ANNOUNCEMENT: Game closure & Endgame outline

[zenderael_mods]

I think it's obvious by now that there simply isn't enough interest or motivation left to carry Zenderael through the endgame, especially on the mod end. I know I (Guindo) certainly dropped the ball on a lot of things that were supposed to happen because my motivation waned so badly during the Fall semester due to school stress and obligations, and several of us found ourselves in similar boats. In a game this small, when four or five people suddenly can't play due to real life issues, that ends up being over half the playerbase, and there's nobody to pick up the slack and keep the game rolling.

Basically this was the result of a variety of different contributing factors, and there's no blame to be laid. We had a two-year run and that's pretty good if you ask me; I've never had a game last longer than six months before, so in that respect we can consider this a success!

The truth is that Zenderael was on shaky footing from the day it started. It may have looked pretty on the front end, but on the back end it was held together with duct tape and good intentions, and it really is a miracle that it managed to last two months, nevermind two years. I've come away with some lessons learned as a mod, and some fond experiences as a player, and I hope all of you had some fun during its run as well.

We feel like it would be a disservice to our players if we didn't at least give you an outline of the proposed endgame. It sucks to make it all the way here only to never get to find out how things were supposed to end! So underneath the cut you will find our outline for the endgame (the details of which could have changed based on player choices).

 

Lead-up that's already happened or been hinted at:

• After his encounter with the Denizen, Duncan began to believe that nobody should ever go to the Dark

• Duncan and Ezra suspected that the body of Xumurdad is in the Likeness; Duncan later confirmed this secretly on his own

• Rachel was resurrected, and then mercy-killed by Darius

• Duncan resurrected Rachel; her second resurrection penalty was the loss of free will

• Duncan confronted Darius and then showed him the Dark

• Duncan retrieved Xumurdad's body from the tree (the Likeness stops glowing) and gave the Skin to Darius

• Darius became the Mainyu (leader of the necromancer guild); this was meant to be a stopgap to keep people out of the Dark while Duncan figured out a more permanent solution

Future occurrences:

• Duncan infiltrates the Greycloaks through Archbishop Doukas; after digging into the cleric-Greycloaks' actual goals, he realizes resurrecting Xumurdad would be the perfect solution for the problem he's trying to solve

• Duncan begins working with the Greycloaks genuinely, trying to resurrect Xumurdad; he takes advantage of Rachel's lack of free will to use her as a holder for any stolen God-organs

• Rhys is the first casualty; Duncan plans to resurrect him, but Rhys ends up being one of those mysteriously un-rezzable cases

• Lera is next, killed by Sarai; she is resurrected and regains her old eyes in the process

• Other guild leaders are attacked one by one, either surviving or having their god-organs stolen as desired by the players

• For those God-organs that aren't taken, there was an alternative plan to give Xumurdad's shell a weaker facsimile replacement organ by sacrificing a large enough number of regular guild members

• Nightmare plot was intended to be a way for demons to bridge the gap between the living world and the Dark, their own plan being to allow the Denizen to cross over

• The dragons were also a part of this; there were dragons corresponding to each element and the demons would attempt to use their hearts to power their plans

  • Kaga was Fire, the one the Armaiti crashed was air, Medena was Nature, and Kharveryos was Earth (earth?! yes, the prior Asha's notes explained that Kharveryos had been killed and raised as a lich by a mage)

  • There would have been a subplot for each of these while the guild-leader killing was happening alongside it.

• Doukas would reveal himself as secretly a guild leader as well, having eaten the bones of Xumurdad and become the Monk GL (he never created any guild members)

• Assassin Greycloak activity would ramp up until the Armaiti and Doukas took each other out

• Everyone thinks the Greycloaks are done with?? Except whoops Duncan is still in charge of the cleric faction and they're still acting to resurrect Xumurdad

• Bad end: Duncan isn't stopped, Xumurdad is resurrected, bad things happen and players have to figure out how to deal with Xumurdad

• Good end: Duncan is stopped, Xumurdad resurrection doesn't happen, and players have to decide how their characters would wrap things up

• Optional addendum: characters somehow figure out how to fix death so that people don't go to the Dark anymore!

Setting info that wasn't yet revealed:

• The tree of the Likeness is the true form of Xumurdad; the human form is merely an avatar It used to interact with humans. Yup, that means Xumurdad was actually a World Tree this whole time.

• If the tree is Xumurdad's true self and the avatar Its body, the Denizen was Its soul. The Dark came into existence when Xumurdad was defeated and the Denizen was born. Resurrecting Xumurdad would've meant putting the Denizen inside the avatar's body.

• Every god has their own afterlife; this is the explanation for those people who mysteriously can't be resurrected. Xumurdad's power only allows for bringing souls back from the Dark; if the soul is in, say, Pelusa's afterlife instead, Xumurdad's Heart has no power over it.

If you'd like to weigh in and discuss how things would've played out in the comments, you are more than welcome to! I'm also available to answer setting questions on this post, since there's no need to maintain a mystery anymore.

The game will remain open as a musebox, so if you do find yourself wanting to come back to this setting and these characters, you can. The zenpc account has been given the power to accept join requests, and the login information can be found on the contact page. There will no longer be mod guidance and the mod e-mail is no longer being checked, but if you have any questions you need answered, you are always free to contact me (Guindo) directly by whatever means you like.

We are sincerely sorry for not being able to deliver a proper endgame. Hopefully knowing how it was intended to end provides some sense of closure in lieu of that.

It was great getting to play with you all for as long as we had together. Wherever you decide to go next, good luck and enjoy yourselves!