Thu Jun 6 12:07:11 2013

At 4 o'clock PM, Day of Thunder, 24th of the Month of the Heat
on the Theran calendar Tolgrumm perished, never to return.

Race:	dwarf
Class:	paladin
Level:	51
Alignment:	Good
Ethos:	Orderly
Cabal:	FORTRESS, the Fortress of Light
Age:	395
Hours:	704

Enjoyed our interactions immensely, sorry we didn't get more time together. GLWYN.

Thanks much. I really like talking to other Baerinika followers and getting their take on the religion. GLWYC.

Go you

.

who rallied the forces of the light in epic battle against evil. Alas they both died once and passed on from this world, for they spent all their lives being squires. The world fell into despair and the empire took over the lands of Thera and with a sweeping force of numbers. In the wake of this darkness all the forces of evil were subdued under mighty banner of the Zealot Emperor. New Magistrates were appointed - those that listened only to the law of imperial rule. Darsylon lay in ash and Voralia, the beacon city of the light, was painted an ominous black. In the hills to the north the ruins of a great fortress lay quiet. In eerie silence the watcher lay rotting, impaled on a silver poleaxe. The Emperor sits upon his thrown plotting... Where next shall the dominion of the Empire spread their message of love?

*WHISPERS* Cower in fear, lest love find you.

*CACKLE*

HAHAHAHAHA!!

I'll miss you Tolgrumm! You were awesome. Thank you for letting me hijack your age death thread for my soap box. Come back with another power house of RP. It's is deeply loves and appreciated. I need not wish you luck with your next for you have proven that luck is not a factor for you. ;-)

JS

Thanks for the kind words!

Well, that's a wrap. Lots of firsts as Tolgrumm: first religious character, empowerment, tattoo, and role-based title.

After my last Maran was a PK trainwreck, and Baerinika posted in my goodbye that I should come back to the Fort anyway, I thought, "What the heck?" So I figured I'd give the ol' Baer-pally a shot just to see what kind of IMM she really was. Obviously it turned out to be a lot of fun. I had expected Fort to be on a downturn with Eachainn and Vallinane gone, but by the time I made it to hero, things were leaning Fort-ward again.

I'm sure things were frustrating from the evil perspective, so once I made Captain, I really tried to act out the courage part of Baerinika's religion. I ate a lot of dumb deaths because of that -- overriding the flee; quaff transportation instinct hardly ever made me come out on top -- but I'm hoping that made the game more fun for everyone. Other than one really rough gang/full loot, all of my enemies were really classy, so I didn't mind losing some of that dwarf leader con.

Just a few notables since 700 hours is a long time for a full list:

Baerinika - Thanks for an amazing ride. I hope I didn't let you down as Captain -- I felt weak on the whole "point out the enemy's weaknesses" part due to lack of breadth in characters I've played -- and I pretty much sucked as a group leader. But you made this character really, really fun to play, and it was really fun working out the aspects of your religion. When I came to you asking if you'd ever had a really good preacher, I didn't expect the turn it took. Without that evolution, I would have been bored hundreds of hours ago.

Baerhaters - I'll admit that all of the forum vitrol changed the way that I played this character. Everyone was so vocal about the (alleged) heavy ganking, shrine-sitting-RP-only, OOC-communcating, overrewarded Baerinika followers that I tried not falling into any of those buckets. I was impressed by how every action Baerinika took or didn't take seemed to fall in line perfectly with her RP, and I never saw anything remotely shady from her. Please don't drive this awesome immortal from the game.

Clahier - My Captain. You probably never knew how much you shaped this character, but between pointing me to Baerinika's shrine, inducting me into Fort, and actually inspiring the whole "Voice of the Jaguar" aspect, your influence was monumental. I asked every squire-wannabe the same final question that you asked me before induction to honor that.

Rydell - My first impressions of you, both OOC and IC, were incredibly unfavorable, but you obviously grew on me. I'm glad you finally made Cardinal. We sure made a great team, and I'm immensely grateful for all of the exploring you dragged me along on. Sorry for ruining our Silent Tower adventures, but I hope that didn't tick you off too much. What a blast.

Andira - When I interviewed you, I thought, "Sweet RP." After all of these hours, I think, "SWEET RP!" Hope you enjoyed all of our interplay, from friendship to conflict and back again.

Zhenyen - My first nemesis. You certainly hosed me a lot when we were coming up through the ranks. I'm sure there's a counter for a Scion conjurer, but a dwarf monk definitely didn't feel like it. :)

Kraldinor - My new nemesis. Most of our 1-on-1 fights felt like the old unstoppable force meets immovable object, waiting for each other to make the rare fatal mistake. I sure would have been dead meat without the faith virtue, so I'm glad I got that as my first. :) You sure seem to have turned around the Empire, so enjoy finally being on the upside. I was afraid before the shift started that you'd get fed up and quit. Awesome character.

Empire - Class, (almost) all around.

Amaranthe - Thanks for the chance to participate in this character challenge. I usually hate the kinds of roles you're establishing because without IMM backing, they often fall flat. This, on the other hand, looks like it's going to be one of the coolest things on CF in a long time.

All other IMMs - True thanks for your dedication.

I'd love to hear any critiques anyone has.

I meant it when I said you would be sorely missed. You'll see from what I've put in your history, but I can't say enough good about this character. I didn't see any of those faults that you claim. Seriously, when people post that it's "too hard" to play goodie with certain goodie-style restrictions, they should look at you as the example that proves them wrong. You put some of Baer's beliefs into better words than I even can and that was consistently impressive. The way this character grew from an Aarn-lovin', I guess I'll worship Baer instead dwarf to what he became was so fun to watch and participate in.

Good luck on your next. If I say again that you should come back to the Fortress will it have the same affect? I hope so!! ;)

Saving the best for last.

As I said, this was my first religious/empowerment character, so I was really winging it in the beginning; I basically read your altar and the "Baer turns one down" log from your forums and said, "Here goes; hope I don't fail."

Thanks so much for the subtle (and not-so-subtle) prods that really pushed this character along. I think it'll be a long time before I can play another Baerinika follower without feeling like I'm playing second fiddle to Tolgrumm.

And if a couple of years from now you happen to spot Torglumm the dwarven monk Rayihn follower, whose family used to worship Baerinika but who's inspired to be the first of his clan to regularly bathe, it's not me.

Other than that one of my favorite captains during long time. Tough and ballsy. GLWYN

Bash bash bash bash bash flurry fargin hurts too, especially when anticipate decides to go on vacation. I was sure I had you in the bag with our second engagement yesterday, and then intensify decided to go on vacation too. ;-)

Good luck as War Master.

Ye definitely did all a dwarf could do inna faith of the Jaguar, and left big empty shoes t' fill fer all o'us comin up.

You better fill 'em! I can't believe I left the Fort with more Acolytes than Maran. For shame!

You wanted me to have a recommendation and nobody would talk to me so I ended up deleting my attempt at squire even though I had already killed three wicked. Really annoyed me and also was the only time I saw you to even talk with you. None the less the scouting I did for you and trying to help you out during the raids.

Sorry to hear that. What was the name of your applicant? I can't think of any times I asked for recommendations (aside from a recent RP issue).

n/t

Sorry. I wasn't trying to make you get recommendations -- I usually did long interviews, so I didn't require recommendations. I did ask you if you had spoken to any squires yet as a curiosity and was soon thereafter forced to log off for some IRL stuff.

As do being the only it being the only time you saw me online, I was not on often on the weekends. But I'm sure if you stuck it out a bit longer -- three days as a pledge seems fairly short to me -- or written me a note directly, we could have worked something out.

My apologies for the bad experience.

Why didnae you ask me?

Darn it. How I am supposed to defend now without the Captain by my side? Jokes aside, was great being on the same side as you. You and Oshui have left some big shoes to fill for the next generation of Maran leaders.

GLWYN!

sing when; flee; s; sing frightful, or whatever the newfangled names are. :-P

You seemed quite competant, and a competant bard is such an awesome ally, that I'm sure that next generation's going to come up just fine.

I was in your group this morning and I was hoping for more interaction. You seem very very competent for all we were doing/fooling around. I saw few logs of you fighting and I would have hated to be on the opposite side. I think we interacted couple other times, and it was fun. Thank you.


Do come back with another Fort. GLWYN

Yeah, sorry about the lack of party interaction this morning; with my daughter teething, I didn't get much sleep last night, but decided I didn't want to miss another one of Rydell's hunts.

Hope to have a next sometime soon.

"Everyone was so vocal about the (alleged) heavy ganking, shrine-sitting-RP-only, OOC-communcating, overrewarded Baerinika followers that I tried not falling into any of those buckets."

This showed. I fought against you over a lot of different characters, never quite killed you and very rarely came close but I had a lot of respect for you. You were as classy as you were tough, probably the most dangerous thing that had to walk to me to find me. Fighting you was always fun which isn't often the case with many other players.

Knowing the characters you played, that's a huge compliment, so thank you. I tried to neither multikill nor be condescending, and if you had fun, that's awesome.

You've heard this before, but keep trucking. Your skills improved a lot between characters. Hopefully mine do too. :)

I enjoyed our interactions.

So did I. Thanks.

To me you were something very rare, a good character that really gave off a good vibe regardless of who they were interacting with (I realize this is hard to do with your sworn enemies so don't mean that as negative as it sounds in regards to everyone else).

You were courageous and never backed down. Your boldness got you killed at time, but also left me sitting there thinking "I can't believe he just pulled that off" just as often. You were gracious in both victory and defeat. You brought to mind the ideals of knights from the old Arthurian legend. I think I am trying to say, I really liked this character and will go as far as to say it is my favorite of 2013 so far.

As far as out fights went, I am pretty sure we spent hundreds of hours fighting one on one, and produced about 5 corpses out of all of that.

Curious who your prior fort char was (I have two guesses, but will wait till I am gone to make them)?

Wow, thanks. In some ways, the positive feedback means a lot more coming from an IC enemy rather than an ally. Do you mind if I post a few logs with you in them? The ones I'm thinking of won't give away any of your tactics.

My prior Fort character was Shaendath, dubbed by one of my enemies as "the weakest assassin the lands." :P

Do you mind if I post a few logs with you in them? The ones I'm thinking of won't give away any of your tactics.


Go ahead. CO ROT isn't that hard to figure out anyway.

Ah hell, I have to break the cone of silence for this one. <3 Favorite.

>Rydell - My first impressions of you, both OOC and IC, were
>incredibly unfavorable,

It was a rough start - thanks for giving me the opportunity. It was
a rocky road for a peace loving healer and a Maran. :) I just read the
Way of the Peaceful Warrior and the Journey of Socrates.. and I was just
like... in total pacifist mode.

>but you obviously grew on me.

And you did as well! You were the closest thing to a
non-Rayihn brother Rydell had. I'd always be very glad when you
logged in because I knew we were going to get into some trouble
together either exploring or killing some folks :) I know I have at least
a dozen assists with you. Most of the time I never even attacked, just healed
you so you can do your 6 **demolishes** a round thing.

>I'm glad you finally made Cardinal.

Me too. I was JUST an Acolyte when Cand was made Cardinal - and it was
a full two months before he auto deleted.. then another three full months before
I was promoted to Cardinal. Almost half a year is a long time to wait!

I needed a lot of help along the way and I felt I got it from many sources in the Fort.
Many of my RP conflicts somehow got sorted out through our interactions.
Thank you for that! ... and all the RP and character development that stemmed from that.
I truly hope I'm up to the task and gonna keep trying to get better.

>We sure made a great team,

We really did. We synced real well on the PK aspect. Waters of the Lady and all. :) Exploring
as well. Getting to slay Tiamat together was real fun. More so than the Silent Tower I think.

>and I'm immensely grateful for all of the exploring you
>dragged me along on.

It was really fun for me as well. Never got to take you some places underwater but
oh well... come back as a storm! :)

>Sorry for ruining our Silent Tower
>adventures, but I hope that didn't tick you off too much.

Not at all - I was losing con at a frightening pace in the tower anyway... Each character
builds on the last in there tho - I figured by sometime in 2014 I'll have it solved.. as long
as I don't lose my notes again! :P

>What a blast.

Thanks again for entrusting us with the you know what. Gonna work our butts off (well
at least I am) to make sure it comes to the fruition you would have wanted IC.

Having been both under Clah (another char) and Fildnar (with Rydell) - I'd really
have to say that you were on par if not better than both those Captains. At least for me.
You did a really great job with the Fort, with the Baer Religion (which by the way, I never
knew Baer and Ray were the same until like, December. Swear. - I don't read these forums), and with all the writing on her religion (which is a lot harder than it seems!).

I hope that in some way you find your way back to the Fort. Good luck with your next, there. :)

The pacifist stuff caused some IC tension, sure, but that wasn't why I disliked you at first.

My first real memory of you was something like this:

* We pull off a tough raid against the Empire (I think two of the group of four went down.
* Me saying, "Let's get the Codex back to the Fort."
* You saying, "Nah, let's raid for the scepter."
* Me saying, "Okay, now let's head straight back with the Codex and Scepter."
* You saying, "Nah, healing sleep first."
* Me saying, "Okay, let's head straight back now."
* You saying, "Nah, let's take this shortcut through the Sands of Sorrow."
* You getting us lost, the Codex crumbling, and more Imperials logging on so we can't reraid, meaning the squires died for nothing.

I decided then to hate you, but that didn't last. :)

As to the whole RayBear thing... I don't know if anything shady goes on behind the curtain, but to me you were a counterproof to the claims of her OOC favoritism. Here Rayihn has a tattooed, titled Acolyte with a ton of hours, and yet she won't make him Cardinal until it agrees with her Baerinika RP. That sounds as unshady to me as possible.

See you again with another character, I hope.

Yeah - that was a bad day. Hehe. I've had a few.

"Shortcut" hahaha. Sands of Sorrow Shortcut is always the way to go.

I figured that was the exact reason I WAS NOT made Card... Because it would have had the smell of favoritism... Or I just really sucked.. one or the other, or maybe both. :)

I didn't really agree with her, (and still don't on many, many things) as much as see what I could do better as an Acolyte/Cardinal. But Baer certainly helped me see where adjustments were in need of being made - and I agreed with those... but they had nothing to do with her religion, and more to do with me not sucking.

:)

First time fighting a monk and let me tell you, I still don't know what was going on in our fights. :P Good luck with the next!

Heh. I just checked my logs for 'Your * Nalavi', and judging from the damage you took on our fights, or lack thereof, you learned to prep quick.

Good luck to you as well.

I found a nice and easy to get protection scroll and then collected Aura staves and generally had Shield staves given to me as well. Also had stoneform amulet for one of our fights I think.

I do hope the light holds you in its loving embrace forever, my captain.



I cant believe you logged in to age die and I was the only one around. There were so many others that needed to be there when it happened, but oh well.

I know we (Korgresh and you) did not get much time together, but you were the same character I remember from other characters. There was a lot of evolution from when we first met, way back at your lower titles.

All in all a fantastic character. Great job as captain. Also, what you asked me to do has been done, I asked aster to help me with it.

GLWYN, and come back as a storm like Rydell said!

Thanks for the opportunity to give one last Baerinika talk before I kicked the bucket, and for fulfilling my last request.

Do me another favor -- rank up and rot Kraldinor a few times for me. :)

LOL, I will do that for you.

You were by far my favorite enemy as Xiersel, and I'm glad you let me get away with all my silly attempts to get you to join the Empire and Rp'd the encounters out instead of just blowing me off.

Those encounters made me know I had to find a reason to interact with you on my next, so a female dwarf was born that admired you, and once again it was always fun to pester you, and to fight you to for that matter.

Nice job all around with Tolgrumm.

Between Xiersel and Ursetra, you definitely had the record for "most unrequited kills" on Tolgrumm. Awesome job as both -- I sincerely hope you come back to play again if you haven't already.

I'll be posting a log of two of our fights on Dio's. If you remember or have the log, could you tell me how much HP you escaped with that one time I almost had you? Just to fuel my frustrations. ;)

Only because you didn't kill Xiersel when I was AFK, which was pure class on your part. Yeah, I don't think you ever got me with Tolgrumm, but I can say you came close (I mean under 100 hp close) on Ursetra probably 5 times. I don't think you did as well getting close against Xiersel just because I ran like hell from you most of the time since you put out damage like a champ on my poor bard.:)

The time I got you on Eastern was a hell of a fight though. Damn Spirit of the Blade almost won you that one.

Maybe one day I'll see logs of a few more chars of yours that will instill that itch to play again when I have the time.

Tolgrumm was a father figure to Andira so when we had conflict it was always hard on her, but I completely understood. I'm glad you enjoyed the concept I been playing out with her and I am so glad that we made amends for everything in the end! You'll be fondly remembered and very missed.

Other than the Fort/Battle war, your character line was probably the most challenging to Tolgrumm's idea of Purity, so thanks for the added fun. I wish there was a way to have toasted that familiar without hurting you, though. :)