Mon Feb 11 19:05:46 2013

At 10 o'clock AM, Day of the Moon, 14th of the Month of the Ancient Darkness
on the Theran calendar Carg perished, never to return.

Race:	cloud
Class:	warrior
Level:	51
Alignment:	Neutral
Ethos:	Neutral
Cabal:	NEXUS, Nexus, Seekers of Balance
Age:	276
Hours:	226

There was one time Empire wasn't the underdog. Anyway, I always enjoyed our travels and the few times we actually managed to kill someone, but could tell you had your hands full with the village most of the time. You will be missed.

I never had a guy in Empire, but I remember the days that they filled Eastern with Centurions and they ruled the land with an iron fist. You harken back to the time of strength, and represent well to me that which is the Empire. You were keen and cunning, and always a great one to travel with to fight the Fort. Good luck!

Carg the relentless he might have been called, until that final breath that every character faces who doesn't ascend.
A pity I didn't take the masochist flaw, because I promise you I felt punished enough when Carg had to face the odds even with a full Nexus crew awake and ready. This was my second nexun, and second hero. My first hero ever was a whipping post, and I thought "Hey, you know what would be sweet!? Doing DAMAGE." So Cloud warrior Polearm Axe Trapping Crashing Aeriel oppressor Axe Murderer edge with Swath of Destruction was born. I figured polearm for being mr. Tanky man and then Axe for being Mr. Damage man, don't let them have weapons and do tons of damage when they drop their weapons. How is this a bad thing? Naturally, Carg grew up dancing with ragers. Except it was less like a dance and more like being a pin cushion. I figured it would improve greatly as I hit hero, picked up some perfected skills and learned the class. Like Brun, I tanked with my face always. It was a terrible feeling because the entire time I was thinking "ah, I will be all sort of hard to touch when 'x' clicks." To be sure, I am certain I earned lots of respect for being dauntless, but if things didn't stack up real nicely I wasn't locking down the kills. I had cutoff perfected very early, and so I figured "bash bash, cut off cut off, slice for bleeding to win!" With Cain and so many others, I couldn't hold on to my 50 pound weapons because of all the maledicts, so there was lots of that. All in all, I enjoyed the learning though I will say that it had more than enough frustration for any three people. Carg was my Nexun 2.0. I played CF in high school, and I never leveled above 36. The days I played the playerbase was anywhere betwee 120-160. It was a very different atmosphere. If you died, you were generally full looted and that was that. It made for some very frustrating times back then. I enjoy it much more now that I have a clue as to what will get me killed and what won't.

Rayihn Daevryn, thanks for the encouragement and support, and thanks especially for helping me stay the course when it was the "Hey, look, Carg is the only Nexun awake" show. I thank you kindly for the title and the totally sweet edge, Daevryn!
I didn't always feel like a Champion of the Balance, but I certainly felt it enough that eating village pain was bearable.

Iklahn, Mylene: I appreciate very much the times and all that you had to share with the Isle. Solid leaders, you made my summer full of amusement and I enjoyed every of the time rolling up on folks with you guys.
Darikir, Inerayo, Treyliu, Gartuk, Tinwold, Derydoon, Baylahn and the rest of the Nexun host, thanks guys. I was so glad to be a part of whatever it was we were trying to do at the time we were trying to do it. Sorry if I drug you down. I managed to kill a handful of Nexuns on more than one raid occasion. A lot of time my philosophy was "Use a bigger hammer." That was kind of Carg's mentality about life. Unfortunately, that was the downfall of many more often than not.
Tinwold: Sorry for dragging you around with my deathwish, but I will sleep SO MUCH better tonight now that it is done. Thanks for your help, bud, and I hope you keep it as real as you have been. You are a wonderful credit to the Isle.

Fort: Oshui, though I rarely had a problem getting away, I always dreaded initiating the hunt with you. I generally enjoyed getting to bash some paladins into the ground. I would always chuckle to myself when I was done with one because they would be like "What are you DOING!? WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME LIGHT WAS TIPPING!? YOU DIDN'T EVEN WARN ME!" It's a lot easier to hunt prey that isn't aware it is prey.
Rydell: Thanks for always being so friendly, even when I was trying to overhead your little elf skin into oblivion with my big ol iron hefty axe. I always wanted to run around with you, but Light was nearly always strong. You are a credit to the Fortress.

Empire: I am sorry you were always the underdog, and I was always glad to run around with the blades or Kraldinor. I only had a few brief talks with the Emperor, though they were amicable.

Battle: Cainargen: You were always so classy and terrifying. It was so hard to get anything to stick on you, though when I stopped dropping my weapons when you entered the room things started to drag a bit longer.
Arratok: Also classy and a great one for the huts. I had had a few of being entwined before, but never so much as when you started in on me. It was a rare thing for me to have a hand in seeng you fall, but every fight was always something.
Zarkyem: You were griefing Carg from the moment you hit 40. I had hoped you were get further along in the village, because you were certainly someone to rile up the waking world, but it is probably just fine that you didn't.
Tiarhelle: I had few interactions with you, though I thought well of the little I did see you about.
Kontoln: Also a solid chap; I hate that you had a hard time finding the heavy weapons, I think you would have done very well with the axe of conquest had you ever been able to get your hands on it.
Gredoor and Bosephus: The Svirfs seemed to come up together, and having to get small to be able to bash was always a nuisance to the point that I just went with pincer. That generally left too little time to knock weapons out of hands before I was getting whirled or impaled or eye jabbed or pincered. Bo, you were a murdering machine, and certainly worthy of the guttermouth title. I knew you'd warm up to Carg-the-pin-cushion in the end. Gredoor, you were very classy. I hate that you died mindless in the Isle. Great fight, that one.
Bholur: Another solid hut-dweller. While I wasn't getting co wrathed, I did eat plenty of pain from Rostrak's divine malaise. I feel ya.
Aiala: Congrats on being the last hitter! I thought Gredoor might clinch the very last death.

It irked me to no end that I couldn't go toe to toe with a villager. I thought for sure I would be able to when I find my stride, but I know that the grief I felt was probably a small things compared to what some of them felt being hunted so hard by the Fort and always being on the receiving end of Isle Love. Carg's epitaph should be. "He learned the hard way."

I am glad to see that you made it to Con death. I just couldn't save you, there was no way. I could tell you were new, and I am glad you got a chance to be a leader. It is one thing that has eluded me so far. Great job and GLWYN!

Thanks! Thanks for your help and for running with me. I always enjoyed romping around with ye ol' Tin. Good luck with keeping the Isle stable.

I thought you did well for being in a tough situation. You put up a lot of good fights and I am pretty sure we traded 6 weapons in the Isle? I hope you learned a lot about warriors and more about CF. I interacted with Kury on another character and I liked him as well. I think you have a very bright future if you continue to riding out your characters and figuring out how to get better.

Thanks. You were a bit more subtle than Bosephus, but I respected you no less. I learned a great deal. Between my last to chars I have spent around three hundred and fifty hours at hero, so I have a much stronger sense of what to expect, but I am always glad when someone gives up some gem of knowledge they learned the hard way. Good luck!

Your ability to keep taking punishment and lead well through it is insane. Well done sir.

LOL, thanks buddy. I am endeared to frustration and grief.

Edited to remove name.

Now how are you going to take my message into the great beyond for my Winky!

It was fun. I interacted with you briefly as my last char was petering out and I thought you did an excellent job of keeping you chin up despite rough times. In fact you did such a good job of it I wasn't even aware of your rough times for the most part, bravo! Your focus on "First do no harm" mentality is fine at hero range but it pretty much nixes your ability to do anything at all often at the mid and lower ranks where the range doesn't mimic the balance at all. That is a huge problem if you expect cabal members to come into hero range PK competant because if you simply get no opportunity to learn how to use your class abilities in actual PK you just don't learn.

And in closing, may your eternal dreams be filled with 13 bears dancing on kegs of the finest dwarven ale.

Ha ha, sorry. I see what you mean, though it was less a philosophy of life and more of a survival tactic. I was doomed to die enough at the village and at the fortress, no need to pick a fight at every chance. I chuckled when people were like "Is he of the Isle!? Cause he attacked me right out of the blue! Can he do that?" I never minded Islanders stomping peoples faces at every turn, I just didn't pick fights that weren't balance based so to prolong what time I had left as Carg. I didn't ever tell anyone to cease attacks unless the balance had just shifted and it was something that would shift the balance. I probably should have made that clear; hadn't realized it was something hanging over your head!

Well for me the problem was that the balance would often be something like this.

Light tips
Chaos tips
Magic is taking it in the bung hole

and my pk range would be
chaotic evil shapeshifter
Orderly good paladin
neutral neutral shapeshifter
neutral evil villager

And within the philosophy of do no harm I couldn't fight any of them. I even asked about it over CB once (light was tipping magic was very bad and I wanted to go after an evil villager and you gave the no go sign). But now I am past the mid ranks so it doesn't affect me personally anymore (since the hero range represents the balance most of the time). Its just something to think about if you get cabal leadership again some day, if your cabal is getting the short end of the cabal war stick then you need to to change the balance of skilled chars and the best way to do that (short of being great at recruitment) is to give(or force into) them opportunities to develop their skills.

It is worth noting that I believe this policy dates back to Iklahn at least.

I can pretty much guarantee that while there may have been that young dark rager on your end, that there was Oshui and a host of light-walkers that would have made hero range missions very bad indeed to see the light tip any more. I won't apologize for weighing it that way that time, though your "Good Fight!" attitude was mildly amusing for a druid. I wouldn't imagine many druids have the mentality.

Carg was like a huge, happy bear, that if you weren't careful how you hugged em, he would accidentally tear you in half and then scratch his head like "how did that happen?".

I mean that as the largest compliment possible, and will try to explain it a bit more.

You were loveable, even as a rager, I liked you. I like the way you always were willing to throw down even the odds were ####. I liked the way you would slow play clever RP through tells and actions. I loved how you went from being a meat shield, to being someone I needed to pay attention fighting. How at some point I got lazy taking it to you and you rocked my ass solo and I was looking at the screen like "uhhh? What the hell just happened?" You stuck it out in a really REALLY tough spot. You stuck to your role and your mission and sometimes that meant you were getting clobbered but I do believe you got a few good smacks in on ragers also. A few times I had to make sure I would kill you first, because you had a dirty ability to put out some serious hurting and your bashes were ugly unless I was thirsted.

The moment a person started to get over confidant or lazy with you, they got whacked good. I can think of at least 2 times where someone called you out over CB during a raid, and I knew it would end poorly for them, and it did. I myself got burnt once or twice getting lazy with you so I made sure to stay on my toes after that.

Its obvious by your goodbye this was a struggle for you, build wise and motivation wise, but that just goes even more to your credit. Congrats on a MASSIVELY successful char, even if your PK ratio isn't sterling, you character was. Thanks for being part of CF.

Also,
I wish I knew what veil items you were hammering away on because damn it, I would drop 6-7 items and choke the veil completely, only to have you on and boom it would be back to normal in 15 mins real time. It always made me wonder.

Take care out there, see you in the fields.

I appreciate your kind words more than you know. Carg ultimately was a plus one. I needed someone to bond with desperately to have the full force of my potential rolling. More often than not, Carg was a wolf pack of one. Carg wasn't an intellectual; he had a job. Fix the balance. There were a few times that the odds were in my favor, but more often than the key was gone and there was Carg and two or three villagers. I have seen several posts about "make a token effort, but after that wait until the defenders thin out or leave." That was completely foreign to Carg. As far as the Veil goes, I took Veil Render literally moments after it existed and Carg was proficient at collecting little necessities. There was several out of the way places I found Veil shifters. I was always glad to interact with you; you are a fantastic drillmaster. Congrats on the RC success!

We had just one realconversation but I really enjoyed it. And the rarity of an opposing side leader taking the time to put some spark into a lowebie's day was exceptionally classy.

I loved how you took what could have been a bad situation with the vote and ran with it full force. I thought you did a wonderful job with everything. I was impressed with how you managed to say so much with so little words.

I wish I was able to travel with you more as I felt we made a good pair and I saw more and more improvement every day.

Good luck, and I hope you will be back!

You were wonderful; I wish I could have been around with you more. You made my experience as Kury brilliant, and each moment as Carg with you was fantastic. I appreciate very much all your help and encouragement. I made Kury because of a friend insisting I needed something to do with my summer. As I am a teacher in public schools, the summers sometimes need filling with fun. Carg was my attempt at a strong arm using everything I learned about Nexus from Kury, Nexun 1.0. Thanks again for your help! Good luck though I am supremely confident you will keep the Isle as strong as ever.

Well, I've been collecting what I was going to post for you in my head... so here it goes. I was pulling for you hard when the votes happened after Iklahn ascended. I felt that out of all of the people, you were the best choice and I wasn't disappointed. You led by example and that example was extremely simple: do your job. I loved seeing that of you.

I'm not going to say that there weren't times where I would check the pk list and think to myself "Ouch, Carg just died again" but you'd be back at it moments later. I have to give that to you, you were never afraid to come back and tear it up again.

So to end this, great character, great job and great improvement from Kury to Carg. Congratulations on doing what not many can do by just playing a simple character that will not give up at all.

Good luck with your next.

Thanks! You summed up nicely exactly my experience. It was great to have you and Iklahn about for your helpful hints and suggestions. I have had much in the way of opportunity to grow, though learning the hard way can give a person high blood pressure. I sincerely hope that your ascendance progresses well. I would enjoy seeing how your religion and influence takes off. You've got plenty of support here.