Member's Background
Many of the members of Moloch's Gamebook Garden have stories about why they chose
their aliases, and I've collected all I could find right here. Two of the Club's Founders
(moloch_king and Green_Knight_aus) have the largest entries. That's partly coincidence,
since moloch has gone into elaborate detail about how he chose his name, and so have I
(Green Knight). If you have a story to tell about your alias, or you want to contribute
more info about your own alias, send it in to the Club Mailbox. As you might guess, we love
a good story here!
| moloch_king | Green_Knight_aus | RazerKat | FFbooks | |
| LionRampant | Groo the Mighty | CPentney | Lukesgd | Lugh_of_Erin |
moloch_king
Here's one of moloch's complete posts on the subject of his name. All I've done
is corrected some spelling and done some reformatting:
The story behind my name, moloch king, is that my favorite monster of any game I've ever played (RPGs, videogames, whatever) is a nearly invincible daemon species called "molochs". They are from a roguelike game (AD&D oriented CRPG) called "ADOM". There are three species so far discovered in the game (with possible others, that only the programmer knows about). This is the description for a regular moloch:
Molochs: There might be a physical being inside the hulking armor, but most who dare to look report only seeing a stifling darkness accompanied by flowing waves of hatred and malevolence. While their movements are fairly slow, they are made with such direct hatred that even the strongest substances yield beneath their power.
So far there are three known species (as I mentioned): molochs, greater molochs and a emperor moloch. Most players die in the process of fleeing them after the futile attempt of destroying one. :) Believe me, they are THAT tough. In my imagination, they look like a cross between an umberhulk, and that supreme alien race from the movie "The Fifth Element". I am fascinated by them. So I chose to bear the name of what I believed to be the next logical step in the moloch evolutionary chain (others rapidly critisized that emperors are higher status than kings. I disagree. There was no one above King Arthur, or the king of France, etc. etc.) Sadly though, there is also a demon named "Moloch", supposedly mentioned in the bible (I've been told). I don't like this at all because I like to think of myself as a highly religious individual. I attempted to change the alias "Moloch king" to a lower case "moloch king", so as to specifically indicate no representation to the name of the actual demon. But I couldn't, so I'm disheartened. If I would have chosen "king moloch" it would have a whole different meaning all together, and even more satanic the reference. Oh well, anyway, that's the story behind my name!
Green_Knight_aus
As it happens, I'm a keen roleplayer (AD&D, GURPS & Ars Magica mostly,
but I've played plenty of others). I also enjoy reading fantasy books, gamebooks and CRPG
and strategy games. Quite some time ago, I had the pleasure of reading a book about the
Legends of King Arthur, and quite enjoyed it. So, when it came time for me to chose my
alias, that was one of the sources to which I turned. Unfortunately, I no longer had the
book I read long ago, so I referred to my AD&D sources for information. Sure enough,
an AD&D sourcebook called "Legends and Lore" had the info I needed, with the
complete AD&D stats for most of the major characters and some important backgound
information, which I have presented below:
The Green Knight
Sir Bernlad, a knight of fiercely independent disposition, is one of the few powerful
lords who has not sought a chair at the Round Table. He rode into Arthur’s court in
bright green armor and challenged any man to hit him with his axe. When Gawaine accepted
this challenge and beheaded him in one stroke, Bernlad simply picked up his head and left,
instructing Gawaine to present himself for a similar stroke in a year.
| Fighter 14 | ||
| Str 18/77 | Dex 13 | Con 18 |
| Int 17 | Wis 14 | Cha 12 |
| AC 1 | MR nil | MV 12 |
| HP 96 | AL cg | THAC0 5 |
| #AT 2 | Dmg ld8 +3/1d8 +3 (Axe) +4 | |
True to his word, Gawaine sought out the Green Knight and presented himself for the return stroke. After a series of tests designed to test Gawaine’s virtue, Bernlad merely nicked the valorous knight and discharged the obligation. The secret of Bernlad’s immunity to harm lies in his Green Armor, which was given to him by the Lady of the Lake in order to test the virtue of Arthur’s court. As long as Bernlad wears the armor, he cannot be harmed by any physical weapon. This enchantment applies only to him. In addition, Bernlad’s battle axe is a +3 weapon.
While I don't have the capabilities or vitue of the original Green Knight, I try to keep the tradition going. If you ever get me in the chat room, you will notice that I often use green text (moloch also uses this idea, but uses moloch yellow).
RazerKat
RazerKat's name is probably the most appropriate of all the aliases we've seen so far in
the club, although the connection isn't obvious. The name itself is a transformation of
his usual alias SabreFox (Sabre -> Razer, Fox -> Kat). He chose
SabreFox because it was one of his favorite creatures from Lone Wolf #18: Dawn of the
Dragons (section 46)
LionRampant
Another alias which has it's origins in medieval history, but this time based
firmly on fact and family rather than myth and legend. Lion's surname is Thorne, and his
family coat of arms is a rampant lion in black on a red background.
FFBooks
Well, I'm not sure if he's actually confirmed it, but rumor has it that our
friend FFBooks chose his alias because he really enjoys the popular Fighting
Fantasy series of gamebooks. As such, I think his alias runs a close second to RazerKat's
for appropriateness. FFBooks' dedication to the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks is so strong
that he has actually written some complete Fighting Fantasy gamebooks and put them online.
I think it's a great effort, and you can check out the link to his site on our main page.
Groo the Mighty
Groo chose his name from a classic fantasy comic book series called Groo
the Wanderer. You can guess who his favorite character from the series is....
CPentney
I don't have much info about CP's background yet, but his alias is actually just a
contraction of his real name. His preferred alias is Wampyre, but Yahoo wouldn't
let him use it. We're still waiting for a reason why CP chose Wampyre as an alias, but it
sounds cool.
Lukesgd
Like CP, Luke chose his alias as a contraction of his real name - it is not a
reference to a certain Star Wars character! (Luke points out that he's not even a fan of
the series). Hopefully, this reference will help clear up some of the confusion - at least
among gamebook club members :-)
Lugh_of_Erin
Lugh of Erin (that's me that is!!) is the second incarnation of Lukesgd. Lugh: Irish sun god; Erin: one of the archaic Gaelic names for Ireland (although I've heard that Eriu is more correct). That's about it really. You wanna see my website? You sure? Oh go on. http://uk.oocities.com/belzubuk. Whoops, shameless advertising. Soree.