned back just in time to find that Zaira and Zark had been joined by Adreanna, Daryel and Saied. It makes a pass at them from overhead, breathing fire down on the lot. Thankfully the Xitians in the group were able to divert the flames. The dragon finally comes in and makes a sloppy landing in the narrow streets of Nightveil. Unbeknownst to the dragon it’s prey wasn’t going to be as easily slaughtered as the sheep and cows.

The dragon snapped it’s maw at the group just to have Zarkaylia ram a sword up it’s nose. This was painful but seemed to only make the dragon angry. Daryel learned his attempts to set the beast on fire had no effect other than drawing its attention to him. But he was wise enough to keep far enough back that the dragon couldn’t immediately eat him. The dragons attempts to do just that got it cut across the face by the guard. While the dragon was still reeling from the blow Adreanna launched a lance of ice that buried itself under the dragon's wing.

Unprepared for such ferocity, the dragon fell into retreat, scrambling up a house to get out of the narrow street to spread it’s wings. While it did collapse the roof of the house, the dragon managed to get airborne once more, and return from whence he came.

[mesaliablog]

DRAGONS!

Posted 2nd of September by Pinkie

They arrived first to the Dusk Realm, though we never did work out why. Then the Celestial Realm found themselves in a similar situation not long after the Xitians managed to deliver their warning. We weren’t concerned at first. Our arrogance lead us to initially believe this may be justice for all the wrongs against our people.

The first dragon in our Realm erupted with tremors and a terrifying roar. The first we encountered breathed fire and death upon villages. The armies standing ready to keep the Xitians at bay at the Portal into our Realm found themselves scrambling to fight the colossal beast as it’d erupted not far from their station.

They learned quickly its scaley hide was tough, so much so that arrows and bolts from common weapons could only find purchase in the wings of the great beast. Bringing it down out of the sky was the first step, but defeating it was a harrowing event, lives were lost. It became clear no lone man or woman could ever stand against these beasts.

Though we struggled, we destroyed the beast. With it dead we resolved to stand united against the monsters and began to call them by the name the Xitians first gave to them: Dragons. As more of the dragons clawed their way from their obsidian laden nests, the strange lanky dusk creatures known as dark walkers (Endermen) were noticed to linger around these places, it was then that we learned this particular type of dusk was the only one found across all the Realms. Thankfully, the majority of the Mainlands were spared the destructive power of these creatures. As both the dusk and the dragons were only found in the areas closest to the Portals.

As more dragons rose the more we struggled to adapt to fight and survive in the face of such power. Sadly, the Dragon of the Dusk realm and that of the Celestial were not only resistant to their respective elements but they seemed to only grow stronger when it was utiliazed against them. We were lucky enough to have not one, but six different varieties of horror visited upon us. Sadly, the Forbidden Lands lived up to its namesake and saw no boundaries on where the creatures would rise from, the whole continent is at the dragons' mercy.

We will persevere in the face of these dragons just as we have against every force that has pressed us to action. But we must do so united, relying not only on ourselves, but even the Xitian and Lucin people as well.

Read the full lore and artwork on the forums!

http://www.mesalia.net/forum/showthread.php?tid=865

You read correct, Mesalia has had a major addition to the lore that now includes Dragons! We are happy to present the lore and will gladly field any questions you have in regards to it. This is the beginning of a bright new chapter for Mesalia, look forward to these becoming a part of your RP!

[mesaliablog]

Races for players and spring fair.

Posted 14th of June 2015 by Zarkaylia

A while ago now we decided to allow regular players (as in non-staff) to apply for characters with powers. That is Xitians and Lucins. The Xitian-quota got filled rather quickly but there are some room left for Lucins.

So why is there a limit to the amount of Xitians and Lucins? Well the simple answer is balance. The more complicated answer involves the Lore and the current state of the Middle Realm where Xitians are a more rare sight and Lucins aren’t the main part of the population either.

You may also wonder why this took such a long time for us, or me, to do. And the answer to this specific question is in truth a long and complicated one. It involves everything from the risks of power gaming to difficulties finding a way to regulate and moderate. For a long time now Mesalia have been a calm server and community. Mercifully spared from the kind of drama Minecraft servers and communities otherwise suffer from and that we have definitely seen our fair share of in the past. We can applaud ourselves for at the time being a mature and well-behaved little community of role-players and thus I simply found that last bit of the puzzle that told me the time had come. And I’m happy to say that so far everything is working very well.

Onwards! SentaiPink have once again impressed with her abilities in building and have created another cozy and lovely looking little spring fair for the town of Nightveil. The fair holds activities, trade and NPCs and is meant as a roleplay tool to make use of. None of the NPCs are staff controlled, they are for everyone to use in their roleplay just as much as the fair itself.

Maybe Saied the performer will take the scene? Or maybe Hara will beat people up at the sparring grounds. Meanwhile Victor Clark holds the town rule while the town’s Elder Zarkaylia Karalis have suddenly snuck away middle of the night. The smithy stands silent and empty with the usually hard working town smith away and the rather recent mother Nerissa have hired plenty of help in young Jie and the new resident Xitian Daryel. Young Celyn’s mercilessly advised on flirting while away from the idyllic and spring beautiful town its new lumberer stumbles upon a nasty surprise…

Follow the next episode of… Alright, that’s enough. Have a good one!

- Zarkaylia

[mesaliablog]

Festival!

Posted 7th of February 2015 by Pinkie

 Mesalia has reached its four year anniversary! The Mesalia staff would like to thank our players for sticking with us all this time through all our settings, storylines, characters and even the technical hiccups. This RP has been a wonderful escape for most of us and as ever a great source of entertainment. Anything that can both make us laugh and cry is worthy of the time and energy all of us put into this. I especially want to thank Zarkaylia for her hard work over the years and that of the rest of staff past and present. Without the dedication of players and staff we wouldn’t have this little RP gem we call Mesalia. So thank you all!

Beginning Sunday Febuary 8th festivities begin IC!

Entertainers (whom will be non-player characters) passing through the forbidden lands got in contact with the trade master of Nightveil. Some negotiations later, the entertainers agreed to come to Nightveil to put on a spring fair. Games, food, and vendors will be available for the characters to take advantage of! In character the set up has been going on for the last several days. The festival will start Feb 8th, and continue until the end of the month. The venders will be giving food and drink, trinkets, toys and gifts away or for trade and prizes. Along with a few games set up for playful competition. Let staff know if you have any questions or suggestions. Have fun RPing and heres to another year of Mesalia!

The fluffy pink lorekeeper herself, - Pinkie

[mesaliablog]

Bukkit, crappy hosts and some conclusions.

Posted 10th of September 2014 by Zarkaylia

Summer’s over! There you have that reminder right in your face.

With school starting and vacations over the server often gets a little emptier for a bit till people have gone back to their routines. Don’t fret! It usually changes soon as people are back into speed with their lives. If you want to be a dear and help this happen why not log on when you have some spare time?

With summer over the rule revision is finally done with. It was a lot of hard work so lets hope we don’t t need to do that again anytime soon. Next large project is the main Lore, but another few things have come in between.

As you may all know by now it appears the Bukkit project hit the grave. I’ll say ‘appears’ as it’s yet not official. Other projects are likely to want to spawn in its wake, however, and other projects already existed that can take its place in varying degrees. So to clarify; no, Bukkit going down will not equal Mesalia going down. We’ve gotten through worse and we’re adaptable.

Then we come to the matter of this temporary map from March that we are currently using. We are doing so because our now ex-host have gone from good enough to poopers. Do not worry about your donation money, I have cancelled our subscription with that host and will ask for a refund for this month’s payment. Unfortunately there are still no news from them so I can’t tell you how long we’re stuck with this temporary map just yet. Once I can I assure you you’ll all be among the first people to know.

So keep calm and roleplay on!

- Zarkaylia

[mesaliablog]

Rule revision, Donor Cave, Lore rewriting and more…

Posted 20th of April 2014 by Zarkaylia

The first few months in the new setting have been really good. It appears a majority of the community enjoy the looks of Alroc and the map and to us staffers that is great news and does make us very glad, no doubt. I would like to take the time to thank my staff team for the effort they put down to make us our settings.

The rule revision have been going on for quite some time now. As those visiting the forum will have seen we have posted the sections separately over several months and awaited criticism and opinions from the community. It is important to us that we get your opinion and help with the rules and we are quite satisfied with the responses, so thanks to all of you. Of course, we can’t satisfy everyone and what’s best for the server progress is always also taken into consideration. So what is our plans for the finalization of this? We plan to take all your advices and criticism and return the rules to the writing board and do what adjustments we want to do and find fitting. Once that is done we will post the rule revision again, but as a whole this time. This will continue till we are done and the rule pages will after that be re-coded to hold the freshly accepted rules.

So what is this in the title about a Lore rewrite then? Well, that’s a project of mine that I’m not really looking forward to. The main Lore have been growing over the time Mesalia have existed and that’s by now quite a lot of growing. It was rewritten once by Michelle soon 3 years ago and the fact that we have been adding to it and that different authors have worked on it have made it both lengthy and confusing. It have appeared to me that it needs a full rework on its structure in order to benefit applicants more than it currently does. For now you need not worry about this too much though as it will take a very long time to make a change so grand to what is so essential.

You may wonder whatever happened to the donor caves? No one is perfect! Other matters came up and I forgot about them till just recently. They are under construction and will be opened for all donors once they are done.

Minecraft 1.8 will be released in May. As you all know the server is still on 1.7.2 and for those that wonder I can inform you that Bukkit have gotten as far as a development build for 1.7.5. Minecraft 1.8 will be another massive change to Minecraft as they will change their name based account system to a so called UUID (Universally Unique IDentifier) system. This is a huge change and one probably do not need to worry about the Bukkit update for 1.8 to come quickly. It also means a lot of, if not all, plugins need to be re-coded to work with the new system. It will possibly give us quite a lot of problems to handle, as a head’s up, and depending on the system and how it works might mean a few policy or rule additions. However, we still need to learn more about this before we can say anything for certain. If you wish to read more about what the update might mean for Bukkit servers and plugin coders you can read about it here:

http://forums.bukkit.org/threads/psa-the-switch-to-uuids-potential-plugin-server-breakage.250915/

Lastly I want to welcome all the new players and wish all new applicants good luck.

- Zarkaylia

[mesaliablog]

Happy Birthday, Mesalia!

Posted 30th of Jan 2014 by Michelle

On the first of February, Mesalia RP turns three. I was going to make a joke about how Mesalia would be old enough for someone to RP if it were a character’s kid, but the pregnancy rules haven’t been updated to fit the “two months = one year” thing. Oops. At least the Mesalia’s also old enough to make Zark question what she’s been doing with her life. So… congrats, Mesalia! Three years old!

We do actually have a few things arranged to celebrate this occasion though, such as…

We’re OOCly caking the map on the first of February!

An OOC fireworks show on the first of February, 11PM Swedish time (GMT+1)!

We’re adding Cthulhu to the lore!

This blog post, with the following announcement!

You and your characters have also probably noticed that the town’s food supply is dwindling. Rationing is now taking place IC. Trade has been halted for months. Winter has been a bitch in Ravenna, and there’s now talk of migration… The staff are excited to announce Mesalia’s newest setting: Alroc. (…Just kidding on the Cthulhu thing, by the way...)

The transition event is set to occur very, very soon; you might want to free up your schedule for next week. It will involve the IC food shortage and trade issues as a reason to leave, so do be sure to RP your characters being affected by the rationing. Everyone should be hungry these days.

More details on that are to be posted later, but first we’re setting up the items transfer thread. If you want your character to bring a few of their small belongings to the new setting, you’ll want to go there and carefully read the instructions in the first post. Everyone must have their character’s items approved by Zark.

On a final note, thank you. Thank you to everyone who has ever contributed to Mesalia RP, everyone who has submitted an app, everyone who has played a character, and everyone who has laughed and cried and everywhere-in-between while doing so. Thank you to everyone who has donated their money, or their time, or both. Thank you to veterans like Spy, fresh meat like Zio, regulars like French, and I-can’t-stop-coming-backers like Tig. Thank you to everyone who has come and gone, everyone who is still here, and everyone who has clung to this community for dear life. Thank you to all staff, past and present. Thank you to Ryce and to Screem for starting this circus, and most of all, thank you to Zark for letting the show go on. Thank you for the last three years. Let’s see what the next ones have in store.

Highfives and fistbumps,

Chelle

[mesaliablog]

Sparkling brand new lore

Posted 6th of December 2013 by Conradian and Zarkaylia

To all Mesalians,

So as the title above says, we’ve got a brand new addition to the Lore, as well as slight edits to recent lore.

What does this mean? Well it the Mainland is now recovering from the losses of the Civil War. More importantly though, the Dusk Portal has reopened. As the Lore explains this has been coming for some years and the fallout from this world-changing event is yet to be felt, but it poses some big questions for the future.

So go read the Lore, get acquainted with it, maybe buy it a nice dinner. It’s taken the whole staff a good amount of time and effort to get it to the finished stage and we hope you enjoy the fruits of our labour and the possibilities it brings to both characters and the future of Mesalia.

Also guys, please don’t forget to read the monthly server update post, found directly below. Stuff is changing and we want to make sure you’re all up to speed.

See you on the site and server,

Conradian

A small update and reminder from the Admin is also in order. As most of you have noticed we’re now on Minecraft 1.7.2. Whatever the Bukkit team have been on about in regards of not recommending this build or massive bugs we are uncertain of. So far there’s only been minor problems. Those are:

- Witches will spawn, but they spawn so rarely even in normal Minecraft that this isn’t much of a problem.

- Rain and snow mixes, creating odd weather here and there and spots of rain in deserts as well as random areas of snowing in the middle of rain-areas. Usually too high above ground to be a problem.

- Snowy areas now have rain instead of snow. Unfortunately this does create a larger issue as it ruins some of the map-areas, but it’s not large enough to be a major problem.

- Staff can’t use the teleport command while on a horseback. This is not much of a problem either.

If you notice any more bugs we’d appreciate it if you report it to the staff. Thank you.

Hugs and kisses,

Zarkaylia

[mesaliablog]

Time, Minecraft 1.7 and what is going on?

Posted 1st of December by Zarkaylia and Fae

Dearest Mesalians, the time-related poll have come to an end and the result is that as of this day, two real-life months will equal 1 in-character year and the passing of 2 seasons. This will mean we have not moved on to another year but the season is now fall.

The latest news from the Bukkit team would be that they do not recommend anyone to use the update they will soon publish. Unfortunately it will be very unstable and thus Mesalia is for now staying on Minecraft 1.6.4. There’s no way of telling how long this will last.

Rule Revisions - this is our biggest deal so far, and a long time in coming. We have been posting Rule Revisions in sections, so that you as players can also have input before we roll them out officially. This might take a bit; please bear with us as these are important for all of us now and in the future.

Lastly, there’s an addition to the Lore (yes THE Lore) soon to be finished and published. So keep your eyes open.

- Zarkaylia & Fae

[mesaliablog]

Announcement regarding Minecraft 1.7.2

Posted November 16 2013 by Zarkaylia

On October 25th Minecraft updated from 1.6.4 to 1.7.2. As we all know the server remains on 1.6.4 at the moment and we have been waiting unusually long for an update. By now we have usually been on latest update for weeks. I decided it is time to let you all know what is currently going on.

With Minecraft's latest update Mojang more or less rewrote the game's whole code. It is a massive update and CraftBukkit is doing their best to develop what they call a "Development Build". We have used these kind of builds the past year and a half without problems despite the fact it's recommended to wait for their completed "Recommended Builds". They are working their butts off but have encountered several problems.

In Minecraft's own code there are problems and errors. CraftBukkit can but will not do anything about these and need to work around them. Why? Because it is not their responsibility to do so and they have a code and standard they follow. They do not mess with Mojang's own code. This makes it all a whole lot more difficult and CraftBukkit do not think they will be able to release a stable build.

Once they are finally finished there will of course be other problems to deal with for us. The ones I am absolutely certain of, since this is such a massive update, are that all our plugins will likely break and that they will take equally as long time to update for their developers. There are possible other problems that the staff are currently preparing for just in case, but we can't be sure till CraftBukkit release the build and we can test it.

Everyone, cross your fingers and hope for a stable enough update sometime soon that won't cause us too many problems to deal with.

Hugs and kisses, Zarkaylia

[mesaliablog]

Springtime for Mesalia!

Posted October 8th 2013 by Fae

Welcome all to Springtime in Ravenna! So, you may ask, what happened during the wintertime?

Most of the Xitians had left before first snowfall without a word, to which some saw it as much of a relief as the idea that the spiders were also holed up for the year.  With building and repairing delayed until better weather, it left more time for hunting and fishing to help replenish the supply of food so no one starved.

There had been a council meeting as well about halfway through the year, and after going over and editing Caius’ initial draft, the Laws of Ravenna have now been approved and implemented! This included agreements on how one can become a citizen, with current residents already accepted as such. Lyrxi had also been welcomed as the new Agriculture councilor during the meeting.. A few other things had been discussed during the meeting such as the discovery of a scroll, that Marty had shared with the others, though not much else made public. With a Lucin and an Xitian representative both there, it still served as a tense meeting.

And now with winter gone, what’s in store for spring?

The snow has all melted, and the floodplains for the farmland is still draining the excess water. The farmers look forward to planting their first seeds as soon as possible, while others are excited about more visits by the ships from the Mainland and other locations to help restock and trade various things.  The wild animals will also soon return, much to the relief of the hunters.

And with springtime arriving the town healer Arua, who was expecting a child, surprised her friends by giving birth two healthy boys! Congratulations to the new members of the Esrok family!

What else can the people of Ravenna expect during this year of rejuvenation?

[mesaliablog]

Winter, Food and Babies!

Posted September 8th, 2013 by Pinkie and Zarkaylia

Hello Ravennites!

Fall is coming quickly to its end in Ravenna, which means no more planting can be done this late into the season. Well, you could plant, but it’d all freeze to death or rot, so its not really worth it. What has been grown needs to be harvested before it’s ruined by the first snows of Winter. It’s not possible to grow anything during the year long Winter, which means food needs to be stored or hunted. With the leading farmer gone, Ravenna’s food stores aren’t looking good. With so few crops and only two hunters, Winter is going to be lean, food is going to get scarce, and meals  are going to get meager.

This comes of course after the latest addition to Ravenna: not only a few new residents but a new bouncy baby boy. Dusken and Lyxri’s son, Jie was born a healthy little stink factory.

In OOC news we’ve updated the Mesalia plugin to now allow the hunger bar to deplete down to three. Put this to use, and remember your character does need to eat. You need not RP every meal but remember to remove food regularly if you have any supplies ICly or if you are responsible for any supplies. Do not forget that food also gets spoiled after too long time.

Screem’s also worked out a solution for the spammer problem. Thank you so very much Screem and good job, as always. The forums now have a security question before registration to try and put a halt to the problem once and for all. The answer for the security question is in the Lore so don’t hesitate to give it a read before signing up for the forums.

Welcome again to our new players, and enjoy the snow the LK’s will be laying down!

- Pinkie

G’day Mesalians!

I’d like to add to Pinkie’s words. Not long ago Staff had a little unplanned mini-meeting where we decided to lower the requirements for second characters(!). Since a few weeks back we had already lowered requirements on applications(!) without telling anyone, yes we’re so sneaky, and also lowered our general “strictness” on RP(!). You likely haven’t noticed any of these much simply because at the moment you’re all actually behaving rather well, thus we’ve not had to crack down on anything specific lately. There’s also the fact that one does not notice us till we do poke you, am I right?

These things happen more often than you’d think. Staff tries something out and after a while realize that perhaps some adjustments are needed to meet desires and steer the server more towards where we want it to go. One might wonder if this means any changes in the rather high requirements for IC pregnancies… And I have to admit I have yet to decide as I take the children NPCs and characters very seriously after the first few rather irresponsible and disastrous pregnancies Mesalia had (there’s no fun in drama-whoring with pregnancy and babies and then kill the baby off or the like when it gets boring). A change in the second character requirements of course automatically means there’s a change but that is only one out of many requirements I have wished to see so far. I will get back to you all about this but I am almost certain there will be a change.

Staff also look for a new better way to advertise the server. We have since years advertised on two different external forums with very varied results. We would love something more steady and reliable, thus if you have any tips we’d be glad to hear them.

- Zarkaylia

[mesaliablog]

A little update on the Staff Team and more

Posted August 20th 2013 by Zarkaylia

Time for an update as there have been a lot of changes lately. I will start off with the changes within staff. Lately we've had to thank and say goodbye to two of our staff members. Tim decided it was time to retire and so did 3llusive. We thank both of them for their time with us and wish them both luck with whatever they take on next.

As of two days ago we welcome Hutchy (Northmark) to the team as the newest Whitelister and wish him good luck with his first upcoming applications to grade and in learning the art of being a Staff member.

On a different note there have been problems with spammers when we removed the e-mail activation so it is again activated. As far as I have noticed and according to testing, everything is now working fine. I will however keep an eye on it all and more information can be found in the Information section.

Screem have made some changes to the spoilers or at least worked on it, as you may notice. If you notice any problems you can notify us in the Technical Problem Reports section.

Lastly we welcome our new players and wish applicants good luck!

 - Zarkaylia

[mesaliablog]

Lore, Forum & Event

Posted August 7th 2013 by Zarkaylia

Good day. I wish to inform about a few changes and updates for those who might not have noticed just yet.

First off the Donate-page is finally complete with PayPal-button and Hall of Donors. I would like all Donors to note I have only copied the names from the Hall of Donors on our old forum so far. I would like those that have donated enough and want this reward to send me a PM so I can add your name. Make sure to tell me which name you'd like displayed.

Next matter I'd like to bring up is that after months of discussions and hard work the Lore of Ravenna was finally completed and published. I'd like to thank everyone who worked on it for their hard work, admittedly it took a lot longer than expected to nail all the details. The result however is glorious! This was the first time a town have been created with a such ambitious and important Lore.

Just recently I noted that newly registered users using gmail or yahoo never got their verification mail sent. This is very unfortunate and we apologize to those who have been affected by this. All inactive accounts have now been manually activated and e-mail registration have now been replaced with captcha/image verification. This should hopefully solve all eventual problems. Just in case, if there are still problems, inactive accounts have now been given permissions to PM so that they can alert the staff.

Lastly we have a most precious event ahead of us that I'd like to shamelessly promote. The characters Arua Ominakna and Xemnes Esrok are getting married soon. This should be a nice event that will light up Ravenna a bit and you can find all information about when and where right here.

  Have fun and enjoy the summer while it lasts!

   - Zarkaylia