Saboteurs, Phantoms, Spectres

Iniar

Hi, doing some research; curious as to how much people remember of how these guilds existed, who were major players at the beginning of Imperian; how the Spectres were formed, etc. Anything lore-ish would be of interest to me.

Thanks muchly.

Tagging @Alvetta and @Iluv

Khizan

The early Saboteurs were a strange guild. 

The big thing about them that you need to take into consideration is that back in the day they were the literal only source of toxins in the game. The Saboteur guild was the only source of the profession and the profession was the only way you could get access to the Toxins skillset, and the guild controlled the only toxin lab in the world. So it was pretty much doomed right from the start because putting it in sole control of such an important resource meant that it was a nest of terrible alts and metagaming because you could make stupid amounts of money from it.

This problem was compounded by having a profession that combined tons of flavor and coolness points with one of the highest technical skill floors in the game, so you had a ton of Saboteurs and almost all of them were terrible. This made it something of a joke guild; they'd posture like a badass assassin guild but they were more like B-movie ninjas. 

Some of their leaders tried to play it off as political power and spying, but most of that boiled down to "guys have a thing for chicks with whips" and/or blatant metagaming.

The Saboteur history is not a particularly noble one, I am afraid.

Ario

I can give you a lot of lore on the Idras, but not so much on the Saboteurs. You might want to ask @Kryss about it, though, as I think she had a pretty good run as a GM (though that could be looking through rose-tinted glasses). 

I wouldn't even know where to begin on the Renegades front. They do have a cool tower though.

Ario

Ario said:

I can give you a lot of lore on the Idras, but not so much on the Saboteurs. You might want to ask @Kryss about it, though, as I think she had a pretty good run as a GM (though that could be looking through rose-tinted glasses). 

I wouldn't even know where to begin on the Renegades front. They do have a cool tower though.

@Krysaliss instead.

Kabaal

As far as the Sabs go, Khizan at least got the chicks with whips part right. But the "zomg dey weren't noble !!1" ><

Same level of drama llama and BS as any other guild on the inside. I can go back as far as Alakshmi being Crux, but most of it is only interesting if you want to gossip about people. The Toxinstone monopoly was derp and gave the early GMs a lot of pull, then Idras came out and AM got to release their unbridled salt as their toxin strings were snipped. 

Population and interest outside of PKPK rose and fell along with the charisma of the leaders like every other guild. The class (AKA me) rode illusions like a saddleless donkey until they died a True Death, then we got illusion plants!

The Renegades came into existence because I kicked everyone I suspected of leaning magick (and Galt just because) out when they were solidifying faction lines. I imagine if a pro-magick person had been in control, it could've gone the other way, but that's what went down.

Khizan

Renegades came into existence when the circle system was put into place because the assassin profession holders were pretty evenly split between demonic and magick, the leadership tended towards demonic, and magick needed a Toxins guild anyways. It was better to split the class than to create something completely new and then force people into a profession change.

It's similar to how Outriders came into existence; Hunters were split between AM and Magick and it was better to divide the classes than to force one of the factions to change their professions or their cities.

Iniar

Were there any particularly charismatic leaders in the early days that did anything of significance? The only story I remember someone telling me of 'in-the-old-days' sort was of some bride killing her intended groom (Antioch/Stavenn?) Hilarious, and I'm wondering if there was any other story like it from the Saboteurs?