Fri Jul 16 21:06:41 2004

At 9 o'clock AM, Day of Thunder, 24th of the Month of the Frost Giant
on the Theran calendar Matthen perished, never to return.

Race:	half-drow
Class:	bard
Level:	36
Alignment:	Neutral
Ethos:	Orderly
Cabal:	HERALD, the Heralds of the Eternal Star
Age:	122
Hours:	211

Alright, here's there scoop.

First off, I would like to thank everybody that helped Matthen rank, or pressured Matthen to rank *coughThiggocoughEsfer*, because without you and Organia, I would never have gotten Matthen as far as I did.

Matthen stands as several firsts for me.
Highest ranking charater, most hours, first bard, first last name, first PK... Okay, it was assisted, so sue me. Thank god for meat shields and hammers. At least it was even numbers. Three on three with Zytanesis running around pretending he was actually helping us.

I'm really proud of how Matthen was going for a while there. But.. I was feeling less than Heraldic towards the end. Matthen's goals were pretty much met, and he was getting bored with life. He started wanting to flail, looking for things to do. Then the waterfall semi-quest that Soucivi put him on. Honestly, Imms, things like that can keep a character and a player going for so much longer, it really helps when a character is feeling doomed to get a little Imm-loving. I'm just sorry I couldn't put it to better use.

Anyway. Last... three hours of Matthen's life. Matthen is in outfitted gear, steps outside the Inn. Matthen decides to find a new way to have fun. A Necromncer he knows doesn't like Imperials. Neither does Matthen. Sooo... they go out and decide to kill Imperials. Matthen meets Necro in Hamsah, sleeps Necro's Imperial groupmates, eventually gets killed by Rakk. This is the start of a long spree of killing by Matt, the Necro, and soon, a thief. Several Imperials slaughtered. However, I look away from the screen for a little bit, and suddenly, we're attacking a Fortie. I thought we were just going after Imperials. Now Vahletharien hates me. Oh look, my necromancer friend has a Nightwalker now. ####, he's a Scion? Matthen doesn't mind. Wtf? I just broke role. Matthen should HATE Scions. (this goes back to the KHARK HAZYN tattoo he used to have, if anyone wants to know). So, now, not only have I broken role severely, but I'm enemies with the Fort, and I can't seem to pinpoint what Beauty Matthen is finding in this spree of slaying. Matthen has mutated into an extension of a necromancer's reach, he seems to have lost his Heraldicness, and on and on and on. Seems like I've royally screwed his life up. So. Might as well do one more thing before I delete. Log back on, find my necro, slay the Vanquisher.

Blitz tells you 'Surely you jest, Herald.'
you tell Blitzenturt 'I do not. Please do not let my actions reflect on the Heralds. I am acting of my own volition.' Blitz tells you 'But surely you must know it will.'
you tell Blitz 'I do, actually. I'm being rather selfish, aren't I?'

So, for those of you who want to know why, I broke role god knows how many times in those last three hours. Time to delete, if I can't hold the character anymore.

IMMS: You guys are the heart of the game. Immteraction is the best thing that can ever happen to a Character, it means so much. It kept Matthen going on several occasions.

Khasotholas: I have a lot of respect for you man, that one tiny interaction. You were all business for that talk, but afterwards, you were really fun. I wish I'd logged that. I've never been smited (smitten, smote?) by a deck of cards before.

Soucivi: You rock. You are the lifeblood of the Heralds right now. It seems like although Arvam and Shazirah are the patrons, Soucivi is the real guiding beacon. She does so much for us, and is always there to pick a Herald up and advise on different situations.

Shazirah: You seem cool, wish I could've done more with the Beauty thing. As Matthen has said though, He followed a vague aspect of a religion that happened to be yours.

Whoever gave me my last name.. what did I do to deserve it? Soucivi poked me about being a Tribunal lackey... ten minutes later I'm in Organia and Thiggo says everybody knows my last name now. Weird.

Heralds: You guys have to be the best group to be in for roleplaying. At least, as far as I know. I've never been in any other cabal! Yay for sucky PK and repeat players! Seriously though, PK isn't quite for me. I'm just now starting to grasp PK strategy, and while it is fun, I can't see myself building a character solely for PK, cabal raiding/retrieving and all that. Soo... where do I go? Heralds! You guys rock.

Esfergref: I never would have picked you for High Herald, honestly. But once you sunk into the swing of things, you were an awesome High Herald, way to go! (translation: Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Pinky?) Matthen was a little resentful, I was seriously hoping to Hero before a HH was chosen, and held lofty ideals of Matt being HH, but I realize that couldn't've happened. Good job, keep it going, and all that. btw, the Vorthius interview was awesome.

Thigodus: You were Matthen's best friend too! Roleplaying with you was awesome, playing cards and trying to figure out what the crap I was being kicked out of the library for, and wandering around Organia with the Taskmaster and Chancellor of the Heralds was the most fun I've EVER had ranking. You rock, totally. Why did you go? *sob* Thanks for teaching me so much about the game!

Cadothu: You're awesome too. Second best friend! Er, First, for a few days there, since Thiggo offed himself. I'll never forget Organia, or all the times you've duo'ed and Vent'ed a random mob, or me. I seriously thought an Imm was speaking to me through Jayashree that one time in Yanoreth's, freaked me out. And it's true, Valguernera perfected Ventriloquate! You're following in darknesses footsteps, you've been warned! Thank you too, for keeping me busy!

Istirith/Celyn: Thanks for that 20 gold, for the Interview, and for teaching me so much OOC about game mechanics. I had no clue CON had any bearing on gains per level, if that tells you how much of a newb I am.

Aira: You go girl. So hyper, and I really felt the love there for awhile. Sorry we couldn't get married, sorry you had to disappear!

Naloueme: I love you. Nuff said.
Egan: ZOMBIE!
Kiki: Cool character, have fun with your itchy feet
Fungor: Good first impression, loved your character. Mellowness!
Alessa: I loved you from the first Interview. Keep it up!
Miaree: I knew you as Withsworry. You're old damnit!
thenewguy, Kazal?!: I don't know you. Have fun.
Applicants: DON'T CONFORM TO WHAT YOU THINK WE THINK A HERALD SHOULD BE. I saw this happen with one applicant, who kept mutating throughout the time that I knew him. He kept pulling more and more talent out of his ass and... yeah, well. you get the idea. You're more likely to make a good impression if you hold to your character.

Imperials: I saw very little roleplay from the majority of you. Mostly it was beat Matthen down on the Eastern road, or hovering outside of the Inn. There were a few of you I got good impressions of though.

Blitzenturt: You're the most reasonable Imperial I've ever known. Good job on becoming Emperor, you're very diplomatic. Good vibes, man.

Quevea: Fanatic! I loved you, and how hardcore you were, especially when Matthen tried to argue with you about the death mark. You've got unquestioning faith and evil smirking down.

Rakk: "Rakk says '####'" heh. I call #### being summoned into the sandy oasis, with Centurions outside, fleeing into the centurions, and beat down by three Imperials ####. If watching you and Hermetikil walk into a wall of flesh (2 on 2 there, and Matthen didn't even assist) is #### then you are a skewed man.

Tribbies: You guys are cool.

Fortress: Sorry for the confusion at the End there Vahletharien, Velandir, anyone else who was involved. I hope the beginning explains that a bit.

Vahletharien and Audriel: Cool people, you're doing a lot for the Fortress, keep it up!

Outlander: Who?
Scions: After Kung? See above.

Anyway. I loved playing Matthen, many people made this very enjoyable. I didn't mention too many people, so if you respond, I'll try to respond to you! Sorry if anyone's offended by their lack of mention.
Things are happening in real life right now, might be awhile before I make another one as successful as Matthen.
So until the next one, anyway!

Well Matthen, now you've done it. You've gone and left your family. To be honest, I had reservations about you in the begining, you were near boring. :(

As time went on, you became quite different and fun to poke at, in a kindly way. Yes, you were often a pain, but your deligence in playing Matthen paid off in a fine character and some quality rp.

Towards the end, I could see you lost your focus and your will, but that often happens. The great waterfall search gave me a lot of fun, and you pulled it off even though I began to have my doubts. :)

Keep it up, the magic never ends.


Soucivi Daneloth
soucivi@carrionfields.com

Doubts? What EVER made you have doubts? Oh, maybe that Spike that he fell onto? ;)

Anyways, Damn you Matty. You and Thiggo in like a few days, that just totally sucks. I mean, look who left me with! .. Esfer! I'll have to cling to Kiki for my sanity now, if I have any left. I wont be the first or last to say it, but I'll miss you. Hope you have fun with any following characters.

See you around,
Cado

Soucivi says 'No more dying.'

hehe...
that was after the avalanche though. Was she maybe starting to feel a bit guilty? heheh.

Anyway. As for that spike... it was an NPC of some sort, did unspeakables. I wonder if it's summonable... might be a good thing to put in the way of a 'zerker, if it didn't see through duo/hidden/invis, etcetera, and it weren't agressive. I'm sure there're built-in safeguards against this, right? Right?!

I love you too Cadence.

Matthen was a fun to have around too. I had a good first impression of Matthen as a person, and the run against time to find and feed Matthen before he starves to death was an exciting and totally spontaneous quest. Later referred to it as 'Fishing Matthen out of Nanthor'. Good thing a friendly shapeshifter was asking me to learn with him at the time. He came(for he was anxious to get to our learning) and worded both Matthen and Fungor home, thus ending the blight(Matthens raft was unable to climb the falls of Nanthor and the current drew him downstream). Matthen was a Herald applicant at the time, which was the reason for me(as Fungor) to talk to him in the first place. The shapeshifter(with hard name that I have forgotten) and I didn't manage to go learning after that though.

Fungor liked Matthen, so its a bit sad to see you go. Good luck on your next!

- Fungor

PS. I think you could have made peace with the Fortress. I don't think one lapse should make you their enemy for all time, After all the Fortress should be able to forgive if you ask nicely for forgiveness is one of the differences with good and evil. Don't delete for such a lapse again. RP:ing yourself out of that kind of blight can be interesting experience. As I see it, you didn't ruin Matthens role by killing Marans with the Scion necromancer. Matthen was a mortal and was entitled to make mistakes. Amending those mistakes can also be interesting RP. Matthens mistake was trusting the necromancer, but surely it is not enough reason for the delete. (Good old Fungor got going on again :D )

Well, it was more than just the fortie thing. It just compounded things. Also, Matthen had been feeling unheraldic for some time, and basically, being a Herald was everything to Matthen. If he couldn't be a Herald, then what was he? Nothing.
Also, some real life stuff has been getting in the way of CF lately. Its a large compound thing, it was going to happen sooner or later, it was just a matter of when. The whole incident with Fort and Scions and Imperials was just Matthen's way of having fun before going. He was going to hang around for maybe another week, but the fun went too far. So it was just time to go.

As for Fungor, he was awesome. He was a nice balance to all the nutty Heralds, and I'm glad you enjoyed the river Nanthor. I went back a couple days ago and scouted out a good deal of that area, just for you baby. Great conversations, all-around good character. Seems very knowledgable about the game, maybe I'm wrong. Anyone is knowledgable compared to me, I think.

Until next time, anyway.

I could never really figure out if you wanted to follow me or not. The fact that you were orderly didn't help things at all, and I really only caught you a few times at the shrine. Did you come there more often than I noticed? You had some good ideas for events, but they never really came through. You could've at least stuck it out for the talent show! Good luck with your next.

-Shaz!

Whether you noticed or not, I did come to your shrine quite a bit. Maybe our times don't align very much. Generally when Matthen was musing over problems, I went there, and to Yanoreth's library. I didn't always pray, of course, but I sent tells to myself, and talked to Sehalei, just in case anyone was watching, they could tell what was going through Matthen's head. Many times I didn't expect interactions, just wanted to roleplay going off and thinking. Shazirah's temple was a place of Beauty, and home to the Goddess of Beauty, so what better place to do it? That and I was more likely to get noticed there, heh.

As for the Orderly thing, Soucivi asked me about that during the waterfall quest, and my answer was that so much of Beauty comes from patterns, and certainly patterns are orderly. I gave the example of a rose being a spiral. I don't think Matthen really fit in with the helpfile version of your religion though, he simply worshipped Beauty.
Towards the end, Matthen wasn't incredibly Orderly anymore, except in the fact that he tended to think with a lot of reason. Those last three hours were anything but Orderly though.

Anyway. I'd appreciate your thoughts on Orderlies following your religion, and I also wondered what you thought of Matthen's role, as far as the content/setup/compatability with your religion, that sort of stuff. That was my first real attempt at a role, soo.. I'm curious. If you would prefer to e-mail that sort of stuff, direct the courier to splntrd@hotmail.com .

I'm fairly sure my jaw dropped when you told me that you had removed the note that I paid you 40 gold to put up unless I gave complete peace from all of my thieves to everyone in the Inn. I wasn't sure if you really thought as a player that I would go for that. Other than that though, I was impressed, good luck on the next.

I honestly didn't think Hipsin would go for it. However, Matthen wasn't going to let Heralds die because of something he wrote. So...that's just the way it was. It didn't matter whether you went for it or not.

I was impressed with Hipsin though, that interaction was well-roleplayed on your part. Good to see you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Glad you enjoyed it, I did as well.

Khas

Man, every bard I ask to do scrolls croaks in like 2 weeks, am I cursed or something???? :P

Would of really liked to try some carpentry with you, that would of been neat. GL on next.

You and Thigodus are big jerks! I'm not kidding, you suck!

Aw, I have to admit I was iffy about Matthen when he was first inducted, but hell if you didn't grow on me. Even though you never ranked *cough cough* you were a good herald, and you shouldn't of deleted ;( meanie...

....And Thigodus, put up a deletion thread so I can yell at you too!

Heh, Matthen has changed a LOT... I purposely put him through several phases.. the second of which being the philosopher/Zombie kinda phase, which knowing Esfergref, I can understand how that bugged you.

Esfergref is awesome, I loved how we made fun of him. It seems like if a character is picked on as a herald, they're simply bigger targets as High Herald.
Witty, Sensible, Relaxed. All around good High Herald. And hell, the King of Rodents thing has to be one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen. Keep it up man, keep it up.

Hey man, I really, really liked your character and enjoyed our interactions. Sorry about leaving you behind in ranking, I planned to time it so that you, me, and Cad would all come up together, but I just kept getting groups and couldn't say no. Damned addiction...*sigh*. Like I told you right after my "talking to," you really were Thigodus's best friend. I deleted the next day and you weren't around or I would have made a bigger deal about it. Anyways, thanks for being such a positive part of this character's life. Memorable times.

Thiggo, you were awesome. I can't stress that enough, honestly. Thigodus has to be one of my all-time favorite characters, it's really a pity you got rid of him. As for being left behind in ranking? Meh. I've never been a fast ranker, and it seems like Thiggo was on a lot more than Matt was for awhile, so I wasn't surprised.

one of the things I'll never forget is playing go fish in the middle of Barovia. Or wherever we were.
Thanks for all those trips into Organia! I learned a lot from you about PK tactics, and places to learn and stuff. And Lore helps too.

As for that "Talking to"... do explain?

You know, the Immortal "talking to" I got over the cabal channel. Basically I had some fun things in mind for Thigodus and the Inn, but after being told that it was never going to happen, I just decided to delete. I just wanted you to know how cool I thought you were before I did so. Anyways, best of luck on whatever you decide to do next.

dotdotdot, eh?

You seemed to be going along so well, what happened?

Umm... shoot, do I have to explain this again? Read my goodbye, eh. Heh, I liked Egan though, even if he WAS a zombie. The tale you told for your induction was good, I don't know how you managed to automate that though.. Copy Paste, or was it a program or something?

I simply used a set of aliases, which I numbered. I may do the story again sometime, or make a new one like it.

Wow, I am SO far behind when it comes to writing this, but oh well. Better late then never, right?

We miss you (we as in Aira and myself, hmm...). There were definitely some good times, and the one that I think was the funniest was our wedding-to-be, running around in the desert, and two seconds from getting married when Soucivi decides to warn us off... hmmm... Wonder what would've happened if we had used Shazirah's shrine without her permission... hmmm. Poor Kiki, came running through the desert with us only to grow bored out of her mind. Hehe, we love you Kiki!! I'm so sorry I vanished just when things could've gotten better:-( Blame real life (this is the second time, sheesh). Anyways, miss you greatly:-(


-Aira-