History of the Ebony Order

History of
the Ebony Order

The Ebony Order is a guild of hardy adventurers in EverQuest on theNameless server. The Order was formed by Joven (original leader), Alear, Hoder, Topak, Eomar, Peridot, and one I forget (begins with M). We formed around the spring of 1998. Joven originally wanted to call us "The Ebony Blade", but the GM's didn't want us to have the same name as an item. We batted it around, and finally came up with Ebony Order (I believe that was my suggestion). Alear was level 15 at the time, most of the rest very close (we had met while grouping). Peridot was around 45, a personal friend of Joven's (as was Topak).

Joven had great plans, and started implementing them soon. We had our first web page, and a mailing list, and officer rankings. Joven was King, and Alear was the first Prince, mostly because I was quite the recruiter. I was probably the most talkative: prior to Everquest, I had mudded for about 8 years and was quite attuned to the social aspects of being in a guild (or clan, as I kept misreferring to it in the early days).

We started out just fine: plenty of grouping and sharing of loots and knowledge, all of us working to building a fine guild. We had perhaps 30 members, most regulars, and I was most impressed with our international nature. We may have had 5 or more separate countries represented.

One of our great innovations, and a fine recruiting point, was finding Roger Wilco, which in fact I wish we would go back to using. I was grouped with a husband and wife team in the Oasis, and they seemed unusually quiet, but incredibly coordinated. The paladin would go out hunting, and soon the mage would be facing the direction he'd be coming from, ready for battle. They explained to me that they were chatting realtime using Roger Wilco. I learned more about it, downloaded it (for free, btw), and convinced several in the guild to use it. At one point we had perhaps 10 using it, and the battles and the game in general became oh so more interesting. If I'm not mistaken, Ediar and I are the last in the guild that recall this most excellent tool.

Things started going south for the Order fairly rapidly. Joven was a great organizer, but perhaps not forceful enough to keep people in line. Guild squabbles started, and people started leaving. Then one unforgivable day, Peridot let loose with a string of racial slurs. We lost Hoyo and several of his Chinese friends. All of us forced out Peridot; I even petitioned about him, the only time I ever took such action. Hoder switched jobs, and he was gone for 6 months. Ediar went on one of his periodic leaves of absence. Eomar showed up less and less (it's been long since I've seen him). As Topak warned me would happen, Joven's interest waned and he started playing Asheron's Call. The mailing list, the web page, even my beloved Roger all became historical. The spine of the guild we had all started with such high hopes had been broken.

Day after day, there would be only Topak and I, but he had risen much faster than I, so we rarely grouped or even met. Then he told me that Joven would pop in with some bad news. Topak and I toyed around with the idea of trying to carry on the guild, and I was encouraging him to take lead, and I'd help. He absolutely didn't want lead. Neither did I, and this is important: It never occurred to me to be a guildleader, it's far more fun to play Merlin to someone else's Arthur. I'd seen the spirit taken out of many another player, mostly in my mudding days, who tried to run a guild and lose all enjoyment of the game. Perhaps this happened to Joven in a small way, not sure. Joven came in that night, and we met up in Greater Faydark at the Lesser Faydark entrance. He was friendly and contrite, yet adament that he was not playing anymore and if I didn't take lead he'd disband the guild. In a fateful decision, I thought, what the heck, there's only Topper (my nickname for him, you'll notice I like nicknames) and I left playing in the guild, the bureaucracy will be nonexistent. Besides, I could disband at any time with no repercussions (one day, I actually did type /guilddelete, needing only to hit enter for this to happen)

Joven being Joven went through some rites and voila, there's Alear, guildleader, The Ebony Order, The Nameless. Actually, I didn't dwell on it much: I was a 24 or so by then, and had a group in Mistmoore, and marched right back to live and die like I often did there (it's still my favorite zone). The philosophy and the organization of the guild, such as they are, arose not out of some well-thought out plan. Rather, I decided to run it mostly by common sense, and if anyone should join, they should at least share many of my traits. Everquest to me is not about levels and great items. It is about having fun (which to me is making jokes, and hearing others crack me up). It is more than a chatroom, because I enjoy the strategic nature of grouping, making a plan based on the nature of the group, and carrying it out. Plus, I do enjoy getting a great item now and again ;)

One thing that Joven and many if not most of the other guilds had were a great many of rules. Having always taken a wry detachment from such rules, I was going to have none of that, thus we have the one made up as a gag to one of our earliest recruits of the modern age: "Heal Alear, early and often". Just fyi, I'm not the only bard that dies a lot, heheh. Used as a recruiting tool, it's not half bad: I mention that our guild has only one rule, but you cannot know it until you join. People have truly signed up just to learn the rule! As to the people who would be invited, that's always been by the seat of the pants. There are no class or race or level restrictions, but we do look for mature people with a sense of humour. That's it. Makes no difference if it's the first day ever playing EQ or if know all the zones and all the camps and all the great items (usually, not always, that type of person does not get invited). If a person amused me in some way or another, I'd think about an invite.

Now, I do not recall the first invites in the modern age. Sensii (now Paladus) and Malchek were two of the first. Hoder came back (since gone again, too bad), Ediar showed up again (since gone and back ...). Topper was soon gone, to team up with Peridot in his new guild. Others, countless, came and left for various reasons, but some have stayed. By far the worst experiences of being a guildleader is to lose a friend for any reason. We've had our guild squabbles, but (and this is a big "but", for those of you that have not experienced other guilds), they've been kept to a quite acceptable minimum. Usually, they just start up and then quickly go away. Often, they stop with some words from me in a friendly fashion (usually, trying to discreetly show the parties how foolish their argument sounds to a third person). Occasionally, I've given a severely worded tell to a guildmate to get their act together. Twice, I've had to disband a member. I really do not like to disband people. So, I invited a few members, and let those who wished to be officers be so, after I'd known them for at least a week or so (either of before or after guilding them, didn't matter). We kept things free and easy, and continued building.

The whole attitude changed, to about what we have now: the other day we had a guild raid, and we were more interested in getting good pictures of our corpses than we were in blaming each other for the deaths. Not that we enjoyed dying: we refined tactics, even while chuckling, and ended up taking out the dungeon. Presently, Alear is a 53 bard, a bit too high to be a recruiter. I started the iksar shaman Prossper with the intent of learning another class, but more importantly to establish a branch office in Kunark. Sooner or later, we'd like to see branch offices all over Norath. With an international cast. Of players who laugh. And stick with us over time, such that we cohese. Of people who know when to be ribald, when to bust chops, when to sympathise, when to just flat out laugh because Malchek drowned in three feet of water. Of people that know that "Heal Alear, early and often" is a rule ;)

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This page was last updated on 31 May 2001 04:12 PM

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