Remembrance and return

[Tarscanian Sothenic]

REMEMBRANCE AND RETURN

I walk upon the borders of an unfamiliar land, snow falls in buffeted flurries hiding my fresh footfalls. I watched amazed at the powdery flakes as they whip and coalesce in a medley of patterns.

It surprises me as my past is played out within the dance of the snowflakes, and then I laugh at myself for being a sentimental old fool. One thing that I do contemplate with seriousness is the fading of my footfalls that I leave behind me. Is this to be so in all the places I have trod? Will my touch fade as quickly as a new sheen of snow?
I hope with all my heart that this is not the case, for although I have touched many a place, within my journey there has been much that as touched me with such deep resonance that I find my mind of late living in by gone days rather than the venture now and before me.

The cold is biting here in the wilderness, some would say on nights such as these a man only has his honour and spirit to warm him. I do agree but I feel I have an added blanket…….my memories. Melancholy is not a welcome companion but alas of late she is my only one. Friends associates and enemies, they all visit with me upon nights such as these, I have mused long and hard about my sanity and have scoffed at my incessant day dreaming. I concur that I have not succumb to madness just yet, but there is a nagging upon my mind and heart that will not reside dormant.


I shiver, so violently it jars my aging bones but not from the cold I will explain but from awash of emotions that have long festered untouched. The cold will not trouble me, my blood runs with Wessex and snow flakes melt into small rivulets of water as they touch my exposed flesh.

Here in my new charge my new station I serve with unfaltering duty, but I do not live it as I once did upon the shores of Agon. Damn I miss that place. My constant pace slows to a stand still. Overcome with conflicting emotions I steady myself. I look to the stars and even the heavens seem to have paused in undulating respect and compassion.

I know what must be done, and I still find myself stalling upon the idea.
I think to my honour and charge, but then bless me if I sin or accost any of those I serve but Wessex is more than a title, if I am so bold, it is more than a King.
With these words flowing through my head it is decided.

My cloak is drawn tight around me has I abound to the stables to retrieve my loyal war horse. I have all the possessions upon me that I need.

“whom goes there?”

“Tis I Sir Tarscanian, be still your sword son”

The guard responds hastily “ apologies my Lord, but the moon is covered by this damn snow”

“you do honour to Wessex with your vigilance, Have my horse brought to me”

There is a shuffle of steps then a pause.

“If I maybe so bold Sir, Where would you venture on a night such as this?” Nerves are evident within his voice.

I think for what seems an eternity before replying.

“Who am I?”

Confused the guard stammers “you are Sir Tarscanian Sothenic, my Lord I meant no offence”.

I laugh slightly “no offensive taken, let me rephrase the question for you. Who are you?”

The guard is completely baffled now and even within the darkness of the night I can see him eyeing me up and down to confirm I am whom I say I am.

“Err……I am Serjeant Derek Couldson………Sir”

I walk towards the nervous man, I place my hand on his right shoulder. He flinches at my touch expecting this bizarre event to escalate into violence.

“You are Wessex and I am Wessex, Never forget that!”

“No Sir……….I won’t”

He must think me under the influence of a soldier’s only real companion of a night here in the wilderness……..Whisky.

“And to answer your original question son, I am going Home”

[Falesh Helithian]

We are making a return on the 10th of July!

We are going to be doing a number of things differently this time. First off we are not going to actively recruit much to start with and even after we establish ourselves we will take it easy. The reasoning behind this is that last time we had so much admin work dealing with the recruitment and also afterwards to get the new guys integrated into the clan. This workload was burning our leadership out and also taking up time that could have been spent doing fun stuff.

Growing slowly will also let us implement a better clan structure and groom more people to take on jobs so the burden of running the clan is better spread.

We will continue with Hyperion but we will also be keeping small, we don't want to make it a zerg.

Another lesson we have learned is how we communicate with our members. In the leadup to the Sun war we kept a lot of things secret through necessity. However this did hurt us even though we did it with the best intentions. We want our members to have a full say in the doings of the clan as this will help us stay healthy and fun for everyone.

We have thought of various other ways to make the clan more efficient. For instance we want to change how we distribute loot as the old way, while being very fair, was extremely time intensive. Our plan is also to kick inactives with the intention of bringing them back into the fold once they are able/interested in coming back

We are trying to buy a hamlet to base ourselves out of because we are not big enough to hold a city and we don't think that living in a chaos city would be wise due to the amount of griefing that occurs in them. The aim is to get one somewhere near the north half of the center of Agon as the islands are too zergy which would cut down on the PvP we could do.

So with all that said please feel free to ask any questions or make suggestions about what you want out of the guild and what you think we should do.

[Jacen Olliard]

Its good to see Wessex returning to such a fine game. I remember my days in Long March defending king and castle from the goons and ours other enemies at the time. I remember the wonders I felt walking into Darkfall right upon its release and knowing there was a whole unexplored world ahead of me, filled with danger and excitement. I would join you guys, but for now I am enjoying Mortal Online quite a lot.

Good luck in game guys!

[Tarscanian Sothenic]

Thank you, and hopefully soon you might find the time and inclination to join us in Agon once again.

Tars

[Royko Sothenic]

I am looking forward to the challenge, cant wait to build a strong team in pvp to take Agon by suprise once more.

[Nangar Rockhelm]

Hope you dont mind but your intro inspired me :)

"Sure!" came a cry from inside the stables. There was some rustling, a sound of escaping gas, a bit of a grunt and round the edge of the stable staggered a drunken dwarf of ill-gotten looks, whom it appeared was enjoying a couple of kegs of ale in the stable. "Once I was a proud dwarf though little experienced, now I am humbled by my experice, drunk, and I have a few questions if I MAY!?!".

Serjeant Dereks head sank, "I had hoped you'd passed out! Why I put up with you and your belching I'll ner know".

"Cos I pay you in interesting ways. Now shut up ya lanky...thing, or i'll go inta detail infront of his exhaultedness"

Serjeant Dereks head somehow managed to sink lower whilst still staying attached to his shoulders. Sir Tarscanian, saw the pathetic creature in front of him and was reminded of snowflakes...lucky for the dwarf.

"Now you there, Sir thingy, I seen that glint in your eye afore now!" a gentle slop of dribble sloshed from the boozed up dwarf. You headin out to make a name for yer self, and I may be, maaayyy be a bit interested in seen how that goes for ya, aft all gold comes with names...or was it buys names." At this point the dwarf paused. A slight smile crossed his face. "Much better. Yer, so thing is I got a sweeet deal in these parts but I got some questionnns an deependin on yer answers weeellll ya get the picture"

Sir Tarscanian looked at the now damp and grinning dwarf and, thoughts of yellow snow and stale air wafted into his mind. With such a rude awakening it was all he could do to mutter "uhuh".

The dwarf continued "Now in no particular order, How do you intend to split loot?, What activities do you intend for fun?, What role structure do you intend? Is there to be stewardship if you return whense you came? How dedicated is the clan to be? (Hardcore, casual a n other) and What is bringing you, and your associates that left Agon so long ago, back? For I do not believe as yet, that the world of Agon is much changed since you last walked its lands, assuming thats where you are headed cors?"

Sir Tarscanian winced, the grim reality that an ugly drunken dwarf, with all the manners of a...drunken dwarf, was yelling to him like he was 20 feet away across a packed tavern. For Sir Tarscanian even the yellow snow had melted. "Right ho Mr Dwarf..."

The dwarf interupted, "Ho? HO? That best hadnt be a reference to a well known song about dwarfs, the one the starts with Hi, and ends with an implication we have sex for money!" Serjeant Derek chuckled. The dwarf was on a rant and didnt notice. "Right HO! Now I best tell you what I want, I want gold, I want treasure and I want corpses. Corpses with gold and treasure that is, and I want lots of it, gold not corpses! I want to explore, and I want to push to acheive the impossible, or near impossible...lets call it the possible but hard to do, perhaps even risky. No sense in playing it safe, its not fun, though nor is constantly trying the impossible. Ha! We could use housing to travel to raid mines and annoy people with our swords and axes and foul breath. Stay mobile, keep em guessin. Like the spanish inquisision only rounder. Course we'll need a steady supply of gear. And ontop of it all I want you to use a calendar to help me see stuff coming. I want big group adventures, little group adventures and I want it with a cherry on top! Everything is better with cherries". At this point the dwarf passed out and began dreaming of things he could do with cherries and cream.

[Lodmund Brebourne]

Wessex coming back, awesome i'll start playing again aswell then I suppose

[Alexander TheDutch]

you must! :D

[Enthilza Veni]

It seems the words carried by the wind and the stones were true. Just as he was beginning to despair, considering new options for his life on Agon, had he heard the rumor : cloaked men wearing the mark of Wessex had been spotted riding the lands again. For so long he had felt like the last companion, unworthy and unable of carrying the fame of the glorious leaders and companions of the past... He had seen his most recent fellows one by one leaving those lands or giving back their Wessex uniforms. Those scenes were never easy for him, neither for those noble men whose heart were calling for new challenges and new horizons. But Wessex being Wessex, some of them, if not all, had in mind a possible return. And according to the winds and the stones, now was the moment.

So Enthilza Veni had no doubts anymore. For the first time in weeks or months, the path was clear and the future filled with hope. Oh of course he was still the weak fighter he was when he joined the clan, the training he went through wasn't much compared to what he needed but he was ready and motivated as ever.

He locked his door, took one of his trusted garmirs and rode to Espenhal, hoping to see many old faces gathered there.

[Cenris Hildur]

Men of Wessex, you have my bow the moment you return to Agon.

[Falesh Helithian]

Falesh Helithian stood patiently waiting for Nangar to wake up. After waiting half an hour that patience ran out and the dwarf suddenly found himself very wet and wearing a bucket for a hat. "You have made some interesting points" Falesh says to the spluttering Nangar, "points I will try to answer from a personal perspective".

"To have fun and adventure in this world you need a number of things. Location is vital, if you live in a player city people will come to attack but those attacks tend to be relatively infrequent since you generally need a lot of people to take on a well defended city. If you live in a chaos city the fun happens much more often but you also get a lot of grief from people who enjoy making others suffer. A hamlet on the other hand has the frequent visits of a chaos city but prevents enemies from binding or using the bank so the griefing events are significantly more rare. Taking all this into account we are planning on living out of a hamlet which will give us a lot of large and small scale fighting for the entertainment of all!"

"The second thing you need is a good guild structure and also a good guild ethos. Our structure last time was fragile, not because of the people involved, but because we did not have enough people in leadership positions. As the guild grew the workload of those leaders increased to the point where it was burning them out. This also hampered their ability to create fun things for the guild to do. The leaders of a guild cannot, and should not, be expected to provide all the entertainment it's members require. This is where having a good ethos comes in. With smaller guilds people tend to get stuck in themselves, if a member wants to do some PvP they say so and ask if anyone else wants to come along. With a big guild it is easy to become institutionalized and wait for someone else to get things going for you. So, if the leaders can have more time by doing less admin due to the reduced recruitment they can do more to initiate adventures and on top of that if we get the ethos right and our members are proactive in finding entertainment themselves then we will be in very good shape."

"What is bringing me back once again? The answer is simple but also complex. The simple is that I love this place and there is no other land which can provide such thrilling adventures as happen here on a daily basis. This is complicated due to the fact that Agon can also be frustrating and dull if you are in the wrong place and situation. I believe we will steer a steady coarse through this complex web of possibilities this time so we keep the fun and avoid the frustration and stagnation."

"With regards to stewardship that is for the members to help with. We want people to come forward and help lead. This time it will be easier to start due to being a smaller guild so potential leaders can learn to swim gently rather then being thrown in at the deep end. It is also worth pointing out that most of the membership went inactive before the leaders did last time around. This is not meant as dig at our fine folk, the situation was one in which I can understand people going inactive, but I want to make the point that our leaders do not lack dedication. With careful fostering and encouraging members to take on responsibilities I do not see this guild returning only to leave again shortly thereafter."

Falesh ends his monologue with a smile at the possibilities the not too distant future holds. He turns back to Nangar and lifts the bucket from his head. "Ugh" Falesh groans as he sees the closed eyes of the dwarf. Standing and walking to his mount Falesh hopes that at least some of what he said had made it through Nangar's drunkenness, sleep and of course the bucket.