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I've been trying figure out a way to personally salute Lady C's return to WoD. She has been bugging me for a while to come back, so I've tried to think of something special to do "in game." One thought I am considering is staging "A Return to Buc's Den." Now some folks may have read the "Buc's Den Journals" in the player submissions, but thought it was just a short story like "Smudge on the Mountain." When Uthr orginally posted the Journals, he left out the introduction that explained what they were all about. What I did was place my entire group of characters into Buc's Den, each with nothing but a dagger and a robe. Then I brought them to life in turns and they had to get off the island on their own. The journals recount (in their own twisted viewpoint) the actual events as they accomplished that task. The game has changed a bit since then, the character's skillsets changed, and I have become very rusty at playing it, so maybe the time is ripe to do it again.
One of the things that has always bugged me (excuse the pun) was that last time we were aided to a sort of "head start" due to a bug of sorts. At the beginning, the healers on the island were set as some kind of super-warriors who killed anything you could lure close enough. Drocket fixed that, but not until after we had gotten some valuable initial supplies. We sort of owe Buc's Den a rematch based on that alone.
Anyway, what opinions are there out there? There is a connection of sorts to Ciara, since she will be returning after a short absense, and I would be returning to the game (at least for this exercise) and the boys would be returning to BD. I would publish a journal, of course, which would kind of commemorate the occasion and mark the date. However, the REAL occasion would still be Ciara's return, and I would not want in any way to compete with that or upstage it. Opinions?

Very nice idea Homer I think she would like it very much if you came back, and the return to Buc's sounds like an interesting challenge. I have read many times the journals of those char.'s of yours and I would love to have more to read about.

Homer:

I'm betting Ciara would be thrilled if you came back! I know that I would also look forward to reading of your adventures again.

I wish to add my heartfelt sincerest hope that you will again grace these Lands. We really do miss you terribly..not that we ever saw you ingame that much but reading of your adventures truely made reading this message board exciting And the classes! How wonderful they all were!

Respectfully submitted by Michella, former student and Angelica, one who would be a student if given a chance

Are you suggesting that your characters do this or are you inviting everyone? I think it sounds fun, maybe its something Ciara would want to do when she returns.
If you meant just yourself then what are you asking us for? Just go do it! Surely such a great gift would be pleasing to Ciara (and everyone else).

If everyone is invited, maybe we should form a "Rescue Squad"? hehe

Great idea Homer! I think everyone, including Ciara, would enjoy it, even if only reading about it after the fact.

Imagine getting reacquainted with UO/WoD playing on Buccs Den with nothing but a robe and dager! I am laughing already!

It would be great to see your name in game again. It's been entirely too long since you led one of those death or glory charges into the jaws of fate.

You know my very first death on a quest was with you on a quest into hyth. I figured since i didn't know what was going on really i would lock onto an old timer and stick with him since this would obviously up my chances of staying alive. We got near the bottom of Hyth and Homer led the charge downstairs into the room with all the arches etc. Hard on his heels i thundered into the room and went Holy #*$^ as the room was a sea of flaming batwinged demons and their lesser kin. Deciding at this point that maybe Homer should take his meds more regularly i decided discretion was the better by far part of valour and tried to fall back. Course i managed to fall off the stairs and got trapped then shredded in short order. Twas cold comfort indeed to realize the soft thing i landed on when i fell off the stairs was Homers body.
Was fun to wander about though watching everyone mow through the bad guys.
Another point for the newer players is that Homer is a living bit of history here in WoD. I have it on good authority that Homer was the first non admin character in WoD.

History, yes, first no (at least in terms of the first "Telaranrhoid" shard). When I joined, there were a handful of players already signed up with Dundee, Shade, Preacher and Av. I don't remember many names, but Ty was there, for sure, and I think Coran and Janey were among the others.

Some momentous event like a mass survivalist escape from BD would be a fun and wholly appropriate way to welcome our Lady Ciara back to the shard. An alternative might be a parade in her and Rod's honor down the sandy streets of Nujel'M. Certainly some plans should be made to commemorate her inevitable and valliant return to us.

Truth is that I've seen Ciara only occasionally (mostly over my wife's shoulder back when she played if I recall correctly), but seeing the devotion she inspires in her numerous friends on the shard demands that we make some ceremony of her returning home. I'm really looking forward to the party -- someone is planning a party, aren't they?

That reminds me....is there an official list of "The First Dreamers" somewhere on the site? I don't recall having seen a list of say the 1st 10 characters or so. They'd be our Pateri Patriae, and a place of honor is certainly warranted.

I've been trying to figure out how the Escape From Buc's Den could be done as a large group exercise, but I don't think it works very well. The challenges faced in that exercise are first, to reach a survival level and then gradually search for magical reagents, a scroll, whatever. In the last adventure, that was finally accomplished in loot of a wave elemental conjured up by hours of fishing. It is not the kind of thing that an enthusiastic mob of questers has the patience for. Killing everything on the island would not be certain, or even likely to provide the result. The environment would be competitive and the carnage (and resulting training bill staggering). I don't mind that for myself, but some of the folks who wouldn't want to be left out would be frustrated by that.
HOWEVER, I agree that there needs to be some kind of massive mob thing that everyone who wishes can get in on. How about staying with the "robe and dagger" start idea, but conducting a mass invasion of(or escape from) someplace (dungeon or shambooli village or the like). We would need to maintain the "no outside help" concept and, since mass dying is inevitable and there would be no player healing early and very little later on, the location would need to have local npc healers at hand (or a GM- provided gate to some). Let's work on this idea a bit. What dungeon would be a good pick- what would the "finish line" everyone would be trying to reach? What GM/Seer would help?

I believe there is a healer between the Brigand fort and the Snow Orc Fort. Might be a good place to go to get basic leather armor. Then we could all tromp over to Shame or something.

I can't think of wandering healers near any of the other dungeons at the moment. I'll take a look around soon.

There is a healer north of compassion across the road and into the woods a bit, no idea why, I just remember seeing one there