Wed Mar 3 23:59:32 2004


At 11 o'clock AM, Day of Deception, 16th of the Month of the Sun
on the Theran calendar Mairra perished, never to return.

Well it seems I should have just reactivated and deleted again, because now that a week has gone by I hardly remember all of the things I was going to say. But here goes...

Mairra was my first serious character since Llauriele, and with her I wanted to accomplish some of the things I first intended to go about doing with Llauriele before I got into the whole Talia thing. Namely, I wanted to join Sylvan and be a greater part of the cabal politics and wars. In other words, to be actively fighting a lot, and be cabaled. I chose to play a bard because I hadn;t played one since slightly after they lost the ability to charm, and the last one I had was in Entropy and had dopple. So I guess it's been a while. They are a great class, and Frightful Fiend looked like a lot of fun. I have always been a dismal PKer, and in fact with all of the years I have been playing off and on had not landed a single solo PK ever until just recently, when I played a character named Iraia (lowbie ranger of little account). Boy this is already getting off track. In short my goals for Mairra were: Be cabaled, fight a lot, kill people (and preferably not die much, but that was secondary).

But it was not to be. The day after I sent my note to Sylvan, the cabal was wiped out. I was there to watch it go, and wrote a poem about it. At that point I had a choice: Continue the Sylvan RP, or go a different direction. I chose the weakest possible rout, admittedly. I didn;t have the patience to roleplay a sylvan with no cabal around, partially because I was playing a class that would get eaten alive in the wilderness... but mostly it was just lazy RP. I'm not too proud to admit that. I decided that since I already had the character rolled and halfway to hero, I might as well keep going and get a feel for the class and see where it took me. My goal for the character became very simple. I vowed to age or con death this one as I had never done that with any character. You can see how that worked out.

I had the chance to join the Fortress, but at basically the same time Outlander popped up. Because of my sloppy RP and mixed messages, I really SHOULD'T have joined either. But I wanted to try the new cabal. So, I hoped I could talk my way back into the role I originally planned for Mairra. And it almost worked, in fact would have had I not been impatient. I could't join Outlander right away since I had spent too much time in the cities throughout my life, so I had to make up for that by hanging out in the woods as much as possible. I found this out when my character was 200 hours old. At 258 hours, I was told it was still not enough time. 58 hours... well that did it for me really. I began thinking about how I could have rolled and heroed a new character in that amount of time, one who had never wavered from their intended path as Mairra did. And after becoming a bit more familiar with the Outlander powers, I'm not sure I would have chosen an elven bard to join anyway (at least not as my first Outlander in such a young cabal with so few members). Anyway, long story short... I had a better idea for a character and saw no reason to torture myself any longer with this one.

Overall, I think I did a good job as a bard. Nothing terrific or anything, but not bad. In a group I was always on top of things, and even though SOME of my groupmates felt they had to tell me what to sing and when, it was never because they actually did had to. Some people are just control freaks. In fact that is my biggest pet peeve in this game, is people who tell you when to use your skills, spells, or powers. Let people fall on their face if they are going to, and if you are always nagging everyone you will never know who you can actually trust! But I digress. PK-wise... well, I had my moments. I can;t say I ever had a single solo kill that didn;t rely almost completely upon Frightful Fiend. And that just isn;t impressive in any way, to me at least.

On to goodbyes:

Immortals:

Amaranthe- Thank you for every bit of interaction you gave me, it was always a joy. I have great respect for all of the immortals, but you showed great patience with me that others might not have. I'm sorry if you feel like you wasted any time speaking with me since I deleted right afterward, but believe me it was not wasted. I took away much from this character, and a lot of it was a direct result of our talks.

Lyristeon- You seem like a fun immortal. I only really spoke with you twice, but I enjoyed it both times. I'm sorry if I insinuated at the Inn that you were too predicatable to be truly chaotic (if you even remember the comment), but it was nothing personal. I am hoping that in the near future people will join the Outlanders with the chaotic aspect in mind more than just the forest guardian mumbojumbo that so many people seem fond of. I miss Entropy, but you are like a slice of Entropy served fresh and ready for all to partake of. Cheesy enough for you?

Mortals (chronologically):

Icliob- I loved Icliob so much, and was really depressed when you deleted. First off, we had such a fun time in the mausoleum braving death and making it out. Secondly, it is rare to see a dwarf roleplay the "typical" dwarf so affectively. Usually I just want to tell the person to shut up already, but you were so much better than that. I wish I rememberd the name of that shifter we were with in the maus, but I am drawing a blank. Thank you to you too, whoever you were, for the fun time.

Bobbobimb- When I first got to know you, I thought you were maybe one of those elite CF types because you seemed pretty tough, knew your way around, had good equipment, were cabaled, etc. Time told the truth however, and you were just as lost as I was throughout most of your life. Well, much moreso I guess. But despite that, I did have a good time with you almost always. I knew that deleting would pretty much ensure your deletion as well, but it was all for the best. Focusing your character on another character is not really a good idea in CF, for many reasons.

Joycelyn- You kept telling everyone I was a Herald, which amused me to no end. I don;t know if you actually thought I was one or if it just made you laugh to tell everyone. Anyway, I liked you a lot and I think you could have gone farther. But I certainly respect your decision to move on.

Daemar- Of all the tribunals, you are by far the coolest. You were my friend from early on, when we got killed by Gahlerikath in the arial city. Bad roleplay on my part, of course, since I claimed to uphold the Sylvan beliefs. But your roleplay, on the other hand, is solid as a rock. I hope you go very far.

Gahlerikath- I was so happy when you deleted. I didn;t fight a single foe since then that could kill me so affectively, including Grurk.

Njaal- I hope you liked my song, out of character I mean. You never did get to kill me for it.

Nilki- Another friend from early on. Sorry I turned traitor on you. Another shining example of inconsistent roleplay from me. You were a great ally, and a scary enemy. Minotaurs can kill bards sooo easily. The fact that you never did kill me is only a testement to my ability to run away. And I never thought you were a coward or any of the things I said, I was always just trying to lure you into the woods. But you knew that.

Odrirg- I hated you, you self-important, hyporitical, unforgiving, arrogant, ungly little beast. That being said, excellent job being all of those things so consistently that I really hope it's all character choices. And I'm sure it is, so seriously... well done. The insults were all in good fun. The first time you rotted me was the first time I was ever rotted. I didn;t even realize I was going to die until someone pointed it out, and I barely had enough time to recall before I keeled over. After that I searched high and low for some way to counter rot, but there really doesn;t seem to be a way to. Healing sleep, obviously, but if there are no healers around who are willing to babysit you you are screwed. And as an elf with my low con (I had 11 at the time) I would have had to carry 15 points in con gear or scrolls? Not realistic to say the least. Anyway, scary scary stuff. I never wanted to fight you again after that.

Grurk- I made it my goal in life to kill you. Just once would have made me happy. I had several opportunites to do so, and fouled them all up. And every other time we fought I had no chance. My biggest victory over you was telling you I had protection against your bashing to make you paranoid enough to reduce before fighting me every time after. I never had protection from your bashing, just a bluff. And then I got to flee from the fights at least. Not that it helped me. Oh and Bloody Manacles.. ouch.

Outlanders- Well I didn't meet many of you, and those I did only briefly. I didn't want to say anything negative about anyone in particular in this post, so I won't. But some of you need to type "help alignment" and read that, and most of you seem very lacking in courage. I know the cabal is new and the membership is thin, but I would expect the charter members to be a bit more aggressive. I will, however, say something positive about someone inparticular. Andrlos, you seem very cool, very different, and I hope you go very far.

Anyone else? PLEASE respond and I'll say something. The time is very late and I need to go to sleep.


Final thoughts:

Bards are great fun, but they can be frustrating. Two of your best songs are also the two which rely almost entirely upon random chance, and those are 'Fire and Ice' and 'Frightful Fiend'. This is both fun and annoying at the same time. It gives the class a sort of lottory aspect to the PKs, if that makes any sense. Overall, I'd say that bards are one of the greatest classes in the game. Their ability to use both scrolls and staves could make them unstoppable in the hands of a very knowledable player (not me).

Okay, I need sleep. Goodbye... we WILL meet again.


Cynthia

(Zanya, Llauriele, Mystrel, Iraia, Mairra, more to come)

Was sad to see you delete, I was really hoping you would have become one of the outlanders. Being alone was something I was used to, but with the capabilities I had at that moment, a bard would really have helped out. And when I did speak with you it was mostly related to hunting.

But as for courage in the outlanders, Im not going to state the number of players, but suffice to say there are not many. Yet atleast. And I do not think its a courage thing. Atleast it was not in my eyes.

I hope you will be more satisfied with your next char.

I'm sure I would have been good for the cabal, skill-wise. bards are immensely useful especially in raid situations.

As far as courage goes, I remember times when there was only one or two Tribunals around and at least one Outlander and me, so that's even odds or better. Yet they would never try to retrieve, and I couldn't do it alone not being in the cabal and all. So anyway, just my perception of things, and I could be wrong. I just hope that some time soon the Outlanders are far more of an in-you-face cabal, be it by attacking the Tribunals and Empire (in the cities, not just in the woods) or simply spreading the word. Right now they are practically just a rumor in Thera.

There's not much to say here that I didn't say in our last talk before you deleted. I'm glad it was helpful in spite of your decision to delete.

I really did actually *want* to see you become an Outlander, mostly because of your role in the opening quest, but also because I thought you were a potentially good addition to the more benevolent side of the cabal, which is presently underrepresented. Your lack of wilderness time was the biggest obstacle, but your floundering as you tried to shift your role into the Outlander perspective didn't help. Admittedly, I understood where some of your confusion was coming from, but I also think some of it was just a sincere lack of direction on your part. Also, your choice of Bobbobimb as a frequent companion probably didn't help you aquire any firmness of conviction, and may have even contributed to your lack of direction. But, you two seemed to be having fun together, so don't waste any energy on regret. Likewise, I don't consider my time with you a 'waste'. In spite of my criticisms I did enjoy interacting with you, and if you learned something from me, all the better.

Have fun and good luck with your next.

I certainly admit to some lack of direction with this character. However, when I was told I had to spend more time within the wold to be inducted my first thought was, no problem I had been meaning to master all of my useful songs anyway. So when you critisized me for being "idle" I was a bit confused. After all, practicing songs as a bard is just.. a good idea. Plus, I had been hunted by the Tribunal more than most of the actual Outlanders, and hadn;t really backed down from a fight. Oh well. Of course my choice of places to do so was foolish, but live and learn. Overall I regret a lot with this character, but little about her later life. Just wish I had stuck with my original role after the destruction of Sylvan.

I hoped you would pull through and make it.

I wish I could have, but over 50 hours of waiting with no end in sight... well, suffice to say my next character will be better anyway. So don;t lose any sleep over this.

Well, as a Cloud Giant I have to say, I am always worried
when I know there is a bard running around who wants me dead.

While I am a prep whore, I didn't/don't regularly prep for
resiting mental. I'm just got lucky the couple times we
fought, in that I was pretty much able to bash you until
you were hurt enough for the shackles to do thier job when
you fled. Having said that, I admit there was always a little
tinge of fear when I was chasing you.

Well, good luck with the next!

Grurk

Good to know I inspired a small amount of fear at least, not that I really earned it as far as you were concerned. The only time I ever fiended you was the first time I ever attacked you, and that was just as an annoyance. I had no plans to kill you at that time, you just made me mad when you took away all of the food and drinks I had dropped in Market Square. I was JUST about to sing to the whole town about the picnic in the square and you ruined it, you spoil sport! Other than that, our fights were always incredibly one-sided. I was either perma-lagged and got to watch myself slowly be hacked apart, or you were totally buffed up and I died more swiftly than I would care to admit. And mostly I died to my own stupidity, either not prepping correctly or forgetting to have my teleport potion out of my sack. How embarrassing. Anyway, I was outclassed and outmatched. Well done.

I will admit, for much of my young life I somewhat avoided people like you, for various role reasons I won't go into.

But then we started interacting, when I thought it was clear that I wanted a one-on-one with Bobbo because he had impaled me after I was already fighting a criminal and one other who were being sanced, healed, invoker shielded, and such....then he talked smack about how he whupped my ass...

And during that fight, you come and sing a fiend at me, and a storm giant comes and pincers me. I make it back to town, and promptly die to your fiend. (after that I learned how to better deal with your fiends, and didn't die to them, but it was REALLY close).


Then you went and became an unofficial minister of propaganda for the nihilists and outlanders....

Needless to say, Odrirg didn't like you. At all.

It was very funny for me, to see the differences in our interactions, and in my interactions with another chaotic elf bard that were very amicable. We just had a different kind of give and take. And I guess I will admit, much of my continued animosity to you was not only for the above reasons, but also for your close connection to bobbo, which I won't go into.


In an ooc sense, I consider it a shame that we didn't fight more, really. I found it exhilerating to have the danger of that fiend just around the corner if I slipped up, and I thank you for that.

As for the rot, as a rule, I try to force myself to NEVER expect rots after the first one on someone to work, because there are simple ways of keeping it from working, but I admit that when my second one on you didn't kill you, I was somewhat dissapointed. *wink*

Come back as someone else who can fight me and make times interesting, yeah?

If there is a simple way to avoid it, I never learned it. I was mostly focused on a way to cure it, but never found one aside from healing sleep from a healer. I suppose I could have asked someone, but that would be just too easy. Some people are quick to call rot a "cheap skill" because it requires no skill to use or whatever, but my guess is you are right and it is easy to prevent if you know how, just like Frightful Fiend and nightguants and the countless other things people claim are "cheap."

Whether of not I will come back as someone to fight you, well I just can;t say since I don;t want to be denied. But I bet things will be interesting for all of the Tribunals soon enough, with or without me.

I wished we'd interacted more, I tried to talk to you when I saw you on, but sometimes it was impossible. I really liked your roleplay as we ran to our deaths fighting Gahlerikath and a few other Scions, you were believable and fun to be around. I wish you luck on your next character.

Nims

You are one of the people I always wanted to get to know more for various reasons, but being a ranger sometimes I wouldn;t even see you if you were around, and of course we both had our things we had to do. As for Gahlerikath, you know when you had he and his group snared and I ran in and fiended? How freaking stupid was that? I learned later that you can sleep people who are snared. We might have actually killed him! But instead he hacked us all apart like he did every time to me. Oh well. The guy was a beast, and I'm almost kind of proud that he got so many charges off of me. I have to be proud of something!

and once again thanks for the song
I can't walk through an area with sheep without chuckling.
I'm amazed but it seems i knew almost all the characters
in your list there. liked em all too. and would have never guessed
they were played by the same person. so kudos there.

I try to make my characters as different as possible. But I thought for sure that some people had drawn parallels between Llauriele and Mairra. For some reason I fall into similar character traits every time I play elves, and they are my favorite race. But Mairra was far more of a smart-ass. My little brother used to be really into Spiderman comics when he was little, but he was too young to read them himself. So we used to read them together all the time. One of the things I always liked about Spiderman was how he always had something funny or witty to say no matter what the situation. So that was my basis for Mairra's personality. Sometimes I think I did alright with this, but other times I think I came off as too gloating or foolish. But we all do our best.

I vow that my next character will be the polar oposite of Mairra.

Figured I'd find my way into your goodbye post, considering how many
times I was told by neutral parties that you were out hunting
specifically me, and by all the complaining that you did about my
tactics, and the only time I got you you were practically asking to
die. Oh shucks, guess it wasn't good enough.

You were slippery, got away pretty close to death here and there, as
did I. Forgot if you ever got me. I liked the complaining, guessing it
was RP rather than just being pissed off (since I remember you posting
on another person's goodbye that it was part of her bitchy role). I
liked your character though, wish I would have put on my real evil
face to you, don't think I ever did (though I don't think I was ever
nice in any way).

Anyways, luck to the next,

- Kazadan

How could I forget? I think I fought you more than any other person other than Gahlerikath, although often times it was a package deal with you two. A Scion transmuter is about the perfect combo it seems, and you play one well. No, you never did seem to be as black-as-night evil. In fact, our conversations were always surprisingly civil:

"Wow, you almost got me that time. Better luck next time."

Stuff like that. As to my complaining, it was all a tactic to try to get you to fight me alone rather than summoning all of Scion after you found me. My talk was all an attempt to unneverve my enemy, or make them mad enough to act foolishly. That was one of Mairra's only really affective tactics, sadly enough. It got you to fight me alone and Grurk to reduce before bashing me. And no, I never killed you. The one time you killed me, I was actually hoping to fight a Tribunal since I was wanted and decided to lose the flag. I had no idea how powerful that water elemental I had at the time was, or I may have actually been able to win that fight. But like most things with this character, I would look back after I died or failed in some respect to see what I should have done. And then never got the chance again.

Voebyn was a flirt, but only in the lightest sense, nothing beyond what you'd find in a Friends or Seinfeld episode. Maybe you agree, maybe you don't?

I certainly thought you got an awesome reward for a bard from that quest if it was anything like I thought it sounded like. Me? I'm sort of wondering what would have happened if I'd requested a third legacy, but I stuck with my role.

Voebyn grew to be fond of you (considering you used to be a Sylvan wannabe, and after the Granarg fiascoes) but it was never anything near the lengths Bobbobimb went to. So as was his fashion, he just shrugged and walked off.

It wasn't in his nature to go and turn my back on the law heedlessly though, so I wouldn't be an Outlander lackey and therefore broke no laws even after stepping down. Sorry, heheh. In the strictest of OOC senses, I got sick of trying to make align/ethos changes work long ago so I never even considered it.

Well, Voebyn was yet another Tribunal that I spent way too much time around considering my supposed beliefs. But oh well. I found you to be an awesome groupmate, both knowledable and competent in every way. Voebyn's personality, however, was the drawback. I sincerely hope that is not your definition of flirting in real life. But I loved how consistent you were, Voebyn had a reality to his character than most do not achieve.

>Lyristeon- You seem like a fun immortal. I only really spoke with you twice, but I enjoyed it both times. I'm sorry if I insinuated at the Inn that you were too predicatable to be truly chaotic (if you even remember the comment), but it was nothing personal. I am hoping that in the near future people will join the Outlanders with the chaotic aspect in mind more than just the forest guardian mumbojumbo that so many people seem fond of. I miss Entropy, but you are like a slice of Entropy served fresh and ready for all to partake of. Cheesy enough for you?

Those who follow me know what to expect, those who haven't met me are usually surprised by what I am really like when they do. And since you were an elf, you weren't going to get the chance to really know me unless you became an Outlander. The one thing that frustrated me about Mairra was the way you attempted to spend more time in the wilderness. I found it to be very weak at times. You know what I am talking about. As far as role play with others around you, I thought you were very solid. Do not discount a bard for Outlander. Perhaps you didn't see it, but a bard would do extremely well. Good luck on your next.

Of course I know what you are talking about, but at the same time I am not sure I know even now what I was expected to do. I spent over 50 hours attempting to get my wilderness time up, and it still wasn't enough. What I really wanted to be doing was exploring somewhere or fighting the Tribunal or Empire. But I didn;t know of a single wilderness explore area, and the Tribunals never left the city so to fight them I had to leave the wilderness, thus not helping my wilderness time thing. And I rarely saw an Imperial. Also, nobody bats an eye if a warrior spends 30 hours fighting mobs to get his skills up, or if an invoker spams spells, but I go to master my songs (and I never did master a capella despite the effort) and suddenly I am being "idle." I'm not mad about it or anything, but it's all a matter of perspective. I saw many things about Mairra as weak, but I'm not sure I would lump my wilderness time into that category.

I am not discounting the benefit of a bard in Outlander at all. In fact, I think they need one and I wish I had been able to be that bard. All I was saying is that, for me as a player, I'm not sure I would have chosen an elven bard. It's mostly due to my lack of game knowledge. I had a bear of a time just gathering food without buying it, and I never did find a way to curse someone without buying scrolls from a city. A bard could be awesome in Outlander, they would just face more challenges than say.. a ranger. Or any other class that doesn't necessarily need as many preps to seal the kill affectively (word of recall being the bane of my existence as a bard). Rambling as usual. But I just think there are certain classes that will have a much easier time in Outlander, and I should stick to those for now until I learn more. That is not to say that the other classes don;t have just as much or greater benefit to the cabal.

.

Splntrd

I misjudged you to start and was sorry I had after only one chance to travel with you. I am sincerely sad that I will not have the chance to learn more about Mairra. Good luck in your next.