Sun Mar 13 12:37:33 2011

At 10 o'clock PM, Day of the Sun, 27th of the Month of the Dark Shades
on the Theran calendar Eck perished, never to return.

Race:	arial
Class:	assassin
Level:	51
Alignment:	Neutral
Ethos:	Chaotic
Cabal:	BATTLE, the BattleRagers, Haters of Magic
Age:	53
Hours:	405

Never once in any of their lives did I see anything that made me think badly of the character. And I saw some things that made me cringe with other ragers during the course of Ecks existance. Solid presence, solid character. The type of role model young villagers should be trying to example themselves after, because you were classy, even if you were not some brutal powerhouse. Good job.

I have this awesome Village role I want to do, but I need to figure out some stuff in-game before I can pull it off. I ranked
a couple of test characters up to just under 30, but couldn't work it out. One of them was an assassin and I liked it, so I came
up with a goofy role and a goofy name and voila: Eck.

I was inspired by Susubienko, and decided to be an assassinatey-assassin, but I didn't level sit long enough and only ended up
with about a dozen and a half assassinations. I really, really enjoyed the stalking and the build-up aspect of it, though. Very
cool stuff. Eck was very fragile in a lot of fights, especially without Trance, and I didn't take Kuma Buki until about hour 350
because I spent a lot of points on Extra Training twice. It also didn't help that I got a horrendous chest cold at one point in
Eck's life, but continued to MUD under the influence of way too much NyQuil. Jerrokrar got me at the giant once because I went
in, threw blindness dust, and then could not remember the command for "kotegaeshi' for the life of me. I had a plan going in, but
damn you, OTC cold-medicine. He would have almost certainly won anyway, but I could have at least not just stood there and taken
flurry to the face like I did.

I feel like I turned a corner with Eck in that I'm no longer just trying to 'keep up' with what's going on. Granted, I don't
know anything about magic in Thera (except what Tahren smashes good), but I realized I knew a bit more than a lot of the young
crop of Villagers. This, combined with what happened during a mini-quest (I abandoned a couple of young Villagers) made me
decide to remold Eck and try to live up to the title of Sensei. I hope no one found Eck's Lessons to be too obnoxious,
condescending, or error-ridden.

I really wanted in on the Prophecy, but when it started most of the titled characters seemed rather close-lipped about it, so
I let it drop. I had a chance to get involved at the end, but my time ran out. So it goes.

For everyone who has ever whined about Deathblow being overpowered, you have no idea how awesome Scout powers are. Discern spell
alone is priceless on a hiding class, but spell-evasion is absolutely insane. I once evaded 22 of Zaka's falling rocks in a row.
Never mind how cool it is to have some invoker saying "I know he's here somewhere," while blasting cone of cold right on top of
you. And Critical hit could send even tough mages running for the hills. If they're getting hit for grazes and then they get
whomped with a ***DEMOLISH*** it can be very startling.



Goodbyes:

IMMS:

Adekar: Thanks for the RC runner-up. The rewards (magic repellent, additional master edge, and some CON) were above and beyond
what I deserved for the "I ate a magic spider" role. You are doing an awesome job.

Thror: I went sphere purity because it seems I can only write variations on one Village role, but I'm okay with that because
you're awesome. I wasn't going for your tat this time, but you are an amazing Village IMM. It was probably you who scolded me
for double killing myself by calling truesight without the head. I felt like a jackass, but it will never happen again. After
the recent chat in your shrine I felt like I didn't have anything else to prove with Eck, so I put a valiant effort into
finishing the task that you gave me, but in the end I was quite alright with finishing like I did. One question, though:
What's a guy got to do to get a "Veteran of Battle" title?

Bork/Malakahi/Fjarn: I can't wait for any or all of you to have full fledged religions.

Enlilth: The fact that you're willing to mix it up with players is awesome. Thank you for not smiting me as my Con was dwindling
even though Ghrimmy wouldn't pay you. One of these days I must try an Enlilth follower.

Whoever was running that particular mob: I came late to the party, so I was totally behind in terms of information, but that's
some cool stuff you have going on.


Battle:

Ohbehb: The full-circle induction made me really happy. I'm sorry I called you Ohbaby on Dio's.

Grimnel: You left me somewhere in the realm of 250 gold. Over Eck's life I distributed almost all of it to various Village
related causes, often young thieves with dues to pay. Each time I dispensed some of it I made sure the recipient was aware
that the money came from Grimnel, not from Eck.

Ghrimmy: I love you. You got handed a very difficult task and you've handled aspects of it admirably, but some of what you do
made Eck facepalm. I'll post more on your thread when it comes up. Your Dwarfy RP is absolutely top-notch. Recently you
snapped at me when I said something disrespectful about Dern and if I hadn't been so low on Con I would have pressed it to see
if you were Dwarfy enough to take me to the circle over something I said about a non-Village NPC Dwarf. Any and all negative
things that Eck ever said about you were totally IC and am very fond of the character. If after Ohbehb and Grimnel were gone
there had been a traditional Rites I was going to try my hardest to get Commander, but I didn't sweat it after the prophecy
came up and I'm glad with the way things have turned out thus far, I just wish it would end already so we could see how things
are going to get shaken up. I just read your post. I'm super glad to have been able to teach you something.

Flaaayin: Absolutely stellar. I am so glad we were on the same side. It seems that a lot of the complaining about you has died
down, but as you are AFAIK the first person to make a truly terrifying Trapper, I think you should be congratulated, not whined
about. It cannot have been easy. The survivability you have with such a fragile build is astounding, too. I loved the RP and the
notes. Keep it up.

Yrork: You are the last of the old guard now. Keep strong.

Kolsad: That was one hell of an adventure you got me into underwater with all the hydrophobia and plague and tons of enemies.
I had a great time that night even though all we pretty much did was sleep and chat for about forty-five minutes.

Imrahiest: Big fan of yours. You're doing a great job.

Karkarrak: You are the future of the Village, I'm pretty sure. Definitely one of the toughest Villagers out there right now.

Hyu: You made me laugh a lot. Remember, though that getting killed against insurmountable odds over and over makes Thror sad.

Dughain: If I had survived the raid which proved to be my final fight I was going to assassinate you to cure your little problem.

Ssii: The Commander tasked me with helping you communicate, but I was having a hell of a time coming up with ways to make that
work. Frankly I think the bats are working well, but it's not an easy path you've chosen. I hope you have great success with
this strange character.

Mredenkal: Thank you for talking to me about Eck's lessons. I was worried that I was wasting my time and looking like an idiot
before you came forward. Eck is only my fith hero, so I understand how difficult it can be when you're new to hero ranks. It
really is a completely different game. The only way to learn it, though, is to play it and die a lot. I have no doubt that your
next hero will be more successful. I loved your RP, even though I think I'm losing a little bit of my ear for Mino speech. I
recommend going and finding that area that you were looking for. Spend a full twenty-four hours there because there are some
very cool local echoes to see.

To everyone who helped me survive a 26 hour rot with a base Con of 5. That's ####ing teamwork. Thank you.

To all the young scouts: You'll have to ask each other where to master spell evasion now. I hope some of you were paying
attention.



Nexus: (Iunna read this part.)

Allysia: Greatest enemy and best friend. A very complex friendship, to say the least. Eck loved Allysia and told her things
that he would have never dared utter to a Villager, but felt completely comfortable saying to the leader of the opposition.
I was always waiting for some sort of smiting or hut-stomping for constantly sending tells back and forth with you, never
mind spending time out of the shadows, standing on the Sea of Despair talking for nearly a RL hour. You have no idea how
often I had to bite my tongue when some Villager would say something nasty about you over CB, and all I could really say is
that you were a fine enemy who deserved our respect.

If I had another 100 hours with Eck, I would have been very curious to see where our friendship would go. It was Eck's hope
that you would leave the Island because you seemed rather beat down by the war recently. You have a very tough position right
now, but I think you're doing an amazing job. I hope that some of the other Villagers have a sense of what a well played,
excellently RPed character Allysia is. It was hard to get as much RP with Eck as I wanted due to being in the shadows almost
constantly, but after you got twitchy and always knew I was around it just gave me an excuse to talk to you instead of just
stalking. I hope someone else steps up and hides in the Rift for you.

Grimkral: I liked you except for one thing, which I've seen before. It's strange for a character to insist that Villagers
have "magic" powers that derive from The Head. As far as Therans are concerned that's just not the way it is. It's akin to
saying that magnets are magic. You're entitled to your opinion, but as far as the rest of the world is concerned, you're
wrong.


Empire:

Kyrilos, Faolai, Sivyh, Norington: I'm lumping you all together, because I had the same relationship with all of you. I
had no interest in fighting you guys and I'm glad that we were all on the same page in terms of sharing information. I hope
I helped some of out.


Tribunal:

Mundin: You are a master of what you do, and I know it's the part and parcel of the build, but the fact that you would
attack groups of three Villagers was bad-ass. One time you jumped me and two berserkers. It was pretty much a stalemate.
You were getting hurt, but we all got plagued, so both sides retreated. Then you bragged about it, which was so refreshing
because 90% of the time someone attacks a group of three they then start whining about parity. You are defensive player of
The Fifth Age, no doubt about it.

Hajobobbbq (something like that): I hated getting wanted because it screwed up my ability to stalk in town, but I really
hated getting wanted because flyto + bloody shackles + low base hp meant I was very limited in how far I could stray from
the Village with a warrant if you were around. I know I told you IC, but it meant a lot to me when you found me cowering,
nearly dead halfway through a terrible bout with rot and you left me alone. I wasn't wanted, but despite that you could
have gotten a very, very easy kill. I respect the hell out of you for leaving me to deal with it.

Scion:

Chancellor: During our first encounters you just paralyzed me and that was that. Later on, even though I didn't have
significantly higher saves, I was getting frozen a lot less fequently. I don't know why that was, but combined with
critical hit, being able to run off the Chancellor of Scion even a couple of time was a big deal for me. Also, it never
caught on, but I sometimes refer to you as "Flat Bastard."


Outlander:

Balta: You are a beast.

Lorietta: I could have sworn you were an Outlander, so I'm putting you here. The night before Con death I was tasked with
assassinating Blartlem. He was in Maethien and I was stalking him when you attacked him. He ran out and I missed the attempt
on him with five stalks. If you hadn't come, I'm pretty sure I would have succeeded in my quest. So, who really killed Eck?
It was you. That's a fine start to what I hope will be some new blood where it's much needed.


The Rest:

Volkov: The one time I had enough stalks on you to attempt, you quit out and logged right back in. I'm willing to give you
the benefit of the doubt because it was only that one time, but I never got that many on you again because you're clearly
assassin aware. I know you've been eating the Village, but Eck was not afraid of you whatsoever and our encounters taught
me a few things about fighting Invokers.

Blartlem: Your RP has been improving. It's gone from nonexistent to merely cringeworthy. So, good job, I guess.

Ophid: I'm sorry that I went OOC with you when you asked me about the arena. I was talking with someone in the Village,
sending tells with Allysia, and I could not come up with a way to convey "arena status" as a command and stay in character.


I'm sure there are others, but my brain is fried right now. If you post, I'll get back to you. I had no alt with Eck, so
I've suddenly got a big hole in my free-time time.

Thank you everybody for a great experience.

I'm a bard, so you could talk to me without it being too bad I guess. If I was a mage I think our friendship, if it ever happened, would have led to a smiting. On the other hand, we usually always tried to kill each other when we were next to one another, though neither of us had a good way to kill the other solo (unless resist falls mid fight, vnaish fails, and i get a lucky apocalyptic) so on the sea I thought it would be fun to speak in person for a change. And I'm sure you were thinking to yourself some point in there she's completely unprepped, trip her now!

Of course, I don't think many villagers knew how often we actually spoke, or they might have been annoyed with you, but yes, once I took that edge (solely because of you) we got a lot more chances to interact. You were sort of my insight into the village, cause most of the others really don't give me the time of the day beyond bash/cranial/knockout/pincer/flurry things. And rightfully so I guess, me being a Nexun they all are pretty much obligated to hate my magic loving self.

And congrats on a 400 hour arial villager, that can't be easy, even as an assassain.

I think Eck was one of the top ten longest lived non-leader Villagers. I think with leader con I could have age-died.

And shhhh. This is a secret, but when I was devising Eck I was using Susubienko's PBF as an inspiration for edges and what not. I ended up taking a different tack, but as far as assassinatey Village assassins, she's the gold standard.

Eck was such a class act villager. He fit the mold of what a Villager should be and late in life decided his ultimate sacrifice would be contributing to the rest of the Village. Don't get me wrong, the village needs it right now. There are some solid attempts at RP but the ability to PK is lacking.

I'm almost convinced a number of the villagers haven't even made an attempt to read the Plaque, which leads me to consider a revision of it to clarify a few things.

With how proficient you had become at assassinating, I had to consider whether it was luck or pure skill. You had a difficult last task but with the right combination of both you would have succeeded. In fact, I watched you shortly afterwards and you really had two great opportunities that somehow were missed.

I did not realize this was the player it was because in some interactions you seemed unsure of yourself. Your interactions with the current quest had me extremely excited though because I felt you could fill a void that had been opened up by a previous quest participant that went inactive. Oh the immteraction had you succeeded!

I'm being a little more particular about giving out the tat these days but still working to enhance the experience of player factions. I hope you really enjoyed your time in the Village.

Excellent job.

Not pillar worthy but he really lead the curve regarding Battle.

n/t

I figured that bringing up Homard when we were talking about the spider was a wink and a nudge.

I feel like since Macaca I've been trying to flesh out the "magic as a personal infection" role. I totally succeeded with Homard, so I don't know why I was drawn to use it again, except that I wasn't really expecting much from Eck as a character.

Re: The Plaque: I've had six Villagers, most of whom were inducted by very notable Commanders (Woldrun and Malakhi among them) and each time they've been told to study The Plaque. Every person I inducted was shown The Plaque (because do what Woldrun did is a pretty good rule to follow, in my opinion) and there were a few new inductions who Ghrim and Flaaayin passed off to me to show around. I made sure to show them each The Plaque (though I think I forgot to show one of them The Book.)

I can't say what's going on with some of these guys, but you know better than me. You have wizinvis, I only had hide, but I saw plenty of stuff that made me cringe.

I wish I'd succeeded against Blart and seen where we were going with the conspiracy, but you can't have everything (where would you put it?).

I appreciate your words and I had a great time in The Village. I always do. My goal is to eventually get onto the Pillar.

Thanks so much.

From what I saw, I liked. I only had a few times to really speak with you but I enjoyed each one. From what I remember of you usually put out some good quality characters and I think we all appreciate that.

Good job and thanks for being an asset to our little part of the world!

I really liked Eck..

normally I am not too keen on those who hide in shadows, but you truly
caused mayhem when you were around, and you werent afraid to jump on magistrates in the city, which Balta loved...


That one time I killed you in the shadow grove, I truly did think you were a nexan, I had only seen you from the sky a handful of times and you were ALWAYS on the nexan island... I didn't even think of you being a villager raiding, I just figured you were a nexan... so after we spoke it out a bit, I never hunted you again...


and I was glad to see you that time at the tree when Hajo raided, and I woke during the raid... well needless to say after I awoke, no more aid was needed ;)

and as far as me being beastly... sometimes, other time I get whooped up just like everyone else, its all about picking the right times to fight...


GLWYN

Balta

If I had known you were on your last, I might have held back on that raid, since it was two deaths so soon to one another. Though the first should never have happened, for the reason you said. That was odd to me I admit, and we came for the head because, well, seemed like the right thing to do and I thought we could end it before you regained. Same mistake you all made with me. ;)

I wrote the note as you wished. It was truly enjoyable everytime you were on. With out a doubt my favorite villager.
You were an intelligent foe, one who always kept me on my toes especially after you assassinated me twice in my youth. :)

...would have been fun to see how that all turned out.

One of my favorite villagers ever. I loved giving you certain tasks (like with Ssii) because I knew you'd totally dive into them with your RP and such.

Very dependable in fights. You were a great scout and someone all scouts should have looked up to. Even I didn't know Truesight did that (I was thinking it was an edge) until your note.

Good luck with your next.

What was up with that post-con-death RP with Nexus? Admittedly I never
read your role or watched you at all, so maybe it's all in there, but it seemed
a little strange from an outsider's point of view.