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I sometimes play on the Elendor MUSH.
I found the MUSH to be full of very nice people, very helpful, very friendly towards Newbies. I must admit, however, that I only played with dwarves and hobbits. Dwarves and Hobbits are very nice! I hope that's true for all cultures, obviously.
RP is hard to find in Elendor, but not as hard as on the other MUSHes
I've been to. Just page people in your area (see help
+WHO, particularly the +WHO/loc syntax), or check
the channels (see help +com). Many people are here for
chat. Channels I subscribe to: Eriador, Esl, Hobbit, Public, Rp, Sb,
Shire-luin, Shirefolk, Song, Theme, Trivia. Hope to meet you there.
I currently play Omfast (a Shire hobbit); before that I played Ardin, and before Ardin I played Gumbart (both Erebor dwarves, or dorfs, as they often call themselves).
Randel and Omfast duke it out on the public channel. Spam rules. (Jan 2002)
Kairoc runs into Omfast. Omfast gets a fit, Fraibert tries to calm him, and Finigrin helps Kairoc escape. Kairoc also plays his sister Amethyst. (Jan 2002)
I got a cable modem in November. December was one of the most intense RP months for me (12 IC logs). Thanks to all the players that joined RP.
Emerila dumped in her food by Omfast! Also present: Isial, Midien, Griseldo. (Dec 2001)
Omfast buys a pipe from Theldo and talks about Bilbo with Budoc. (Dec 2001)
Randel, Omfast and others talk spam and pipeweed on the public channel. (Dec 2001)
At the same time, Omfast tries to buy some pipeweed from them tobacco robber barons! Malbo, in fact. (Dec 2001)
Omfast gets drunk in the Green Dragon with Nickham and Flildobrand. (Dec 2001)
Ilro and Clary help Omfast write his job application. (Dec 2001)
Omfast spams the public channel with Randel. Those were the times... (Dec 2001)
Omfast offends Ka'Lae in the Lucky Tucky Inn. (Dec 2001)
Omfast meets Ka'Lae for the first time early in the morning. (Dec 2001)
Omfast buys pipeweed from Eliado. Citro offers watches for sale, but Omfast doesn't have the money. (Dec 2001)
Omfast has an interview with the Thainess of the Great Smials, applying for the job. Featuring Eglantine, Citro and Panadrin. (Dec 2001)
Omfast taking a look at the gardens, with Ferridac and Talvo (Dec 2001)
Omfast looking for a job in the Lucky-Tucky Inn, talking with Clary (Dec 2001)
Omfast conjures the great Halibut, while Auriak shoots him down (OOC)
Omfast, Randel and Dagroth meet the great Halibut (OOC)
Omfast tells Getto about the evil elves... (Jul 2001)
Overview:
Ardin and Gumbart are residents of Erebor, Zinbar merchants, to be exact. Read about the Zinbar clan on the Erebor web-site.
Gumbart is a poor Ereborian merchant, trading in tapestries from Esgaroth, cheap Dunland wine, some fishbone handicraft. Gumbart was already old when I started playing him. He had never won a fortune and was getting very bitter because of that. His caravans got robbed, his partners cheated. Then, when I started playing Gumbart, he decided to do a lot more travelling himself, to learn how to fight, and to finally win a fortune!!! If you want to know what happened to Gumbart, read on...
I'm totally hooked on RP, if you want to RP, just page me when I'm online -- I usually drop by on weekdays between 6:00 and 12:00 MUSH time.
Read this log by Rorgan about a class on subtle RP, if you want to know more about the finer points of RP on a MUSH.
I also do roleplaying in my real-life (RL). If you can read German, check out my Rollenspiele page. The thing I most enjoy at the moment is RP without a game-master. It actually works! This is probably the reason why I prefer to RP combat instead of using the Elendor combat system.
On my second day on the MUSH (Jun 1999) I joined a trip from Mt. Erebor to Buhr Mahrling in Rhun. This trip was an all in-character (IC) Tinyplot (a fancy word used by MUSHers for a little story acted out on the MUSH).
The first TP shows Stryth (a newbie like myself at the time who renamed), Disur (a warder), and Kilor (another warder played by Bofa), and Nildin (a crazy drunk).
This was my first RP in Elendor. You can see how slowly Gumbart's
poses (the paragraphs each player writes about his character's
actions) get longer, growing from two lines to around four lines in
average. Compare this to the elaborate poses some of the other
players write! MUSHing sharpens your writing skills. The first RP
already fixed some character traits I had in mind for Gumbart: he was
to be a complaining, unhappy dwarf, always ready to blame others, and
a coward when it comes to fighting. This is where I decided to call
myself Gumbart, the unhappy dwarf
.
The party was lead by Toran, the entire TP was coordinated by Lord Nori, a merchant from Emyn Engris. It turned out that the trip was not only about merchants going east but about spying. The dwarves from Emyn Engris wanted to spy on the Easterlings in Rhun because they had had troubles in the past, there. I heard about it IC, but I lost the log, unfortunately.
The log shows a discussion about the events with my new friend Brican (Jun 1999).
This short log shows Gumbart discussing the appearance of a stranger at the camp (Jun 1999). I play Gumbart as a complaining fellow always ready to think ill of strangers.
A new idea that had popped up on the Erebor channel took shape here.
I wanted Gumbart to be a bit on the shadow-side of things. And what
better way than to take up the idea that was proposed on the channel:
to search for the dwarven ring that was taken from Thrain in Dol
Guldur. It happened thus: Some Ereborian dwarves where complaining on
the channel about the fortunes they wanted to make. Somebody said he
just wanted a simple and plain gold ring
. I said that Gumbart
would be happy with a dwarven ring. Another dwarf suggested to make
this into a TP. And I decided that this was what Gumbart wanted all
along. An magical way to find a fortune, no matter what the risk.
The title of the TP to be: In search for Thrain's Ring
.
I asked Bofa, my favorite local administrator (LA) to check the idea. She started to look into it. And I started finding dwarves IC that would be interested in joining. I even had a posting on the Tinyplot BB asking for other players. Bofa took the posting down and suggested I wait for a LA meeting. In the mean time, several Mordain from Dol Guldur expressed interest in the Tinyplot, so I guess Gumbart will go to Dol Guldur an meet his end there in any case, wether it be on the search for the dwarven ring or wether it be due to dark promises from Dol Guldur agents.
As to Bofa: If you want to know how much difference Bofa makes, you
must understand that Bofa is +top (check help
+top). I even wrote a Bofa
Song in her honor! (Jul 1999)
In this log, anyway, I start convincing Brican, that there might be more to making a fortune than just buying and selling. And we both start to look for dwarves who might want to join us.
In this log, Brican and Gumbart explore town, Bolindar joins them, and Gumbart gets robbed by Easterlings. (Jul 1999)
The RP is easy and I got the chance to show Gumbart as a slightly hysteric dwarf, easy to anger and yet powerless to truly defend himself.
In the log, Gumbart proves once more to be unfriendly and yet comical in his attempts to be a mean character. (Jul 1999) He is clearly outwitted by Baereave (a young Easterling woman), played by Ckthyssa. He barely manages to save face as Khelin appears on Millers Market, thus giving Gumbart an excuse to leave.
In this very short log, Gumbart meets a scout of the Dale-lands offering to guide Gumbart through the Dale-lands, alone (Jul 1999). This shows that small opportunities for RP may pop up anytime.
In another very short log, Gumbart talks to Raelin about leaving Buhr Mahrling (Jul 1999). Raelin talks about a fight he has had; this is an important concept for a MUSH life: rumours, stories, chat -- they all add life to a background. Even just hearing and talking about things that happened to other people on the MUSH will make living on the MUSH more enjoyable. Involvment is the key concept!
Even watching other people RP is also fun, here Kalidar and Raelin are discussion some scout stuff. (Jul 1999)
Here, Bofa and Kehlin help me find my way in the Iron Hills. I got lost! (Jul 1999)
Later, Kang, Bofa, Brican and Gumbart start talking about the Ring-TP I'm planning. Unfortunately, getting LA approval for this TP seems to take an eternity. I am so discouraged by this delay, in fact, that I have stopped caring. Whenever I did talk to people (especially to people from other cultures) and got some reaction from them, Bofa told me to wait for LA approval. This is very sad. (Jul 1999)
Here, Brican and Gumbart chat with Doinar and Dalor in the Earless Elf. Later, Khelin, Kang and Bofa arrive. Doinar and Dalor are two newbies in Emyn-Engrin. The story ends with Bofa telling a story while Gumbart falls asleep (Jul 1999). The log ends because I had to leave -- the curse of living in UTC +1 istead of somewhere in the US.
I feel ready to travel to Erebor on my own! I even changed my history
to reflect this (Aug 1999). You can examine
anybodies history using think eval(*name,HISTORY). You
can set your own history using &HISTORY me=blabla and
@set me/HISTORY=VIS (the last is required to allow other
people to see it).
Gumbart spent the last few years as a merchant in Erebor; he remained poor, however. He sent stuff throughout Rhovanion, but a lot of it got stolen by bandits, his partners both human and dwarven cheated, the quality of the goods was often mediocre. Gumbart has now changed his policy: He will buy and sell all goods in person, hopefully reducing his losses. And getting out of Mt. Erebor will do this dwarf some good!
Gumbart spent his youth in Emyn-Engrin, where his father Oibart had a gem-cutting business. The gem-cutting business in the Iron Hills was bad, so Oibart started to sell gem-cutting tool-sets. Gumbart started to travel to other dwarven mines, selling his father's tool-sets and bringing stuff back to sell in Emyn-Engrin. This explains Gumbart's knowledge of the gem-cutting business, his long travel experience, and the large number of acquaintances in numerous dwarven strongholds in the north and in the east.
Oibart had fled to Emyn-Engrin after the descent of Smaug upon Erebor in 2770. He married and sired Gumbart in 2782. When Thror was slain in Moria, Gumbart was 18 years old; he did not participated in the battle of 2799, nor did his father. Both lived their lives in peace until the battle of the five armies in 2941. Gumbart was 159 at the time. When the battle was won, Oibart and Gumbart moved to Erebor, to the caves of Oibart's youth. After getting there, Oibart fell ill and did not recover; he died in 2943.
Gumbart continued what he had done before: He traveled East and North, buying and selling, supplying the gem-cutters in Erebor with his tools, selling Esgaroth tapestries in the east, selling coffee and wine in the west. As he grew older, however, Gumbart traveled less; he left the trade to others. As was stated at the beginning, however, Gumbart has taken up his traveling life again.
As time wears on, I start to feel restless in EE. What irritates me most is that my Ring-TP doesn't get going. I think that waiting for LA approval is a protection against abuse from some players, but having to go through it makes me feel like nobody would entrust with organizing my own TP. I've really had to step on my tongue on certain occasions. (Aug 1999)
This is the outline of the Ring-TP. This text was once posted on the Tinyplots BB, but it was taken down again by Bofa. I then carried it on my +finger for some time until I was told I wasn't even to talk to people from other cultures about it. I then took it off my +finger, frustrated.
I'd like to go after the dwarven ring in Dol Guldur! People interested in this TP might be people that knew what happened to Thrain in Dol Guldur when the ring was taken from him, people that overheard Gandalf or any of the other circle members talk about the dwarven ring, or plain bad guys that just make something up that might interest an old, unhappy and scheming dwarf. Any ambitious, unhappy and corruptible dwarves are invited to join, of course! And if you are a stout defender of Good and notice what's going on, you can join, too, trying to keep us from the Dark Side. The dwarves will form a party, travel south, and on the trip greed, mistrust und the corrupting influence of any bad guys we meet will start to break our fellowship appart. If we ever reach Dol Guldur, we'll fail to achieve anything. Some of us might even get captured and tortured and converted to the Nameless One. Interested? Come along! +mail me!
This log illustrates a little IC conflict between Gumbart an Bofa after talking to Doinar. I am not sure wether this is a spill-over from my OOC unhappiness into RP. If it were, I would consider that a bad thing. (Aug 1999)
This log shows how Bolindar orders Bofa to throw Kang into prison. Gumbart says practically nothing; another instance were just following the RP of other people is fun enough.
Anyway, this was the point when I decided to leave Emyn-Engrin again. I wanted to join Arwin's trip together with Brican to Dale, but Arwin didn't leave for some days. Therefore I decided to leave on my own. On the way, however, I was overtaken by Arwin's camp. This logs raises some questions about Arwin's camp as Gumbart reaches Arwin's camp and talks to Datain for long hours. (Aug 1999)
Note: The above log is unedited! If you are wondering what real RP on a MUSH looks like, take a look at this log.
The OOC logs from the public channel show Gumbart fooling around when he is not roleplaying. This just goes to show that I am a very nice (ha!) person OOC. Here's an example: Randel quotes Tolkien - full of the usual nonsense, my favorite character on the public channel keeps me, Cuardin (the maintainer of the OOC logs) and other denizens of the public channel on our toes (or rather, ROTFLOL).
Here are two logs from a day when I spent more than a day online, overnight, even! In the morning, Gwillim nearly starts a fight with Gumbart and Brican. A warder from Esgaroth breaks us up, however. (Aug 1999)
In the evening, Gumbart and Datain are nearly killed by the choleric chief of the Elendor warders, Koral. Unfortunately you cannot see how dreadfully long LAs such as Koral (played by Toran) take to actually pose!!! ARGH!
At last, the Dol Guldur TP has been approved! Gimli, the Erebor +ruler, has given his OK. Bofa and Nori are two Emyn-Engrin LAs that will help me organize this TP. Shaazgut, the Mordor ruler, has told me that the Dol Guldur players are mostly busy down in Ithilien and might be staying there or move south into Umbar at least until the end of August. Which is fine by me, we'll take our time travelling to death and worse awaiting us in Dol Guldur... hehe!
I've broken the TP down into three phases. This is what I posted on the Tinyplot bulletin board:
I'm going after the lost dwarven ring in Dol Guldur! The TP will proceed in three phases, as far as I can tell: 1. The dwarves will move from Erebor into Mirkwood, 2. we'll travel south, and 3. we'll reach Dol Guldur where everything will fall appart, either because of internal fighting or because Dol Guldur hunts us down. I'm looking for players, alts and puppets that are interested in coming along. Here are some reasons why you might want to be part of the TP IC: You are one of the people that know about the ring, either because you knew what happened to Thrain in Dol Guldur when the ring was taken from him, or you overheard Gandalf or any of the other circle members talk about the dwarven ring. You are an agent of Mordor that tries to lure an old, unhappy and scheming dwarf south to Dol Guldur, or you could try to corrupt some of us, converting our party to the Eye. You are a resident of the areas we are travelling through: Ndaedeldhrim, Beornings, Dalelanders. You can be curious and question us, or trail us, or try to rob us. As to dwarves that might want to join: Any ambitious, unhappy and corruptible dwarves are invited to join, of course! And if you are a stout defender of Good and notice what's going on, you can join, too, trying to keep us from the Dark Side. The dwarves will form a party, travel south, and on the trip greed, mistrust und the corrupting influence of any bad guys we meet will start to break our fellowship appart. If we ever reach Dol Guldur, we'll fail to achieve anything. Some of us might even get captured and tortured and converted to the Nameless One. Interested? Come along! +mail me!
And I've started the first phase:
The first phase of the TP has started: The assembly of interested dwarves in the Erebor area. We'll see how many show up. I've talked to people in Emyn-Engrin about it IC, so if you are interested, +mail me and we'll arrange for some RP to get the right information to you. There are also knowledgeable dwarves on Master Arwin's trip to Buhr Mahrling, so if you meet them IC, you can get the information there.
In Longbeard Tavern, Gumbart is trying to spread rumours about the trip. Later, alone with a senior warder, Gumbart hopes to have some warders along on his trip. Later still, Ordin meets Gumbart in Longbeard Tavern and tells him, that the trip has been approved by Toran. Ordin will come along on the trip to Dol Guldur! (Aug 1999)
Not everybody is as easily convinced of coming along on a dangerous TP. In this log, Gumbart tries to persuade Jorin and Belin, but no luck: Their harsh criticism puts Gumbart down. Even Ordin's ambiguous support at the end does not really help to lift the mood. Fortunately, the RP was accompanied by a very lively and very friendly OOC discussion (edited away), so my real feelings were (obviously!) not hurt. (Aug 1999)
These two logs show Rimli, a newbie, in his first RP. As you can see, the poses are typically very short but getting longer. The usual progression. You can see how Gumbart ist still trying to recruit new dwarves for his trip to Dol Guldur. (Aug 1999)
Here are two logs that show the company of dwarves role-playing. In the first log, Kurgan comes over to visit our camp. He claims that his company is moving south, and freshly arrived Gumbart is suspecting espionage. Note how the RP consists of shorter poses in the beginning, as everybody seems in a hurry to pose. Later, poses start to grow again as we are getting deeper into it. In the second log, Gumbart finally divulges his secret: the map of Thrain's last cache. (Aug 1999)
Later, just before the camp is moved into Mirkwood, Gumbart, Ordin, Brican, and Rimli surprise an Uruk (a puppet played by Dworin) sneaking around their camp. (Aug 1999)
This log is special in that it starts out with a combat scene that was abandoned the day before due to exessive lag (delays in the network connections). When it was abandoned, Gumbart was not part of the RP. In this log, Gumbart is caught by the Spiders of Mirkwood. Worse, Khamul, the Nazgul of Dol Guldur appears. We then decided OOC (out of character, ie. the relevant discussion is not shown) that Khamul would carry Gumbart and Brican away to Dol Guldur. The remaining trip to Dol Guldur is thus cut short and Gumbart's end is nigh...
Here is the log of Rimli's
rescue by Killaure, a commander in King Thranduil's guard,
protector of his lands and friend to the dwarves
.
Meanwhile, Brican and Gumbart awaken in the dungeons of Dol Guldur. After a few days down there, Kalequa offers water and medicine to Gumbart - for a price. The scene is interrupted, however, as the wraith Khamul enters and starts taunting Gumbart, promising him that he'll be a servant of Mordor, yet. (Sep 1999)
A few days later, Kalqua returns with Puck the troll. Soon they are joined by Tagakmog and Grishnak. Gumbart doesn't understand what's going on between them and tries to provoke them, to no avail. He is threatened with torture and mutilation. Later, Gumbart tries to trick Puck into helping him escape. (Sep 1999)
Back in Erebor, I got the chance to RP Tanin's arrival in Erebor with my puppet Ardin (Sep 1999). (This log needed some heavy editing to remove all the "Ardin>" prefixes. .) I returned to the MUSH after more than two weeks of absence -- too much work, not enough RP in Dol Guldur. Anyway, I'm cured, now!
Later, Grolin listens to Ardin's drunken rant as Ardin drinks away his sorrow at the disappearance of his cousin Gumbart.
Sometimes RP is cut short. In this fragment, Ardin joined other dwarves in a scene meant to start Derkin's TP (going to Mirkwood and fetching some herbs).
In this scene, Ardin tries to get on Derkin's trip to Mirkwood again. Somehow all the other dwarves ignore him, however. Keeping his anger under control, Ardin decides to wait. Later, he catches Derkin alone in Longbeard and gets on the trip. As it turns out, though, Ardin will never go on the tip because I stopped playing because of an increased workload in RL (real life).
Much later, in
March 2000, I started to play again. Here is a log
of me meeting Jorin, Rhuarc and Caitlin late in a rainy night in Laketown.
Nice and harmless. Since the dorfs had fought a war in Laketown in
the weeks past without me taking part in the roleplay, I had to invent
a story for my absence. I decided that Ardin's business trips would
provide ample excuse for his late arrival (as well as his lack of
heroism). I decided that Ardin's excuse for the time spent in
Laketown was to be the rebuilding of the shop he and Gumbart had
owned. This was inspired by a fragment of Gumbart's history:
...selling Esgaroth tapestries in the east...
. So I decided
that Ardin and Gumbart owned a little shop in Laketown as well, buying
and selling tapestries, carpets, gobelins, as well as the other things
Ardin and Gumbart dealt in - gem cutting tools and wine, that is.
In this scene, Agarhaz plants the seed for some roleplay in Laketown that may perhaps lead to a rescue mission for Noisin, who had been captured by orcs, according to some chat on the Erebor channel.
As Ardin prepares for the trip with Agarhaz, he is robbed in the early morning hours. In this log, Caitlin plays a group of thieves without herself appearing at all. Perhaps Caitlin's player felt that it would not be appropriate for Caitling to wander through the streets of Laketown so early in the morning.
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