Overall:
I quit CF a year ago almost to the day. I was getting married and starting law school, and I knew I wouldn't have the time to play without screwing up my life. But I promised myself that if I managed to get straight A's in my first year, I would allow myself to play a character over the Summer. And damn me, I did it. I actually just got word I'm transferring to Boalt, which is a dream come true. (that's it for the self congratulation, I promise). I have like three "to do" character concepts, and Faeras had a role that I wanted to play for a while. Classes begin in under a month, and I'm leaving for a vacation in under a week, so unfortunately it's time to leave CF again.

That all being said, I WILL NEVER PLAY ANOTHER FELAR. 42-46 was a living Hell of paranoia brought about by one particular Warlock Imm. The first few times I died to his immolation, I was tempted to delete. The next several times, though, I got used to the feeling. The only thing that kept me from deleting and re-rolling a power character was the thought of having to move through the echelons again.

Goal:
I really wanted to focus on roleplay with this character and not focus so much on the cabal "give and take item" or Pking factors. I also knew that, at most, I could play an hour or two a day. I was hoping to just "fly under the radar" and maybe advance to a couple of cool cabal powers, but just support whoever was leading the sect. Initially, I was pretty successful with roleplaying, but my intended character arc was crushed by the realities of having to be a cabal leader, and at times I would play for six hours straight.

Faeras is only my second evil-align hero, period, and I'm still new to the roleplay, so I was probably too understanding in a lot of situations, as well. For some reason my evil aligns end up as distant. It also affected my raiding strategy because I loved raiding the Fortress (having spent a lot of time there) and could have cared less about the Sylvan/Warlocks (raiding those was just busy work).

Philosophy towards Empire:
I never wanted to lead the sect, but everyone went and deleted on me so that I didn't have much of a choice. It's hard for me to muster up the IC ambition to lead a cabal when I know all the responsibilities that come along with it. Power = Having to sit and listen to some guy spout helpfiles at you and ruin his day. My plan was to organize things the way my wife organizes her classroom. She's the only teacher in her school that never gives a detention and never sends a student to the office. After realizing how utterly miserable it was to be stuck at a low echelon while others advanced past me, I thought that leaving someone at the same echelon was enough of an encouragement without using the Anathema button. I could use positive reinforcement. It worked OK. The Blade greatly increased in firepower and donations, and the echelon system seemed to be grinding its gears and working.

Unfortunately, later on I realized that that type of leadership doesn't really fit the Empire. For that matter, my role didn't quite mesh with a good Imperial. I probably unintentionally killed a lot of roleplaying opportunities with that style.

Also, I think I somewhat "betrayed" the Sect by my lack of motivation to go for Emperor. I knew I had to quit in under a month, I knew I couldn't play any more than I already was, and I knew it wouldn't be fair to take on the responsibility. I also knew that Astilamos, the only original sect leader left, was a "straight shooter" in that he would be predictable and not just randomly Anathema sect leaders, so I felt pretty safe lying low and not pushing for Emperor. It wasn't until Hukalon mentioned it to me a couple of days before Astilamos was chosen that I understood I had an additional responsibility as a sect leader to push for Emperor, and I started to, but it was too little too late. It's only disappointing because as a whole, the Blade worked their butts off, and I didn?t meet my end of the bargain.