I hope people don’t see this as a negative or argumentative take, as it’s more of a feeling of sadness and maybe some anxiety regarding what I’ve come to love about the events and those things seemingly being actively removed.
The world of Empire is dark, but it is also absurd, which makes complete sense to me. The world is medieval inspired and many things from that period, had a lot of absurdity to it to counter balance the very grim realities of living in that time. There is artwork, tales and traditions that are silly, stupid or my word of the day, absurd. And that is incredibly human, if you can laugh or cry, you may as well laugh.
And in the world of Empire, there are many silly things. The Orcs have an afterlife in which they have to jump over a big hole, otherwise they join their ancestors and in an uncomfortably long (infinite) family reunion while the humans have created a religion that puts them in an endless cycle of rebirth and being brainwashed by Egregores or the Synods special formula. Death and suffering in the multitudes is commonplace, especially if there is a choice to save people or to build a jewelry shop. There is a nation that has a form of magic based on the drama of the theater while another has a yearly purge that somehow doesn’t complete wipe their economy.
The world is grim, it is dark but it is also silly. But the silliness, the humor in the face of such horrors, such as a Shark based entity creating land based sharks that move slowly so that they can attack beyond the sea (which is also rather silly) seems to have resentment growing towards it. It seems like a small amount of people, but it seems the place is growing uncomfortable with it’s absurdity and might risk taking itself too seriously that everything becomes absurd for all the wrong reasons.
When I was first joined the hobby, Anvil felt like it was missing an essence of life. Beyond the bureaucracy styled quests, fighting and the odd bar scattered around there wasn’t much. I still fell in love with the hobby and stuck it out, to the point that we have now have a bustling medieval fair surrounding a military and political summit. Where artists, warriors, merchants, politicians and mages come together as an Empire to break bread and feel united.
I enjoy the experiences I encounter when I’m on an errand or looking to get food and being able to tell my friends and family about it, watching their eyes light up as they imagine themselves coming to this place and experience the dark and the absurd. But then I am disheartened when I see those things get muted or removed because it didn’t take itself serious enough and therefore was considered an insult.
I hear of another system, that I won’t name, that takes itself so seriously that even the fondest stories I hear sound awful or at least not great compared to what comes out of Empire.
I feel Empire needs to make peace with it’s absurdity and realize that it’s pairing with the grim darkness it strives for is what makes it stand out and hopefully the test of time.