That is me, back in 1990 or so. I look a bit different now. As soon as i can get off my lazy ass, I'll put a more recent photo of myself up here. Now, I have shaved off my moustache, my glasses style is a lot different, and I have grown my hair out (again) I apologize for the quality of the picture, but at the time, I had Kinko's scan it in for me. Never again.
As some of you know, (and I'm fixing to tell you even if you do already know) Ana and I were married for 5 years IRL. We are divorced now, but we get along very well. Not like some ex-couples that I know about. Our marriage gave us both two of the most beautiful, special daughters anyone could ever ask for. They are perfect children in every respect (except that the youngest gives "puppy kisses" meaning she licks you)
In the picture, Natalie is the girl in the red dress. She will be 6 this January. She is already in a montossori kindergarden, and was reading a few months before she started school back in August. Amanda is the baby, she just turned 4 in the middle of October. As you can see, Amanda looks a LOT like me. More so now that she's growing like the weed that she is.
Here is a more recent photo of the girls. Natalie just lost her front teeth, both the top and bottom ones. Poor baby! The same thing happened to me when I was her age as well. And, as more than one person has told me when shown this picture, Amanda has my big, dark brown eyes. One day she's going to break hearts with those eyes. I better not find out about any guys hanging around her tho, I'll kill them!
Ok, enough about the boring non-mud related Dave. I found Astaria a little while ago (little while = more than 2 years) after I had separated from Joanna (Joanna = Ana) and was living on my own really for the first time ever. Completely by myself. I was pretty broke at the time (still am, actually) but I had my computer to entertain me. I always loved computer games of any sort, rpg's, action, adventure, strategy/war sims, whatever I could get my hands on. My little sister Carli (little.. heh.. she's 20) showed me a chat room one night when I was visiting her. I thought that was the coolest thing I had seen. So, I became a regular in the room. People would log on and look for me to talk to. I became disillusioned quickly with it. As most of you know, most chat rooms are just big pits for male hormones to run rampant, looking for anything and everything to stick their cyber-dicks into. As this was not really my scene, I went back to playing my games.
Now, when I was in college (back in the 80's.. heh) mudding was new, for the most part, and primitave. I was bopping around the net one night and stumbled upon mudconnect. I remember thinking "Wow! So many Muds.. let's check some of these out." So, I downloaded GMud (blah, I didn't know any better at the time) and looked at some. I cant remember which ones I looked at first. They must not have been very good because I don't remember them. I quickly learned that I did NOT like circle, diku, or silly muds. Something about the spamming of your vitals and needing to worry about food turned me off. I stumbled upon Astaria! What a cool place, I thought. So, I made Astaria my home, as it has been for the past 2+ years.
Now, you'll hear all about Seiya and Devin.
Seiya was not my first character on Astaria. My first was a Psion who was killed for having a dippy name. And no, his name was not Seiya... (on the old server, no one cared about harassment at that time, remember) My GM retaliated tho, to the Guild's credit (at that time. I wouldn't expect that to happen these days) I still was pissed off enough to suicide and join the Fighters. I was at that time the only Catfolk fighter there was! My strength sucked (Catfolk max Str is 15, which is minimum to join that Guild) buy I had a 24 Dex! I learned my way around newbiehood with the help of long-gone legends, like Cruz, Mcaxeman and Taliss. It was also there that I met Tyke, Parithian and Zanzemara, my first real long-term Astarian friends. (Tyke disapeared after he suicided and joined the Paladins, but Zanz is still around as Zanzemara, and Parithian is still my right hand, Mclewan)
The name Seiya comes from my favorite Japanese anime, called Saint Seiya There is a link to the Saint Seiya site I like the best. In the anime, Seiya is the Pegasus Saint, so of course, once I got Seiya to 20/20 I changed his name to Warlord Seiya-Wu the Pegasus Saint. Which reminds me.. the surname Wu comes from Sun-Tzu's "The Art of War" as does Seiya's original Fighter biography which is still inside that Guild. Wu is the province in feudal Japan where Sun-Tzu came from. People generally took their home province as their surnames, so I took it as Seiya's as well. Thus was born Seiya-Wu.
Too many things happened to Seiya during his tenure as a Fighter to put down here. This page would go on and on if i tried to write it all out. Memorable highlights were...
Being elected the first Fighter Guildmaster on the new Astarian server. He was the GM for an astounding 2 and 2/3's terms! (I got REAL disillusioned during the latter part of the third term and stepped down. Tyke succeeded me. Within a month, I had renounced my Clan (I was in Tarok at this time) and Ascended. My statue is in the Hall of Heroes, 2e and 1s from the Great Hall. Just type Look at Seiya to view it.
Parithian held all of my worldly possessions that I didn't liquidate (being a scarlet bag of holding, gold longsword, jeweled dagger, various pvaultables and about 800 tricrown) and thus Devin was born.
Devin was a name I used for a short-term Thief character I had on the old machine close to the end, when I was looking around at other Guilds before it opened. I knew a Devin in the winter of 1996, and he was a good friend to me. Utilizing my knowledge of the realms gained as a Fighter, Devin the Thief quickly became a name people knew. Not out of fear, but of respect. I was recruited into Ragnarok back when it was still a large clan. Nixie, Dmitry, Falemiel, Rezit, Attul, Jaded, Snowwolf, Corwin... many others. Nihil showed me many things about how to pkill. Nix and Dmitry taught me to be a Thief. I split with Ragnarok after a bit of bad blood. This was right before the infamous Rag/Dragon war. I layed low as a Clanless master Thief for a long time, building up my personal power base and cash reserves. Mid-November 1997, I created Clan Tharkold with Byron and Miriam. I dropped over 800 tricrown on the abode that day.
Tharkold was originally intended just to be a clan for Byron and myself. Miriam quickly dropped out of the picture, leaving just he and I. Which was perfect. My older sister Tammy started playing Astaria, as Jana the Fighter. So we inducted her. She brought forth another Fighter she liked. I inducted him. This Fighter brought another Fighter named Rainne. Rainne is my love Zooey now. The clan continued to grow in this manner, but we were always careful about who we let in.
Summer 1998 I playtested the Paladin's guild along with 19 other Astarians. It left a great impression on me so I returned. It is probably the most versatile Guild there is, and a lot of fun to play in. It's fun harassing evil players, discussing the virtues of Artrimas and all.
I suicided Devin to try my hand at coding as a Wizard. I was good at it, but my IRL picked up at that time and I felt that I couldn't give enough of my time that I had promised to the mud. There were a few other factors that led to me stepping down. I rerolled Seiya the Paladin and thats where I am now. Seiya is only my third real character on Astaria.