Your RP Foundation

[Max Dirks]

We've got quite a few new members and I've got questions. How did you start role-playing? What brought you to Althanas?

Here's my RP timeline:

1) I began at the Playstation Underground Chat after being introduced to chat based RP by a friend. My handle there was Bond_007.
2) Got the Internet at home and moved to Expansions of the Force (a Star Wars RP in Yahoo Chat). Went by Bob_the_Mercenary_Slayer there.
3) Did a very long stint in Ayenee (chat based RP in Yahoo). I met a few future Althanians there, namely Pavel & Mystic. I don't want to bore you by listing off screen names, but I'll give you a few of the most recognized: Axel_Mazik, Phagan_Darkness, Marc_Voltaire and Max_Dirks.
4) After Yahoo shut down user created chat rooms, I made several unsuccessful attempts to revive the PSXU Chat. There I met Kris Wood.
5) Kris introduced me to AllRPG. AllRPG had some RP forums they called the Interactive World. I didn't participate.
6) The AllRPG IW was reintroduced as Althanas, and I joined shortly thereafter. My original SN was Bond_007 and my character name was Axel Mazik. Clearly not being creative, I introduced the world to Max Dirks, a direct copy of my character from Ayenee.
7) After being here a few shorts weeks, I defended Cyrus the Virus after a squabble with the staff. Santh Til'Garos (Santhalas) was intregued and he made me a sub-moderator of Terrinore (of Lornius fame). It was an OOC discipline area at the time.
8) After a week of doing that (seriously), features super moderator Etheryn quit and nominated me for his old job.
9) I got the job, slowly making my way up to Features Administrator, then Staffing Administrator, then Content Administrator.
10) Serilliant, the former site owner, retired and I became the new site owner.

The rest you know. Crazy right?

Let's hear your RP foundations.

[Mordelain]

Kingdom of Berbusk on Delphi Forums...several other forums to boot, superhero ones, and a singular D&D.

Nothing for years.

Althanas.

How's that for short and sweet?

[Max Dirks]

I want details!

[Mordelain]

I was 13-14 when I was on Berbusk. I was a dick. I got banned.

I gave up, and came back here in 2009. That's 7/8 years out of online PBP forums.

There really isn't any more to tell!

[Prophet]

TheOnlyGhost wants to chat with you.

Started on WoW PTR a while back, and got into chat based RP in a few other games.
I got bored, and got into writing a novel, (Which is still nailed to my door, my mom never took it down.)
I stooped writing for a while, and found a little home made site called Arell, that i worked as a mod for.
I found althanas a while back, made a few accounts. Left.
I found Santharia in Feb. of this year, and a link from a friend back to althanas.
Came back.
Now.

[Luned]

I started back in 2001, when I was a freshman in high school. While dating an upperclassman (yeah, I felt really cool), he had me make a character on a roleplaying chat version of the Star Wars Cantina so he could show me off to his internet friends. It was super awkward and then I think he tried to cyber me (???) but I had no idea wtf.

Needless to say, we broke up after a couple weeks, but I thought that the roleplaying thing was pretty nifty so I went and found Nexxus' CyberChat/The Keep, which still exist in some form (http://nexxushost.com/). (Also, CC was not for cybering, it just had a terrible name.) I stayed there until 2007 or 2008, was a mod and then an admin for quite some time. I remember I was one of the snobby "paraposters", who posted entire paragraphs instead of just a couple lines. Hardcore.

That was about when I met Melody, who I dragged on here as Pepita. She showed me forum roleplaying and I was hooked –– whole paragraphs, all the time! She and I both participated in a bunch of random stuff together, from one shot forums to DeviantArt artsy stuff to AIM sessions. She might be dating Christoph now, but I got to see her rp-naked first! In yo face.

After failing to get into RoleplayerGuild and some other places, I found Althanas in my search for a solid forum last year. At first I thought the site was really ugly and all of the really intense thousands-of-words-to-a-post threads were off-putting, but people were nice and I settled in. Now you'll never get rid of me. ; )

[Mordelain]

The site's prettier for having you :cool:

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

Althanas is actually my first and only RP experience. Chris invited me to the site years and years ago, after I had written and produced a fantasy radio drama that riffed on console RPGs. He promptly dumped me onto Karuka Tida to learn the ropes. I created Madison not too long after, ripping her right from the script of another radio drama I was working on at the time. I would do a couple threads, take a hiatus, come back, start another couple threads, take another hiatus, and repeat a few more times.

And here we are today.

[Atzar]

Sometime around 2001-2002ish (not sure of the exact year), I discovered an online game called Kings of Chaos. The leading strategy was to have more minions and more free time than anybody else. Not much of a game, really, but it entertained me for a season or two. More importantly, it introduced me to a message board called giveupalready.com, which is where I got my first taste of play-by-post roleplaying.

I hung around there for a year or two under the screen name Gizmorc the Bad (no, seriously), eventually shortened to Gizmorc, a portmanteau of 'Gizmo' from Gremlins and 'orc'. Which is funny, because my character (a water mage - always been magic for me) was neither a gremlin nor an orc. Anyway, at some point I met Oakenshield - you all would know him better as INDK. He introduced me to Althanas. My timeline is a bit hazy on this, but I know I joined here under the username Ether, went inactive briefly, and when I came back a month or so later the site was experiencing one of its famous crashes.

I took a year or so off from roleplaying at that point - again, hazy on the chronological details, could have been longer. Eventually I found my way back to GUA, again as Ether, and took part in an RP world called Divine Salvation. At that point the writing bug bit me again, but DS didn't quite do it for me. So I rejoined Althanas in late 2006 as Atzar Kellon. I consider that to be my first real introduction to the community of Althanas. My first thread was a battle with Witchblade, which ended in a 66-66 tie as judged by Letho(frankly that's probably still the best I've ever written here). A few short months later, I applied to be a moderator for the first time.

That's really it. I've been here off-and-on ever since in a variety of capacities.

Interesting side note: Zook likely never meets Manda if I don't bring him to Althanas with me from DS. Funny how that shit works out.

[Otto]

Began when my ex got me to join that adolescent cesspit of a site, 'Gaia'. Well, I had no interest in any of the monotonous, pointless facebook-type games on there, but the play-by-post forums did seem kinda neat.

Then we broke up, and I was free to stop going there - but I had the bug! I found RPG Gateway, and from there, a similar fantasy PBP site called 'Tazlure'. Made a Scottish half elf (I miss you, Donovan), became a mod, and then also briefly got to RP as an Oriental diplomat before the site shut down.

I spent a few years without looking for anything else. Very, very briefly got back into it on some site I can't even remember now, but as nobody replied to my posts, I gave up. Stopped for another year or two... and then, after some searching, came here. Thus were born Otto and Wilfred :)

[Max Dirks]

Tazlure had a lot of hot girls, if I recall their picture thread. You should invite a few of them here!

[Flames of Hyperion]

I've been writing in one form or another for two decades now, but my first introduction to online PBP RP was a forum called MetalMachineMusic, centred around the Zoids franchise (which I'd been a massive fan of since the first series aired in Japan in 1999). I think it was 2005, when I'd moved halfway across the world by myself to start uni and was feeling a little homesick?

I was there for a few years, but unfortunately the site didn't survive the core member base growing old enough for graduation and 'proper' jobs. A few of us (Caden Law, Inkfinger, and I spring to mind) jumped ship here. I personally fell in love with the feedback aspect of Althanas and haven't looked elsewhere since.

[Witchblade]

Keep it in your pants, Dirksie, I doubt any of them would want to play with you anyway. :p

Oh boy... I've been on Althanas since Dinosaurs roamed the planet.

Let's see, my friend Serge found this place back when it was part of allrpg.com and he introduced me to it one day when I was over at his house. It seemed amazingly fun to me, but I did not have internet at home as we couldn't afford it at the time. Hell, I don't even think we had a computer back then. (His username was Silver) Then I ended up getting the internet at home about a year or so later and quickly made my own account here and started roleplaying. That was probably when I was 15 or 16. Just to give you some perspective, I'm 27 now.

I rp'd on several other forums, created one of my own that actually lasted for about a year until it faded out due to inactivity. I've moderated in several forums as well, including this one, and have gone on at least three hiatus' but I always seem to come back here, while most of the other places I wrote in and at times even helped create I don't remember the names of at all.

That seems to wrap it up rather simply.

Oh, and Atzar, I can't believe you still remember that battle! Too bad that version of Althy crashed and burned, but I keep all of my word files saved. I probably still have it hanging around somewhere in the Battle folder. :p

[Ashla]

My cousins hoytti and Black Shadow (who was using another account at the time) showed me this site and I was like "MOM! MOM! MOM! CAN I JOIN THIS WEBSITE PLEEAAAASE???" And she somehow said "yes" xD

[Luned]

Interesting side note: Zook likely never meets Manda if I don't bring him to Althanas with me from DS. Funny how that shit works out.

I know, right? Every time I think of Chris and Melody I get this sickening feeling of responsibility and ask myself "What have I done?!"

[Witchblade]

What have you done, Luned!?

You should have seen the tears streaming down BaBE's face when Chris moved in with her!

[Max Dirks]

You know, BlueGhosts, if you have any other friends your age who want to learn to write better encourage them to join.

I've been back and forth with Loreena and sillylizard (both are English teachers) for years about making Althanas a workshop project for them. While both were for it, changing teaching plans and involving outside sources are sticky subjects for school boards. Oh well :(

[Ashla]

You know, BlueGhosts, if you have any other friends your age who want to learn to write better encourage them to join.
I am already trying to bring attension to this website... But nobody listens :( The friends who have already joined are no longer active (Moonberrycat...) I do keep trying though :/

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

Ugh. Witchy isn't joking.

I'm willing to overlook Luned being indirectly responsible for me losing only my best friend in the whole wide world to some Internet hussie, and place the blame solely on that nerdburglar Pepita.

...and then bill her for all the boxes of Kleenex that I had to buy at Walmart.

....excuse me while I continue my mourning.

[Prophet]

I work with Santh as I go. Try to convince Drexal to join. An then ill retry my brother. See if hell come back.


If he does. Hell froze over, the high heavens went dark and the world ended. Twice.

[Atzar]

Oh, and Atzar, I can't believe you still remember that battle! Too bad that version of Althy crashed and burned, but I keep all of my word files saved. I probably still have it hanging around somewhere in the Battle folder. :p

I'd like to claim that I just have a fantastic memory, but in truth I just haven't finished all that many threads here. It makes the ones I have finished a bit easier to recall.


I know, right? Every time I think of Chris and Melody I get this sickening feeling of responsibility and ask myself "What have I done?!"

Just imagine how you'll feel if they pop out a kid. Like, there's a kid that exists in this world, and it's a teeny bit my fault. If somebody starts trying to get me to pay for shit, that's it. I'm bouncing to Costa Rica somewhere in the jungle and you people will never hear from my ass again.

[Max Dirks]

Matt Spears (aka Santhalas) allegedly has an original Tanthanas database dump saved on his computer.

If you can a) find him, b) see if he has that old computer, and c) convince him to send me the old dump, I will upload it as an archive on our site.

[Skie and Avery]

I started RPing when a friend got me into it in AOL and Yahoo chatrooms. Through high school I RPed on Ayenee. My senior year of high school (2002) I heard a pseudo-friend talking about Althanas. He was here as Shiny_X (oh god I think that's how he formatted the username, it's been so long!) and he and I generally liked the same things so I checked it out. I joined up, made Tshael and this has been my home ever since!

And I guess I owe you a drink, Atzar. :D

[Zook Murnig]

Witchblade, Atzar: www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?3107

I found it last week when I started my suicide project.

[Warpath]

I've been writing since I was a kid, but I first got into pbp in 1997 or 98 at a site called Unrivaled, or something like that. It was a long time ago. I was like 11? 10? I'm almost 28 now, so yeah. I had been aware of chat-based RP for a long time but that never really appealed to me, because like Luned I am a paragraph writer, so yeah. Seeing people say things like "description = power but quality > quantity" got me pretty intrigued, so I jumped in. I distinctly remember being terrified, like I was going to get chased away for doing it wrong, but I was pretty popular from the get-go and I respond well to flattery. I know this about myself because of pbp.

Anyway. I was enjoying my ego-trip on Unrivaled for a pretty long time before some dudes from other sites started showing up talking smack, as they do. They came from sites like Planet Namek and Animeleague, and there were protracted pissing contests more OOC than IC but I remember getting very annoyed about the whole thing because seriously? I am the best. You can't come into my house and say your house is better. (For the record though, their house was better. They had some amazing writers.)

That's really the theme of my pbp career: I always show up to the party late. I remember switching over to PN just as the site was dying, so I missed out on "proving myself" against awesome writers like Baron Morte and...ugh, fuck if I've forgotten his name. Anyway. Me and a bunch of guys from Unrivaled "invaded" a newer site called Momentum, which was actually a fantastic place with a really awesome premise. (Basically they took a map of the modern world and players would create godlike characters and try to take over various countries and territories, forming huge groups to hold onto their claims. I think we organized like fifteen to twenty people to show up all at once, and we promptly took over Europe). Momentum was on its downswing when we showed up from Unrivaled and had a lot of success taking huge swaths of territory, which drummed up a nice surge of activity for the site and might have saved it for another year or two. I ended up spending more time on that site than Unrivaled, so much so that I don't think I really noticed when Unrivaled closed its roleplaying section and then ultimately went belly-up.

Anyway, I met a lot of really awesome writers on Momentum, namely a fellow called Bregan (though there was Jehu as well, who I should probably credit with keeping me at Momentum because he started flattering me, Avarice, DrunkVegeta, Ten, and many others). Momentum ended up getting pretty inactive, so it merged with Animeleague, and I kinda went along for the ride because there was nowhere else to go. I spent a long time on AL, though I kindof came and went as the writing bug struck me. It didn't capture my imagination the way Momentum had and there were a lot of attempts at a revival, which always brought me back. During one lull, Bregan sort of off-handedly linked me to Althanas. This was just...years and years ago. I remember my character but I don't remember his name. It's very possible the account is still here somewhere, but I'd have to hunt it down.

That didn't go anywhere though. In the end I went back to AL and stayed there for another few years, but once again the site started dying down so I gave Althanas another shot. This time I made a half-giant and jumped into a Citadel fight with Bloodrose when that character was new. I did NOT understand the battle system here ("spars" on AL were considered "open" whereas battles here are strictly "closed," meaning Althanas considers it power gaming or godmodding if you describe your character actually damaging another), so there were a number of hiccups in that fight, but it was still fun for me. Witchblade actually judged it and Bloodrose won. I got sulky because that is not flattery, so I stopped writing on Althanas for another long while (but I continued lurking, reading pretty much anything Bloodrose ever wrote. I only wrote with him once more after that, in a thread where he hired my character to do some evil deeds, but it never went anywhere. Never got my rematch, regret that).

Long story short, the roleplaying section of AL spent a long time dying. I mean a long time, and it was pathetic. I made a LOT of efforts to help bring the site back. I devoted an unhealthy amount of time and energy to it, but in the end I think nobody else was really interested in saving it. That really frustrated me, so at the end I sort of flipped AL the bird and decided to switch my loyalties to Althanas. I always loved the leveling system and the fact that you guys had active judges and a mod staff that actually did something, and it's story based. It was frustrating to see how often the staff fought with itself in very public ways, and Althanas had horrible bitches and fuckers with attitudes, but it was nice to see people that actually cared about their site. So I went through a handful of characters until I went back to basics and created Marcus Book under the account name "Amen." That was my original account name from back in my Unrivaled days, to give you an idea. It was sort of my way of saying "this is my place now," and it stuck.

And I guess the rest is history. I still feel like I missed out on the best times here and, you know, everywhere else I've ever gone, but this is home now, so here's where I'll be til I'm the last one poking at dusty ruins, and somebody from some other site manages to tempt me away with flattery.

EDIT:

I forgot to mention: credit Ataraxis for getting me to stay. Flattery will get you everywhere.

[Witchblade]

Witchblade, Atzar: www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?3107

I found it last week when I started my suicide project.


OMG! I'd give you sex but you have Manda for that. XD

[Zook Murnig]

I also knew for a fact that it was after the last crash, because I remember being brand new, recruited by Atzar, and being amazed that the mods on this forum would write with little newbie peons like us.

[Witchblade]

Haha, I love writing with newbies, they usually have some the freshest ideas. Plus, they think you're God if you're a moderator or an Oldbie so you can get them to do whatever you want. :p