“Kingdom of Yserbius” was played and some basic concepts that are needed to understand what will follow in the Chapters to come. Keep in mind that the game was not a version of AD&D (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons) as is NWN. Upon entering Yserbius (or YS to those that played the game), a host was selected, then, as you entered the host, you saw picture of a Volcano (or ‘cano’) that had two entrances; an upper and a lower, and a “Tavern”. The lower was the first room in the game. This is where you could start quests, join other players to play in groups or just go in to try to accumulate experience points to gain levels. The upper entrance took you back into the place in the ‘cano’ that you had voluntarily exited previously. When you “died” in the ‘cano you HAD to go back in using the lower entrance.
The “Tavern” was a ‘chat’ room where players met to talk about the game, ask questions, role play (RP) with your character, discuss Guild matters, etc. While in YS you had the ability to talk privately with anyone that was in the same host as you, even if they were in the ‘cano’ and you in the Tavern, or vice versa. The other mode was to speak to the entire Tavern or individually by “clicking” on the person’s name or typing their name with a colon after it. There were also “parties” and sometimes even Guild meetings or marriages performed there or in the 'cano’. Each host had it’s own “bulletin boards” (BBS) that messages could be posted on.
There were four “BBS” that had different designations and anyone was allowed to post. The BBS only held 24 messages each. Role playing was popular and some lively and sometimes very bawdy comments were all done in the “middle English” mode of speaking, with some words being of the Gaelic or Yiddish variety. There was also a lot of kibitzing between Guilds, especially between the “regular” Guilds and the Warrior Guilds.
It should also be noted that the E-Mail System on INN was rather cumbersome. There were no “Mailing Lists” and all letters had to be addressed individually. For Guild Officers, this meant that if you had a letter that had to be mailed to all the members under you, you could spend 30-60 minutes just in the INN Post Office. You COULD create one letter, but you had to call it up and address it for each person. Depending on what kind of account you had {5, 25, 50, 100 or ‘Unlimited’ hours} you could use up on-line hours just mailing Guild communications to the membership.
2. The Guild of Yserbius
The Guilds in YS were formed by anyone that had a desire to do so. Guilds were not “registered” or “sanctioned” and INN played no part in policing Guilds. Consequently, many Guilds were formed only to disappear in a matter of days or weeks.
There were three major categories that most Guilds fell into. They were: Social, Teaching or Warrior. Some were a combination of both as *NOR was; a Social and Teaching Guild. Some of the more stable and venerable Guilds were: SOF (Soldiers of Fortune), KOY (Kingdom of Yserbius), DEADZ, The Gypsies, WP (Warriors of Peace), Companions, ILLUMINATI, et al.
In some cases NOR formed “alliances” with some of these and other Guilds that had similar viewpoints. Each host that a Guild occupied had it own officers that were there to represent their Guild leadership with their members and other Guilds that occupied the same host with them.
There were two main Warrior Guilds in YS during it’s existence, they were “The Mercs” and “KAAOS”. These Guilds were formed to do “battle” or to “joust”. The difference was that “battle” was done in “anger” and “jousting” was done as a sport. Regular jousting events were held in all the hosts and there was a lot of strategy in spell-casting and the use of weaponry involved to determine the winner(s). It could be a one-on-one or two teams of two people type of event.
About the Blue Cloak
I think I can clarify the history of the NOR jacket and blue cloak. I joined NOR in late '93, while Baldrak was still around. I knew Elidriel and Damian and Baldrak and Chani, because I played in Mace Manor originally.
Lady Elidriel was a biker fan, and often roleplayed entering the tavern on a Harley motorcycle. So the name "New Outriders" had a biker connotation originally. In keeping with that, NOR referred to members as wearing a NOR "jacket", in the same way that people in biker clubs wear club jackets or club emblems on their leather jackets. There was a particular quest in Yserbius that resulted in a cloak or piece of armor being dropped as loot, and this was adopted as the NOR jacket quest. New members would be taken on this quest by an existing member to get their "jacket". When a member resigned, they did so by handing in their NOR "jacket".
When NOR expanded to NWN on AOL, this same terminology was used there. NOR grew fairly rapidly in NWN, and quickly eclipsed the INN contingent. When INN shut down, NWN became NOR's home base. Because NOR was a friendly and helpful guild, it attracted a lot of attention, not all of it good. Anti-NOR or fake NOR guilds were started, such as ANOR. By this time, Lord Avatar has resigned and Lord EdU was the dominant member of the High Council. Lord EdU authored or revised many of our NOR documents, including the Jacket Creed, which was aimed at fake NOR members, and the recruit quiz.
When AOL shut down NWN (so it could replace it with pay games), NOR member scattered to several different online games, including Dark Sun Online ("DSO"), The Realm ("TR"), Ultima Online ("UO"), Empiriana and the Lords of Empyria ("LOE"). DSO, Empiriana and LOE all shut down eventually, but NOR had a large contingent of members playing UO, and not only got certified as a guild but accumulated enough game cash to buy and equip a NOR tower. It was in UO, with its many tradeskills and dye tubs, that NOR decided to have its members wear a cloak dyed light blue, so they could spot each other more easily. This blue cloak became so distinctive that it resulted in NOR members in UO being targeted by PK'ers and others hostile to NOR.
That is how the original biker jacket of NOR morphed into a blue cloak. When NOR came to DAoC, the guild emblem and colors were selected by Lord Aglavalin, who had been duke in UO at one time. He chose to continue the tradition started in UO by making the guild emblem cloaks blue.
Lady mookster
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