Text Me Maybe, or, How I Became a Gamer

A funny thing happened on the way to Draenor.

I was give access the beta for the new World of Warcraft expansion, and I spent a lot of time testing stuff, and...well, I pretty much did everything new in the expansion twice, so when the time came to actually buy it, I went ‘Wait, now I have to spend money to do everything a third time?’

So I didn’t buy it. I’m not saying Warlords isn’t good. It is really good. It’s just...old news to me. But, I have to get my daily rpg fix somewhere. So I’ve gone all the way back to the beginning. It’s a game called Lusternia, Age of Ascension. Its....well...actually, it starts before that.

In 2003 I came across an advert for a game named Achaea. It was a text-based role-playing game that you played in your browser. I had never  heard of a text-based game before, but it was free (not something very common back then), so I tried it out. To my eternal shame my first character was a dwarf named Battleaxe. The dwarf part was fine but it was very quickly pointed out that I should change my name to something that sounded like an actual dwarf name.

 

Dwarf from Lusternia. Battleaxe not included.

See, Achaea is what they call an enforced-role-playing game. You have to role-play. If you stood in the middle of a town square and say ‘Hey guys! This game is great! And you don’t even need a good graphics card to play!’ the players around you will look at you with sympathy, suggest that perhaps you have spent too much time in the sun and need a quiet lie-down, and whisper the word ‘lunatic’ to each other when they think you’re not looking at them. (Also, don’t call them players.)

That’s not to say that OOC (out-of-character) is completely forbidden. If it was, you wouldn’t be able to ask for help if you get stuck and can’t work out what to type to do something. ‘Newbies’ are given considerable leeway. Everyone understands there’s a pretty steep learning curve for someone who has never done text games before. You just have to be subtle, like keeping the OOC to messages instead of speaking aloud.

So anyway, there I was, a new dwarven Runewarden, learning for the first time how a text game works, how an RPG game works, and how to role-play, all at the same time. Fortunately there is a system in place that unites players towards a common goal, and thus make people want to help you.

Achaea’s system had two components - cities and guilds. (The guilds no longer exist in Achaea, but they were very important back when I played) A guild is a group of players, all with the same class, that (mostly) also belong to the same city. Some classes, like the Runewardens, had only one guild. Other classes had multiple guild you could join - there were five mage guilds, for example, one in each of the five cities. People from your guild and city would help you, even to the extent of giving out free equipment - because if you eventually became powerful, the whole city would benefit.

Runewarden with dual runeblades and a trained falcon.

Each class had three skillsets you could learn. Runewardens had Chivalry, Runelore and Forging. Druids had Groves, Metamorphosis and Potions. If you ever played WoW near the beginning, you may recognise this three-skillsets-per-class idea. (Achaea, by the way, was using it back in 1994, long before WoW even existed).

There is something else that Achaea did first (or so they claim). They were the very first online game that was free-to-play, but supported by micro-transactions. Now before you flee in terror, this is not your Candy Crush-style micro-transaction. Those sort of games have a  resource-based system where you run out of ‘energy’ and need to buy more with real money. Essentially they force you to stop playing the game if you don’t give them money. Which I think is the worst idea ever. Why would you want people to ever not be playing your game? They might end up playing a game that they like more!

Instead, Achaea has a thing called credits. Credits can either be converted into lessons that you can learn more skills with, or can be used to buy powerful magical items called artefacts. That sword you just made? It’s a really good sword. It has great stats on it. Just look at that speed value! But...what if it was a little bit better? Another 5 to its speed? There’s an artefact that does that. Just buy it and attach it to your sword. But, hey, wouldn’t it be nice if you were a bit stronger?  If you were, your sword would hit harder. Not a lot harder, mind you, but just enough to give you an edge. There’s an artefact for that. And how about that annoying mage who keeps jumping you and killing you? He’s a grook, you know. They’re frog-people. Weak to lightning. So...what if half of your sword’s damage was actually converted into lightning damage? There’s an artefact that does that too.

That damned grook who keeps jumping you.

Ok, ok. It’s probably...a way more insidious method than those Facebook games. But Achaea is still going, decades after text-games supposedly died, so it must work.

I played Achaea for a while, and got to about level 60 (out of 100), but struggled to advance any further. I died too much, and dying is really really bad, cause you lose a significant chunk of experience. But then Lusternia was released...and...

I have, as usual, spoken about so much other stuff, that I haven’t even gotten to Lusternia. So Part 2 is coming.

Marvel Universe: In the Beginning was Genetic Manipulation

Long, long ago, before recorded history, the Celestials came to Earth. The mysterious, metal-clad, six-hundred-meter-tall cosmic beings experimented with our  genes for mysterious reasons, creating a super-powered offshoot of the human race known as the Eternals. Then, for reasons just as mysterious, they left.

The Celestials

The Eternals built a secret city called Titanos, and were led by the brothers Kronos and Uranos. Uranos wanted the Eternals to conquer the humans, whilst Kronos thought it would be better to just stay hidden in their city and do science. There was a civil war, and Kronos won, because science.

The Eternals by Daniel Acuña

Uranos and his followers were exiled from Earth, and went to live on a planet that they named after their leader - Uranus. Fortunately, many years later, we humans gave it the exact same name, otherwise things might have gotten quite confusing. On Uranus, the Eternals encountered a dormant outpost built by the aliens known as the Kree. Finding a Kree Outpost causes it's robotic Sentry to activate and attempt to kill you in order to preserve the secrecy of the outpost. The exiled Eternals managed to survive and destroy the Sentry. But destroying a Kree Sentry is a crime punishable by death. (This is why nobody likes the Kree.) A Kree force travelled to Uranus to carry out the sentence, but most of the exiles survived by tricking the Kree into thinking they were dead. Whilst in the Solar System, the Kree also decided it was a good idea to experiment on the genes of the human race. Apparently this is a thing aliens like to do to us. Another super-powered offshoot of the human race was created, this time called the Inhumans.

The Inhumans by Jae Lee

Meanwhile, Kronos' son Zuras became the new leader of the Eternals. Titanos had been pretty much destroyed in the war, so they built a new secret city on top of mount Olympus, as well as other smaller cities around the world. These Eternals still live on Earth today, and are often confused with the Greek gods. I have no idea why.

Kronos' other son, A'Lars, decided to leave Earth in order to prevent the possibility of a second civil war, and he and his followers settled on Saturn's moon Titan. These days they are called the Titans, and A'Lars is known as Mentor of Titan.

Iron Man meets the Titan Eternals

 At some point after, during, or possibly even before this, mutants began to emerge. Many people think that the first mutant was Apocalypse, who was born during the time of Egypt's Old Kingdom. But the oldest living mutant is actually, Selene who is a lot older than him, which makes me  think that there must have been others too, just less immortal, and therefore, dead. Apocalypse found a crashed Celestial transport ship, and was contacted by the Celestial known as Exon the Searcher, who revealed that in addition to creating the Eternals, the Celestials had actually created the mutant X-Gene and placed it in to the genetic makeup of the human race. The Celestials then endowed Apocalypse with great powers and tasked him to lead the world into a new mutant age, which set him on a millennia-long genocidal war. Hmm.

Now why do we care about any of this? Well firstly, Mentor's son is very important. He is Thanos, the Mad Titan, one of the Avengers' most powerful enemies. Yes, this means Thanos is actually a distant relative of you and me.

Secondly, it was Mentor who, knowing the damage his son could do, took a mortally wounded human named Douglas Arthur, and turned him into the superhero known as Drax the Destroyer. (Yes, this is a rather different origin than the one Drax is given in the Guardians movie, but I don't think anyone cares because the movie was awesome.)

Thirdly, the Inhumans are important these days due to the fact that Marvel has been trying to turn them into a semi-replacement for the X-Men. They are supposedly doing this to purposely mess up Fox, who own the movie rights (and possibly a lot more) to the X-Men. But I think the real reason is a lot simpler: Marvel want to make an Inhumans movie, because they are one of the few things they still own the rights to. They have been putting a lot of effort into turning the Inhumans from an elite kingdom of separatists into everyday superheroes you would expect to bump into whilst going shopping. Unfortunately, no one cares.

There is significant evidence that Marvel is going to retcon Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch into being Inhumans instead of mutants. As if their origin wasn't already unnecessarily complicated and completely bonkers. This is going dangerously close to messing-with-Fox territory, and is probably why Fox suddenly shoehorned Quicksilver into Days of Future Past.  But again, I think the true reason for this is simpler: it's an attempt to get people to care about the Inhumans. And to be fair, it may actually work.

Above the Storm: Part 3

Part 1
Part 2

After the games on Saturday, I tried to look around the expo. There were still a lot of people, and it was difficult to actually see stuff. Most of the stands were catered to computers and computer games, with only a few devoted to more comic-con type stuff. I was surprised to realise that I no longer cared much about computer games. I went through a lot of trades (collections of comic series), but everything was either stuff I wasn't interested in, or stuff that cost more than I wanted to spend on it.

As I mulled over the day's events whilst futilely search for something I needed to buy, it became rather apparent to me that Phantom X-style teams were the thing to beat, rather than Highfather, and I really should have played Drax rather than Angela, as he would have fared a lot better against that style of play. I could not change my team however, and this, added to the disappointment of the stalls at rAge, made me rather despondent. I thought that perhaps I had done the wrong thing in coming. I should have given the plane ticket to someone else.

I didn't sleep very well that evening, and had odd nightmares about Earth being invaded by the Kree, for some reason. But Sunday came along (surprisingly free of invading Kree) and I dutifully went back to rAge, because, regardless of how I felt, letting down the other Durban players was not an option. I can be stubborn when I want to be.

Sunday started off a lot better. There were far less people. A lot more of them were in cosplay. We had gone in on Sat knowing nothing about what kind of teams we would be facing, but this time we had far more of an idea. Oddly enough, the most nerve-racking part of the whole weekend was waiting to for the first round pairings. I'm certain we were all hoping not to be paired against another Durbanite. And none of us were. Except for me. I had to play Chris. Again. Of course.

Actually, our game was rather civil. I'm pretty sure this was due to us having had all the rules arguments the day before. It was a close game, very close, but I lost. And it was a knock out tournament.

The End

Adi Granov's Captain Marvel

Ok, it's not really the end. I guess you want to know what happened with the rest of us? Brandon and Peter got into the semi-finals, Krishin having lost out to that terrible villain known only as a 'roll-off'. Surprisingly, I found myself unable to watch Peter's game. At some point I must have forgiven him for completely destroying me with his Blood Elves in the Warcraft card game that one time in that tournament I really, really wanted to win....wait where was I? I lost my train of though. Oh right - I actually wanted Peter to win his match. This has never happened before.

In between, I looked at the more comicbooky stalls again, and finally found something to buy - the 200pt Captain Marvel that I had really been wanting. And that was when it suddenly occurred to me. Yeah, I should have played Drax. But I played Angela instead, and I do not regret it, because she's bloody Angela. Created by Neil Gaiman. The older sister of Thor. The Assassin of Asgard. Playing female superheroes is my thing. If I hadn't played her, I wouldn't be me.

Brandon lost to a roll off. Peter won, and then lost in the finals to...a roll off. In fact, all three roll offs I have mentioned so far were the same guy beating us. Earth is a crazy place. You can't even make this stuff up!

I don't know when it was when everything had started going right. Was it when I shook Chris' hand at the end of a match that did not involve rules arguments? When I found the Captain Marvel? When I got given a free blu-ray of the Thor movie? That night at the airport, I checked in, and the lady asked me 'Would you like a window seat?' Why yes, yes I would.

We took off, and I watched the light of the city spread out below me, clusters of them all over as far as the eye could see. And then they vanished. There were clouds below us, but I couldn't see them in the dark. Until the lightning lit them up. The seatbelt lights came on, and the rest of the plane trip was rather bumpy. I don't think the rest of the passengers enjoyed it at all. But I loved it, because I was watching a storm from above. When do you ever get to do something like that? I will never forget it.

And you know, I don't think the storm was a coincidence. Someone was telling me that I was right to have gone to Joburg. To have played Angela.

Did I mention that she is Thor's sister?  

Above the Storm: Part 2

Many people think that Mantis belongs to some sort of telepathic alien insect race. But she's actually a human named Mary Brandt with the super-power of telepathy. She is also highly trained in Vietnamese martial arts, which earned her the nickname Mantis, later used as her superhero alias. She was created for Avengers in the 70s as a replacement for Black Widow, who was leaving to go hang out with Daredevil or something.

So onto rAge.

Arriving at the Coca-Cola dome in Joburg, I started to get worried due to seeing rather lengthy lines to get in. The line for Computicket was however...actually there was no one so I can't even call it a line. I just walked in. So I have to thank Jerome and Krishin for insisting that I buy my tickets beforehand.

Once inside, I discovered that there were so many people I could hardly move. I also had no idea where I was supposed to be going. There was a map but I didn't see it, probably due to the fact that there were so many people I could hardly see anything. Eventually I ended up at the Unplug Yourself booth, and Francois kindly directed me to the Heroclix tables, which took a while to get to. I don't think I need to explain why.

Once I arrived there, I met up with the other guys from Durban. For those of you counting, the players from Durban were Kureshan, Krishin, Peter, Brandon, Kavi, Keegan, Chris and myself. Kuri and Krish had already qualified, and were just there to cheer the rest of us on. The judge, Deon, was dressed in a complete Guy Gardner Green Lantern outfit, which was rather impressive.

My first game was against a Joburg player playing M10 Iron Man, Splitlip and the Book of the Skull. As a reminder, my team was Angela, Mantis and Major Victory, using the Guardians of the Galaxy additional team ability, and supported by the Green Lantern Power Battery. Because outer space. He won the roll, and decided to go first, moving out Iron Man and Splitlip. I assume he was planning to drop hammers on his second turn, but Splitlip was now close enough for Angela to knock him out on my first turn. This slowed Iron Man down long enough for Major Victory to come in and defeat him, with Mantis assisting.

My second match was against Chris, who was playing the long-range Phantom X (I refuse to use the French spelling of his name because he isn't French), along with Black Talon (who sounds cool but is actually just a guy in a chicken suit), Weasel and the Indigo Tribe Power Battery. Those of you who know us will be aware that our games tend to devolve into rules-lawyering arguments (and it's my fault just as much as his). This was no different. I feel kind of bad that I completely forgot about the first-turn-immunity rule, which gave me a significant advantage as Angela crashed in and messed up Black Talon's day. She then blades'd Phantom X for 6, before getting knocked out. Chris' Weasel tried to heal Phantom X, but accidently knocked him out instead. Oops. Two wins for me, though I didn't really deserve this one.

My third match was against Brandon's team which was a similar idea to Chris' but used Cyborg instead of Phantom X, and a White Lantern Power Battery/Entity combo to bump up Cyborg's stats. The weakness of Cyborg is that you can destroy the objects he is using to increase his range. I just couldn't work out how to destroy them fast enough. Angela did a lot of damage, but not quite enough, and I lost. After the game, Kuri pointed out that I could have used Mantis to give Major Victor an extra attack instead of using it on Angela, which would have taken out the objects. I think more practice would probably have allowed me to come up with that idea myself.

Depite the loss, I had done well enough to get through to the Sunday, along with most of the other Durban players, with only Kavi and Keegan missing out. Part 3, which will finally explain the title of this series, is coming soon!

Above the Storm: Part 1

This is the story of my trip to rAge. It starts, of course, two weeks before rAge. I was seriously thinking of quitting Heroclix. I was frustrated with loopholes in the rules, figures being inconsistently worded, and...entities. The less I say about those the better. There was also the fact that I just didn't like any of the Marvel sets, causing most people to think that I was actually a DC fan.

Which was why I had hardly looked at the Guardians of the Galaxy set. I really should have, because I've been a Guardians fan since I decided I needed more sci-fi and bought the first issue of Abnett and Lannning's Guardians of the Galaxy comic, and saw the misfits bungle their way to saving the galaxy, not because they wanted to, but because there was no one else. Well, actually, that's not entirely true, they were doing it due to Mantis exerting subtle mind-control on them, convincing them all that it was a good idea to follow Star-Lord (it really wasn't). But this is beside the point.

When the shoppe held the 'Win a Plane Ticket to Rage' tournament, I didn't really want to play. But someone had to open the door and run the till, and since I was doing that, I thought I may as well play because tournaments are always better with more people. When my sister asked what I'd do if won, I laughed and said 'I'm not going to win.'

And then I did.

So suddenly I was going to rAge. I needed a place to stay and a team. Fortunately I have family in Joburg, and my aunt and uncle were happy to not only give me a bed to sleep in, but transport and meals as well.

Next I needed a team. I can't quite remember how I came up with the Guardians team. I know I walked away from the plane ticket tournament owning only four. I must have decided Aleta cost too many points, which left me with just Angela, Mantis, and Major Victory (none of them were in the movie, because there is such a thing as too many characters). When I looked at their powers, it suddenly occurred to me that Vic and Mantis could get Angela across the entire map in one turn. That meant I could deal with the nasty Highfather team. There was enough room for a resource - and it had to be the Green Lantern because needed the willpower.

Getting across the map in one turn wasn't entirely necessary. No one really knew what the figures did, and the' usual' play was instead to make two attacks with Angela on my first turn. I practiced as much as I was able to with the team (which wasn't as much as I wanted to).

The only other problem was that I had never flown before, and I am scared of heights. Now people had told me that it wasn't the same - but none of them were scared of heights, so I didn't really believe them. As it turned out, I was in a middle seat, in a row that did not have a window, between a man who spent the trip reading his newspaper and a lady who slept the whole way. So the whole flying thing turned out to be rather disappointing.

Oh, and my flight was delayed by 20 minutes. Of course. And on that note...I'm out of time for now, and we haven't even gotten to Joburg yet. This will need a part 2.

Magna Charter #2

Dear Diary,

Things are not going very well. We have not found any robots yet. Berlik is missing.

We fought some big beetles on the beach. Bandar killed one of the beetles in a single hit. Dwarves are always useful in a fight. Gabriel killed one too. He is better at fighting then I expected. More bards should learn how to use those small crossbow things. Then they would be able to actually kill stuff. 

Big-eyes does not seem very useful so far. He was scared of the beetles. But he still tried to hit one with his swords. After the beetles were dead we realised that Berlik and the gnome had run away. So I guess Big-eyes is more useful than them.

We also fought a thing that was like a frog. With arms and legs. Like person arms. And person legs. I don't know if it was a person. Gabriel tried to talk to it, and it hurt him and Big-eyes with magic. I beheaded it. Bendak cheered and said it was a great stroke, but I think it just had a weak neck. I hope it was not a person. Then he checked on the others. Their eyes were hurt, so we waited till they got better before we went on. The gnome caught up to us and pretended he hadn't run away. Berlik is still missing. I hope he has not been hurt.

We found some dead people, but they were not the chieftain from Torch. Then we met some dark-people who took us to a big cave where they live. I don't think they are very nice, but Gabriel and Bendak went to talk to their chieftain. When they came back, Gabriel said we can travel through their caves if we kill some gremlins for them. Gabriel is good at talking. We would have had to kill the gremlins anyway, and now we don't have to kill the dark-people too. It was clever for him to think of that. The dark-people said they know where the robots are.

More later.

Magna, Robot Slayer.

The Ransom Theory: Dead Redemption

"My my, the child of the Worldbreaker, proof that none are beyond redemption." -Chi-Ji, the Red Crane

The Ransom Theory is the name I give to the list of rules I have set myself when play RPGs and fantasy card games. One day I will explain the name. But not today.

I started playing World of Warcraft during the Cataclysm expansion, because the best time to start something is when everyone else is quitting. I gave myself the following rule: don't play a warlock or death knight. Both use magic that is evil in origin, which I'm not comfortable with.

Cataclysm saw the beginning of a fourth war between the Horde and the Alliance, instigated by the new Warchief Garrosh Hellscream and the Banshee Queen Sylvanas Windrunner. (To be fair to Garrosh, the Horde did need resources being held by the Alliance's night elves, who think that killing people because trees is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.) Whilst I really enjoyed Cataclysm overall, I was not very happy about quests constantly telling me to go kill the Horde when seriously, an evil dragon and a nihilistic cult were trying to destroy the world, and why aren't we putting aside our differences and fighting them instead?

And then something odd happened. I arrived at the city of Andorhal in the Plaguelands, one of the last bastions of the Scourge. An army of Alliance soldiers lead by the death knight Thassarian were attempting to wrest control of the city away from the Scourge, and also prevent it from falling to the Horde. On the other side of the city was a force of Horde soldiers led by another death knight, Koltira Deathweaver. In a climactic battle, myself and Thassarian ended up in the city square facing the necromancer controlling the city, just as Koltira arrived to do the same. After the leader of the Scourge was forced to retreat, the Alliance and Horde armies found themselves looking at each other. And then, the two commanders ordered their forces to pull back and regroup, with Thassarian ordering me not to tell anyone what had happened in the square. What on earth was going on here? Who were these guys? And why were two death knights the only faction members willing to turn around and walk away from the war?

But answers were not forthcoming. I was sent to assist the Argent Crusade in the east, and I would not see Thassarian again for quite some time. But it had started me thinking.

In Northrend, the paladin Highlord Tirion Fordring and the death knight Highlord Darion Mograine discuss tactics. Darion criticises Tirion when the latter refuses to fire on his own men to kill the Scourge. When Tirion claims that doing so would make him no better than the Scourge themselves, Darion's chilling reply is 'Then you have lost.'

And then there is the short story Silver Hand, Ebon Blade. It takes the above disgreement, and turns it into a much bigger argument culminating in a parting of ways over Darion's creation of the cursed axe Shadowmourne. But when Tirion's Argent Tournament is attacked, and Tirion is about to give up, Darion returns and throws his entire order of death knights behind Tirion's cause. Though he never actually admits it, the implication is clear - Darion has realised that Tirion was right.

And it was at this point I thought that maybe - just maybe - I was missing something. So I did some research. Darion's order of death knights - the Knights of the Ebon Blade - are sometimes referred to as the third wave of Death Knights. The first wave were the Shadow Council reanimated by Gul'dan, the most famous of them being Teron Gorefiend. These dudes were already evil before they even died. The second wave were created by the Lich King (Ner'zhul), and included Prince Arthas. Most of these knights, like Arthas, chose to become what they were. But the third wave was different. Created by the second Lich King (Arthas) these death knights had no choice in the matter. They were killed and brought back against their will. They didn't even want to be death knights. Now that was interesting.

So I decided to create a death knight character, to see how the story went. Of course, being me, I decided to specialise in frost instead of unholy. When I started out, my character was still under the control of the Lich King, along with Darion Mograine, Thassarian and the entire newly-created Ebon Blade. I was sent to completely wipe out an order of paladins known as the Scarlet Crusade. This is not particularly nice, but it's bearable because the Scarlet Crusade are secretly the army of the dreadlord Balnazzar, and are actually just as evil as the Scourge. But when the Scarlet Crusade was defeated, I was ordered to take on the other order of paladins, the Argent Crusade. Unlike the Scarlets, the Argent really are dedicated to everything that is righteous, good and holy. They are led by the aforementioned Highlord Tirion Fordring. I didn't want to fight him, and I was thinking that really, this death knight thing was not for me. But then everything changed.

They call it The Battle for Light's Hope Chapel. The Argent Crusade is surrounded by a Scourge army consisting of the Ebon Blade, lots of ordinary undead, and the Lich King himself. Their backs are literally against the wall. Until Tirion appears, and in a blinding flash of light he overpowers Darion and destroys every ordinary undead in the area, leaving only the Ebon Blade, the Lich King and a few others standing. At which point, the Lich King reveals that this was his plan all along.

He wanted Tirion out in the open, vulnerable to attack. And the only way to do that, was to force him to take the field. The Lich King knew that any army he sent against Light's Chapel would be decimated. Losing most of his second wave death knights was not desirable, not even if it resulted in the death of Tirion. So he needed cannon fodder. Powerful cannon fodder, but cannon fodder none the less. The Ebon Blade was created merely as a tool to that end.

But the Lich King made one mistake. A mistake villains all too often make. He gloated too much. And at that moment, the Knights of the Ebon Blade break free of his control. It is never definitively stated why. Is it because of their proximity to Light's Hope Chapel? The presence of Tirion? The Lich King's revelation that he created them to die? The vision that Darion has of his father? Or is it because the Ebon Blade never wanted to be death knights in the first place? We may never be sure.

But in that moment, the Ebon Blade suddenly regains free will, and with it, they choose to ally with the Argent Crusade. The Lich King realises he cannot stand against both orders, not on the holy ground of Light's Hope, and is forced to retreat.

Now this is a story worth my time. This is not the story of a fall. This is a story of redemption. It is not the story of the warlock or necromancer, whose lust for power leads them down the path of forbidden magic. This is not the story of Teron Gorefiend, who has returned from the dead because he wanted to. This is not the story of Prince Arthas, consumed by a desire for vengeance that twisted his very soul. This is the story of a person who was a slave to evil, but is now free. A person who still has the evil desire to inflict pain on others, but chooses instead to protect them. A person who is not asking the question 'Why am I here?' but the question 'What do I do now?' Have you heard that story? I have. I am that story.

Long ago, I asked why Thassarian walked away from a battle in Andorhal. I have my answer now. I only play two of my Warcraft characters a lot - and one of them is a death knight.

Magna Charter #1

Dear Diary,

Today I travelled to Torch to search for robots. It is a strange place, with big buildings made of bricks and stones. I heard a rumour that two dwarves had found something interesting on top of the big hill, so I went searching for it. I did not find any robots, but I did meet a bard named Gabriel Rose, who wears an odd looking robe and uses one of those very small crossbows that fires tiny little arrows made of metal. He thought that I needed protecting! I'm sure he was just being nice, but it was very funny. He is pretty good at talking to people, and seems to know a lot about tehk...tekno...about robots and stuff. Dad always says it is good to know people who are good at things you are not. Good at.

We stopped at this shop that sells strange potions. I'm not sure why we went, but Gabriel found it very interesting. Then we went to the chieftains house which is very big and made of stones. I do not know why anyone would want to live in it. We arrived at the same time as a dwarf named Bandar. I have heard of him. I know he will be a good ally, because he is an enemy of the Technic League, who are friends with robots. Plus he has armour, a large hammer, and is a dwarf. With him was a human warrior who had a pair of swords and big eyes. I am not sure if he can speak, but Bandar said that he helped smash a robot, so I think he is good too. There were also two magic-users. One is a tall man named Berlik, who seemed very jumpy. Maybe he was scared of all the big weapons. There is also a very, very pale gnome wizard. I think there is something wrong with him.

A dwarven lady said the chieftain was not in his house, because he was taken away by robots. She offered some sort of reward for us finding him, but I would have gone to rescue him anyway. The robots took him underneath a lake, so Gabriel went and found a wizard who waved a magic stick at us so we could breath underwater. We then went to the lake and swam down a dark tunnel. Berlik stopped being jumpy and gave us all glowing magic rocks so we could see. It is nice to have a magic-user that thinks of things like that. He is also not bad at tracking things. So now we are here in a cave that is not full of water, which is good, because the wizard said the spell would stop after a few hours. There are no robots yet, but tracks lead off around the corner.

More later.

Magna, Robot Slayer.