I'd imagine that npc dark elves shouldn't attack other dark elves. Are they Lilith-worshippers too?
I believe perhaps ~6 years ago or so you had one or two player(s) roleplay a dark elf "more good".
As in, being more "integrated" into "society", rather than being treated as an outcast, or enemy to what the other elves consider "good or morally acceptable".
After that there occurred a general "shift", in my opinion, in that more emphasis was put on dark elves living outside of society, and thus should be more treated as enemies rather than walking in and out of Elvandar and socializing with everyone. (I am speaking more in general here, with a very strong polarization between good and evil in the MUD as a result).
You can read a short summary of this on Geas homepage, about dark elves specifically here:
http://www.geas.de/?page_id=53#darkelves
(A bit more OOC information about the history of dark elves is available in the logs, by the way, especially one where Yegerfin tests Cathal's knowledge.)
Anyway, there are two problems with the suggestion about non-attacking other darkelves, in my opinion, in a general fashion. The first one is that dark elves can worship Sathonys as well. The deities can be allies, ok, and I think there is one strong example for this in-game (or at least there was one of this, once, if I am not wrong). Both evil deities have slightly overlapping agendas, but I am not sure that there should be a general close alliance between the followers or clerics as such per se. (One other problem with "alliances" between certain deities is that these will leave out other deities, especially when these are more or less inactive. On the other hand, it also gives freedom to interprete certain phenomenons - take the note written by Abharsair back here
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=923&p=8980#p8980 - for instance,I could reason that Druids sound a lot as if Evren and Gwen formed an alliance, at least the ultra-pacifistic aspect reminds me of Gwen.)
I do understand such a reasoning, I am just not sure it should be a general no-attack between these two.
The second one is that it should not be tied to race alone. A dark elf worshipping Sathonys could still kill Lilith worshipping dark elves for instance, perhaps if he has a bad day, or that one kept on insulting him all the time, or for whatever reason. Why should not two dark elves kill each other for some reason ... If anything then I think it should be based on reputation (or faith) but I don't think a general "be nice" way without attacking is a good solution.
The advantage with reputation would be that it could be tied to individual players, so that playerchar A can work hard to "be nice and friendly" to orcs and such and earn a positive reputation, even if he would worship Sathonys, whereas player B could not care and slaughters them all. (Although, given the new religion system, one could argue that such actions would push him much closer to start worshipping Lilith rather than Sathonys, or vice versa, sooner or later.)
They're smarter than goblinoids, so should be easier to reason with. And anyone who sees someone running around with a gruesome mask can probably figure out who they worship and that they should probably leave them be.
In my opinion it would be better to shape up Ironhold to become more a second "evil" area. Right now it is a typical old school hack and slay area for goodies alone. The reputation system, in principle, would be great to apply for other areas as well, including the dwarven area, or areas on another continent. It would give more leeway to npc and monsters reacting to players too.
As for the masks, obviously they would have a hard time trying to identify who is wearing a mask. But what if a masked person slaughters inhabitants, after being allowed "free passage"?
One solution would be to treat guilded members all the same in this case, so if i.e. a sathonys dark priest kills within Ironhold while wearing a mask then the reputation of all satho priests would fall down there. (Without mask, he could be treated as single player based on reputation.)
Actually, come to think of it, members of some guilds should never be able to gain "good" reputation in evil areas ... it would be very hard to reason why a Taniel cleric has a great reputation in Ironhold, if that were to ever happen ...
By the way, I have no idea if you need a court system in order to make use of a reputation system. Right now I think there are only two areas with a reputation system, and both have courts too.
Maybe it could also depend on whether the person is wearing a necklace of faith from their particular god.
I think it would be nice to have such an option available. Earning such a symbol of faith and trust should be not a too easy task though.
that might make it kind of tricky being a Gwenite in Arborea
I am not sure. I don't even agree with some other OOC notions about instant auto-attacking, but this is just my OOC opinion. Anyway, the Gwen cleric NPC at the temple speaks about Gwen being the patron of crafts, and Arborea is home of quite some craft guilds, so we could reason that the NPC population of Arborea isn't so opposed to trade/commerce/crafting. (Oddly enough, the Geas homepage
http://www.geas.de/?page_id=228#gwen does not mention this about Gwen, so now I am not sure about this ... whatever is correct here, should be updated IMHO - the NPC does mention the craft stuff as far as I remember in-game)
The other reason is a bit difficult to explain. Without wanting to go into my OOC opinions here, which can be totally crazy ... let me just focus on one difference back then, and as is today:
There was a temple of Asral in Arborea, nowadays there is not. I thus boldly claim that the NPC population in Arborea did not want them to be in Arborea anymore and kicked them out ... Kinda provocative, I know, but I do wonder how the NPC population felt about it - perhaps they want CHANGE? ... :>
Such changes are still good to have, as they have a profound effect in-game, and can be used to reason/roleplay/dispute.