A New Beginning
By: T.A. Rosenbaum, but you probably know me as;
St. Eldrin the Black, Master Bard of Arun-Dar
Introduction
I am writing this story in the first person because that is the only way for me to write it, I cannot do this in third person, I need to go back and relive it. This is not a story about me, it is a story about the origins of our realm (which, for the most part reside with me) and it was a request by Orrin. So, I write this as a gift for a dear and loyal friend, Orrin None-Son.
This is going to contain an overview of where we came from as a Dagorhir realm, some of our (my) blunders, some of our sorrows, and some of our funny stories. So…
Part I: Genesis
There I was, at my good friend Jacob’s house when I was 16 waiting for him to come home from a strange visit to Kansas City to visit his family there. They had invited him to some sort of camping thing that I had no interest in, but, none-the-less we had some very important matters to discuss(probably Dungeon Siege or Mech-Warrior designs…nerdy!) and I was patiently waiting on his couch.
Well, not to long after I arrive he comes in with some things in his arms, strange looking, and padded things. One looked like a shovel! And indeed we called it the “shovel” until it went out of commission some months later. At any rate, he had this very mischievous smile, that he always gets when he is excited, and almost urgently, he said to me, “Tim…we need to talk,” barely containing the glee in his voice.
So, he dropped all the weapons to the floor and sits next to me on the couch and starts explaining to me this magical kingdom he had been to all weekend…the Kingdom of the Crimson Dawn!!!!! <Insert epic trumpet music and holy light here> He relates to me all the battles he had fought, orcs, elves, and castle walls brought down by cruel tyrants. I was immediately ensorcelled. I asked him, “How do you get into this sort of thing,” for certainly it was the sort of thing I had dreamt of my entire life.
He grinned at me devilishly and said, “I don’t know,” looking quite dejected suddenly. Quickly though, he brightened back up and told me, “but they did give me their old weapons to use, lets go hit each other!” So, we proceeded to call one of our friends over and brought Jake’s little brother along to the front of the apartments where he lived and in no time we were smashing and beating each other. I was beyond excited and, while charging Jake with the “shovel,” tripped and fell on one of the small planter trees and snapped it off at the base….so we scampered of to a dark cave (Driab’s bedroom) to talk over our plans.
Part II: The Dark Ages
We decided to be highlanders (we all loved the movie Braveheart quite a lot) and within the week began making our own version of “weapons” (we ignored the online tutorials for some reason) that were hard and dangerous. They were PVC pipes with open cell foam (old couch foam scrounged from a nearby dumpster) strapped down tightly with Duct tape. These weapons left bruises, broken knuckles, and more aches and pains than I care to remember. However, 20 of us met once a week and beat the snot out of each other. Eventually the consistent injuries drove all but the most hardy and hard-core of us away from Dagorhir (Ignorance definitely can hurt you) and those who remained had a rough time of it.
So, roughly 10 of us continued on the path of the warrior, honing our mighty skills each week (seriously, we were noobs though) until an event came along after a long absence of events in the Missouri area. We stayed up all night making new weapons and sewing kilts for our Scotsman personas. Then, we rode out on the long 3 week trail(2:30 hour drive actually) to a Kingdom far away called the Dominion of the Unconquered Sun! <Insert epic trumpet music and holy light here> The very first “Gates of Summer” had arrived.
Part III: The Dawn of Civilization
Being the elected Chieftain of the “Tribes of the Northlands” (what we were calling ourselves) I introduced myself to the King of Dominion (Aster) with a proud air and a puffed up chest. I showed him our weapons to make sure they were ok and….the look on his face can only be described with one word…Horrified. He looked at us wee nooblets and asked in a disbelieving tone, “You’ve been fighting with these?” We assured him that we indeed had and he quickly assured us that we would not be fighting with those selfsame weapons at his event.
Dejected, we hung our heads, all of our dreams of epic battles with evil armies and being epic warriors, utterly smashed. “But wait,” he said in a sympathetic tone, “I know the greatest foam-smith in all the lands of Dagorhir, “his name is Al’Kazzar the Maelstrom, a mighty dark elf. He may find it in his heart to help you if you seek him out.
So, being filled with hope, we took off into the woods, with our weapons made of fail, seeking the much sought out, “Al’Kazzar. It didn’t take long until we found him at the side of the trail cursing his tent and kicking his camp chair(For he was having a hard time putting up his tent alone and had no one to aide him). So, we stopped and related to him what Lord Aster had told us and he reacted in a surprising way, he cursed! You see, he had much to do and little time to help us, we lowly nooblets. But we offered our services to him and eventually he allowed us to set up his camp for him in exchange for teaching us how to build weapons (also, kindly providing foam and DAP for us).
The first hero of Ravenwood was, in fact, a Dark Elf named Al’Kazzar the Maelstrom.
We made our first passing Dagorhir weapons in pouring rain, leaves and ankle deep mud, all the while Al’Kazzar was mumbling something in the background like, “…told them….it works in the water……with leaves and mud on it…….ignorant people…it works all the time!” However, we made our shiny new weapons and we were soon ready for our first day of combat with other realms.
We took the field with great confidence and a hunger for battle….but we got severely pwned at every turn…all day, especially by the invincible Myrkridian infantry<Insert epic trumpet music and holy light here>. But we had the greatest time of our life and vowed to come back to every event Dominion held that we could. It was the greatest day and the most fun I have ever had at an event, save Ragnarok XXI, ever.
Lastly, I just want a moment of silence for Al’Kazzar the Maelstrom, he was a mighty warrior, and epic foam-smith and an even more epic person. Al’Kazzar was slain by an evil tyrant (real-life), but his memory lives on every time I make a new weapon and every time I teach new people that come to our realm in the same noble spirit he showed me.
We returned to our tiny Kingdom with better knowledge and skill. It was a new era for the tiny Dagorhir Chapter in Stockton, MO and we reveled in it…until an evil and unjust tyrant reared his head and took away our kingdom forever.
Part IV: Hot ‘n’ Cold
Our realm held together for about 3 months after that until several things happened in the lives of each of our members. I could not get them to come out on a weekly basis at first and then I couldn’t even get them to come fight on a monthly basis. It seemed that all the fire had been taken from our warriors. I practiced for hours alone in my yard, sometimes my brother would come and other times Jake would even come by, but eventually even I was discouraged. I settled for dueling with my protégé, Jake, and my brother (one of the 3) almost every day, but it I never gave up the dream of a large realm and a fun place to battle every week.
After about 6 months of crummy battle turnouts, I started advertising again and I even dropped the Highlander theme from our realm entirely. It seemed to make a difference for a while in the size of our battles but once again the same thing happened…our realm collapsed and all our members quit (save Driab and I, no lies). So, being quite depressed at my inability to hold anything together, I went to my Dad to have a visit. Not about leadership or anything like that, but just to feel better. So I went to his farm and had some Orange juice (he loved it) and visited for a while. He told me something that has stuck with me for a long time. “Ravens have seemed to follow me my whole life, I think they are good luck. You never see a Raven around when there is trouble, they are smart creatures and they always travel together.” This seems irrelevant, but it got me thinking about Ravens and how magical they are. It almost put a reverence in my heart for ravens(well, it actually did!)! Later, at work, Driab and I talked about it and I convinced him that our Characters lived in the “Ravenwood” (good luck and peaceful times, see why were called Ravenwood now?) and we should have more people come live with us! We were on to something!
We would start a fantasy-based realm combining character stories from each of our members! This would give each member a stake in our realm, a personal stake! So I related the idea to Jake (you know him as Driab the Indextrous) and he thought it was great! I named myself King of the realm and went about the land, recruiting soldiers for my army.
Part V: The Dawn of the Second Age
So, within 6 months we had 20 people coming regularly to our battles. We even had people driving from 45 minutes away. Old SCA soldiers came out of the works, fantasy enthusiasts, fighting enthusiast and everyone else that does not seem to fit in anywhere else. We made our selves known to our small town of 2,000 people and I doubt anyone in town didn’t know about us.
We went to events and made lots of noise, we traveled to different realms and one day we met an elf named Oberon and the first province of Dagorhir was born in Springfield, MO.
Oberon was a Dagorhir fighter from Illinois that lived one hour from us. After I talked with him for a few hours at War of the Iron fist (I do not know which one) he decided to proclaim me his King (I stomped him in duels and he deemed me an honorable man) and start a province of our realm in Springfield, MO. He said he had no desire to start a province until I talked him into it and gave him supplies and encouragement to get it started up. He came for a few months and then, suddenly, he disappeared off the radar. We heard nothing from him again for some time until I finally got a hold of him on the phone.
He told me he wanted to rule his province exclusively and that he wanted to be a King. It seemed to all of us he wanted some sort of delusional power (that doesn’t really exist in a foam fighting game) and no longer wanted to play fair. From what we heard later from those that lived underneath his rule, he was quite unjust and unfair, but I was not there and that is only what I’ve been told…by many…many people.
At any rate, in the annals of the Republic he is regarded now as “Oberon the Betrayer, King of the Fairies.” He hated to be called King of the Fairies with a passion, he had no idea that Oberon was King of the Fairies in Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Nights Dream”, until I informed him of it at the War of the Iron Fist in which we first spoke.
That all being said, Paul (Oberon) was not really a bad person, just misguided at times and we did enjoy having him around before he left Ravenwood to start Vor Vollar Skepna.
Part VI: The Dawn of the Third Age and the Birth of the Republic
Actually, we are now getting into recent history, but I will tell what I remember of it.
I saw Orrin on the National Dagorhir Boards and saw that he was in Springfield, MO and not a part of VVS. I asked to contact him and we got in touch. Basically, him and the aptly named, “Caravan of the Forgotten” joined the realm and I, as my last decree as King of Ravenwood, declared that the realm would henceforth be a Republic with each province getting a representative to make decisions for them. This funneled the responsibilities of the realm to a number of people as opposed to one person…me!
I may be leaving out much of this recent history, but basically, Raslin and I went up to Springfield to meet Orrin and his crew, brought them a side of leather and some weapons building supplies, taught them to build our style of weapons, and hit it off like old friends.
Even more recently, a man named Christopher has e-mailed me about starting a province in Warsaw, MO. I invited them down to Joplin (I moved from Stockton a year ago and started a new province myself) for a weekend, bought a bunch of weapon building supplies, and taught them to build swords and shields for their province. I sent them home with a small armory and, from what I could tell, much love for the family that is Ravenwood.
One last thing I have to say; We might say all day long, “Long live the Republic,” but really, what we are actually saying is, “Long live our Realm, our fun, and all of our foam-fighting family!”
“All characters and events in this story are fictitious, and any resemblance to events, or real persons, living or dead, is coincidental." Jk jk jk
