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An Aes Sedai's Advice on How to Shawl[]
Keep track of how many Ajah quest points (AQPs) you've earned as it's your responsibility to do so, but know that achieving the rank of Tower Accepted and the accumulation of 75 (AQPs) and 75 regular Quest points (QPs) is a bare minimum in terms of requirements to shawl.
In order to shawl, you will actually need to convince all the active Aes Sedai who may vote for you that you're the type of person they want in their clan. This can get complicated as each person may have their own ideas of what is important. Some may favor RP. Others may favour PK. Some may want to see you work a lot with initiates. Or be well liked. Or be knowledgeable of game mechanics. Also, if you are thinking about name-dropping your alts, know that this can backfire as many Aes Sedai frown upon such. Also, Aes Sedai are supposed to only consider IC (in character) information when voting.
With the complexities and how the Tower greatly differs from other clans, here is some advice on how to shawl while also considering those things that are most time-efficient to do.
- Don't break any rules. Or show poor attitude. Or be abusive on chats/narrates. Or whine especially if you die in PK or don't like a split, etc. While it is possible to overcome a previous bad reputation, some decide to leave the Tower and start over on a new character due to the amount of work it can take.
- Try to pick playtimes that are during peak play times and are consistent so that people will know to expect you. You might also want to consider playing in different peak times across time zones, if your schedule allows time for that.
- For the 'PK vote', unless you are going for the Green or Red Ajahs, so long as you show you are trying to learn to PK, that will most likely be enough. You can also work to make the PKers' time more enjoyable by bringing them horses, food, porting to them and refreshing if they narrate they are hag, and similarly healing them.
- For the 'RP vote', activities that include logs get more mileage as that way not only do the participants get to see your skills, any Aes Sedai who cares to read the posted logs can also evaluate you. It is good ethically to get permission of participants before posting logs. Likewise it may be best to mail logs to an individual Aes Sedai unless you are certain posting the log public wouldn't divulge Tower information normally best kept inside the clan. (Also mailing an individual Aes Sedai you respect and trust has an added benefit of the Aes Sedai giving you feedback and knowing how other Aes Sedai may judge the quality of the log before posting it.)
- For leadership, you can showcase that by leading smob groups, leading PK, teaching other Tower initiates.
There are of course many different ideas on how to Shawl. These are but a few to get you started and of course hopefully other Aes Sedai will chime in.
See also[]