Vengeance History Project

[Sodom]

If anybody has answers to any of the following questions, please reply!

When was Vengeance formed (date/time)?

Who were the founding members?

Where are they now?

Why "Vengeance?" Why purple/gold/wings for the logo?

Who are the "oldest" active characters? Who have the most playtime?

How many guilds has Vengeance "absorbed?"

How many "crisis periods" (mass defections, unplanned leadership chages) has Vengeance been through? What happened, and why?

Just trying to satisfy my own early-morning curiosity

[Nari]

I could probably give you some info. but it might not be totally accurate.  I joined the guild shortly before Thanksgiving weekend or so.  Hard to remember accurately.  I went through at least one major leadership change, the one where Axe held it together and asked us to wait it out.  He emerged as leader...  I'm sure I'm one of the older chars on the roster, and I'm planning on being active as soon as I get out of this place.  My played time was over 30 days at least, but I'm not too sure as I've not been able to physically see my character for a few months.  Prior to March 15th I was over 30 days, put it that way...

Not sure where the founding members are now.  I think some of them migrated to Nimue or just plain quit.  Why vengeance??  Beats me.  The purple and gold...ask Tydd about it.  He may know something.  

That's about all I can remember without help from Axe or Ross or someone else that has been around a long while.  Hope it helps :-)

[Rosslyn]

Another old-timer (maybe even one of the originals, not sure, but surely older than myself) is Ambulance, who seems to be playing his cleric more often these days.  If you can catch Ambulance online, he may be able to answer these with more detail.

From what I recall, I heard that the guild was formed by a group including Daer, Immdar, Rafe, Lugard (?), Watt, Pyro (also Oceananis later) and some others whose names escape me.  Tydd (not Tydd but his original paladin) was here before I was, as were some others like Blacky (who quit playing his friar and started Redblade the infiltrator).

As far as any great calamities involving leadership, there was really only one (that lasted for a few days) that resulted in the GM (Daer) abruptly leaving the guild, taking a few of the old-timers with her, and eventually starting chars on Nimue.  Several of them came back over time (either just to visit or in some cases because not being one of the highest level players on their new server was a feeling they didn't like), and some were received more warmly than others.  A couple of players like Watt, Snowbow, and Oceananis made an effort to come back into the fold, and they either just faded away or were asked to leave based upon their personality and behavior.  

Other than this single event, I don't recall anything that you would classify as a mass defection.  We lost some people to Redemption when it started up (Lugard, a cleric whose name escapes me, Redblade eventually) but other than that it's been what I'd consider standard turnover for a guild.  

One interesting thing that I heard is that Vengeance was one of the first couple of guilds on this server, at least in Albion.  The story was that, since the founders mostly played together in beta, they wanted to start up a guild as soon as they could.  It might be closer to the truth to say that Vengeance was one of the very first guilds to have an emblem.

As far as being one of the "older" players/chars in the guild, I guess that's true.  Tydd was definitely around before I was, and Axe wasn't very far behind, as I remember grouping w/ him to kill giants in Salisbury.  Last time I remember looking (within the past week), my /played was about 25 days for Rosslyn.  I have no idea what it is for my cleric, or any of my other alts.

Hope this helps!

p.s.  very cool question, btw

[Axecleaver]

Vengeance was actually formed as another guild, before Vengeance, under the leadership of a person whom I never got to know. The name of this guild was "Old <something>". I joined this guild around level 9, hunting giant spiders in camp forest. They looked awfully big to me then. This guild reformed as Vengeance a day or so after I joined it, and I went along with everyone. So I was in on the ground floor of Vengeance proper, but not the original guild with all the original people.

Immdar and Flaster (Son and Father in RL) were there. Mylar, a RL friend of mine, joined Lex Mortis with Sodom and Zaius around that time, too. Here's my very first DaoC screenshot of me just after I joined the guild: http://vengeance.parryfive.com/images/axecleaver/1/sshot000.jpg

Rafe wasn't a founding member... we adventured with Rafe and Marm (a cabalist) and another fella whose name I forget, and Ulath (Tydd's dead pallie) for quite a while in the Mines. All these guys eventually joined. This was back in the Daer days.

Other originals were Ambulance, Caohmin, Nurse, Watt, and if I remember right, Rush was in there too. Not long after that, Dieter and Viconia (now in Trinity). Noreen was also one of the early early members... I believe she knew the original Vengeance back in EQ times.

The guild went through two really bad shakeups. The first one was when some folks questioned Daer's leadership. She was a good tactical leader but quite abrasive and alienated a lot of people. She also envisioned a guild with a lot of rules folks didn't necessarily like... for example, only one main character in Vengeance and a sister guild, Mercy, where all the alts would live. Nobody liked that much. I remember bitching with Tydd about it. She was also kinda Nazi on guildchat about folks looking for gear and stuff.

It was around this time that a bunch of us-- folks like Ulath and Nari and Marm and Rafe and Ross, Sieran, Alexdria and the Deep Mines crew-- Zaius and Sod hung with us some too-- were starting to discuss amongst ourselves that we might want to split off from Vengeance since the powergamers were outstripping us badly and there seemed to be more politics going on than most of us could stand.

Pyro eventually called Daer out on this and she promptly pulled a Cartman. Screw you guys, I'm going home. She dropped leadership and the guild went into a tizzy trying to figure out what to do next. I suggested Immdar as the guildleader, because he had always been a voice of reason and kindness, and helpful to everyone.

A couple of days after taking the reins, Immdar decided to follow Daer to Nimue with a bunch of others to start hibs, since they were uber at the time. This angered a lot of us. We though Vengeance was done at that point, and we lost some folks. I think this was when Dieter and Viconia split.

Siezing power had a lot to do with luck, I think. Immdar wanted to transfer ownership. The people who were on talked about it briefly, and Flaster suggested either me or Snowbow take office. Snowbow wasn't logged at the time, and everybody said "Sure, I guess Axe will do, what the hell." You can see me sieze power in one of the screenies... got to get my php crap working soon!

We had another cleric/armsman hubsand/wife pair I haven't seen lately... loved those guys. Gosh, what were their names? Aya and Wone. Anyway, they split off too, and Marm dropped guild and was never seen again. Sieran followed shortly thereafter.

This was a dark time for us, and I spoke to everyone and asked them to hang in for a little while and see what happened. We had open recruiting to try and fill our ranks. Not sure if any of those open recruit people are still around. It's possible. Lincin would run through tomb of mithra on rez/recruit campaigns... hehe.

Eventually we regained our composure. Noreen joined us around this time and I learned that she had no love for Daer, either, but knew her pretty well. Noreen and Nari and I did a lot of levelling together.

The second shakeup was when the oldtimers slunk back to Iseult. There was a lot (and I mean, a LOT) of tension. They still acted like they owned the guild, and we felt betrayed by them leaving us high and dry. Some of these people were invited back. Rush, for instance, and Flaster (who stayed with us for a long time but ultimately succumbed to Nimue). I think a lot of these guys left Nimue and went to Mid Igraine where they still play today.

I wasn't in on the guild forming ceremony (was Ulath? He might have been) so I'm not sure why we took purple and gold (boyscout colors! heh) or the wings.

I formed Axecleaver the day Iseult came up. If I remember right, Iseult was one of the servers they added after the originals. I originally tried a thane on Gunievere, got him to 5 and then tried a paladin. Paladins were so clearly more uber than thanes I stayed on Iseult. I remember I put points in dex, str, and quickness, because con at that point was said to make "no difference in hit points". Heh. Live and learn. Could have been worse, I could have put points in piety.

I haven't looked at my playtime in a while. A lot, I'm sure, but probably less than some of our big time 50s. Probably around 45 days.

[Tydd]

Here is my short history lesson.  

Vengeance originally started out as the Lost Order.  I joined LO during a period of strife as my original Pally Nah-Col then again as Ulath.   It seems that their leader did not play very much and that made some upset.  So to Daer's prompting we started discussing making a new guild.   I believe the discussion went on for a few hours.

I can't remember exactly why the name Vengeance was chosen.  I think it had to do with Vengeance for all the grief the other realms were causing during out time of need. (Ya know King Arthur's Death and our need to find a new king thing)

So that night 8 of us, myself, daer, immdar, immdar's father(can't rember his name for the life of me), kaer, Watt, lugard and a few others decided to make it official and left LO and created Vengeance.   Daer then posted on the LO's website inviting any and all LO members to join us.  At that time we only had one "Officer" and that was daer.

The next night we had to discuss leadership.  I can not remember who came up with the idea but it was decided that we would vote in an officer to represent each basic class(Fighter, Mage, blah blah) a officer to represent the people (the idea was a counsler type position), and the big wig.   We all immediatly voted for Daer to be the big wig.  We then nominated our other officers.   (For those that remember my relationship with Daer will find this a shocker.  She nominated me for a the Fighter Officer Position.  I bet she was glad that I lost out to Kaer.  My one chance at Grandiour down the drain because I was only level 10.   )

So we were now our own guild with our own problems.  Woo Hoo for us.   We went thru many different recruitment policies from everyone could do it to only officers.   I remember Axecleaver and Rosslyn coming in.  Axe and I had quite a few discussions on how much Daer and I did not get along.    It seems we had a different point of view on a few issues and I didn't care that I wasn't an officer and still made my opinion made.

Oh yeah...You wanted to know about the color scheme.  That was 100% daer.   We as a guild raised funds to pay for it.   Then one day Daer went and picked our colors.  I actually think this was one of her better decisions.  We've recieved alot of compliments on it.

Eventually, Daer and her group decided that Albion wasn't for them and left for Mid.  This is were my memory gets iffy...Daer handed leadership over to Immdar who after a few days handed it over to Axecleaver who continues to this day to have it without contest.

Under new leadership we grew and became the guild that I had more in mind when I joined LO.   Unfortunatly, this was not to last.  Again Daer and her group decided to come play with us again.  God I can't remember how many times they came and left again before finally leaving for good to the new RP server (nimue?).   Anyways it was decided by our current leadership that the old timers were not welcome anymore and were to be asked to leave the guild if they returned.

One more piece of history before I shut my trap.   PURPLE MONKEYS!!!!!  For some reason Daer was asked by the development team to test something and it required another guild.  So 8 of us took an alt and created.......PURPLE MONKEYS for this test.  So I finally get my guild called the PURPLE MONKEYS after I don't remember how long of dreaming of it.   If you look on the guild page you will still see us there.  I think we still have two members myself(nah-col) and another.

If you want specific dates tell me away to figure out when I first started playing and I can tell you about when Vengeance was created.

This concludes Tydds history lesson for today.  Thank you and please make sure to leave me an apple.

PS:  I think I'm the oldest member of Vengeance since I was in the original 8 members.  

[Lifesbane]

i was one of the people that was gotten during open recruiting...as my silly lil' armsman Stza. that was about  november, maybe early december.

hehe, i remember my short-lived quest to find a quild, it went something like this:
(in cam) /b "any guilds recruiting?"
Lincin sends "vengeance is"
you send lincin "cool, can i join?"

easy huh?

well, i of course loved playing in the guild, so when christmas rolled around i forced (quite literally) a bunch of my RL friends to get DAoC. after bribing them to play Alb (they wanted to play as hibs, pshhh) i got 3 of my friends to join: Baruch the armsman, only played for like a week, Ageispolis the wizzy, played for about a month (sais hes gunna come back after we get out of school, so we might be welcoming him back) and of course everyones favorite cross-dressing gimp-master Amberryl the sorc.

hehe, i also remember one time in game, where we had a session of "Axe the story teller" in game where Axe tried to explain Vengeance's history to the newb's...those were the days

[Kirin]

wow so deep an involved... ^^
Well as for me, the 1st time i remeber goruping with Vengeance pees was in the barrows (were i was with 7 of you, when i met Cao, Ross, Axe, Immy, Flaster, and a few others). Before that i have no recolection of metting any vengeance peeps cept Redbalde (whjo i know from Keltoi but i didnt know he was in vengeance) and Narishma, who i met at like lv 5 in the Tomb of Mithras..
As for me, early on a formed a little gathering of people in search of loot and exp. Amadeus (GM's me and Aahz, a friar now in vengeance), was fromed from us, Pesdilla, Zyzyl, Christation, and funilly enough Mirale (woo the famous Mirale). after our downfall, losing mirale to redemption, Aahz Pesa and i decided to look for a new home. I was great friends with ROss at the time so i approached axe and applied for a spot in Vengeance.. and the resta, is history

Theres your story bout one of the guilds that megred in ^^..
others that i know of are: The imperial Guard, most of the Stormbringer Clan (although you didnt really know that.. im talking bout Falco and Shadra), Part of CC (Cemivyg whatever) and hmm.... Lex mortis.. cant think of anything else..

[Kid]

Well I guess I can put my 2 cents worth in also.
I am originally from The Imperial Guard which is actually a Diablo2 clan that some of the members after getting bored to death with D2 wanted to try something new. Zutroy was the first to get DAOC and he was teling the clan about what it was like since he was still a member in TIG D2. I think I was the second in the guild to buy the game but of course when I bought it my son Doec had to have it. At that time Zutroy was a member of hail kinship and my son joined another guild but I held out and just played with my mercenary (Kidatheart). After a couple weeks there was enough people from Tig D2 to create The Imperial Guard, Tishiri , Spaceghostly, Zutroy, Doec, Kidatheart, Memnock, Nydae, McHagen. We did pretty good as a guild and helped eachother a lot but there came a time when some of the members wanted more from the guild then we could offer (epic adventures) so that began a snowball effect that ended Tig as real guild Which left a lot of us wondering where do we go from here so the officers that were still there had a meeting in which we decided to leave and alt each in the guild just in case we ever get back together and we would disband the rest from the guild.
    Personally the first time I remember meeting Axe was after a relic raid attempt by the hibs I think it was up at excaliber a few of us were standing around and I heard Axe ask if anyone would help him with his lvl 40 epic killing some trees nearby. Well I think my cleric (kidshealer) was lvl 37 at the time jumped up and said sure I'll help you, and so began a friendship between Axe and myself, we grouped some later on in lyoness when I got my theurgist up in level Axe would see me and get me into groups that were actually way over my head but it was great exp and helped me a lot getting him up in level. So when Tig fell apart it really didn't take much thought as to where it was I wanted to land as far as guilds go. Some of the members of Tig followed me here such as Doec, Sheng , and Zutroy. We also have 2 new converts from Tig D2 which are Demirage and PerfectDrug. I have know both of them for a long time now and they are both really great people. PerfectDrug happens to be the leader of Tig D2 also know as King PerfectDrug and Demirage is known as MastaRage in the D2 clan.
    Well that's my story, I know not very fulfilling but hey

[PerfectDrug]

This is good history.  And Kid, Mastarage retired from TIG D2.  I still retain my Kingship over there.  We still need to find a way for MAC users to get this game up and running.  Tex wants to join us here....hehe

[Masta]

PD, didnt DBZ say there was a way to do that?Never checked it though..

[Axecleaver]

This was a money thread, so I'm bumping it.

[Tydd]

Money thread?  Was I suppose to get money?  Is my check in the mail?

[Axecleaver]

Money, as in good, as in, daaaamn, that axecleaver guy is money!

[Kirin]

Lol this is Axe's attempt at Ghetto talk ^^

[Lifesbane]

hehe, actually, axe used it quite well