Memory Snippet of the Week #48

I talked about Medievia last week as the primary MUD that I played growing up and that had a major impact on my gaming career and my imagination of what a large, sprawling fantasy world can look like. This week, I would like to touch on my memories of yet another one that I remember fondly.

Between August and October 2003, I played on a MUSH named Winter’s Edge. Winter’s Edge was my first roleplay-only (no mob fighting) MU*, based on the Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition ruleset, and it was set in a small town on the edge of a rough wintery wilderness in a fantasy world. I played a character named Velyss (alias Phoenix), a bard who hung out in the tavern and library a lot and eventually joined a small group just outside the city and investigated incidents to do with a Mist that threatened to envelop the town and surrounding region or something. One could hang out with people and roleplay in the main town and give roleplay experience (nominations, or noms) to the people you RPed with to help each other level up, or go on Dungeon Master (DM)-run adventures that advanced the story in some fashion, but to actually level up your character you would need to submit an application to the gods stating what noteworthy thing you had done that level and what your character’s plans were, so they could weave your story into the world’s story (in theory). I did mine in the form of diary entries.

The group I eventually fell in with was called Stonesong Sanctuary, and their front hall looked like this:

Stonesong Sanctuary – Living Commons(#5048RAM$)

The main building of the Sanctuary is a longhouse of sod foundations, wooden frame and sod-reinforced hide-and-bark walls, crescent-shaped and with the roof high in this central area, and tapering slightly towards the shrines to the west and east. Although distinct items of furniture are few, pallet-mats of soft-wood slats and woven cloth cover the entire floor of the living commons, the weavings creating a mosaic of greens, reds, tans, browns, whites and blacks around the central fire-pit and chimney-flap. The floor is constructed in shallow tiers, some spots higher, some lower, allowing many to lounge in comfort and in all in sight of eachother.

In the south to either side of the door are the areas for food preparation and crafting; low tables are seen here and there for meals, though they are often rolled out of the way. Doorways in the east and west lead to the shrines of Duralion and Evighet, respectively. The north centre wall of the longhouse is decorated by a great weaving of many colours, a religious tapestry displaying many symbols of favourable gods, around the image of a World Tree. Inscriptions upon the tapestry abjure evil spirits from entering with the cold wind of winter. The scent of many herbs and incenses is usually discernable here, mixing with that of woodsmoke. Music is also near-ubiquitous, whenever someone is present who can play, and frequently lasts – if quietly – long into the night.

<<Places and +views are Present>>

Obvious Exits:
Library <LR> West Shrine <WS>
East Shrine <ES> Out <O>

She eventually turned into some sort of a caretaker of the place, but ran into some trouble with the administration because she had met all the qualifications to turn into a custom Mistwalker class that the MUD had, but the admins didn’t want to fully promote for unknown reasons (I think it was nepotism-related) and dragged their feet on it for several weeks, at which point I had already given up and moved on to another game. I remember sneering privately and noting to myself that it was too late, when I finally got the notification that they had decided to let my character promote to the class that I had asked for (and had plenty of ingame reason to pursue), even though I politely accepted the offer. Several of my friends had also already left the game at that point while my character was “on hold” for those few weeks, further dampening any desire to play any further.

I remember some of the characters and names from both Stonesong Sanctuary as well as the larger town of Vintermor fondly though, particularly Quinn, Ralzia, Erik, Diana, Oksana, Mirra, Aysa, Kerri, Scapenoose, Miruan, Meg, Szili, Aurinko, Rune, and probably a few more besides. Some of those are alts of each other, and others are DMs, but I do remember everyone and think well of them overall. Mirra and Diana would be names I would even later use as inspiration for other character names in other places — Mirra was my first ever MMO character’s name in Dungeons and Dragons Online as per Diary #064.

I also really liked my character’s quirk — she casted her bard spells by reciting rhyming poems, quick or low level spells were two line couplets, normal spells were four lines, longer and more complicated spells could be eight lines or worse, and I would write them on the spot (and even take a casting penalty to be more “in character” since it’s hard to recite a long poem in six seconds) and adapt it to whatever situation we were in or whoever we happened to be “fighting” through roleplay.

So for example, Cure Minor Wounds was:

A small boon, Goddess, that’ll go a long way,
Please lend my friend strength to perform this day.

whereas Cure Light Wounds, one level up, was:

As magic can tear, so too can it repair,
While it can kill, so too can it help heal.
Too often it deals death, destruction and pain,
But today, it shall help my friend’s strength regain.

or

Flame from the candle burning bright,
Bathing all in empyreal light.
Don’t go -too- near or the flames’ll burn,
But just right and your strength’ll return.

or

They surround you, the motes of light,
Phoenix magicks, foxfire bright.
Like a haze of mist they’ll stay,
Weaving their web, lending strength today.

She grew interested in the Mists over time, so some of her casting poems became mist-themed too, like this was Detect Magic:

Like I can hear the song of the land,
Within the mists, magic goes hand in hand.
Auras of dweomer, singing out with mirth,
A primal hymn, ever since Kivi’s birth.
Allow me to see, so my eyes will not forfend,
My quest to learn, to grow, to understand.

and this was Summon Monster I:

From the mists are wrought shapes untold,
Shifting, swirling shapes manyfold.
From the shapes, a square, four corners strong,
Choices, choices, light or dark, loyal or headstrong?
Like me, a companion of light, headstrong, I will call
From the essence, a badger, beside me to stand tall.

She was fire/phoenix themed as well due to certain character background reasons, and Stonesong Sanctuary was at its heart a nature/druidic sort of organization, so her Mage Hand bardic spell looked like this:

From water comes ice, as cold as can be,
From air, the wind, blowing sails on the sea,
Mother Earth, the land which sprouts every tree,
And fire, the Phoenix, a piece of me.
From music comes magic, and that’s the key,
Sound too can be forged to force, and set free.

And so on and so forth! I also won a room design contest at some point to design a library room, so they took my submission and made it an actual room in the town that people could visit. This was my entry:

Municipal Library

This room is cosy. Large enough to comfortably accommodate several dozen people, it features a grated fireplace directly across from the front door, the flames stoked from a back room so as not to present a fire hazard. From the domed ceiling hangs a chandelier, ‘candles’ ensorcelled by continual light spells giving the effect of lighting the entire room while not running the risk that mundane torches provide, that of setting something in this parchment repository aflame. Plus they don’t require as much upkeep. The ground is carpeted by soft rugs, patterned with common weaves of distinctive Melorian origin.

A plethora of mismatched bookcases are arranged about the room, along the well-plastered walls, each made from various hues and species of wood, from southern species of duskwood to pines from Vintermor’s taiga herself. Most are well varnished, if not overly so, and smaller mismatched cases are stacked atop larger ones, creating quite a haphazard feel to the room. Well-worn books are packed tightly onto most of the shelves, and several stacks of overflow do occasionally form atop the impromptu ‘ledges’ created by the odd-sized bookcases stacked on top of each other, or just upon a conveniently available chair.

There are several tables and scribing desks about the room, allowing one or two to comfortably seat themselves, or wooden chairs to be pulled up to cater to a larger group. Around the fireplace are several comfortable-looking armchairs, punctuated by stringy cushions. Several packs of cards, gaming chips, and traditional board games can be found in a corner of the room, atop a tiny wooden table. To the right, from when one enters, is a desk where the librarian usually sits. A door by him leads upstairs, presumably to his quarters. Two small windows along the same wall as the main door peer out to Ashtara Street.

\[center(-=+views and places available=-,80)]

places
Large table near the center of the room (8)
Small table on the left of the room (4)
Scribing desks on the right of the room (4)
Armchairs by the hearth (6)

plook 1
This is a rectangular wooden table set in the middle of the room, painted a dark shade of mahogany. Several stools and matching wooden-backed chairs adorn its vicinity.

plook 2
A white circular table sits at one side of the room, several tall and short stools strewn about the area nearby.

plook 3
Four individual scribing desks are located at the far corner of the room, for those who prefer personal space, or just some peace and quiet.

plook 4
Arranged in a roughly semicircular formation about the fireplace, two single-seats and one double-seat armchair line the circumference of a soft bearskin rug in the middle.

+view here/history
Commonly known lore about this place suggests that this building used to be the Lord Constable’s tower, before it got refurnished into what is now Vintermor’s municipal library. Added rumours also hint that a halfling ghost of some notoriety occasionally makes an appearance here, and is partly responsible for the haphazard condition of the library, although the librarian refuses to confirm or deny this to any degree.

+view here/fireplace
Flames quietly crackle as they consume hapless logs in the hearth here, fed by one of several assistants or patrons of the library when it gets low again. As protection against the fire accidentally spreading into the room, however, the fire is allowed to burn behind a slightly sooty grating instead of being exposed directly to the room. A door set in the wall near the hearth leads into a small boiler room where logs can be directly fed into the fire.

odrops
enters the library from Ashtara Street.
enters the municipal library.
heads out of the library.
steps out of the municipal library.

look out
This sturdy wooden door, banded with strips of steel, is well-oiled, to ensure movement in and out of the library doesn’t overly affect those further inside wishing for silence. It leads back out to Ashtara Street.

Exits:
<O>ut

From outside:
<M>unicipal <L>ibrary

look ml
This nondescript stone building is locally known as the Municipal Library of Vintermor. An unbarred wooden door, banded with steel, keeps the cold out while allowing visitors in to peruse the works within.

Lastly, this segment is already entirely too long and this file is even longer, so I don’t want to paste the entire thing here, but I wrote up an astrology guide/”book” called The Tapestry of Stars as a contribution to the ingame library and world lore, tying in to the world-building lore file for the players that one of the staff members was writing. I actually have a copy of that world-building file archived here as well, though it’s incomplete (and I’m not certain if they ever completed it). I submitted the “book” and the DMs seemed to like it, but I’m not sure if it ever got uploaded to the official lore site at the time. I don’t think that bit was due to nepotism though, just ennui.

I also wrote a bard song of a world event that happened in the game, which you can find here. This song was called Song of the Red and I performed it once in game, but is mostly interesting to me right now because, as I state on that page, I barely remember the event any longer but the song itself now acts as a record of the history of an event in the game that otherwise is now basically lost to time (although I do also have game logs from that time, it’s a lot harder to post those somewhere and have them make any sort of sense). That’s cool, the use of a song as a tool to preserve history!