Aretalogy of Yemaya

I am Yemaya, Queen of the Seas
I am the Mother of the Orisha
I am Yeye Omo Eja
Mother Whose Children are the Fish
I am Yemaya Achaba
I have skill in magick
I am Yemaya Acuaro
I enjoy dancing
I am Yemaya Akuara
I protect the sick
I am Yemaya Akute
I fight with a sharp knife
I am Yemaya Asusu
I accompany the dead
I am Yemaya Awoyo
I wear a crown of rainbows
I am Yemaya Konla
I protect navigators
I am Yemaya Mayalewo
I live in lakes and natural springs
I am Yemaya Okuti
I dance a war dance
I am Yemaya Yembo
I taught Chango to be a man
I am the beauty of the moon
Reflected on the ocean
I am the ruler of the Seven Seas
I sing and dance to my own song
I never steer my children wrong
I teach My children sacred arts
I am the key to their own hearts
I am Yemaya, She of many names
I am Yemaya, Mother of All

Many Moons Conclave Chatroom!

For those curious about the Many Moons Conclave, or just looking to learn more about Paganism, there is a chatroom I use on deviantart. You have to be a member of deviantart in order to join the chatroom, but everyone and anyone with an open mind and a willingness to learn is free to come. Deviantart is a free website to join. You may notice in my About Me page that I am a member, under the name “Megami-of-Nekro”.

Here is a link to the chat.

The lesson structure is as such. I say “Class is now in Session” and then you’re quiet until I say, “Anybody have any questions?” Questions must be relevant to the topic matter. Currently I’ve been doing lessons on Gods. So far I’ve covered Athena, Hermes, and Quetzalcoatl (save the 2012 crap). Next I plan to cover Tsukiyomi, and have been going in the order that the Conclavers ask of me.

As a friendly reminder, only one more purchase is needed before I start my next e-book, “The Obligatory Paganism 101 Book”.

One More!

Thanks to the lovely Jeni Raye Y., there is only one more “purchase” needed of my e-book before I start the next one, “The Obligatory Paganism 101 Book”!

Some topics I plan to cover in it are:

  • Divinity
  • The various Pagan paths
  • Auras
  • The Sight
  • Other Realms
  • Magick
  • Kitchen Witchery

And much more!

Remember, just one more purchase until I start my big e-book!

The Many Moons Conclave Guide E-Book!

Ever got curious about what those of the Many Moons Conclave believe?

This small, informative E-Book — a total of 33 pages in length — will answer most of your questions.

For a donation of $6, you can obtain this e-book. Make sure you give me your valid e-mail address at myrkrlokidottir@yahoo.com .

After three sales of this e-book, I shall be working on my next E-book on Paganism.

Keep posted!

PS: You can read Z’s review of it here.

Book Reviews!

I am now doing book reviews for a donation of $2 and a copy of the book in digital format from the author or publisher.

 

All book reviews will be completed within a week of me receiving the text.

 

If you’re interested, check out  the “Want Me to Review Your Book?” link to the left.

Grand Fantasia Review – Closed Beta

I’ve been one of the lucky people chosen to play Grand Fantasia for Aeria Games, in Closed Beta.

Now, while most people don’t know who I am (I’m on the Alice Server, Channel 4), I’m easily identifiable by the person who shouts that they’re recruiting people who can type and are friendly to the Loki guild.

It appears the average age of the gamers is about 17. There are 4chan references abound. While the player base is relatively helpful (if you ask something over world chat for help, you’ll usually get a response), they’re also immensely childish and would sooner make “Yo Momma” jokes than cater to intellectual conversation.

The game’s graphics are up to par, with Chocobo-like creatures running around to-and-fro. Unfortunately, character customization is at a minimum. I’m afraid Aeria Games is going to pull a Fiesta Online and make customizing your character’s face and hair cost real money.

For now, though, the game is loaded with quests to keep you busy and an interesting plot that has a lot of potential (though isn’t completely explored) in order to keep you hooked.

The sprite concept is a lot like a pet system, except these pets are actually somewhat useful. They don’t help in combat, but they can get materials for you so that you can make various items.

Would I recommend this game to a friend? Most likely yes. Would I encourage them to buy things using Aeria Points? This game hasn’t shown me yet that buying anything is worthwhile, aside from the experience boost.

~~~

As a complete side note, I’m still accepting donations and am willing to write articles on a multitude of topics, given that it doesn’t require me to buy something first. Please check out the Donations Page.

Merry Samhain

May your Samhain be bright and your days without strife.

Enjoy the candy!

~~~

(PS: Merry Beltaine to the Southerners)

What I Want From A MMORPG

I was looking for a new MMORPG to play recently and I realized something terrible.

All the good ones either wanted you to pay a monthly fee or to dish out a lot of money in order to function even a little.

Now, I’m willing to pay money for a MMORPG. But a monthly fee to have access to the game, or money to make my character have a different hue hair color? No thank you.

So, here’s what I’m looking for in an MMORPG:

It’s Free. No dishing out money monthly to pay or download it, no one time fee. By all means, have extras like special pets, special steeds, or interesting clothing. But fighting well in the game should rely purely on stats from the character, armor, steeds, and pets.

Customization should be expansive. If I want to make a fat blue-skinned elf, I should be able to. If I want to give my character pink hair, I should be able to. Take a hint from Perfect World on this one. Customization is a wonderful and good thing. It allows the player to get into character.

Great graphics are demanded. I don’t care if this is a 2D MMORPG or a 3D MMORPG, I want good graphics. I don’t want to stare at poorly modeled figures. I either want to stare at something cartoony (Fiesta Online, Mabinogi, MapleStory, WonderKing) or something realistic (Perfect World).

Multiple races to keep up variety. By all means, make the only choices Human, Elf, and Troll. I’d be fine with that. But I want various races. I should be able to customize my character, my toon, as much as I feel I want to. If I want to be a troll cleric, human archer, or elf fighter, those should be choices available to me.

Character stats should adhere to a specific system. What I mean by this is that Humans, Elves, and Trolls should all have a different range of base stats (trolls having 7 – 10 strength, humans having 5 – 7 strength, elves having 3 – 5 strength, so on and so forth). However, you should be given X number of “free stats” to distribute as you please BEFORE you get into the game. Once in the game, at every level you should be able to decide where to put extra “free stats”. These stats should help decide your physical attack, magical attack, physical defense, magical defense, attack speed, character speed on land, character speed in water, character speed in flight, character speed in climbing, and character speed in performing material-making tasks.

Monsters around your level shouldn’t take more than 30 seconds to kill. Everyone wants to reach a high level and get a sense of accomplishment. If you think I’m going to grind for what feels like an infinity to gain a single level before I even get my first advancement, you have another thing coming (a problem with Flyff that I had, but oddly, not Fiesta Online!).

Land, Sea, and Sky. On land, you should be able to run, climb, and jump. In the water, you should be able to swim. In the air, you should be able to ascend, descend, or keep level. A good MMORPG will cover all of these.

An interesting, tiered class system. In my opinion, all MMORPGs should include at least Mages, Fighters, Archers, and Clerics, or a variant thereof. I am still searching for an MMORPG that incorporates all four of these in a way that is unique and different, such as maybe starting out as a mage and then being able to decide between cleric and druid.

A varied production skill class. Everyone should have the ability to choose a production skill which they can use to make either potions, armor, weapons, or materials. Limiting one production skill per player creates an environment where people can socialize and make friendships in order to advance.

Pets are great! Everyone should have the ability to get a pet in game without spending real money. If there is a druid class or a nature-based class, they should have the ability to create or summon a pet to their side free of cost aside perhaps mana. Pets should have three life stages, baby, adolescent, and adult. The food you feed your pet should affect the way your pet looks. Pets should be able to gain experience and level, and they should be able to attack mobs. Cooler looking pets (I mean, who doesn’t want a sphinx for a pet!?) should cost real money.

Want to be speedy? Get a steed. I don’t care what other games do, but like pets, steeds should be available to people without a credit card. Make them insanely priced for faster speeds with in-game currency. Make cooler, even faster steeds cost real money. I don’t know about you, but I’d pay money to ride around on a tiger or a pegasus!

Multiple venues for experience. Word counters should be included within a game so that people who are social and prefer to hold conversations can gain experience from doing so. If not that, there should be something in place so that if you talk to your friends on your friends list that are online at the same time as you, if they’ve been online for longer than five minutes, you get an experience boost. Also allow there to be experience gained from using production skills, as time is both money and experience wasted in most all games. Also, allow there to be an experience boost for those who have traveled multiple maps in 24 hours. That way, everyone can be catered to.

Built in video systems. Needing Fraps or similar software in order to catch hackers in the act of hacking is no good. Also, being able to video your experiences in the game and post them on the net creates more of a community and advertises for the game at the same time.

Report Systems! There needs to be a great report system in any worthwhile MMORPG. I don’t want to spend an hour screaming at my computer because some jerk is KSing (that’s KillStealing) me and I can’t do anything about it. While KSing may or may not be against your game’s rules (it should certainly be discouraged), you should be able to right click the person you need to and hit the report button to report them.

Effective Anti-Hacking software. Everyone is tired of seeing hackers unless they themselves are hackers. In conjunction with a good reporting system, there should be effective anti-hacking software to keep the hackers out in the first place. The game being server-sided would help to discourage hacking.

And finally…

A compelling story. This is something many games lack. Fiesta Online actually has a very interesting story, it’s a shame that it’s overrun with bots and that it costs money to customize yourself. You should have a compelling story in order to hook people into the game. Make me want to play the game. Make me want to do quests. I have yet to see a game aside from Dream Of Mirror Online that has roleplay to it, that has a great story to it.

~~~

If you’re making a MMORPG or are thinking of doing so, take what I’ve said into account, please, in order to assure your success with at least one customer. I’ll see you all in game!

Impure

Check out my poem, Impure, on deviantart.

The Meaning Of Life

Before I get into this, I’d like to thank Heather M for her kind donation. This article was requested by her. Would you like me to write an article about a certain topic? Check out the Donations page!

For years upon years upon decades upon centuries, upon… for as long as mankind has been around, man has wondered “What is the meaning of life?” If you have never asked yourself this before, surely you are now, seeing as you are reading this blog post.

The meaning of life is to live life. It’s really as simple as it sounds. The purpose of your life is to go through your life. It isn’t experiencing as much as possible. It isn’t surviving. It’s about letting things happen naturally.

We are here, living, because there is some lesson we were meant to have learned from living. The only way to learn that lesson is to live through life. For example, a life lesson could be, “Helping others reaps joys and sorrows”. Unless you live your life normally, you may never discover that.

An example of not living your life normally would be setting your life goal to be drinking every type of beer that was ever in existance, or trying to experience as much as possible before you turn 30. These goals — while moderately practical (in other words don’t send me e-mails asking me how come I don’t like alcohol or experiences) — are not “natural” or the “natural” course of action for an individual to have. A more “natural” or “normal” life goal would be wanting to live a healthy and happy life, wanting to start a family, wanting to run your own business, so on and so forth.

Though, admittedly, this is the Many Moons Conclave POV (that’s Point Of View, for those of you not abbr [abbreviation] savvy). As always with these opinionated pieces, take what I say with a grain of salt. It’s just my opinion, after all.

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