But I’m over that now and decided to give it another shot.

Before you read further standard disclaimer of I played this Character way too long to remember any mortals (Is Noviask still Dread Lord?), so post and I’ll respond (if appropriate). If you don’t really care what I have to say and are just checking to see what I said about you (what I usually do with farewell posts) you can go ahead and stop.

Anyway, I started playing again around early 2010 and had really only played outlanders and orcs since my return. After having 6 chars in outlander last year and two leaders in the previous three years, I finally decided I needed to do something else, so I decided to play another orc.

I started playing my orc seriously around the time Krunk died with the intent of grabbing chief, but I had a really hard time ranking, and some brutal deaths. After one particularly brutal death, I decided I wanted to play something more durable, and rolled up Kraldinor in early December. Enlilth had just gone dormant, so I intended to go with Dacagais, but I decided his play times would not mesh with mine. My last empowerment character was a Jasthrean Druid I made right around the time he went dormant (Kraldinok) so I wanted to pick an Imm I was pretty sure I could catch. I thought I could make another Rayihn Evil work, so I threw together a hasty concept (I meant for the char to be something like an evil Dr. Phil).

I wasn’t seeing Ray around (was seeing Baer, but at that point I wasn’t interested enough in the char to note), so I lost interest and went back to my orc. Holidays rolled around and I got back to trying to rank my orc after. After a mob death solo ranking in Spirits, I saw Ray on, so decided I would swing by with my shaman to say hello.

After my Empowerment interview, I left thinking that the whole concept didn’t make much sense. I quit off, went back to my orc, but then Uhrung logged on and grabbed chief, which just felt like kick in the head after all the difficulties my orc had been having. I decided since I did have initial Empowerment, and I had not played a Shaman in forever, I would give the Kraldinor a go. I guess it turned out ok.

The first few hundred hours were a lot of fun. I got oathed and was promoted pretty quickly. It felt like Empire could use some help which encouraged me to stick with it even more. Empire was kinda new to me again, but also kinda felt like coming home as well since it was the cabal I usually played way back whenever. I was enjoying learning the Cabal Dynamics as they exist now and it felt like Empire was on a bit of an upswing and I was in on the ground floor . The sect leaders were around a decent bit as everyone was jockeying to become the next Emperor. I was a bit annoyed I was on the outside looking in for that, but I knew there was a High Priest when I rolled Kraldinor, and Kraldinor was never meant to be self-serving anyway.

The next 250-300ish hours were probably the most frustrating I have had playing this game, although largely because in similar situations before I would have just deleted. In this case though, I just really would not have felt good about being another rat fleeing a sinking ship, and didn’t really have anything else I really wanted to do at the time anyway. After Duraskandr became Emperor, it seemed like after a brief (less than a week) dominant period, everyone disappeared. Once Xiersel deleted, I felt pretty much alone at hero for a very long time. I apologize to anyone I lashed out at during this time, but at least I gave you something to do.

Then all of a sudden I was Emperor. The sun was shining and birds were singing. Empire numbers were already picking up a bit before I got Emperor and seemed to get a little more of a boost from filling the council. All the powerhouses in Fort and Outlander died off and I won CF.

I’d say the two biggest things I am proudest of with this character is making it to age death without a con quest (I con killed a druid in 168 hours last year, and this is only my second character to break 300 hours) and having sect leaders that didn’t feel like they were someone’s alt character.

A few immortal thank yous:

Rayihn: Thanks for everything. You seemed pretty chilly on me early on, but somewhere around the 350 hour mark I think you decided I had been around long enough I must know something (plus it really sucked to be Kraldinor around that time, and everyone more interesting than me had died). You are a lot of fun to interact with unlike, as you put it, that stuffy elf. Best analogy I can come up with for you is that you are the boss that everyone who works for loves, but everyone in the other sections hates because your employees get to go home early and have pot lucks at work and such (I actually personally hate pot lucks) while everyone else is stuck at work until 8:00 every night because they spend half their day bitching about how much their job and their boss suck.

Some people may say I did a good job playing an Empire Ray follower, but I kinda think my first notion of it didn’t make a whole lot of sense was probably right, but thanks for helping me muddle through it.

Amaranthe: Thanks for the fun interactions and the edges. I’ve never been given edges from imms before, so it was pretty nice if not overly useful (quest form yes, edges no).

Enlilth and Dacagais: Thanks for not anathemaing me and just letting me go with it. If (when) I play Empire again, I’ll try to do something truer to cabal ideals (I actually have 4 Empire builds I want to try whenever I get around to them).

Was Kraldinor evil? Well he really liked killing Paladins (irrational player bias that lingers from playing a duergar when neo-paladins came out) Fortress, and Elves ( I don’t mind dwarves and storm giants so much, Lothrinus is the only elf I’ve ever liked). So some people would consider that evil behavior.

Was Kraldinor’s player skilled? My self assessment is I am solidly in the average to slightly above category now.

Do Shaman suck at hero? You have some things that will work, and some that won’t. If the last time you fought someone you tried a commune 8 times and it never landed, chances are it won’t in the next fight either. Just use what works and hope it works out.

My parting thought is I think the game is better when Empire is strong whether you are in the cabal or fighting it, although I’ve avoided the cabal for 13ish years I guess (donations weren’t as bad as I thought, and I am kinda over my shifter phase now). I think the whole story line of CF works better if the forces of light and freedom or whatever are striving to overcome adversity instead of just a bunch of paladin’s or whatever running around trying to wrath down the lone orc hoping THEY can get the killing blow.

Zruulg/Vonzamir
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