12-06-2009, 01:55 PM
First and foremost: Tell us about yourself, as a player.:
Hi.
I just like to play fun games to unwind. I used to do more roleplaying with other games, but people had a tendency to get way too serious, start too much drama, so I split.
What country do you come from? What is your primary language?
A tiny island nation called, "The United States of America." I speak English and vaguely Spanish gibberish.
How did you get into Warcraft?:
I dig RPGs and got WoW back in 2003 or 2004 without really knowing it was much different from the likes of BG2, Arcanum, etc. It wasn't what I was expecting, but the atmosphere of the game was so neat that I got hooked - and as a cartoonist I really dug the art direction.
What made you seek our server over others?:
I stopped playing WoW years ago because the whole thing turned into a pointless raiding grind. Everybody expected you to reorganize your whole life so that you'd have a 2-percent chance of getting an item to increase your Agility by 4, or something. It was fun enough the first few times - but it just got to be too tedious to do it with short-tempered, demanding people.
What kinds of roleplay do you enjoy?:
I really dislike roleplay just for its own sake. I like making and being a part of open-ended plots, or at least exciting vignettes. I can't stand "tavern roleplay" where you just sit around typing Olde-English witticisms; I love to write fiction, and if I write then it's not going to be chit-chat through a Tolkein filter, it's going to be with the aim of creating a dynamic scenario that others will be genuinely interested in figuring out and contributing to.
What is your favorite race/class? Why?:
That's tough. I could almost say Troll Rogues, but I think I'll go Tauren druids. Their starting realm reminds me of growing up in the South-Western USA. I like druids because of their adaptability, and there's something about the progression in gameplay of the druid powers that's very satisfying.
What are your expectations of this server?:
I just want to be interested by others and be helpful to them in return. I want to find people who write interesting things and have fun with them. That's it.
Out of all of our rules and regulations listed on our server, which appeals to you the most?:
Mandatory roleplay. Needs no explanation, I hope.
Lastly, tell us a story! It can be short, it can be long; but most importantly, we want to see your work in action. Go!:
Gangly fingers, tips blunted by sandy callouses, jammed clumsily down into the vacant money purse, hunting desperately for a copper coin as if it could run away. To be fair to the owner of that grimey paw, in Mert's case they often did.
Leaping with a dull twirl into freshly-drained mugs stained black by foul intoxicants, or slipped clanking into the stockings of a very broad-minded lady, or in stacks toppled and clutched by burly arms of luckier gamblers - by any means, Mert's meager fortunes never failed to escape him. It could almost be called unjust, if he hadn't stolen every cent of it to begin with.
"Got or aintcha got," growled the orc barkeep, square fist dropping from the ale tap. "Not a drop in the mug until I see coin, troll." But drops there came aplenty from his sallow brow, wreathed in a halo of tiny flies. Now and again, he might strike a swath from the air with the sweep of a weighty wooden flagon, but instantly reinforcements would drift in from the swamp through the gaps in the ramshackle roof.
"I got, man, I got!" Mert and the purse were newly acquainted, having just recently met at the intersection of a drunkard's belt and Mert's short dagger. Being a rogue, his honesty was seldom, fleeting, and of the lowest grade - but in this sweltering and thirsty instant, he had never before wanted so much to be speaking truthfully.
Hoisting the ragged sack up onto the mushy wood of the ale-soaked bar, he peered in - and then straight out again, his buggy eye meeting the hard gaze of the orc through a sizable hole in the burlap. Mert cursed his knife's clumsiness.
Sliding back into retreat with a cringing gulp, Mert smirked hopelessly. "I got...credit?"
What he got instead was a smash on the head, but the barman was gracious enough to let Mert keep the splinters of tankard left standing in his scalp.
It was hardly the first time that he'd spun out of a dizzy fog declaring, "I got to scrounge me up some scratch!" But it was the first time he'd made the declaration to a pig, whose pen he'd been escorted to as a penalty for taking up too much space on the barroom floor. And a first like that can sting the ego. It was time for a change.
Flecks of pig-mud spattered from his sloshing feet as he stomped out, then down to the litter-lined streets of the central village - though that was scarcely a proper term for such a vile little outpost, established and maintained by the contributions of none save bandits and exiles. But there had been opportunities, even here. With a curious regularity, gleaming heroes would pass through, linger, then briefly return - and were never heard from again. Wordlessly, and most often alone, they disappeared as swiftly as they had arrived, and no matter how many came over the course of years, life was changed not at all in this wretched settlement.
But those heroes had fine armor, and it left a faint scent of fortune in the air wafted up by the flowing cloaks of those departing wanderers. A nose like Mert's was sufficiently adept - and more than sufficiently large - to track that scent. "Those do-gooders and the like - what could bring them through this place but a quest for riches? There'll be loot nearby! I'll wager my tusks on it!"
Lanky trolls aren't often the most fearsome warriors, and so Mert couldn't muscle the answers he needed out of the folk. But by keen stealth, his tall ears found their way to some very illuminating secrets.
There were shady dealings going on. Intrigues, plots, schemes - all the major criminal personalities seemed involved. Rewards were being dealt out with a regularity made gross by the extreme squalor of the land which they departed: not just coppers, but silvers, golds, and martial treasures. "How in all the blazing depths of Blackrock hadn't I heard of this before?"
Mert restlessly followed the trail of murky clues and dubious rumors; with his gift for stealth, he could only have been noticed by the drops of salivation loosed by titilating tales of some particularly ample fee collected by a passing hero. It was out in the fetid swamp one midnight when he finally discovered and stalked his final mystery: a tauren warrior, suspiciously far from home, rampaging incessantly through the plague-laden waters, attacking nothing but crocolisks. The deed - whatever its aim - was a protracted one, the grind seemingly interminable. But Mert's eyes had spied the shimmer of a well-forged sword in the many whirling assaults of the tauren upon the reptilian nuisance, and knew instantly that to trail this warrior would lead him inevitably to the source of these grand rewards.
So Mert stalked him through the Sea of Cinders, and down into the dank recesses of Atal'Hakkar's Temple, and like a flat serpent across the searing Blasted Lands. Nearly crushed to death by a slamming portcullis at Stormgarde Keep, almost lost in the endless spiderweb-gray of Silverpine Forest, hounded by Scarlet Templars after his quarry obliviously alerted the zealots standing guard before the Monastery - it was indeed a wonder that such a low order of adventurer as he made it at all. All the way back home, to the swamp.
Haggard and starved nearly to death, he hauled himself along in a scrabbling heap behind the tauren fighter, who remained oblivious to Mert even without the veil of rogue's stealth, which the troll had dispensed with long ago simply to keep pace with the indefatigable mercenary. Mert hardly realized where he was as he shakily pulled himself up to sit beside the tauren, at the counter of the very tavern he'd departed (unconsciously) so long ago. Heaving, panting, huddled up into himself in a quivering, weary lump, he sat dumbstruck and galled as he observed this outsider claim from the barman a handful of coinage, and then depart with neither glance nor word further.
Struggling for breath, Mert lunged across the bar, gripping, tugging and hoisting himself up by the orc's filthy vest so that his journey-scarred face met the barman's at eye-level. Howling in desperation, he wailed, "I been battered and flogged and trod-upon and sizzled and drowned, all for the big pay-off - and you unload a half-chestful of coin onto some cow just because he TOLD you he gutted a dozen crocs?"
If Mert hadn't been so pitiful, the barman would surely have employed his shanker then and there - but he hadn't the heart for it (nor any at all) and so kindly returned Mert to his seat with a charitable headbutt. "Aye, I done it," he muttered tonelessly.
"But, but - but why, man?"
"It's what I do. It's what I always done."
"Anybody could kill crocs! Any backstabber or purse-snatcher in this town could make a fortune off you, 'stead of standing around doing bugger-all for themselfs!"
"I can't do it for all you lot."
"Do it for me, then! I'll just take a mug - no silver, no swords!"
"I can't."
"I been boiled in the sulphur geysers, man! I been swam under the frozen lakes where gnomes abode! I been chased by the flesh-starved gargoyles, rooted to the ground with thorns by the druids' spell, set aflame in agony at the whim of human mages! I been to the spirit world, man, and looked upon my own body turned lifeless and gray! Why can't I kill your crocs and get my self up in this world, man, or even just to quench my thirst? For pity's sake, why!"
The orc shrugged with apathy, and rang the spitoon before bothering to respond. "Your level, mate. It just ain't high enough."
Is there anything else you would like to add, ask, or otherwise clarify?:
no not really sorry.
Hi.
I just like to play fun games to unwind. I used to do more roleplaying with other games, but people had a tendency to get way too serious, start too much drama, so I split.What country do you come from? What is your primary language?
A tiny island nation called, "The United States of America." I speak English and vaguely Spanish gibberish.
How did you get into Warcraft?:
I dig RPGs and got WoW back in 2003 or 2004 without really knowing it was much different from the likes of BG2, Arcanum, etc. It wasn't what I was expecting, but the atmosphere of the game was so neat that I got hooked - and as a cartoonist I really dug the art direction.
What made you seek our server over others?:
I stopped playing WoW years ago because the whole thing turned into a pointless raiding grind. Everybody expected you to reorganize your whole life so that you'd have a 2-percent chance of getting an item to increase your Agility by 4, or something. It was fun enough the first few times - but it just got to be too tedious to do it with short-tempered, demanding people.
What kinds of roleplay do you enjoy?:
I really dislike roleplay just for its own sake. I like making and being a part of open-ended plots, or at least exciting vignettes. I can't stand "tavern roleplay" where you just sit around typing Olde-English witticisms; I love to write fiction, and if I write then it's not going to be chit-chat through a Tolkein filter, it's going to be with the aim of creating a dynamic scenario that others will be genuinely interested in figuring out and contributing to.
What is your favorite race/class? Why?:
That's tough. I could almost say Troll Rogues, but I think I'll go Tauren druids. Their starting realm reminds me of growing up in the South-Western USA. I like druids because of their adaptability, and there's something about the progression in gameplay of the druid powers that's very satisfying.
What are your expectations of this server?:
I just want to be interested by others and be helpful to them in return. I want to find people who write interesting things and have fun with them. That's it.
Out of all of our rules and regulations listed on our server, which appeals to you the most?:
Mandatory roleplay. Needs no explanation, I hope.
Lastly, tell us a story! It can be short, it can be long; but most importantly, we want to see your work in action. Go!:
Gangly fingers, tips blunted by sandy callouses, jammed clumsily down into the vacant money purse, hunting desperately for a copper coin as if it could run away. To be fair to the owner of that grimey paw, in Mert's case they often did.
Leaping with a dull twirl into freshly-drained mugs stained black by foul intoxicants, or slipped clanking into the stockings of a very broad-minded lady, or in stacks toppled and clutched by burly arms of luckier gamblers - by any means, Mert's meager fortunes never failed to escape him. It could almost be called unjust, if he hadn't stolen every cent of it to begin with.
"Got or aintcha got," growled the orc barkeep, square fist dropping from the ale tap. "Not a drop in the mug until I see coin, troll." But drops there came aplenty from his sallow brow, wreathed in a halo of tiny flies. Now and again, he might strike a swath from the air with the sweep of a weighty wooden flagon, but instantly reinforcements would drift in from the swamp through the gaps in the ramshackle roof.
"I got, man, I got!" Mert and the purse were newly acquainted, having just recently met at the intersection of a drunkard's belt and Mert's short dagger. Being a rogue, his honesty was seldom, fleeting, and of the lowest grade - but in this sweltering and thirsty instant, he had never before wanted so much to be speaking truthfully.
Hoisting the ragged sack up onto the mushy wood of the ale-soaked bar, he peered in - and then straight out again, his buggy eye meeting the hard gaze of the orc through a sizable hole in the burlap. Mert cursed his knife's clumsiness.
Sliding back into retreat with a cringing gulp, Mert smirked hopelessly. "I got...credit?"
What he got instead was a smash on the head, but the barman was gracious enough to let Mert keep the splinters of tankard left standing in his scalp.
It was hardly the first time that he'd spun out of a dizzy fog declaring, "I got to scrounge me up some scratch!" But it was the first time he'd made the declaration to a pig, whose pen he'd been escorted to as a penalty for taking up too much space on the barroom floor. And a first like that can sting the ego. It was time for a change.
Flecks of pig-mud spattered from his sloshing feet as he stomped out, then down to the litter-lined streets of the central village - though that was scarcely a proper term for such a vile little outpost, established and maintained by the contributions of none save bandits and exiles. But there had been opportunities, even here. With a curious regularity, gleaming heroes would pass through, linger, then briefly return - and were never heard from again. Wordlessly, and most often alone, they disappeared as swiftly as they had arrived, and no matter how many came over the course of years, life was changed not at all in this wretched settlement.
But those heroes had fine armor, and it left a faint scent of fortune in the air wafted up by the flowing cloaks of those departing wanderers. A nose like Mert's was sufficiently adept - and more than sufficiently large - to track that scent. "Those do-gooders and the like - what could bring them through this place but a quest for riches? There'll be loot nearby! I'll wager my tusks on it!"
Lanky trolls aren't often the most fearsome warriors, and so Mert couldn't muscle the answers he needed out of the folk. But by keen stealth, his tall ears found their way to some very illuminating secrets.
There were shady dealings going on. Intrigues, plots, schemes - all the major criminal personalities seemed involved. Rewards were being dealt out with a regularity made gross by the extreme squalor of the land which they departed: not just coppers, but silvers, golds, and martial treasures. "How in all the blazing depths of Blackrock hadn't I heard of this before?"
Mert restlessly followed the trail of murky clues and dubious rumors; with his gift for stealth, he could only have been noticed by the drops of salivation loosed by titilating tales of some particularly ample fee collected by a passing hero. It was out in the fetid swamp one midnight when he finally discovered and stalked his final mystery: a tauren warrior, suspiciously far from home, rampaging incessantly through the plague-laden waters, attacking nothing but crocolisks. The deed - whatever its aim - was a protracted one, the grind seemingly interminable. But Mert's eyes had spied the shimmer of a well-forged sword in the many whirling assaults of the tauren upon the reptilian nuisance, and knew instantly that to trail this warrior would lead him inevitably to the source of these grand rewards.
So Mert stalked him through the Sea of Cinders, and down into the dank recesses of Atal'Hakkar's Temple, and like a flat serpent across the searing Blasted Lands. Nearly crushed to death by a slamming portcullis at Stormgarde Keep, almost lost in the endless spiderweb-gray of Silverpine Forest, hounded by Scarlet Templars after his quarry obliviously alerted the zealots standing guard before the Monastery - it was indeed a wonder that such a low order of adventurer as he made it at all. All the way back home, to the swamp.
Haggard and starved nearly to death, he hauled himself along in a scrabbling heap behind the tauren fighter, who remained oblivious to Mert even without the veil of rogue's stealth, which the troll had dispensed with long ago simply to keep pace with the indefatigable mercenary. Mert hardly realized where he was as he shakily pulled himself up to sit beside the tauren, at the counter of the very tavern he'd departed (unconsciously) so long ago. Heaving, panting, huddled up into himself in a quivering, weary lump, he sat dumbstruck and galled as he observed this outsider claim from the barman a handful of coinage, and then depart with neither glance nor word further.
Struggling for breath, Mert lunged across the bar, gripping, tugging and hoisting himself up by the orc's filthy vest so that his journey-scarred face met the barman's at eye-level. Howling in desperation, he wailed, "I been battered and flogged and trod-upon and sizzled and drowned, all for the big pay-off - and you unload a half-chestful of coin onto some cow just because he TOLD you he gutted a dozen crocs?"
If Mert hadn't been so pitiful, the barman would surely have employed his shanker then and there - but he hadn't the heart for it (nor any at all) and so kindly returned Mert to his seat with a charitable headbutt. "Aye, I done it," he muttered tonelessly.
"But, but - but why, man?"
"It's what I do. It's what I always done."
"Anybody could kill crocs! Any backstabber or purse-snatcher in this town could make a fortune off you, 'stead of standing around doing bugger-all for themselfs!"
"I can't do it for all you lot."
"Do it for me, then! I'll just take a mug - no silver, no swords!"
"I can't."
"I been boiled in the sulphur geysers, man! I been swam under the frozen lakes where gnomes abode! I been chased by the flesh-starved gargoyles, rooted to the ground with thorns by the druids' spell, set aflame in agony at the whim of human mages! I been to the spirit world, man, and looked upon my own body turned lifeless and gray! Why can't I kill your crocs and get my self up in this world, man, or even just to quench my thirst? For pity's sake, why!"
The orc shrugged with apathy, and rang the spitoon before bothering to respond. "Your level, mate. It just ain't high enough."
Is there anything else you would like to add, ask, or otherwise clarify?:
no not really
sorry.