Memories
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The first time I logged into narf….
well you see I was very far from new to the Narfell community. I was an original founder sort of. Back when Narfell was new and only 10 or less people could be online Masume was also running some PnP style vampire in IRC, back on sorcery net. he wanted to make a place in IRC for the players of Narfell to go if there was a problem ig or to talk when the server might not be up. He needed help teaching these people new to IRC. He asked me to come join the channel #Narfell and made me the first op there other than himself. Through all the years of narfell I have been a relic of that time and always had that @ only in the last year and a half or so did I become a PL.
So you might say what does this have to do with the first log into narf. Well I did not have a PC that could run NWN. So I did not actually have a presence anywhere, but IRC until about two years after the server started. So I log into game and I use the nick Teah. I have Masume on the phone and I say as i'm rolling up Tala. "I'm going to make a ranger, because they are sort of fightery and they get a bit of healing." I should of known from his laugh. He did one of those,"Uh huh you sure you want to do that?" after he stopped laughing. He says, "Well if you are set on TRYING a ranger at least pick goblinoids as your favored enemy."
So I get off the phone and finish rolling up my character, he was still laughing and I was annoyed. Her name was and still is Tala Arniman. I thought she would be oodles of fun. I had never played the offline campaigne and it had been roughly 10 years since i had done anything D&D. I was so lost. I did not know how to walk or work the controls.
In the lobby with squee and such RW, Masume and two other DM's I cannot remember who (I appologize if you were there and i forgot) started to mess with me. They were casting spells on me, making her naked dressing her up polymorphing her. I remember hitting H and all of my text and everything disappearing. I freaked and relogged. Everyone got a good laugh out of it.
I started in norwick. I met Dirtma, a horc cleric to moradin think, and Walken Keyers(sp?), a ranger of some levels. Dirtma was kind enough to show me the beginings of what I would need to know. Such as the town quests. He killed something and got me a chain shirt. He gave me a few potions, cure minors and advised I not leave town till i hit level 2. He wanted to show me walds barn and how to skin animals with a skinning knife for food. I think it was about the time I left the boarshead that I met Ragnar. Ragnar was an amazing level 9 or so at that point dwarven cleric. Void image still laughs about how they were trying to explain walking to me. Eventually what felt like 10 hours later but was really only 4 or so I logged out.
After that night narf got fairly lonely, no one would talk to a lowely level 1 ranger. Until the night I thought to try out my animal empathy. I was stopped an almost arrest after walking a cow around down town norwick. That is how I met Kallenthens hin, rib's Red John and several others...
more later if you are still interested
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So first death…
I worked up my nerve to leave norwick at about level 3. I made only the briefest of forays into the near rawlins as a level 2 and would only go to get vervain for vino before that. What many here don't know about the goblins is they used to be so mind numbingly hard to kill and yielded almost no loot or xp. No gold, no gems, a cure minor if you were lucky and that did not start happening till after I had been here for awhile.
I don't remember why I was in the rawlins, but there was a large party of us. we were fighting goblins and a dm was involved... or several. I stealthed not realizing how totally deadly this action was. I was injured, but someone was down. the others seemed to have the fighting under control. I retrieved the person and their gear and started the long super slow stealthed trudge to norwick. Yeah stealth doesn't really work well until you get about 26 in both hide and MS. So three goblins spotted my lowly level 3 and I saw the fugue for the first time. Mind you I thought level 3 with a ranger was an amazing level to finally meet the fugue.
About this same time Tala met Grivel. He showed her around told her to NEVER go near the cave with the shaman outside it. Showed her where the druid glenn was and assured her it was a safe place to hide if she was in trouble. He was an elf and he talked to her like a person and most importantly he started telling her about the wolves and Meilikki.
Tala was a goddless young woman with a huge world of hurt from her mothers rejection. She'd run off from home to try to insure her fathers marriage to a local human woman and to seek out her mother. She never had a single conversation with her as the lifeshaper of the old elven camp always gave her the cold shoulder. Grivel converted her to Mielikki through teaching and through several events along the way. Thanks to Kerby, River and HKB for help there. More on those stories later.
Around level 3-4 she went on a proper wolf run to skara's cave. Got the poop kicked out of her by one of the confused party memebers and was given the masterwork short sword she still carries by one elf named Kharbeh. She was sucked into the wolves. A wonderful group of rp'ers that i have been fortunate to play with over the years.
She also met the Dolvaks. Living in Norwick and talking to the cleric Ragnar one of the wolves friends, as rangers tend to die alot. She met Foilir and Dwin. She helped them mine and eventually asked Dwin to help her learn to work wood. He agreed but only if she joined the union. She agreed. So many amazing trips to gather ore in the rawlins nearly dieing to assassins and archers heavily encumbered dwarves shouting RUN!
I cannot remember for the life of me how Foilir died, but he died and then the server crashed. The server was VERY VERY VERY crashy in those days. So your biggest hope was if i die someone get my gear before its lost in a server crash. Foilir dies and seconds later the server crashes. For the next three or so days irl Foilir is a very angry and confused red headed dwarf running around norwick stark naked and stark raving mad. I remember lending him gold and offering him clothes as tala and laughing hysterically at his rantings. Shortly after this I spoke to the dolvak clan about making my second character Belin Dolvak.
Belin started off to be a pure rogue true neutral follower of vergadain. Dwin said he wanted a cleric in the family so after three levels of rogue Belin became a cleric. She is a devoted follower of Moradin, <theives cant="">vergadain. she is a simple soul a good day means she is another gold richer. She travels between the iron spur and the narfell for her family and the only thing that rivals her love of gold is her love of ale. She is one of my favorite characters I have ever created because of her quirky attitudes.
I did make one character in this time period a cleric named thora. Sadly she had the wrong domains and never got rebuilt so she faded away in a vault wipe, but the early Corde will still remember his early run in with the barbarian cleric and her great axe Gertrude.</theives>
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Tala at lvl 1?!! I cannot even imagine it >_< , this was back when shamans and assassins patrolled the south rawlin jsut out the gate too wasnt it! you must have had a helluva time as a ranger abck in the day. .