The First Year

by Swifthand Silvereyes

 

THE FORMING OF THE GUILD

The guild was formed in the middle of Jan 2001. Original members were, myself, Teroth (my real life brother), Indra (my real life friend), Swiftpain/Exavier (my real life cousin), Megil, Zior, Mortiz, Tarask, Ystranos, Morris, chulil/ripto, Rabbizz and his real life wife Purti, and Viscerat.

I started the guild after being asked to by several of my friends. Many of us were in the same guild, Plaguebringers. It was a Kunark based guild, made up primarily of Iksar characters. I was an officer, and was very involved helping the younger guys, since I had been playing a long time. Several of my friends became upset with some of the things the leader was doing, and some quit the guild, and we had a few bad apples in the guild who were greedy and dishonest, and was giving us a bad rep. So the guys came to me and said if I would form a new guild, they would join me. I knew I didn't have the organization skills to make a great guild leader, but the guys counted on me, and I didn't want to see them all go off to different guilds so I finally agreed. The original officers were, myself as Guild Leader, then Teroth, Megil, Mortiz, and Rabbizz as officers. As time went by, more and more of the guys from Plaguebringers wanted to join DC, I had a hard time, because I didn't want to gut Plaguebringers. When I said I wasn't going to recruit from Plaguebringers anymore, they just quit anyway, so I ended up taking any of the good folks who wanted to come over. Leifanng, Tyrund, Orath, Angyl, Draknar, Kappaphi and few others joined this way. Eventually Plaguebringers fell apart and disbanded. I still have some good friends from Plaguebringers who never joined Dragonchow, like Rotfang, and Metstix, and Kronug, and I am still even on good terms with Talnic, the old Guild Leader. We made it a point to always try and keep good folks, and our reputation is very important, we don't tolerate bad apples. I hate to /guildremove people, but I have. Eventually I brought in more of my real life friends and family, many of whom were in my wife's guild, Wolves of the Tundra, like Hindolmer, Hiedi, Salavar, Armus, Goot, Dharius, Woodcon, and their many alts. We also did some selective recruiting, and got some very nice folks, like Jarok, and Klothe, and many more. Then we started getting all the wives and friends of the guild members, and we went from a small guild to a medium sized one rather suddenly

 

THE LOSS OF THE FIFTIES, AND THE FINDING OF FAITH

We had a semi-allegiance with Wolves of the Tundra because my wife was an officer in their guild. (Kieri 55 pally / Cami 53 chanter). As some of the guys started hitting lvl 50 plus, we started to loose half of them to high level guilds, although they were still good friends to the guild, they wanted to play the high level game, and we just couldn't provide the raids and support that they needed. Some in the guild felt betrayed by this, but I didn't, I understand their position, heck I was offered a place in OOP at one time, and was tempted too. We were offered a place in the newly forming S.G.A. ( Saryrn Guild Alliance) The idea was for a few medium sized guilds (Amnesty and Spirit Guardians mainly), to combine and cooperate in taking on epic mobs and raiding planes, this was a lot of fun, and gained us a lot of raiding exp. The SGA while well meaning didn’t really work out as much as we all hoped. You never knew how many arrive for a raid, and folks didn’t seem to make the starting times, and the guys running things got frustrated. Also it sometimes things got chaotic as the SGA let more guilds join. We continued to loose a trickle of high lvl guys as time went on, and lost a few more when Dark Age of Camelot came out. Still we started getting a bigger and bigger core group, and it looked as if we would soon be able to offer more to our guys who were moving up in levels. Then Radalas, (who was a member of the Allegiance of Faith at that time), asked us if we might consider a merger with A.O.F. His guild was hit hard by losses to Dark Age of Camelot. After a few combined raids and chats, it was obvious that those guys were a great fit for us, and we jumped at the chance to combine with them. Now we have a very nice core of high lvl guys for raids, as well as many friends and ex-chow in the UBER guilds who get us in on some good raids. As a result we seem to be keeping many more of our guys as they hit the 50's, and I look forward of good things to come from Dragonchow.