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Author Topic: Saidin Cleansed Plans?
CDH
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posted April 18, 2003 10:01 AM      Profile for CDH   Email CDH    Edit/Delete Post
What do you think? I don't know if this has been addressed, but does anyone plan on working this into their campaigns? I'm only around book 3, so I have time, but I was wondering what everyone thought. We already have a problem at level 4 with the one male channeler being more powerful than the Noble, Arms(wo)man, Aiel, Wolfbrother and Wanderer. He's also more powerful than our two female channelers, but that's not as noticeable. I wonder if Madness might be necessary at higher levels, but I would like to stay true to continuity when possible.
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Whitewinds
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posted April 18, 2003 11:58 AM      Profile for Whitewinds   Email Whitewinds    Edit/Delete Post
Men will no longer continue to gain madness after the Cleansing; that's the only needed change in game mechanics. And over the course of time the reputation of male channelers will likely improve, especially since the Asha'man don't have the whole "we're totally above and apart from you scummy humans" attitude that the Aes Sedai actively cultivate.
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Freya
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posted April 18, 2003 12:03 PM      Profile for Freya      Edit/Delete Post
*shrugs* Our characters just passed Saidin being cleansed timeline-wise. We do not have any male channelers in the group, but we do have two female channelers. We basically played it that they felt the huge amount of Saidar being channeled, and while being outwardly composed (high compose checks), they were majorly freaking out inside. My character's Warder became very, very alert when my character first felt the beacon. Of course, she became even more afraid when it suddenly stopped.

Our channelers come from a Tradition that includes men and women so they were informed that after the beacon ended, the male channelers realized that Saidin was clean. Our characters in-turn told Elayne Sedai who seemed very relieved, and happy(?), to hear it. (and so did her Aiel companion for some reason [Wink] )

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felicia
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From: dallas,tx | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
Freya
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posted April 18, 2003 12:14 PM      Profile for Freya      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Whitewinds:
Men will no longer continue to gain madness after the Cleansing; that's the only needed change in game mechanics.


Agreed. And, I definately think the madness they have already accumulated should not be removed or lost.

quote:

And over the course of time the reputation of male channelers will likely improve, especially since the Asha'man don't have the whole "we're totally above and apart from you scummy humans" attitude that the Aes Sedai actively cultivate.

[ROFL]
Depends on which Asha'man you're talking about. The ones around Rand seem to be well-adjusted, so to speak, but the ones around Taim are, or are becoming, exactly as you described above.

*sigh* The Asha'man superiority attitude is thick around here on occasion. The Asha'man do not have the level of 'we are naturally better than you' attitudes that the Aes Sedai have simply because the Asha'man have not been around, and on the top of the heap, as long as the Aes Sedai have. Unless ideas of humility, or something, is worked into the training, it is only natural that people who deal with that magnitude of power will eventually assume that they are better than other people. Men are not above this, neither are the Asha'man nor the Aes Sedai. [NoNoNo]

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felicia
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Steve Russell
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posted April 18, 2003 04:25 PM      Profile for Steve Russell   Email Steve Russell    Edit/Delete Post
no offense but who is going to believe you when you tell them "oh don't worry i will be fine from no on saidin is clean, no really I won't get any more isane than I already am" Even cadsaune was not sure if it was clean and she was there.

Look at CoT the Asha'man with Perrin don't even bother trying to convince every one. The justified prejudices against male channelers will not go away just because you cleanse the Taint.

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Whitewinds
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posted April 18, 2003 04:30 PM      Profile for Whitewinds   Email Whitewinds    Edit/Delete Post
I did say "over the course of time." I was thinking anywhere from months at the least, to years or even decades.
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Sophiathegreen
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posted April 19, 2003 04:19 AM      Profile for Sophiathegreen   Email Sophiathegreen    Edit/Delete Post
Also when the people still living when Saidin was taint die out also.
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Fernandes
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posted April 19, 2003 09:54 AM      Profile for Fernandes   Email Fernandes    Edit/Delete Post
Well, the proof will come eventually when fun-loving well-adjusted male channelers start living to ripe old ages (although the impending last battle might put a damper on those plans). In the mean time, there are magical ways to test the truth of it. For instance in a game i am GMing, a male wilder, and an Aes Sedai are both part of the party. When Saidin was cleansed, the man proved it by having the woman use compulsion to force him to answer the questions "is Saidin cleansed of the dark one's taint", and "to your knowledge, will you suffer any further negative side effects from channeling Saidin?" truthfully and with only yes or no answers. When he passed the test, she was convinced.

Also, there are now some bonded pairs of channelers apearing in the novels; a woman bonded to a channeling male wouldn't have to look very far for the proof.

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Generality
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posted April 19, 2003 10:07 AM      Profile for Generality   Email Generality    Edit/Delete Post
Unfortunately, most people don't know compulsion.

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Fernandes
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posted April 19, 2003 10:25 AM      Profile for Fernandes   Email Fernandes    Edit/Delete Post
Well, i'm not sure if you could qualify that as unfortunate in teh greater scheme of things, but your point is taken. Fortunatly, however, it takes only one person who does know it, and one amle cahnneler, to convince a large number of people. The same testimony that convinced that lone Aes sedai would be no less ironclad if given in front of 2 or 3 hundred of her closest friends.

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dcthenomad
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posted April 19, 2003 12:10 PM      Profile for dcthenomad      Edit/Delete Post
My campaign isn't up to that point in the timeline yet, but I'm looking forward to it in a big way. Doesn't it always come down to the GM balancing the game, so that things are challenging/fun for all with nobody feeling like a sidekick?

"Right now" there are prejudices against male channelers to role play (enough that I seem to be gaining an awful lot of woodsman levels...) and in the "future" you can balance things out with more powerful darkfriends/dreadlords. Throw in some of that tea we all know and love and you'll have a good slice of humble pie waiting for the wilder who gets too big for his britches! Just my opinion, though.

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Moon-Hawk
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posted April 19, 2003 01:20 PM      Profile for Moon-Hawk      Edit/Delete Post
It's not going to be all that easy to convince people that Saidin is cleansed. A compelled Asha'man could be mistaken, or have already succumed to madness, for all the compeller knows. Even linking is not enough:

Crossroads of Twilight Chapter 22: Ornaments:
"Merise was quiet, and still, for a long moment, and then she sighed. "I do not know, Cadsuane. Saidar is a calm ocean that will take you wherever you want so long as you know the currents and let them carry you. Saidin.... An avalanche of burning stone. Collapsing mountains of ice. It feels cleaner than when I first linked with Jahar, but anything could hide in that chaos. Anything."

So even an Aes Sedai who has linked with a man while Saidin was still tainted and again afterward is STILL not convinced. And it would be even more difficult to convince an Aes Sedai who had not felt Saidin while it was still tainted to have some basis for comparison.
Now try convincing average people, most of which don't even trust Aes Sedai.
It will be decades before people stop screaming and running from a man who can channel, and likely hundreds of years for the stigma to be erased.

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skyman
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posted April 19, 2003 09:22 PM      Profile for skyman      Edit/Delete Post
Good points, but within a party it is certainly possible to convince another. The female channeler could know the male channeler is not yet insane by his actions, or could simply be easier to convince than Merise was.

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Fisher-King
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posted June 01, 2003 12:34 AM      Profile for Fisher-King      Edit/Delete Post
When Saidin was cleansed in my campaign, I 'locked' Madness. Characters no longer gained Madness but, at the same time, they also couldn't take Mental Stability to reduce their Madness scores.

I pulled this as a surprise, since, as the campaign approached Winter's Heart, one of my players was caught planning to wait until after Saidin was cleansed and see how much madness he had (by watching when I had him roll saving throws) and get rid of it with Mental Stability.

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