Diogenes' Recollection

From House Paladin Wiki

The Beginning

It was at the beginning of Beta 2 for AC1. I was still quite amazed at the world I found myself in, and had just portaled from Shoushi to Yaraq for the first time. Being intrepid (and stupid) I began to cross the wastes to Tufa to see what I could see in the Gharun'dim desert.

After 2 deaths to skeletons in the desert, (this was a long time ago and I was very new) I finally made it to Tufa. A pretty deserted place, and found one house kind of inhabited. Someone was sitting on the roof of this house, and I was bound and determined to figure out how he got up there. I couldn't do it...not that day anyway. This man was Ba'aar, and while he sat stoically for a long time I conversed with other people near him, eager to learn all I could. These were the first people that took a moment out of their day to help me learn something about the place I found myself. It is an impression that will never fade. After a short period, Ba'aar came down from his perch on the roof and engaged me in conversation, teaching me all kinds of things about my stats, weapons, the local monsters and gaining experience. He then offered me my first invitation to hunt in a group.

The things I learned in that 2 hours hunting with Ba'aar that day far surpassed everything I was able to learn in a week of bumbling around in the game alone. That set the tone for what was to be a pretty tight group that met in game on a regular basis. Usually we were out in the middle of nowhere, wherever we could survive and still explore reasonably. Very soon the group grew to the point where we usually had teams at any one of several parts of Dereth, except for the Direlands. That way lay death in those early days. With our skills growing and our ability to move swiftly across the land and through little known portal shortcuts, we bacame pretty good at getting to the unique events occurring as the world of Dereth de-stabilized for it's first small Cataclysm (the end of Beta). I was there, in Cragstone, when the hordes of humans brought down three mighty Giant Monuga. They stood 10 times as tall as the tallest of us, and the Sword of Blade Lao drew much blood that day.

As AC1 was released, the same friends drew together on Morningthaw, having been purged with all the rest from the RED Beta server. Ba'aar's leadership, patience and kindness solidified us into the Paladins of Asheron. Much debate was had among those early Paladins regarding the structure and direction of the guild, but far too much of that lore is lost to the ravages of time, PC upgrades, moves and maybe a wee bit of ale.