Sat Apr 17 15:01:59 2021

At 1 o'clock AM, Day of Freedom, 25th of the Month of Futility
on the Theran calendar Umbrand perished, never to return.

Oh man.. this was an adventure. It was a first for me for a lot of things. First character over 300 hours, first Acolyte leader, first long description, first time getting 3 virtues, first death gechoes.

Most of those I owe directly to Azorinne.. so before I say anything else, a huge THANK YOU for an amazing experience. You're a powerhouse. Our conversations spanned pretty much all emotions.. I can't give you enough praise. You can rest assured I'll be back with a new incarnation eventually.

That said, before I get to my goodbyes I want to talk about Umbrand's role. For context, this is the prompt from Rahsael:

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Umbrand Ardenwood

Race: Human, Half-elf or Elf

Gender: Male

Class: Paladin

Ethos/Align: Orderly good

Cabal: Any

Sphere: Mercy

Religion: *** THE NEW DEITY, COMING SOON... ***

*** FLAW: LATE BLOOMER ***

Role Guidelines: You grew up in your family home, Ardenwood Manor, but you don’t have much recollection of your childhood. How strange.

You turned Ardenwood Manor into an orphanage. It was an old place with expensive things that belonged to your family and children were not allowed to touch them. But you arranged cots for maybe fifteen children, and you ensured they had structure and meals every day.

One night, there was an event outside of the orphanage where multicolored motes of light snowed down from the sky and faded just before touching the ground. That same night, there was a fire that consumed the orphanage. Four children died. You survived the fire but you hardly remember it.

You seem to recall a head injury, perhaps during the fire? Your early memories are pretty jumbled and faulty and keep changing.

The earliest memory you have is of watching the children you cared for being led away from your family home-turned-orphanage, Ardenwood Manor in Seantryn Modan. You remember the children: Tristhana, Veldren, Ehrlon, Vrimold, Leopohl, Nastrella, Ahrloire, Andreste, Feldscrem and, of course, dear little Dollerveim.

You feel like a father to all of them, but your favorite was Dollerveim. Yes, he was always so sweet. The other children picked on him because they knew it: He didn’t have a mean bone in his body. You are extremely loving to all of these children.

After the orphanage fire, you adopted Dollerveim and devoted yourself to the protection of innocents through the paladin’s guild. You studied many faiths before a new goddess revealed herself recently and captured your interest. You raised Dollerveim as your own son for several years before he went off to find religion in the Light as well. You’re so proud.

You are a protector of children at heart. You see innocence as precious, and you see childhood trauma as the greatest predictor of future evil. Goodness is passed along early and often, you like to say.

Motivations: You have powerful fatherly instincts, which can just as quickly translate into ferocity in battle as it can a loving dad joke or tender pep-talk. You are such a dad, in the best possible way.

Description Guidelines: You have a scruffy beard streaked with gray (if you are not an elf), and you are incredibly kind. Fatherliness should be the dominant theme of your description.

Quirks: You check in on the kids all the time, even the ones who have broken bad. Think of a tender nickname you could call them. “Little one”? “Little dove”? “Kiddo”? Something that feels right to you and just a little idiosyncratic.
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I'll leave it to you to determine how well I lived up to that prompt. I know a few aspects got dropped, but I hope I at least lived up to the spirit.

I tried to take the "Dad" thing to heart as best as I could, trying to take the best from my own life as a Dad, and from my own father. One of the big things I remember from when I was a kid, was thinking my dad was never scared, never nervous, and always seemed to be the person in charge, no matter where we were. It was just a sense of authority that he seemed to have when I was like 5. So I tried to lean into that. I didn't call anyone by title, friend or foe. No one was scary or intimidating or superior, no matter who they were. I was a dad protecting my kids, and I wasn't going to show weakness.

The nickname I chose for all the orphans was "Little Bug". That's inspired from real life.. I used to call my nieces and nephews and my daughter that when they were younger, cause they'd crawl all over furniture (and people) like little bugs. I thought it'd be cute in this case, but wow.. it got taken the wrong way by almost everyone.

Bottom line, I had a ton of fun with the role. But the role didn't really allow for much aggressive PKing, so there were definitely some boring sessions. All in all, no regrets though.

I did think it was funny how many people caught on that I wasn't overtly aggressive, unless I had a reason to be (ie, you were attacking someone good, or something). It was pretty impressive that I could walk down Eastern road past evil villagers, Imperials and who knows what else, without being attacked. Annoying, because most of the time I wanted an excuse to fight, but I enjoyed that reputation too.

I tried to comment on everyone's death thread that I outlived (which was most people), but for the folks that are still out there..

Fortress - Man, there's so many of you guys that I don't even want to go down the list. You're all awesome in your own ways. I know I left out a ton of folks, sorry about that. Impressed with pretty much all of you though.
Gruntaln - Outstanding character. I got to meet you when you were young, and it was great seeing yo ucome into your own.
Kaloura - You've got a lot going on with your role, and I don't know how you deal with the downsides. I'm impressed across the board though.
Thurmok - The "young Elder prophet" thing always brought a smile to my face. Really did enjoy your personality. Shame I didn't see much of you recently, but keep it up.
Maog - I wish you'd have hero'd so we could hang out a bit more. You've been doing awesome, looking forward to seeing how far you go.
Thamuuk - Awesome job with those notes. I know how much work that takes, but that's a big help - especially to the newer folks or the people just ranking up to hero. That kind of organization can make a big difference.
Tolith - Our times don't mess much, but everything I've seen is great. Wish we would've gotten a chance to sit down and figure out the future of the Fort, but I think you've got it covered.
Petroka- You've got some fun stuff going on, that I only got a glimpse of. Wish I could've seen more.

Maeneekoni - Umbrand tried really, really hard to assume you were doing good with the whole ritual thing. It was tough to do, given the mystery around everything.. but I spent a lot of time defending you and looking for explanations. You're "good" after all, so you wouldn't have done that ritual for other reasons.

Alendross - I absolutely love your character. Very few characters in CF (my own included) grow significantly as the story unfolds. You absolutely did. I loved how our relationship evolved from you treating me like Outlanders treat all paladins (distrust bordering on hatred), to being something very close to friends. Seeing you take my advice to talk to the dwarf was one of my low-key highlights. Everything I've seen from you, absolutely awesome.

Nateh/Tjur - I can only imagine how much you two wanted to kill me, or declare war on the Fort or whatever. I'm impressed at the restraint, because I know I made myself a nuisance quite a bit.

Williad - I had a ton of respect for you. I know I was frustrating to fight, especially since you just walked over most people. I was just about the most defensive paladin builds you can have. You were absolutely right when you said something along the lines of me being tough, but having zero risk to fight me. Great job from what I saw with Williad.. you were appropriately intimidating and aggressive towards most folks.

Tristhana - Man.. you drove me absolutely crazy. You were like Veldren where you showed hints of being redeemed and coming back from the darkness, before doing a 180. IC, I never really knew if you were a complete sociopath just toying with me (and my boy), or if you were truly conflicted and could be saved. Once Dollerveim was dead and you became Scion though, I did turn cold towards you - that was me basically recognizing that my boy spent his whole life trying to save you, and you did the evillest thing you could possibly do in return. Umbrand didn't hate anyone, especially one of his "little bugs", but you were definitely the biggest disappointment in a sea of (IC) disappointments. Kudos on being really well played though.


Anyway, I'm probably missing a ton of people, especially if you're already gone or I didn't see you over the last week or so. It's just too much to remember. If you write, I'll respond though.

thanks for that one good char

I honestly don't know what you're talking about. I searched logs for "Greedy" and couldn't find anything relevant either (unless you're the Maran I talked through a redemption thing). So.. thanks for the feedback?

it was after Mordrel and I pked you, you said i was always a greedy one because I needed like 4 pieces of eq to replace some empty slots, idk. It's funny because I get grief from people OOC that I don't loot enough.

Not sure how I overlooked that log before, but yes, I did say you were a "always a greedy one".

You killed me with Mordrel and I went back and had 6 items missing. Two days prior, you'd killed me solo and I had 5 items missing.

11 items in 2 days is a lot. I was pretty annoyed.

EDIT: In hindsight, I realize it was probably for desecration (which is a ####ty mechanic, imho), and not you just being a jerk. But at the time, I thought you were just trying to horde #### to be a pain in my ass. Hope I didn't come off OOC or whiny, but no one's perfect, especially when annoying #### happens. Sorry if it rubbed you the wrong way.

no not at all, I get it, it just made me laugh because you had that perception.. not sure who would have even looted the other time, I remember only taking 1 item to desecrate, I almost always ran around at full weight, looting was an impossibility.

From my limited point-of-view you did a wonderful job as an Acolyte/leader. I am certain Fortress will be lost without you.

>Williad - I had a ton of respect for you. I know I was
>frustrating to fight, especially since you just walked over
>most people. I was just about the most defensive paladin
>builds you can have. You were absolutely right when you said
>something along the lines of me being tough, but having zero
>risk to fight me. Great job from what I saw with Williad.. you
>were appropriately intimidating and aggressive towards most
>folks.
>

So true, imperial offense on you while you hit the vanquisher, spamming flurries and I could not out damage your healing.
You were a defensive beast for sure.
Good luck with the next.

I hope you have kids IRL because if you're anything like Umbrand was they're going to grow up to be good people. Which is a credit to both how well you roleplayed Umbrand and how you really brought the character to life.

Well done and GLWYN.

It was an interesting friendship. Alendross was at a point where he wasn't hunting Paladins because the warden branch was so weak so it made for a good chance to reach out and I'm glad I did. I enjoyed our talks and you definitely gave off the feelings of a wise old man. Alendross probably had several centuries on you but he still looked up to you as a respected elder. GLWYN.

Top...notch! Truly, this character evolved so much as the story unfolded, and I am happy we got to talk as much as we did. I echo what a lot of the others have said, I wish you would've age died this one! GLWYN!

Whenever Umbrand was around it definitely felt like we had a wise fatherly figure watching our backs and seeing that everyone was safe and sound. Top notch paladin that will be missed a lot.

Just wanted to echo what I said on Discord for posterity's sake.

Umbrand was a superbly played character and paladin. Your RP was top-notch. You came across as "wise/thoughtful" in a way many paladin characters fail to achieve.

I thought you were fantastic and I enjoyed every interaction we had. I regret I didn't put nearly as much time in for the challenge as you did, but I got a kick out of how kindly you spoke with me, and how many of the others in the challenge kept whispering in my ear about how you were secretly the villain we should all team up against.

Hope we can meet up again in a future CF life.

Well done on Umbrand, as others have said it felt like we had true guidance in the Fortress when you were on, and the air of authority was clear.

Similar to when interacting with immortals, I felt the long description really helped the roleplay and was well fitted to the character.

GLWYN

I am so incredibly sad about this. I was hoping you'd stick it out until age death. I wanted to have so many more conversations. I wanted to see you give impeccable guidance to so many more young folk. I wanted you to have a chance to build back up the Aco side of the Fortress after your letter. I can't give enough praise for Umbrand at all. Some folks have had a hard time with Az-faith, but not you. You seemed to just come to it quite naturally, and everything you did, all the time, just screamed "I am a priest of this religion." I loved every minute of it. Your patience was legendary, and watching you hash it out with so many over all these hours really made me feel like I understood you and that you understood me. I think from a character standpoint, having a child goddess with an Ultimate Dad paladin follower just made a kind of sense. I'm very grateful, also, for all the things you were a good sport about "dealing" with. You were an incredible, very highly valued Aco leader. Thank you for that. Thank you for all the good chats and being lovely and insightful. Oh and also, Umbrand's dad jokes were constantly getting slept on and that is a complete tragedy. Humorless monsters, all of you.

We are sad to see you go. You were great as the Grandpa to the Fortress. Now we need someone new to worry about. And we hope Azy makes sure you keep those bi-focals on. Don't need that old sight leading you into bumping into things!

Great job as Umbrand. That is a solid presence that will be missed. Fort has done great in its Elder Prophet choices as of late. GLWYN!

What a superb character. 400 hours and it felt like so much more. It probably felt like a lot longer for you too with having to deal with Trist's endless bitching.

OOC, I have nothing but the highest praise for your RP and what you accomplished with this character. You never wavered and even though I could sense Umbrand becoming more bitter with age, I was always in awe of how you took a difficult role and made it your own.

IC, well… Tristhana loved to hate Umbrand. You were the focal point of so much envy and rage and her life will be hollow without you to focus on. Beyond that, Umbrand was simultaneously the boogieman that ruined her childhood and the spectre that reminded her of the family she didn’t have during adulthood. It was an extremely difficult pill to swallow once they returned from the manor and Tristhana had to contend with the fact that Umbrand hadn’t really contributed much beyond picking Dollerveim over the others. You did great with this character and I was really impressed with your RP and style. GLWYN.