The Spine of the World is an established Teacher Church group consisting of Golems and Facets. Our name and banner are well-known throughout the game, and we have an array of enemies and allies. First and foremost we serve the will of the Teacher with a fanatical level of devotion that superceeds pretty much all other aims and goals.
It's worth noting, that the Maelstrom game is coming to a close, and we've been playing quite a long game. Anyone new coming into the group would need a large amount of briefing to be brought up to date. A good way to go about this would be to start a golem or facet in play and talk to us IC. Alternatively, we can properly induct you, but be prepared to do a lot of reading.
If you do feel like playing a relentlessly logical sociopathic golem, then we are open to new recruits, come and grab us on channel or by email. It's my impression that event 2 might not be the most interesting event to join us at, but event 3 should be.
Many of the Awakened out there are Awakened first and foremost and whatever-else-they-are second. The dryads are hippies, the facets are incomprehensible, and the golems are... simple-minded. We would urge prospective players to ignore these stereotypes. We want scholarly facets who explore the nature of magic, not for its own sake, but in order to provide new and better weapons for the war, and warlike facets who use their unique perspective and nature to fight evil better than any member of the breathing races ever could. We want golems who are beings of action, whether crafters of mighty weapons or builders of great defences or stony warriors of superhuman skill.
We're looking for paladins, mages of any stripe, alchemists, crafters, and a priest who has supplicating hard skills. I'm not asking for people to be on duty and aggressive all the time, although a certain level of paranoia is likely to be encouraged IC. The key thing, really, is not to sit around and faff if something needs doing but just to go out there and do it. An important part of the Teacher faith is that you only make up your mind when you're sure you're right, and then you do not change it unless new evidence comes to light.
We do get into some fights, although this varies a lot by event and the laws - at some events the demon hunters do more fighting than anyone other than the demons, at others we won't strike a blow. Guarding the ritual site has happened in the past, but is unlikely to happen in the future. Fights tend to be short and one-sided in our favour, although we have occasionally got into larger battles. Unless the demons and their allies start stepping up this war they will hopefully remain so. We have a large selection of allies, some of them quite numerous, some of them extremely well-respected, some of them mutual enemies. We have good relations with several colonies, and people are willing to do us favours. We perform religious services to the Teacher, which are almost always short. The arrival of a new and more eloquent priest would be welcomed, although brevity is also a virtue.
We are largely alone as an Awakened church, although there is a Smith group made up of golems.
People often say that Maelstrom is broken down into separate 'games' - spheres of interest that shape the characters within them. The group is primarily involved in the religion, magic / plot and demonhunting games, and then individuals can explore the various craft trees and the technology game as they see fit. We're not a trading group and don't expect to play the money game, and are only peripherally involved in the politics game. Neither will we be playing the colony game unless we suddenly find through our exploration of magic and religion that we start acquiring a People.
Another in character goal for the group is to create more of their kind - especially golems, as this has never before been successfully done on any scale.
As far as kit goes, we're not aiming for a very uniform look; however, we do have a tabard for when we want to look monolithic. Tabards will be provided (or can be acquired from Pufferfish). The Spine's symbol is a yellow sun on a blue background. Some of the facets also grow their bodies blue with a yellow sun, but this is entirely optional.
Retired members:
IRC channel: #silicoids
pimppimp Anyone who wants said tabards, sashes or belt tags made... --Pufferfish
UpdateMe?!
Spine Tetris!
Starring:
(blame #maelfroth)