I can't quite believe that this place has been around for 20 years. Well over half my life I have been part of this community on and off.
I came to EFU as a fresh-faced 16 year-old in 2006. Having previously spent my time running guilds in the staid and vaguely perverted Argent Dawn EU scene, I had heard that NWN offered a more hardcore experience where characters could die and suffer real consequences. Someone told me they got ganked in EFU with 'minimal RP' for 'being evil'. My interest was duly piqued.
My first character was an amnesiac Elf, which I thought was good for a setting I knew nothing about. Within minutes I had blundered into Lower Sanctuary, and been beaten and interrogated by our dear departed MithralDragon's bouncer whose name I forget. Slightly bruised, I logged off and went about my day. A few days later, Lower Sanctuary had undergone a revolution. People were making fiery speeches in the Pissing Crone. There was talk of war, taking the revolution up above. Upon the floor, I read a political screed written by none other than DM Calculor, which to my money remains some of the finest writing ever done for EFU. I grew obsessed with the opaque, conspiratorial histories penned by DM Arkov, and the magnificent DMing of DM Howland. Soon after I resigned from my WoW guild and never looked back.
EFU is a place where I have honed my craft. It's one of the first places that people took me seriously as a creative. At the time I was made a DM (23rd January 2008), I was the youngest person to ever have been bought onto the team at a strapping 18 years old. I'm eternally grateful to Howland for seeing something in me back then, and I doubt I would have the confidence to call myself a writer today had I not been given that early confidence and space to develop as a creative.
Since then I have on and off been responsible for various plots and background material. Some of my earliest plots were running the Civil War that preceded the fall of Sanctuary at the end of v1, the Red Eleint war alongside our dear DM Mort in v2. Along with Secutor, I dreamed up the Numinous Order faction, whose odd brand of occultism and acid crusader vibes are still impeccable. For V2 I built the Forgotten Forest, which would go on to become the main setting for V3.
However, V6 is where I have finally shed my reputation as a somewhat flaky if occasionally inspired DM. I was going through a difficult transition in my life, and found myself at a loose end with lots of time on my hands. I thought I'd check on what was going on with EFU, and saw a new version was in the works. Humbly offering myself as a writer for some background material, I soon grew fascinated with the background work that Abala, Halfbrood, Hound, Howland, and Ironside had sketched out and thought I could do a reasonable job at colouring in some fine detail. Soon after, the Colossi were born. The rest, as they say, is history.
With Tala, Abala and my beloved DM Halfbrood, we built a setting that has (I believe) the highest levels of consistent building and content quality that the server, and perhaps NWN itself, has ever seen. In a scene where big, empty areas with monsters to kill are a somewhat unfortunate standard, we built a world chock full of mysteries that many have still never seen. I'm so proud of the world we have built together. I am also so happy to have had the chance to run the Great War that ran for over a year. It has long been my ambition to do a war plot for EFU that felt like a truly epochal conflict, and believe that we achieved that together. Thanks to the team as a whole for working together to make something feel so alive, and to Tala and Halfbrood for the incredible background work done making this war feel so alive.
To you players, thank you all for being here. You never cease to amaze me with your wild creativity. Here's to another twenty.
I came to EFU as a fresh-faced 16 year-old in 2006. Having previously spent my time running guilds in the staid and vaguely perverted Argent Dawn EU scene, I had heard that NWN offered a more hardcore experience where characters could die and suffer real consequences. Someone told me they got ganked in EFU with 'minimal RP' for 'being evil'. My interest was duly piqued.
My first character was an amnesiac Elf, which I thought was good for a setting I knew nothing about. Within minutes I had blundered into Lower Sanctuary, and been beaten and interrogated by our dear departed MithralDragon's bouncer whose name I forget. Slightly bruised, I logged off and went about my day. A few days later, Lower Sanctuary had undergone a revolution. People were making fiery speeches in the Pissing Crone. There was talk of war, taking the revolution up above. Upon the floor, I read a political screed written by none other than DM Calculor, which to my money remains some of the finest writing ever done for EFU. I grew obsessed with the opaque, conspiratorial histories penned by DM Arkov, and the magnificent DMing of DM Howland. Soon after I resigned from my WoW guild and never looked back.
EFU is a place where I have honed my craft. It's one of the first places that people took me seriously as a creative. At the time I was made a DM (23rd January 2008), I was the youngest person to ever have been bought onto the team at a strapping 18 years old. I'm eternally grateful to Howland for seeing something in me back then, and I doubt I would have the confidence to call myself a writer today had I not been given that early confidence and space to develop as a creative.
Since then I have on and off been responsible for various plots and background material. Some of my earliest plots were running the Civil War that preceded the fall of Sanctuary at the end of v1, the Red Eleint war alongside our dear DM Mort in v2. Along with Secutor, I dreamed up the Numinous Order faction, whose odd brand of occultism and acid crusader vibes are still impeccable. For V2 I built the Forgotten Forest, which would go on to become the main setting for V3.
However, V6 is where I have finally shed my reputation as a somewhat flaky if occasionally inspired DM. I was going through a difficult transition in my life, and found myself at a loose end with lots of time on my hands. I thought I'd check on what was going on with EFU, and saw a new version was in the works. Humbly offering myself as a writer for some background material, I soon grew fascinated with the background work that Abala, Halfbrood, Hound, Howland, and Ironside had sketched out and thought I could do a reasonable job at colouring in some fine detail. Soon after, the Colossi were born. The rest, as they say, is history.
With Tala, Abala and my beloved DM Halfbrood, we built a setting that has (I believe) the highest levels of consistent building and content quality that the server, and perhaps NWN itself, has ever seen. In a scene where big, empty areas with monsters to kill are a somewhat unfortunate standard, we built a world chock full of mysteries that many have still never seen. I'm so proud of the world we have built together. I am also so happy to have had the chance to run the Great War that ran for over a year. It has long been my ambition to do a war plot for EFU that felt like a truly epochal conflict, and believe that we achieved that together. Thanks to the team as a whole for working together to make something feel so alive, and to Tala and Halfbrood for the incredible background work done making this war feel so alive.
To you players, thank you all for being here. You never cease to amaze me with your wild creativity. Here's to another twenty.
