Out in the wild, successful avoidance of unpleasantness — combat and killing — requires a level of vigilance and situation awareness considerably higher than all but the most ruthless PvP characters typically muster. For while it is always an advantage to strike the first blow, with surprise on one’s side, and to avoid picking fights one might lose, the true pacifist must not only seize control, from the start, of any encounter with superior opponents but also must diffuse potential aggression from those of inferior ability, which the violent-natured may more or less disregard, dispatching any such fools as they come.

To this end, here are a few simple rules and tips to follow:

1. Make a clear, unmistakable point of surrendering the tactical advantage of surprise. Whenever direct encounter is unavoidable, speak, wave, bow, curtsy, blow a kiss. Always be the first disclose one’s presence in the vicinity to a potential adversary. Most, especially the experienced who are more dangerous, will recognize “friendly intentions” in a deliberate relinquishment of an advantage that might easily have been exploited to defeat even better armed and capable opponents.
2. Always take a pet along when you travel alone. The cuter the pet the better. In my experience, cats are the archetypal diffuser of hostilities. And as one cannot always be the first to apprehend the potential for conflict, pets serve to sow momentary confusion when every moment counts. At first glance, from a distance, despite visible name tags, harmless pets can contribute to uncertainty as to your number and your class. Uncertainty of this sort is always to the pacifist’s advantage. (For this reason, it is ill-advised for warlocks to ride blatantly flaming warlock special mounts.)
3. When traveling to a quest or hunting-gathering destination, traverse the landscape quickly and efficiently, leaving not a ripple in your wake. The surest way to call down upon one’s head every dedicated villain and opportunistic ganker in the area is to litter one’s chosen path with corpses or, equally obvious to the observant, the silent emptiness of recent death. Predators read the land to find their prey. Kill only what is needed or has a bounty on its head. Spare the rest and spare oneself.
4. Corollary of the above: Never run or ride in arrogance straight across the land, setting all in commotion as creatures great and small abandon their peaceful pursuits to run in anger after you. It’s a cheap form of vanity, particularly when one is mounted. But one which not only leaves an obvious trace of one’s passage, but opens a clear path along which any pursuers may hurtle pell-mell without fear of aggression from any of the creatures roused in fury against oneself and one’s party. Just one slip, one of your party unhorsed, and any unseen pursuers will be upon you at precisely the moment you are most distracted and dissipating energy, dispatching creatures you had no business but arrogance aggravating in the first place.
5. Upon arrival at a hunting or questing destination, avoid to the full extent possible killing the outermost perimeter of local wildlife. Those spared become a buffer, a defense, a living tripwire alarm between oneself and any potential adversaries later entering the area. The chance increases that hostile intruders first see and engage or inadvertently draw the aggression of this natural perimeter defense, and with it increases one’s chance of being the first fully aware of a situation’s potential for conflict. In many areas of the world, natural features of the landscape limit entry and exit, so that exercising this precaution in practice requires leaving only a very few creatures be — no real sacrifice at all.
6. Always come to the assistance of a potential adversary waylaid by too many or too strong creatures. This is the most obvious way to signal peaceful intentions to those you assist, as it represents an emphatic renunciation of an ideal opportunity to kill even a significantly superior opponent. Few so assisted will afterward turn to attack. But as important, most will also advise others of their faction who come to the area that you are a “friendly.” In any area one intends to “farm” day after day, week after week, a reputation as a “friendly” is invaluable, greatly increasing the amount of time one may devote to hunting and gathering rather than to wasteful cycles of revenge killing too easily started in resource-rich areas.

Note that most all these rules and tips for the pacifist also lend themselves to faster leveling regardless one’s intentions toward fellow sentient beings, as well as being good starting points for “native wisdom” role play in the kind of hunter-gather economies most fantasy MMORPGS instantiate.

Sisters of the Forsaken: A Harem Guild of Age of Conan
Formerly of Bane, now on Cimmeria – RP-PvP

Sisters, We Are All Forsaken!

Resolve to follow the most difficult,
narrow paths of peace in lands at war.

Respect strangers.
Honor the superior.
Seduce the hostile.
Serve the Sisterhood.

Slaughter without mercy
All who prey upon the weak!

Video Notes: This captured entirely in the infamously buggy Treasury of the Ancients in Khopsef Province, where Tzuzeku found herself dancing fearlessly with the deadly “boss” of the Treasury, the Archaic Queen Statue, and her mysteriously conjured evil twin.

The Black Arts of the Necromancer by which Tzuzeku subdued the otherwise lethal Archaic Queen Statue of Treasury of the Ancients, summoned forth her evil twin, and induced the awesome pair to dance in her presence remain secrets Madam Tzuzeku will take to her grave.

In all-too-nearly four years, a dozen realms, a maxed-out litter of fifty characters – not counting many a noble suicide – I think I may still count on one hand the number of dungeon instances any of The Brood has entered in earnest, seeking loot or quest reward for self.

Tzuzeku of Tirisfal, Dethecus, the primogenitress of all, once wore Whitemane’s Chappeau, stylishly, around downtown Orgrimmar, in and out of the Auction House, to the Bank and Mailbox, through The Drag to the Tailor’s shop and back again. So The Scarlet Monastery, once upon a time, makes one.

And, I vaguely recall, the same original Tzuzeku, in the inexperience and impurity of her first incarnation, also sometime wore some serious BoP caster’s leggings out of Blackrock Depths; making two.

But since then, what few dungeon instances I’ve seen, I’ve seen in a more or less disinterested, supportive role – along for the ride. And The Brood has worn none but professional crafted gear and weapons, market-bought BoE items, battleground rewards and, here and there, external world quest prizes.

Mine are Creatures of the Market. My twinks, Market Twinks, living and dying by only what can be bought, sold, made, cast, applied, eaten and imbibed. And the market, itself, pays for it all….

These days, an indifferent war gamer, I seek instead to dwell virtually, searching out the different paths, odd choices, the less usual option and unexpected availabilities – any direction but that of The Game’s shortest and quickest race to the top, to the “end game,” to the best and last word in BoP gear, or toward the top of the PvP corpse pile.

I seek the world in The World of Warcraft. And I find it most distinctly in the Auction House: that there is indeed a genuine economy there in operation, one capable of supporting virtual life, almost without questing.

Not a bad measure of the viability, playability and likely longevity of any given MMORPG: Is there a vibrant in-game market and how many pure virtual speculators can it support?

Tzuzeku of Twisting Nether must have sent Belitili something on the order of 15000 gold, all ill-gotten proceeds of her Auction House speculation, to make possible the banner above, raising up Engineering skill sufficient to make the flying machines and to pay for Expert and then Artisan Flying lessons in Shadowmoon Village

Oddly, though, at the time, the lower level Flying Machine Control, requiring 2x Adamantite Frame, 30x Fel Iron Bar, 8x Handful of Fel Iron Bolts, 8x Star Wood, 5x Adamantite Bar, 4x Elemental Seaforium Charge, was more expensive to make than the Artisan Flying Turbo-Charged Flying Machine Control, no doubt due to market distortions induced by the extraordinary wave of Death Knights and high level characters in general surging through Northrend at the time.

Aside from the fancy paint job and the incredible 280% flight speed increase, the Turbo-Charged Flying Machine Control offers no additional tricks over its plain-jane junior version, which is a shame. I would have thought it could have coughed and sputtered, smoke-fouled, begrimed and besmeared the virtual atmosphere at least 280% more thoroughly.

Of course, a Death Knight, such as Belitili, can always turn on Path of Frost and leave an ominous spotted contrail of icy clouds across the sky. Is there some alchemy in there? Really, what do we know about Path of Frost in its aerial form?

Sisters!

Our sanctified elders,

the powers – this world and that -

the very whispers on the wind -

they lie and scheme,

condemning us to ten-thousand deaths.

The Naaru have forgotten us!

WE ARE ALL FORSAKEN!

“Sisters! Horde, Alliance, We Are All Forsaken!” <Sisters of the Forsaken> seeks Converts for a Casual Theatrical RP Guild dedicated to Evangelical Pacifism (outside the Honorable Combat of Battlegrounds). Female avatars only. Any level. Alts ok. Pst Tzuzeku or try other Sisters of the Forsaken with “\who Sisters” to arrange a personal meeting and invitation.

Sisters of the Forsaken is a World of Warcraft guild in the early stages of development on the RPPvP (Role Playing & Player versus Player) realms of The Venture Co. (Alliance) and Twisting Nether (Horde), with Charter Memberships available on Lightninghoof (Horde), Ravenholdt (Horde), Emerald Dream (Horde), Maelstrom (Horde).

Preferring discovery, the unusual, to someone else’s race to a finish, members are more likely to have over a half dozen alts than a single character over 40. Alts of players whose primary guild allegiance lies elsewhere are welcome, here, as full members.

For the sake of any storyline we might ever choose to invest, membership is limited to Female avatars of any race, Human, Night Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Draenei, Orc, Tauren, Troll, Undead, Blood Elf,

As for Player-Members, the less said the better. Guild gender policy is a nominally/fully non-discriminatory “Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell.” I f you have problems with that nonsense, take it up elsewhere with the litigiously correct “Powers That Be.”

Sisters of the Forsaken is an avowedly pacifist guild, pursuing ideals of non-violence in a world that crys for war and striving for peace between Horde and Alliance, outside the honorable pas d’armes of battlefields or any other less formal duel or tournament à plaisance that time and the mutual respect of players across faction might accomplish.

As all our legends and history teach us, the Great Evil that threatens us all is of neither Horde nor Alliance making, but comes from outside, delighting in our path of blind mutual destruction. As all the experience of our own lives teaches us, day by day, we kill and are killed, time and again, time and again, but always to no avail. The path of the killer has no end, brings no peace, no security, no satisfaction, and but for a very, very few of the most vicious amongst us piles up neither wealth nor honor.

We live and die in a Fool’s Valhalla of senseless death and wanton destruction. So long as we strive for what neither Horde nor Alliance can ever accomplish — each other’s final destruction — so long shall we fight and die to delight Great Evil and only to discover that, Humans, Night Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Draenei, Orcs, Tauren, Trolls, Undead, Blood Elves, WE ARE ALL FORSAKEN.

The Sisterhood enjoins its Sisters to put into actions and not mere words the noble sentiment of Death before Dishonor.

To spread our message of peace, non-aggression and mutual respect to Alliance fighters, to those who cannot be reached by words as they do not share our language, Sisters must be prepared to accept death at their hands rather than run or fight back when dishonorably attacked. The recommend response to attack or threat of attack is to bow or salute and, if the assailant persists, to sit or lie upon the ground. Warlocks and Hunters must also call off their minions.

As we Undead know especially, there can be no dishonor in such a death for such a cause. Rather it is the assailant who dishonors him or herself through the shameful display of mercilessly beating upon one who, in fact and in gesture, is already a passive corpse. Death? Fear not. Embrace the Shadow!

Those practiced in the arts of non-aggression can testify from experience that a surprising number of Alliance, to all appearance ruthless deathdealers, will see the light mid-attack and halt themselves rather than deal the final shameful blow.

Further, The Sisterhood encourages its Sisters to pursue their own enlightenment by extending, as far as practicable, the gesture of non-violence and non-aggression to the other humanoids, beasts, elementals and even demons of our land.

This encouragement is not meant to preclude or disparage those deaths necessary for one’s own safety or advancement in discipline, nor those entailed in the ordinary, life-sustaining activities of farming or otherwise harvesting nature’s abundance. But it does ask Sisters to consider carefully and respectfully each death they cause, asking if necessary or unnecessary, avoidable or unavoidable.

Those practiced in the arts of non-aggression can testify from experience to the subtle pleasures of accomplishment and inner peace to be obtained simply by crossing the beautiful and sublime landscapes of our Azeroth, to whatever destination, without killing or drawing the aggression of even one of its many beings along the way.

This path of peace is, not incidentally, also the path of prudence and safety. For nothing so marks one’s presence in a place to vile, unenlightened Alliance predators hunting Horde as prey as leaving heaps of fresh corpses strewn across the land wherever one goes. Those who kill in this way for pleasure or out of mere boredom with themselves, often reap what they have sown, meeting sooner or later with killers as senseless as themselves.

In its steadfast pursuit of peace and non-aggression between Horde and Alliance, The Sisterhood recognizes that the most noble method of communicating those aims, by example of one’s willingness to show respect and to die rather than respond to a wanton attack, may not be effective with the most vicious, unenlightened and ignoble Alliance fighters.

The Sisterhood’s response is twofold, with, naturally, some division of opinion as to whether both paths are of equal merit or effectiveness.

First, to persist in our example of personal sacrifice in the faith that, as our guild’s name and purpose spreads among the Alliance, the most enlightened amongst them shall succeed, increasingly, in shaming and thus restraining their own most unfortunately deluded fellows who expect accomplishment and praise for dealing death where it is neither feared nor resisted. The “Pure School” followers of Sybil Azzara pursue this path exclusively, denying the legitimacy of the second.

Second, as time and circumstance shall warrant, the Sisterhood shall give license to its members, individually but preferably in Parties of Vigilance formed for the purpose, to teach the most recalcitrant, repeat Alliance offenders the error of their murderous ways through sanctioned acts of terror, even unto death. In these necessary actions, the prefered course of terminating any such determined enemy of peace is always to do so with the least self-aggrandizement: better to frighten an offender into flight so precipitate that he is dragged down and killed by the beasts of the field, without credit to oneself, than to bloody one’s own hands with his loathesome self. This more lethal, dangerous path toward peace is sanctioned, with reservation, by Inquisitor Tzuzeku, but only for those well-advanced and of proven accomplishment along the first path.

Woe unto any Sister who raises, even for so little as an hour, the second, special license into the place of honor and preeminence accorded the practice and discipline of self-sacrifice, of embracing Death before Dishonor. She who does so dishonors, renders ineffective, and risks reversing the most noble efforts and achievements of The Sisterhood, as well as of each and every last one of her Sisters. She who commits such a fundamentally selfish error of judgment must either mend her ways, immediately upon instruction, or be cast out as a danger to all.

In matters of appearance, especially at designated public and private gatherings, the preferred colors of Sisters of the Forsaken are blue and gold, like its tabard, or any other aesthetically pleasing combination designed to highlight the wearing of that tabard. the preferred pet or “familiar,” is the Silver Tabby.

Sisters are recommended to speak the language of the Undead whenever in public, except when specifically called upon to address those who cannot speak it. Our business is our business. We need not flatter ourselves that others need be entertained by it, nor flatter the lower orders that are Orcs, Trolls, and Tauren that they might fully comprehend our every purpose could they but parse our speech.

Pst “Inquisitor” Tzuzeku (GM) or nearly any “/who Sister” if interested in joining Sisters of the Forsaken.