I have the patience of a small child, so I don't feel like waiting three days or a week or however long it is. So, let's get this over with.

Haw haw, what a bloody ride!

I came back to CF after a few years away, and started off by playing Fortress characters. I got two to hero in rapid succession, becoming bored quickly and letting them fade into obscurity and autodeletion. It didn't take me long to realize my problem: I'd get a nice set of elite shinies, then balk at the idea of getting into a fight and losing it all. Everyone's got their own playing style, and some people can manage that sort of character just fine, but it sure didn't seem to work for me.

So I rolled Hamashor, expressly in order to cure myself of my fear of death. I made it my goal to learn to die and be re-geared adequately before unghosting, to do nothing BUT take chances, and ultimately to die from loss of con. Judged by those criteria, Hamashor was mostly a success. Unfortunately, he wore me out before I could wear him out, and con death was another 30 losses away or so.

I again zipped up to hero as quickly as possible, reasoning that a low- to mid-range warrior's ability to simply overpower any opposition was not what I was after. It would sort of defeat the purpose. I decided to become a berserker, and to follow Ordasen. The "fight and win, fight and die, fight against any odds, it doesn't matter who wins, just so long as you're fighting" mentality worked well for me. I wanted to roleplay the perfect berserker. Normally, when I log on and I'm surrounded by gank crews, I tread lightly... go gather some gear, lurk around trying to catch someone alone and off guard, maybe head to a shrine and pray for a while. I fought off that instinct with Hamashor, and dove at people head on. Three Tribunals in Galadon, one of whom is a mage hiding in his guild? Go for it! A warrior, invoker, and healer taunting me, trying to get me to come and fight them when I obviously have no chance? Why the hell not! Three fire giant warriors sitting behind shrouded centurions, with healer backup? Woohoo! A shapeshifter with two paladins who absolutely would not touch me unless I attacked, at which point they'd begin shield bashing and hitting me with evil, nasty divine weapons? Bring it on! Et cetera. The easiest way to kill Hamashor was to put together a group, get ready, and tell him where you were. He'd come, and die. That's just who he was.

Boy, was this a hard character for me to play. I'd hardly ever flee, reasoning that so long as I was standing and swinging weapons, I had no business running away. That led to a lot of deaths. Coupled with my spec/legacy choices, which gave me fairly little finishing capability, I imagine my PK ratio is kinda pathetic. But that's fine with me. Next character, I'll know how to deal with death, and Hamashor will have served his purpose. I hope his attitude made an impression on the groups who slaughtered him miserably, and that he put the Fear of God into those who fought him solo and managed to slip away.

Individual farewells: (STANDARD DISCLAIMER: I cannot possibly give a shout out to everyone at this exact moment, but I have not forgotten anyone. So if you'd like to hear what Hamashor thought of you, reply and I'll tell you.)

VILLAGE:

I love Battle. I think I'm going to become one of those career ragers.

Ordasen: Your religion was the driving force behind Hamashor's roleplay, once I realized it existed. I got to a point where I felt Hamashor wouldn't be embarrassed to ask for your tattoo (despite the fact that I rolled with sphere Combat before you appeared, and was hoping you wouldn't mind that too much) and started looking for you. Found your shrine, prayed several times nightly. Had a hell of a time meeting with you, but then I finally did. You seemed to want to cut to the chase, so I asked whether I was worthy to enter your halls. You told me you didn't have time to talk about tattoos just then, which I appreciated, but that you would be watching me and I'd hear from you. And then I never heard from you. How depressing.

Jinroh: You were a truly excellent leader. After a while, I started to wonder when you'd get fed up and delete, but you never did. You spent so much time patiently interviewing applicants, and yet you were always there to beat back a raid or jump on a pile to help an outnumbered brother-in-arms. And as a warrior, you really whomped some serious ass. I only fought a couple dagger specs, but they'd cut me up so badly I couldn't wear any weapons within the first three rounds. Not to mention the copious bleeding. I think what I'm trying to say is, I'm damn glad you were on my side. You said something at my induction that had me desperate not to delete, not to disappoint you... but then the other night, you said some things to me that made me introspective. I don't want you to feel like you're responsible for me deleting or something, but the fact is I suddenly found myself wondering whether I was still playing a balls-out, do-or-die berserker, or just some cloud giant with a death wish.

Olofo: As a berserker, I obviously couldn't be running around ganking people with you, so I hope you never took offense all those times I'd sneak off to hunt while you were sleeping. It sure would have been fun, though. Bards are great to hang out with, and the village's lone tool against all the healers, arcanes, invokers, and pills and potions that buff up non-rager fighters. I had a great time with you, and I think together we could basically take down nearly any mob we needed to. Which comes in handy when you spend as much time re-gearing as the two of us did.

Stefanie: God, was I ever sorry when I led you into the snow worm lair. And then I did it AGAIN in the Whitecloak Encampment. I felt like such an utter tool. You handled both occasions very well, though, which made me glad. You were always so cheerful. Such a brave lady, too. Almost as crazy as Hamashor.

Fhinsdry: Damn, but you took a while to hero, man. Heh. Village can never have too many bards, though. And two isn't even enough. Most of what I said to Olofo applies to you, too. Except I saw him a lot more, so we hung out a lot more. You were pretty cool, though. It was your notes to all that "inspired" Hamashor to join Battle.

Vargal: Another guy I wish I'd seen more of. Two axe specs pincering in alternate rounds are just about the only way to bring some uber-protected invokers down. And then if he goes and puts up shield of ice instead, we switch to cranial and crushing blow. It's perfect! But it never worked out, because we were hardly ever on at the same time. Ah well. Not many opportunities for two berserkers to jump in the same fight anyway. Sorry about that one time in the quicksand outside the chasm; I thought you'd gotten stuck, so I doubled back... and got you stuck.

Elijsie: I think, at first, you really disliked me. I knew why, too. At least, I thought so. I tended to take ridiculous risks, and to act without regard for my or anyone's safety. That was the role I'd chosen for myself, so I figured I'd just have to deal with your seething hatred, and we'd have a grand old time shooting acidic barbs at each other. You seemed to come to accept me eventually, though. I was glad, but also a little sad that we wouldn't have that opportunity. You also took a long time to hero, partly because every time we got you rolling someone would have to leave. Dammit.

Ayik: I could see what you were trying to do, and I appreciated it... but Hamashor was truly annoyed by you, prior to your being booted from the village. Don't take offense; he was annoyed from time to time by anybody smarter than him (which was nearly everybody). When you managed to claw your way back in, though, Hamashor and I were both impressed. Then when you commenced ordering people around as though nothing had changed, we were both more than a little irritated. But that was your gig. Your "attempts at humor" were made all the more hilarious by their tendency to be met with long silences, and your confused comments afterward. Heh. (I did sort of start to feel like I was interacting with Data from Star Trek, though.)

Narej, Sammie, and all the other lowbies: Keep it up.

PALACE:

Blitzenturt: I always thought we were fairly well matched. Stoneskin vs. resist; unblockable fist/trapping chops and chargesets vs. deathblow; fire vs. cloud. Try as I might, however, I could almost never get you to stick around. I eventually came to accept that that was simply the difference between an Imperial warrior's mindset and a berserker's mindset... I charge in and slug it out, only fleeing as a very, very last resort, while you flee unless you gauge a high probability of success for yourself. It's a pity, though, we could have had a lot of close, fun fights. I started to get a little bitter as a player, when I couldn't get you to stand and fight unless I was trying to solo retrieve the head, in which case you were only too happy to stand behind centurions and spam-kill me. I didn't let it affect Hamashor, though... he just kept coming, thoughtlessly banging away, getting angrier but never complaining. That last fight we had on the Osendrelle Fields was probably the best. Anyway, it did occur to me that while it was hard to get you to stick around, at least I found you alone fairly often -- you're the only hero imperial around a LOT.

Gulthruck: Not much to say other than that the time you caught me in that Mortorn summon trap, I realized what was going on the very instant I'd gone in too far. And I've never felt quite so owned. I felt pretty stupid, too, when I came back as a ghost and realized there were two hidden, unlocked doors in that room. Time to re-learn Mortorn!

Grottimgesh: Again, not much to say aside from that I've probably never seen a warrior so prepared to fight. If I were to play a non-rager warrior at this point, I would have no luck at all. I don't know where to find enough preps to compete with the likes of you. Hell, Hamashor didn't really compete with you either, the few times we fought, but you always seemed to catch him with a group, when he was half naked. So I don't feel too bad about that.

SPIRE:

Lemath: Probably Hamashor's favorite mage, if he had to grudgingly name a favorite, because you were always willing to have a good rumble. Granted, you were willing to have a rumble because you had the Invincible Bloody Lemur as a form, which Hamashor could not touch, but he still enjoyed fighting. Catching you out of form was such a rare treat that I had to take advantage whenever I could. We had some good conversations, too.

Gjourriec: Man, you packed a punch in that first duel. Don't think Hamashor didn't realize how you did it, though. I'm assuming you were hasted and stoneskinned and all prepped out the ass for that one. That's why he fled and feigned ignorance, asking you how you'd beaten him so badly (to which you replied that you were "too modest a fighter" to admit it). The second duel, he was ready for you, having assumed a certain level of preparedness. And happily, for me, it went a little better. Hamashor did respect you a great deal, despite his suspicions.

Kaplanov: We had quite a few fights, and one good long conversation regarding the tenuous village/spire treaty. Hamashor was trying to explain, with his tiny brain and choppy speech, that he felt entering the Spire to fight as a matter of honor would prove his point. He was incorrect in this, and being bullheaded about it, but that's just who he was. He liked you just fine, except for the fact that you never seemed to die, and always seemed to have a sea of Galadon cityguards flitting around you like electrons.

FORTRESS:

Nhiala: I appreciated that you seemed to understand Hamashor... you never bothered to demand to know why he'd jumped on a Fortress mage, you asked politely why he'd killed a seemingly-innocent and now-enraged paladin, and you never jumped in on his fights, when you must have known that your involvement would have easily ended things. A good Fortress leader, from what I could observe. And now a deserving heroimm.

Tulvaluthian: We had some great brawls. I don't recall either of us ever conclusively winning. I had a much harder time with invokers in Scion, just because of those damn aggro Nightwalkers, but I think you were probably one of the most competent ones I fought. We also had a couple good conversations. I hope I adequately conveyed Hamashor's motivation through his bloody limited bloody vocabula-whatsit.

CHASM:

I'm not sure what to say to you guys. I'd guess some people will come to the conclusion that I deleted because I was fed up with the massive Scion gangs of the last week or so, but that's really not the case. Gangs come and go, and Hamashor would've survived and come out the other end to find things the way they were before. But regarding you fellas... no offense intended at all, but you were one big blurry ball of gank to me. An exchange of words was very rarely forthcoming, and fights were generally conducted X-on-1 (where X is more than 1). Not that there's any reason you should have done anything differently, but your behavior did tend to sort of homogenize you. There were a couple who were occasionally willing to fight alone, and I appreciated it.

Zavin: Arial invoker in Scion, wearing the Stoneform amulet... where have I seen this before? Ah yes, Kwalin, and it sucked ass then too. You were tough as hell. Especially with Pyarima around.

Kungkruk: Between my experiences with you and having seen your logs on Dio's, I've come to the conclusion that you know something about disembowel that I don't. I never managed to land one on a player, despite having it at 100%.

Dralyth and Rohasden: Hamashor was impressed by your tenacity. And I was amazed by the little drow arcane muter who would pop out of two dimensions to raid or defend, because he felt it was worth it to try. I'm glad there are people like you.


Deleting Hamashor is like having your pet dog die. All he really ever did was piss on the rug, wake you up in the middle of the night barking, and scare the crap out of houseguests, but you miss him anyway, because he was a big dumb dope who liked you well enough. But I'm glad to have deleted while there was still some enjoyment left, rather than when it had all drained away. As I said on Dio's char board, this kind of character is an incredibly high-octane way to play the game. I hope I effectively showed Hamashor shrugging off his deaths -- but believe you me, I felt every single one.

Well, we fought quite a few times Ham, and every time was a blast. If youre life goal was to piss off the Spire, you did it with style and grace lol. Nice char buddy.

It was my OOC goal to treat the Spire with utter disregard. Not necessarily its members -- as you and Gjourriec and Lemath can attest, I liked you guys well enough -- but when it came to (WANTED) flags and treating the cities as hallowed ground (or dangerous ground), I'd have none of it. Hamashor just blitzed right through doing whatever he was doing on Eastern a couple seconds earlier. If he got flagged, he just shrugged and jumped the nearest Tribunal, hoping for a good fight. I never once complained about a flag, that I can recall.

This stuff was some of the hardest for me... because no matter how you look at it, unless you intend to live forever, a (WANTED) flag is a guaranteed death. And usually a miserable gangbang-style death including manacles to prevent escape and a dozen mobs or so, loss of experience, and no hope for a return of any gear. But if you can get past that, it's just business.

>Gulthruck: Not much to say other than that the time you
>caught me in that Mortorn summon trap, I realized what was
>going on the very instant I'd gone in too far. And I've never
>felt quite so owned. I felt pretty stupid, too, when I came
>back as a ghost and realized there were two hidden, unlocked
>doors in that room. Time to re-learn Mortorn!

I was running into Mortorn to look for some gear, and I saw you and Olofo. Looked like you followed me from the Ruined City all the way there, so I ran down to a spot with hidden doors, and hoped for the best. Don't feel too bad...Olofo died the exact same way. That was back when I had the big burly weapon, it made alot of the killing easy.

Good luck with the next.

I really wish you hadn't done that.
for many reasons.
#1 I regret getting the
last hit in as well, as i didn't want to
harm you at all.
#2 my gf demanded my attention from the other room
i was in a pretty defensive form and i figured
maybe you wouldn't come at me with the pallys
(little did i know of your mentality - which ooc
very cool, need more of it in the game)
came back and you just kept slamming into us like beating
yourself to death against a rock.
thought you'd go off to heal and come back when i was alone.
wicked brave though. every time i saw you you came charging
in like mean drunk. no matter what was going on.

That "mean drunk" stuff really drains you, too.

I felt almost sorry that one time I found you in the imperial lands and killed your hare with a pincer.

Oh, and the log on Dio's of Hamashor's "final moments"... I wouldn't have attacked Rouchevien if I hadn't still had something to prove, after him beating on me in that fight with you. So, you were (really really indirectly) responsible for Hamashor's last death!

I remember someone telling me villagers were on the way and would likely lend a hand so i had better get out, or something like that.
then i saw you down the road and was trying to get to a place i could
turn off to the side and have a little time to revert (when you have a bunch of maledictions on you it takes forever to shift.)
It was just a race i lost.
How could you slay that cute little bunny like that???

Well after that 1 instance I did hate you IC, but I knew OOC the perfect reasoning for it. My most memorable experience was you and me sitting above the Market Square in Hamsah plotting how to jump Traba and some other guy, and we utterly failed . I really liked Hamashor towards the end of his life IC, because you basically would knock people down and raise hell constantly. Im sure ill become a Dai Sensai soon enough as Fate blesses me with it. Good luck with the next, but damn this is a blow to the Village

Yup, I'll be back in the village soon enough. It was just too much fun not to give it another go.

And I remember that fight too. It was Traba and Drothan. I had like four typos trying to type "dash d dirt drot"

Or a bit of both. The two fights were fun. The first fight I had stone skin/forceshield/haste and the second fight I had only stoneskin which fell in between the fight and your MANGLES turned to DEMOLISH/DEVASTATES. Having unspeak parting blows sucks. But good job. Willingness to fight one on one is cool, even though you know you are more likely to win than loose. Still, good job with you rp, was coo. Haw haw. G'luck fer tah next, bub.


Gjourriec Gaklakdindrum, Filthy Hammer of the Frozen North.

"Knowing you're more likely to win than lose" is NEVER a given with a rager. That's what I like about Battle. Every fight is a gamble. Hopefully that's what people liked about fighting Hamashor, too.

And I hope you have more luck finding Ordasen than I did, assuming that's what you're going for (which appears to be a fairly safe assumption).

Lots of people think my one on one fights means I am a Ordasen follower, which I'm not. Though I'm sure there is something about my rp that makes others believe that. I've gotten a lot of 'You follow Ordasen ?'. Anyways. Maybe leave me an email adress ? I got a question or two or Ordasen's religion. Do well.


Giantofvirtue

Well, I thought I had you pegged based on your attitude toward fighting and the whole "giants from the frozen north" thing. I'm not sure I'm the guy to ask about Ordasen's religion, at any rate... Hamashor's role was based completely on Ordasen's helpfile and the role of Battle Berserker. I never got to interact with Ordasen himself, really. If you really want my input, though, reach me at hamashor@hotmail.com.

I was looking forward to some more time with you around. We near had Zavin that one time, despite the quicksand, but I messed up and he got away.

You're going to be missed my friend, but I guess this makes Vargal one of only two hero 'zerkers now. I'm going to have a hell of a time trying to fill your shoes.

Good luck with the next man,

I know I'll see you back in the Village.

It was a lot of fun running around with another hero berserker, I gotta say. Two guys dealing out an UNSPEAK every round or two made raids real quick. My BIGGEST regret is that I'm not going to get to take part in Jinroh's stated plans for the future...

Hamashor was a great berserker, through and through. Your way of speaking, your courage and your ability to actually kill people all display a true Villager. Great work. Ayik IC doesn't "like" anyone, but he trusted you in battle (which means alot, believe me). I thought you were competent and some of the #### that came out of your mouth just made me laugh my ass off. Though you will be missed, if you happen to make another Villager I'm sure he/she'd be just as good as Hamashor. Keep it up, great work and welcome to the Village (?).

Ayik states that he will notice your departure.

I had a few villagers way back in the day, but this was my first Battle hero. And by far the most fun of all my Battle characters. Yes, I'll be back... Glad I could entertain you and gain your character's trust.

"Tulvaluthian: We had some great brawls. I don't recall either of us ever conclusively winning. I had a much harder time with invokers in Scion, just because of those damn aggro Nightwalkers, but I think you were probably one of the most competent ones I fought. We also had a couple good conversations. I hope I adequately conveyed Hamashor's motivation through his bloody limited bloody vocabula-whatsit."

Yeah we sure had some nice fights, but no one really won. That time you were chasing me inside the Scarab cabal I was so confused, I had to word as shields dropped just as you walked in the room. Loved our fights, loved our talks, good luck with the next man.

I almost posted the log of that fight in the old Scarab cabal, but I was probably just as confused as you were. A log of two confused people hacking bits off each other is kind of hard to follow.