I don’t have access to the website atm so am not going back to look up names of chars I have forgotten. After writing this it is very rambling.

I rolled up Baltinar while I still had Grogtar (Fire AP Dread Lord) but was not sure what I was going to do with him. Having a level 17 char made emperor greatly diminished my interest in continuing to face the numbers and losses I was taking with Grogtar. At the time I wanted to delete and roll up a shaman, which is class in the past I was able to navigate long odds with a little better, and grab high priest but I made the mistake of telling people before I was going to delete and letting them talk me out of it. Also I was figuring out the dynamic of pressure to fill council seats so in the end I agreed not to delete Grogtar. I waited to do that until there was an elite black around that could replace them.

Orcs and scions were dominant in my play time usually holding all the cabal items except for the scales because of the great respect for the law both the scions and orcs always have. So my main consideration was coming up with something to try to have some shot against them. Athnelis was active in my time slot and usually trying to do something, and really outlander and Empire (and orcs) are the cabals I have enjoyed the most. I thought an air offense shifter would be my best bet, but I don’t have the patience to solo rank and shifter anymore. I had thought about druid since the empowerment changes and had only played one before so decided on druid. I picked cloud mainly for easier solo ranking but also because I had teleported to the cloud king once and he had the mantle of cloud giants so I thought I could probably snag that later (I never did). HP gains are awful but giant resist is nice. I started liking animal forms more later in Grogtar’s so maybe I got some milage out of massive metamorph as well. (Side note, from what I remember Bully makes tribs very easy to raid for orcs if there was anyone every considering rolling an orc that didn’t respect the law or consider tribs to be a natural ally of the grinning skulls, even though guards block you from Galadon).

Early on the Scions/Orc did still remain pretty dominant but it didn’t last too long. I/we did figure out how to keep from getting picked off and at least defend the fetish (briars at the huntress) and outlander numbers during my play times started increasing. The chancellor died and I assume got looted pretty heavily and they deleted and the cabal situation changed quite a bit. Zograthe was still a beast but losing his summoner made things a little harder. There were ebbs and flows but for the most of the rest of Baltinar’s life outlander was always the biggest and usually, IMHO, the most dominant cabal, which really didn’t have that much to do with me other than I was another char in it.

I live in Hawaii and am often working in various countries in Asia, so I knew my playtimes lining up with Ergush was a roll of the dice (as it is for most of the pantheon) but I thought I would find them occasionally (when I was in Asia I was trying to stay up to get the times to lineup) and did end up getting 3 meetings. I got Empowered around 200 hours and harbingered so I am ok with it. There was not really another imm I thought I might run into more I thought worked well with druid anyway and it was ok without empowerment.

I had kind of ran out of steam at 300 hours. Empire was bottoming out so I kind of wanted to jump in there again but Athnelis had mentioned stepping down so I got interested again at the prospect of harbinger which gave me a bit of a boost in interest. I would say the last 100 hours if I didn’t login and see fights I was interested in I was looking to log off as soon as it seemed ok.

I picked the last name “Long Claw”. I had intended to use bear form a lot more than I did and play up connections to the north more but that didn’t really pan out. I did start using bear form more later in life. It was great in some situations and suicide in others.
It was rare Baltinar faced tough odds so when he did I went out of my way to fight against them. It felt like usually Outlander was the ganging looting cabal with big numbers, so I felt like I needed to keep fighting with the same intensity when it wasn’t.

One thing I found very amusing, at one point Tribunals had been ordered to full loot all outlanders except Baltinar. I mainly found that amusing because the only person in the cabal exempted was the person considered to be it’s most significant leader. Really though, something I really learned during this character, an outlander leader doesn’t really have that much influence over the members unless they are doing something blatantly against the bark. I did un-induct someone over looting my kill but it was more of a mutual thing where at the end of a long conversation they said they should probably go their own way. Admittedly I was probably too anti-loot and should just avoid talking about eq at all.

I spent a lot of time talking to enemies. There was nothing I hated more than waking up to like 4 outlanders and no one to fight, so really my enemies are what determine how much I enjoy the game. I think there were only 2 chars I really didn’t like but they seemed to be universally hated and others seemed to hate them more than me ?. I am forgetting many but some favorite enemies that come to mind are Zograthe, Quillen, Malthis, Shifter who had gargoyle whose name I forgot, Dondonxa, Gozetharg, Tego, and Kallara (even though I never seemed to figure out how to fight you.) My favorite allies were Athnelis, gnome warrior whose name I forgot that was always very impatient and lithrella although our logins didn’t cross much. There was a wood elf warrior who deleted early that I started with I like a lot also. I thought Stremmor should have gotten sunwarden or the recent storm shaman but imms see things I don’t. If I have any regrets with this character it was taking to long to die so Lithrella never got a shot at harbinger.

I don’t have a big sense of accomplishment with this char other than getting Harbinger and making it to 500s hours (I con killed my last druid in under 200 hours). Outlander was already the most powerful cabal so I just didn’t do anything to mess it up. Empire for me is hard mode but I have “Won” a few times on hard more and it is a lot more satisfying, but also a lot more stressful and there were more times I didn’t “Win” than I did. That being said, if I was ranking my chars Baltinar comes in at a solid 4th based on longevity, being my first harbinger, and meaningful interactions (ahead of him are Kraldinor (Fire Shaman Emperor), Xasivus (Human Shifter, Nightreaver), and Jraldar (Frost Shaman Emperor) (side note I wish frost giants lived as long as other giants).

I am burned out on CF right now but have actually have about several things I am interested in trying out although the time investment to reach a point where things seems interesting to me is a bit daunting anymore. I need to figure out how to just be a casual player but usually I am either too interested or not interested at all so that is a bit of a challenge.

Fun character that ran with the pack more IC than OOC which is pretty refreshing for Outlander usually.

Great job.

Thanks! I actually don't really keep up with anyone playing now out of the game although i do recognize all the old names if that was what the ooc comment meant.

Everyone can see the guys who log in consistently together without fail and you weren’t a part of that BS so good job.

I think my favorite character of yours is the giant Emperor shaman you had when Lyeeth was running around.

We never did get to that statue.

Looks like Lyeeth was 2023? My last emperor was Jraldar in 2020 so might be thinking of a diff char. I am trying to remember a statue.

I took it as a compliment, was just confirming what you meant and i have not had people i played with regularly since they put in the no perma rule in the early 2000s i think (they both left because of it). Sometimes i do miss chatting with friends about what 3 classes would be suitable for x though but it was a bit stifling not to be fully in control of what your next char was.