Mar 02 2021, 04:46 AM
We're having a quick discussion among staff about a suggestion fielded regarding Corrupted characters. The concern was that chrysalizing as a fully Converted character can be fatal if the character is not near a Corruption source.
We have a few potential solutions, but we'd like to pass them by you first, and gather more opinions and ideas. However, I think it's important to clarify why there need to be consequences, regardless of what they are.
The Corruption mechanic is intended to be chaotic and unforgiving. It grants a great deal of power for specific drawbacks. Characters cannot really be forced into corruption without player consent: so if you're entering Corruption, you are always choosing to do so. One concern was that "extremely violent characters won't be able to enter life-threatening situations without risk of death." This is certainly intended. You should not be ABLE to have an "extremely violent character" entering "life-threatening situations" WITHOUT the risk of death, and we want to clarify that very clearly: character actions on Origin should always come with consequences, or at least the risk of them. I mention this purely to note that there MUST be consequences of some form for engaging in potentially fatal behavior (which is the only time a chrysalis would 'forcibly' kick in). To lead in from this, then, "chrysalis consequences" in their normal form would not be a severe enough response to these behaviors and results.
As another consideration, stabilization itself is intended to be a consequence for being Corrupted. Origin's characters were not designed with this magic in mind, canonically. It is chaotic. It overwhelms their stones. It provides power that can barely be harnessed or controlled. If characters are capable of moving in and out of chrysalises while ignoring whether they are stabilized, then stabilization itself as a mechanic would be redundant: it would be wholly consequence-free, to the point that it could theoretically be nearly ignored, and stated to take place off-screen--virtually forgotten about. It should need to be taken into account.
However, we also understand that accidents happen; that the character may be the target of violent actions; that a character with a lot of time, history and spell investment might be one the player isn't ready to give up, yet. To that end we're opening a poll to see what players think of this, and whether anyone has any creative alternatives to the ideas we're thus far tossing around!
We will also add that we already have plans in place that would somewhat mitigate the need for stabilization, but those are not yet ready to be revealed.