NaNoWriMo Blogging Nine

Okay, I’m going to cheat again. But, c’mon, there’s a novel to write and I’m edging towards the finish line. Because I’m under more than a few guns at the moment I’m going to post something I’ve basically written just for my story and I’m gong to pass it off as a description of my main characters. There are eight of them (I know, I’m insane) and seven are included below along with one minor character and two footnotes. It’s basically a profile of the clan or guild of which my main characters are all members. They all playtest an MMO in development called Clans of the Highborn – abbreviated amongst its non-existent fans as ClotH - and the game design company making the game periodically spotlights such groups and gives them a write-up on their official website. So, my fictional clan, called the Wanderers of Eternity - or WoE for short – got their turn and a little spotlight amongst the game’s following. But it’s one that’s several months out of date as my story kicks off (Don’t ask, I’m all kinds of loopy about things in my text.). The only one excluded from the profile is Heidi, who joins the test as my novel begins. I already detailed her in an earlier post. Also beneath each text are my comments on the character which I’ve included in my notes but I’ll excise from the text eventually.

Clan Roll #9: The Wanderers of Eternity [WoE]

Gather, my children as we unravel the scrolls of the clanmaster once more. Within these tomes are the records of all the valiant clans which have ever pledged to defend noble Kaltos from her many enemies. Trapped in these parchments are the heroes of yesteryear and the legends of old. But alongside them are the names of those who’s destiny has not yet been writ. They, too, might one day find their place amongst the stars in the endless sea of the sky. Hark you well, then, and heed my words for these may well be the ones whom our people will speak of in a thousand years time. ~(?) the Crone, Kaltan Academy

A small and closely knit clan, the Wanderers of Eternity has long been involved in the testing phase of Clans of the Highborn. Officially, the fifth clan to ever register with the Kaltan clanmaster the Wanderers are composed of an eclectic mix of many long-standing testers and those who’ve been active in the fan community. Many of their members staff or otherwise frequent our Honored fansite, the Panopticron. Their leader, known in-game as Opticron Prime, is also the admin at Panoptics, known as Guildmaster Joe. And many are also from the area of Coolidge State, just down the road from EuroSoft’s Washington branch office where ClotH is being produced. The group is dedicated to testing all phases of the game. Some members prefer to PvE, some prefer to PvP, but all share a desire to explore the game in all its myriad combinations. And, of course, to sharing that knowledge with others through their website. They believe that information should be free. And that it should be shared with anyone who seeks it. Although not the biggest or the most successful at raids or in battle, WoE has earned a reputation for its thoughtful, intelligent, and dedicated members and for their enthusiasm for the game. So, here are the members who’ve made this clan what it is:

Opticron Prime
Real name: Jospeh Przybylo
Panoptics ID: Guildmaster Joe
Favorite class: Monk
Background: I’m an assistant teacher of mathematics at Coolidge State. Currently I’m working on my dissertation for my master’s degree. I work a lot with discrete mathematics which branches into the information and computer sciences.
How did you get involved with ClotH?: I first heard about it through a mutual friend and fellow graduate who was hired by the company as a designer. Soon after, I started Panoptics to get involved with the game myself. Someone out there noticed my meager efforts and I was soon invited into the early alpha testing phase. Our clan started out as an informal group of three or four testers who often found ourselves grouping up or hashing things out on the development boards. As soon as we could create clans in game it was just natural for us to go ahead and do so. When our fansite was allowed to send out invites we sent them to some of the people who’ve been helping us out at that place.
Why do you like to play Monk?: You might think that I just sit there and cast heal after heal but playing as a Monk is as exciting and tense as it gets because of how the skill system works. I love it. It’s very taxing but very rewarding at the same time.

(Joe – and yes, the typo is intentional - is the declared leader of the clan. He’s really the glue that holds everyone together as he runs the guild, the website, and everything else. He’s the oldest member of the clan and he’s extremely dedicated and selfless when it comes to helping his fellow testers and the larger fan community out. The Panopticron, the site which he founded, is not the largest fansite for ClotH – that’d be the Mead Hall – but it’s developed a loyal and dedicated following among the fanbase. It’s known as a place for more serious discussion and debate over the real crunchy issues of the game. As well as being a place where things can be a bit heated and feathers ruffled. It’s the “cool” place for the community to hang out, basically. And Joe’s the person behind making it that way even though he’s a mediocre and infrequent player at best. But, in my story he’s the calm, steady presence in the background that helps everyone else to do their thing.)

Sirus Lightbringer
Real name: Chris Jordan
Panoptics ID: Sirus
Favorite class: Sorcerer
Background: I’m a student in the mathematics department at Coolidge State and I’ve been playing RTS like Stellar Empires and StarCraft for ages.
How did you get involved with ClotH?: Joe’s one of my GA’s at CSU and we’re pretty close. When he found out about the game, so did I. When he got into the test I wasn’t far behind. I’ve been helping out with Panoptics and the clan ever since.
Why do you like to play Sorcerer?: Sorcerers are, hands down, the best offensive class in the game. They’re incredibly powerful and flexible in the ways they can causes damage along with some other neat little special abilities. I’m a fan of the PvP side of things and a well-made Sorcerer is very dangerous in a battle. Lately, I’ve been focusing on lightning based skills as they’re very well suited to the various playstyles available for PvP. When compared to the Fire skills I was using before it’s almost like I’m playing an entirely different character. And there’s three other elemental lines that I haven’t even tried out yet. It’s great that I don’t have to reroll every time I want to remake my character into something different. And, of all the classes, the Sorcerer has the most options.

(Chris is, to put it bluntly, my favorite asshole. He’s always ready with a cutting remark or a sarcastic putdown. And he has a put-upon, weary attitude that makes me, if no one else, love the little bastard. He’s a real number cruncher. Along with Sage, he’s been picking apart at the game and its mechanics developing the tools to better understand things like how DPS and armor really affect the gameplay. He does it because he’s looking for a competitive edge because he’s one of my harder cored PvPers. PvP combat is the only reason he’s stuck with the game. During such battles he’s the clan’s field leader or target caller, to use a GW term. He’s the one who makes decisions about tactics during a match from who to target to whether the team should retreat and everything else. It’s a role he takes very seriously and one he excels at. Otherwise, he mostly slinks out of the spotlight to the back of the room to take potshots at everyone. But when a game’s on he’s front and center and ready to kick ass.)

Endless Roth
Real name: Ross Klein
Panoptics ID: Endless Roth (I am original like that!)
Favorite class: Fighter!
Background: Like my fellow Chris and Dirk, I’m attending CSU at present. I’m an English major and aspiring author-to-be although I’m a ways away from graduation. As for my gaming background, I’m an old time player of MMOs. And single player RPGs before them. I’ve tested such games in the past but none of them have compared to ClotH.
How did you get involved with ClotH?: Same as everybody in the guild, through Joe. Dirk, Chris, and I were roommates our freshmen year and we’ve stuck together since then. So, when they got involved I couldn’t helped but be dragged into this particular little funhouse. I forget if I signed up for the test or as a mod at Panoptics first but, well, I’ve been in the test a long, long time now. And I’m planning to stick around long past release because it’s been a blast so far.
Why do you like to play Fighter?: A soft spot for the meatshieldry, really. In every game I gravitate towards the biggest, meanest, melee class. The one that stands in there and takes a beating while pummeling the nasty things with big pointy sticks and the like. Whether it’s a raid or a free-for-all or whatever else I like to tank, in so many words. In ClotH, that’s the job of the Fighter. It’s a very solid class that appeals to the way I like to play already. But there’s also the promise of what’s going to happen to it in the future as the game gets further refined. ClotH does things differently than a lot of other games so this particular Fighter class is turning into something a bit more than your standard lump of flesh in heavy metal armor.

(Ross is my exposition fairy. He’ll go off at the drop of a hat about any and every subject and just pour out every detail or fact I want to get across to the reader. Other characters do so at times, too, but when I absolutely need it done, Ross is there. In order to disguise this fact and make him a bit less dry I’ve given him a creative and whimsical manner of speaking. Hopefully even though I have him throwing information at the reader the way he does it will be interesting enough that they won’t mind. Ross is just a know-it-all as he’s a veteran of dozens of video games and RPGs. He’s that guy you run into in games who always has an answer to a question about how the game works. Or a story about an older game he liked.)

Dirk Falchion
Real name: Derrick Falcone
Panoptics ID: Dirk
Favorite class: Sorcerer
Background: I’m one of those people who are going to Coolidge although my major’s a bit up in the air at the moment. My favored genre in games is the hack n’ slash, like Endless Quest and the criminally overlooked Devil Quest.
How did you get involved with ClotH?: I knew that the maker of my favorite Devil Quest, the lovely and talented Ms. Cynthia Jones, was starting a new game. Something that was going to be like a sequel but in an online, persistent world. When my friends Chris and Ross told me that they were going to be testers for it they couldn’t keep me from signing up, too, if they’d tried. In the test, we would group together with Joe all the time and when they implemented clans we founded WoE.
Why do you like to play Sorcerer?: I started out playing a sorc, as they’re known, because that was the best thing to play in Devil Quest. Plus, with Ross to tank, and Joe to heal, another Sorcerer like Chris was the best group we could come up with. I’m pretty happy with my choice as the Sorcerer in ClotH is a lot more versatile than the ones in DQ. And it’s the highest damage class which is great for raiding the harder dungeons.

(Dirk is an interesting character that developed out of nowhere for me. You see, by the time my novel opens, he’s left the guild in order to form another – ostensibly because he wanted a group with a greater focus on high-end PvE raiding. This created a bit of hard feelings and some tension between WoE and Dirk’s new guild as you can well imagine. I wanted to create a “villain”, so to speak, or at least a rival who could spoil things for my group at the appropriate moments – someone who’d been a member of the clan but had left them under shady circumstances. What I wasn’t planning on was that I would turn Dirk into some sort of cross between Ross and Joe. Smart, knowledgeable, generous, and, to me at least, likeable. Which works great because he’s a hard guy to hate leaving my main characters feeling ambivalent about him. They don’t like the fact that he ditched their clan but they can’t help but respect him because he’s such a stand-up guy. I was planning on going the absolute opposite route and making him a selfish, self-centered, opportunistic bastard looking out for himself and no one else but when I started writing him, well, something unexpected.)

S A G E
Real name: Albert D’carto
Panoptics ID: Sage
Favorite class: Sorcerer
Background: I’m originally from Turin although I’ve lived in America for most of my life. Just got accepted to Coolidge State which I’ll be attending in the fall. I play RTS mostly.
How did you get involved with ClotH?: I’ve followed Snowstorm Games for a while and was disappointed with Stellar Empires Online. When I heard Sandy Dunkirk had left the company to work for EuroSoft on their new MMO, I knew it was going to be a great game. Contributed some things on Panoptics – Sirus and I go way back in SC - including a few essays and statistical analysis. When Joe had invites to give out, he gave me one.
Why do you like to play Sorcerer?: Sorcerer’s provide the best damage output in terms of time and mana spent. When compared to other classes they’re the clear-cut winners. I want to play a class that’s the most optimal in any situation and, at the moment, that’s the Sorcerer.

(Along with Chris, Sage is responsible for most of the strategy that WoE employs. He’s an amazingly detailed number cruncher who wants to reverse engineer the game engine for no other reason than to prove he can. Unlike Chris who wants to know how, say, armor affects damage to get a leg up on the competition, Sage sees that competition as a means to the end of discovering how the complex game system really works on a deep, deep level. He’s more than a bit of a geek. And probably as close as my book comes to the mythical ur-nerd. So, he’s shy and socially awkward. Prone to long dissertations on arcane points of mechanics and strategy as well as being the character everyone else turns to for advice about what sort of skills or equipment they should be using. Unfortunately, he has a stuttering problem which keeps him from really opening up. He doesn’t really like talking to other people, even in posts or chats, so he tends to open up in fits and starts. Only speaking when he has something to say. Originally he was going to be much older, by far the oldest player in the clan but I decided that he was better as a young and tireless fanboy rather than some elder scholar. I shifted the older and experienced part to other characters like Joe and Lady.)

Xeno Onex
Real name: Raphael Villalobos
Panoptics ID: Xeno’s Fool
Favorite Class: Sorcerer
Background: I’m from south of the border and am about to graduate from CSU. If anyone’s interested in hiring a recently graduated engineer let me know.
How did you get involved with ClotH?: Joe hired me to do some technical stuff for Panopticron that only us computer geeks really care about. But it means I’m on the staff there and it’s apparently a tradition that everyone who works on that site becomes a tester. Seriously, I hadn’t heard of ClotH except in passing until I started ripping out the guts at Panopticron but I got very interested by what I read there. And I’m thrilled to be in the test even though getting things finished off at school means I haven’t been able to participate as much as I’d like to.
Why do you like to play Sorcerer?: Everyone else does and I wanted to hang out with the cool kids and their designer robes. We have a lot of sorcs in our clan but that’s because they’re very good. You don’t need too many of other classes to group up for most things but once you get a healer and a tank you can’t go wrong with having more spell-casters.

(Xeno is a character I created just to write out of the book. So not too much to say about him. By the time the novel opens he’s graduated from school and gotten a job – possibly out of the country where his internet connection would be poor. So he either no longer has the time or the capacity to play. Either way, he’s pulled out of the guild which, along with Dirk and another character leaving, puts the clan in a tough position as they don’t’ have enough regular players to fully compete.)

Wraith Shadow
Real name: I’d rather not to give that out
Panoptics ID: Wraith Shadow
Favorite Class: Rangers
Background: Mostly FPS, some MMO
How did you get involved with ClotH?: Through Panoptics.
Why do you like to play Ranger?: I prefer to solo. There’s better loot that way. And the Ranger is the best class to play alone.

(Wraith is my strong, silent type. Doesn’t say much. Shows up out of nowhere jus tin the nick of time. Has an aura of mystery about him. He’s the best player in the clan – one of the best Rangers in the test and Rangers are regarded as the hardest class to play to its full potential. Other, more PvP focused clans would love to have him as a member but he’s incredibly loyal to the clan. It’s probably not going to make it into the text until I get much further along in the story but the story of how he became a tester goes something like his winning a spot through a contest at one of the larger fansites. He’d never heard of Panoptics until the first day he logged in and Joe happened to be hanging around and gave him a lot of help starting out when he was a rank newbie. Wraith went on to join the clan and through constant powerleveling and practice become a really good player – but he still remembers when he was struggling and how Joe was the only one who bothered to care. You see, Wraith comes off to everyone else as a cool, together person but he’s really shy and emotional. He just doesn’t show it easily as he’s just a kid. But he’s the clan’s bedrock. He’s always there when they need him.)

Giorgi Utmost
Real name: Helmut Rickenbach
Panoptics ID: Utmost
Favorite Class: Monk
Background: I hail from Vienna where I work in an internet café and I’m mostly a player of tabletop games as well as a veteran of several MMOs.
How did you get involved with ClotH?: I got involved with the game through Panoptics, like most everyone in the clan. I’m one of the mods on their forum and when they were passing out invites I was lucky enough to get one. I guess I’m here because WoE needed a token European.
Why do you like to play Monk?: I usually play a healer or other support character in games. ClotH is no different. The healer is often the most critical role in any group and I like the fact that people know they can rely on me time in and time out.

(Utmost is just like Xeno. Created to be discarded. He, too, leaves the clan before the book starts leaving them in the lurch. His loss is potentially the most damaging to the health of the clan because he’s a Monk and most teams need two Monks to compete or raid by that time. With Utmost gone Joe’s the group’s only healer. The humble, dependable air I tried to give him here is what I’d like to call irony. Because in my mind at least he just didn’t quit the clan and the test he abandoned the game and Panoptics altogether to move on to some other, better game.)

Land Ho
Real name: Alan Hoshihiro Ngyuen but everyone calls me ‘Lan Ho
Panoptics ID: Lan
Favorite Class: Fighter
Background: I play everything from console games to RPGs. I love videogames.
How did you get involved with ClotH?: My uncle is on the development team and he helped me apply for the test. When I got in game I wanted to find a cool clan to hang around with. And WoE is just full of awesome people. I mean, I’m a member what more do you need to know?
Why do you like to play Fighter?: Fighters are the greatest! They’ve got the best armor, the coolest weapons, and they can put a hurting on anyone. It’s great getting up in someone’s face and just demolishing them with my trusty battleaxe.

(Land is the clan’s whipping boy. Eternally optimistic, boundlessly enthusiastic, and completely and utterly misguided on just about everything. He’s young, stupid, and full of energy. The other characters rag on him mercilessly especially my two “frat bros” Ross and Chris. Land doesn’t mind, though, as he thinks he gives as good as he gets. It’s all some weird male bonding thing anyway. Land is the youngest member of the clan – at least until his girlfriend Heidi joins, I’m not sure which one’s older there – and he barely squeaked by the age requirement for signing the NDA and only then thanks to his uncle who works for the game – and is the friend Joe mentioned in his piece. Originally I was going to have Land and Joe be related but for whatever reason I decided against it.)

Elisabeth Evermoon
Real name: Gertrude Morgans
Panoptics ID: Lady Elisabeth
Favorite Class: Mentalist
Background: I’m a graduate from Coolidge State and now work in the area for a software development company (No, not that one). My gaming experience is mostly in pen and paper games and LARPing although I do play a mean game of FreeCell.
How did you get involved with ClotH?: Well, I’ve been casting about looking for a game to play for some time as I like the possibilities offered for roleplaying in an online, persistent world. ClotH fits that bill perfectly for me. Joseph, whom I call Sir Opticron, and I know each other through college and when he told me about his website I signed up straight away. I’ve been posting and following the game at Panoptics ever since. And I’m proud to be the latest recruit to the Wanderers of Eternity.
Why do you like to play Mentalist?: Not many people prefer my chosen class but I’ve found it to be very rewarding. Originally I had my heart set on playing a Ranger. However, when the Mentalist was introduced and I saw the rich and vibrant lore that had already been developed for the class as well as the elegant and refined beauty of their appearance, I switched over with no delay.

(Lady, as I like to call her, is an odd duck alongside the rest of the clan. She’s a roleplayer and the rest of the group really isn’t. She’s also more than a little unsure about her little gaming hobby and goes out of her way to conceal it from her offline friends. But she’s the group’s token girl and sticks around because she’s a much better player – the first really competitive Mentalist to play the game – than her friends with tastes closer to her own. She and Joe also have a history as they dated once upon a time when they were both in school.)