Yeah, I know I'm slow, but I felt like sharing.
My exposure to html chat came after the big bang of IRC and muds of the nineties. I was a quite bored, and intelligent young man who didn't spend alot of time outside. Partially I blame it on being a redhead, as the sun is our enemy.
Sometime in 1996, when I was 16 years old, I found myself on this "normal" chat site called Hotel Chat. The rooms were devised and set up of different areas of this posh hotel. Everything from the bar to the grand hall to the lounge. And oddly enough, every room had it's own clique. I spent a good portion of that year hanging out in one of the rooms, though to this day I can't for the life of me recall which one.
Anyway, word had spread around that there were some wierdos that had taken over one of the rooms that was barely used, called the Couplet. Upon entering this room, one was exposed to practically every aspect of html roleplaying. Except Gor. I still had no clue about that. As a lifelong nerd and gamer, reading comics, playing Dungeons and Dragons, the idea of roleplaying in a free-form atmosphere without the pen and paper was fascinating to me. I spent two and a half years here, forgetting the year I had spent previous with the dull "hey, wanna chat ?" ideals and "a/s/l ?" pickups.
Before long, two years had gone by in this room, I had finished high school, and it was during this time that I was shown the plethora of other sites out there, dealing in particular to the enjoyment of this that one site packed into a single room. Webmaze was the first, if I remember correctly it was an old room in the Realms section. Chatropolis, ChAtlantis, Pairody's Palace, among others. Like other people though, I was exposed to the Vampire stuff first. And I did enjoy it, having a character in almost every major faction before I'd finished. But then it happened. A good friend, who sadly I have lost track of, that first told me about Gor.
She literally dragged me by my ankles, and I have to admit that when first told about the idea of people
wanting to be slaves, I had a brow raised. She brought me to a room on Chatropolis called Port Schendi that was run by a man named Lone Wolf. Surprising, because I had been to that site before, hanging out in the Tower and some of the other Vampire rooms. I decided to try it out, needed a major change of pace in terms of roleplaying atmosphere. I decided to bring my Couplet character with me to start out, and before long all the old, good times of Gor were laid out in front of me. It didn't take long at all before I was site hopping, meeting all kinds of new people and learning more and more about this little counter-earth we call home.
Chatropolis seemed a little too spread out for me though, so I came back to Webmaze, and to Thentis, when a man named Hellspont was running it. I met my first true gorean Brother, Raphael there. I wasn't there as long as I would have liked to, but I made some good friends, including Hellspont, so good in fact that he managed to convince me to come and play a character over in Babylon as well.
From there, I went to other places, most of them being on Webmaze, such as Port Kar, Caravans, Akas of Agula, but it seemed like the more I roamed, the more I found myself looking for where I really belonged. As it came to happen, a few years into Gor, during the fun of the old raiding days of Bushido Uji and HFL and MSR, I walked into Tuchuk one day, and before long, I called it's Ubar Brother and shared earth and grass with him. I did not return to call Tuchuk home until many years later, but I'd like to think that I really was a Tuchuk over all that time anyway.
It's been ten years for me, and despite the odd setback and absence, I've never truly left. I've wanted to quit many times myself but I can't bring myself to do it. Though I have called many places home, I'm finally in the one that I should have been from the start. What brought me here ? A good friend I wish I still knew. What keeps me here ? The desire to continue to learn, and enjoy the theme I have grown to love. But more importantly the family and friends that I have and do share it with to this day.
