CheekyNolan's 2000th Post and Anniversary AMA

[CheekyNolan 5420]

 

 2000 POSTS AND NEARLY A DECADE TO GET THERE

 

 

My forum name is Nolan_ (mostly because someone already has just plain Nolan) but most people would probably know me better as CheekyNolan which is a name I took almost immediately after joining the server as part of a joke with friends I made on here. If it wasn’t clear already I’m what some people around today would call an old head or, if they’re being nice, a veteran player. I made my forum account nearly exactly ten years ago and as of this post have officially hit 2000 posts. Before I get flack for that though I do want to point out a lot, and I mean A LOT, of that post count comes from my time on Application Team and Event Team (three times) and being a Forum Moderator quite a few years ago now.

 

Although I’ve been a part of the LotC community for nearly a decade I haven’t been consistently playing that whole time. I don’t think I’d still be sane if I had. I’ve taken year long breaks at a time in between big stints of playing but have been playing pretty consistently since COVID because I became extremely bored in lockdown. I took a big break recently though after my High Pontiff character in October last year and came back in about early March from that. Needless to say though I still have my fair share of accrued hours in total from my entire LotC lifespan.
 

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THE ORIGINS

I remember starting out as a fresh face noob still. A character called Alfred Valornis who was part of a family that was being put together by my real life friend, the same one who convinced me to join the server in the first place. From there that character took a life of its own, even when my friend stopped playing regularly. I joined a community of viking-esque roleplayers called Nerezza in the North of Athera ran by joke13 (who some of you might know better as Khan), patu or SaintPaint, Stormclank, Imibee, Delrof, Agurka also known better now as Gucko, and a few others. There my character changed his name to Audbjorn Faolain and embraced this norse inspired pagan religion until we lost a war to the Kingdom of Oren and were made part of the new power in the North, the original Haense. I still remember distinctly InfamousGerman killing me in the warclaim and after the fight, presumably because he took pity on me as a new player, he gave me all my gear back without ever mentioning it. That’s always stuck with me as something only someone who is genuinely around for a love of the game and its players in every pocket of the server would do. I’ve tried to emulate that kind of thing when I can because I just remember how much that made my day when I was just starting out. 

 

I stayed in fledgling Haense for a bit, helping out with Knox’s group, the Poor Fellows, and meeting @JuliusAakerlund properly for the first time who is amazingly an even older player than me who is still active. I went on with that character shortly after to join the Order of Saint Amyas with a handful of old Nerezza players and became a ‘holy’ knight after being forcibly converted. This is where I became a quote on quote Savoyard and is still to this day what a lot of fellow old heads remember me for. I became an officer in the order and ended up fighting in the infamous Dukes’ War against some of my now closest friends on the server. Despite how bad that war got with the toxicity and jabs at each other, the server was a different place then and I can still say I look back on it with a decent amount of fondness. Mostly because of the people I was playing with such as LemonDropz, dandan, Altiak, GoodGuyNorman, stigwig, kaldwin, ponder, and especially Dantory who I still think about often and miss even more. Savoy is kind of where I started making a name for myself as big headed as that might sound. I got to meet a lot of people during this time period and became pretty ingratiated with the human playerbase across the board. I also got to see history server in the making - I was the sole survivor for the Savoy side in the raid that officially kicked off the Dukes’ War and got to relay the information back in roleplay, I was there in the throne room when DelaneyG’s Marked Man character Letho brought the head of Duke Hugh Sarkozic, the leader of Adria, to Altiak’s Guy de Bar character, and I was there when Brelus was burnt to the ground which is still mentioned in roleplay fairly frequently to this day. All on my first character ever. I pked him not long after all this because I wanted to start playing other things and Audbjorn had pretty much had his full character arc completed from how I saw it. He got his liege lord on the throne of Oren. He is still, without a shadow of doubt, one of if not my favourite character I’ve played and that is a high bar. 

 

I still have the original character card I made for him way, way, way back when I first joined Saint Amyas so enjoy looking at the formatting and writing skills of a freshly fifteen year old me here.

 

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ALL THE REST

 

Aside from Savoy and Haense, which I imagine is what most people know for these days considering I’ve been playing there consistently for the last three years and am playing the heir to the place, I have played in a whole host of different communities over my time and a even a ton of different races from time to time. I’ll include a spoiler below of every character I can remember playing and a short description of who they were role or profession wise.
 

Spoiler

 

Audbjørn Faolain, Decurion in the Order of St. Amyas (Scyfling Human) - Deceased. Died fighting a common bandit in his old age.

Edwyle Bedell, Cousin to Count Arstan Bedell (Kaedreni Human) - Deceased. Died in exile for his cousin's unholy actions.

Durakhan'Braduk, Son of Rex Kahn'Braduk (Uruk/Orc) - Deceased. Willingly starved to death in the Orcish deserts in a sacrifice to the spirit Leyd.

Allard Fournier, 1st Baron of Rennes (Savoyard Human) - Deceased. Killed by Bryce Horen-Vimmark in a duel outside Peremont.

Soldril Reithel, Paladin of Xan (Mali'ame/Wood Elf) - Deceased. Committed suicide after being forcefully disconnected from Xan.

Ser Athirius Roke V, Knight of the Fifth Holy Orenian Empire (Kaedreni/Imperial Human) - Deceased. Died in the Battle of Westmark in the Riga War.

Viktor of Redmark, School of the Fox Marked Men Trainee (Kaedreni Human) - Deceased. Head was torn off during his final trial to become a Marked Man.

Sigman of the Bog, Rhoswenii Owynist in the Company of the Westerlands (Savoyard/Vander Human) - Deceased. Died to the undead at the fringe of Humanity.

Ser Adrian 'The Proud' Horen-Rothesay, Grand Knight of Lotharingia and rightful Duke of Leon (Imperial Human) - Deceased. Died a crotchety old man in his bed.

Morgoth'Raguk, Son of Rex Leydluk'Raguk and Yazguartan of the Warnation of Krugmar (Uruk/Orc) - Deceased. Publicly executed after the Siege of San'Kala.

Ser Griffith von Roke, Master & Commander of the Adrian Ducal Retinue (Aeldenic/Adrian Human) - Deceased. Died in the backstreets of Belvitz of unknown causes.

Warchief Kargak 'Wun-Eye' Braduk, Leader of the Braduk Clan (Uruk/Orc) - Deceased. Instructed his own sons to kill him after being crippled in battle.

Zogari'Lak, Orcish Herbalist and Laklul Zealot (Uruk/Orc) - Shelved.

Grigoryi var Borislav Ostrovsky, Last of the Hounds of Blessed John and Cultural Documenter (Raevir Human) - Deceased. Killed by a religious fanatic for his work on 'Haeseni Superstitions and Omens'.

Grazgur'Lur, Shamanistic hunter and brother to the Rex (Uruk/Orc) - Deceased. Killed by a beast on a hunt.

Caldur Irongut, Legate in the Legion of Urguan (Dwedmar/Half Cave-Mountain Dwarf) - Shelved. 

Normi Starbreaker, Dwedmar Merchant Extraordinaire (Dwedmar/Cave Dwarf) - Shelved.

Daniel Ashford de Falstaff, Cousin to Count Emil-Dardot de Falstaff (Heartlander Human) - Deceased. Military execution for the rebellion of his cousins from the Holy Orenian Empire.

Aleksandr var Ruthern, Royal Jurist of Hanseti-Ruska and Politician (Haeseni Human) - Deceased. Suffocated with a pillow in his old age by his wife, Raunchy Reza of Robert's Road.

Duke Rhys II var Ruthern, 7th Duke of Vidaus and Lord Speaker of Hanseti-Ruska (Haeseni Human) - Deceased. Died of the Vidausian flu.

Tuvya 'Tuv Daring' Ostrov, levyman in the Ruthern Black Company (Haeseni Human) - Deceased. Fell from his horse badly.

Sixtus V, High Pontiff of the Church of the Canon, born Iosif Basrid, and previously Lord Palatine of Hanseti-Ruska (Rhenyari Human) - Deceased. Died of continuous ill health.

Stefan Barbanov-Bihar, Prince of Hanseti-Ruska, Duke of Akovia (Haeseni Human) - Deceased. Passed away at sea on his journey back to the Thousand Isles.

Yuri Ostrov, Tavernkeep of the Tipsy Tarchar Tavern & Inn, Sergeant in the Brotherhood of Saint Karl (Haeseni Human) - Alive. 

Rickard Kortrevich, Royal Curator of Hanseti-Ruska and former Grand Maer of New Valdev (Haeseni Human) - Alive. 

Karl Barbanov-Bihar, Grand Prince of Kusoraev and heir to the Kingdom of Hanseti-Ruska (Haeseni Human) - Alive. 

 

I started as a Nord Lord as a pagan human who became a Canonist holy knight and fought in one of the bloodiest human civil wars with Audbjorn as I’ve said.

 

I played my first noble, a Kaedreni whose family was cursed and fell on hard times after being caught burning down a church. I don’t even remember why we did it.

 

I played an orc, the son of the orcish Rex at the time and must say that they are probably my second favourite race on the server with the potential they have especially with shamanism and how interesting it can be. 

 

I played my very first peer, a Savoyard who was the legitimised bastard son of a Baron and an Orenian princess. I played my first elf and was in the Dominion for a while with Gucko and Milochio while I was training to be a Paladin of Xan. Ironically, the three of us all lived in one house and each had a different magic. I was a paladin, Guck was a necromancer (which I didn’t know in roleplay), Milochio was a voidal mage and Nalatac was just there as a gnome for some reason.

 

I played my first official knight who moved North once Savoy began its decline in the Fifth Empire. He lived in Saltstone, a Pyke from Game of Thrones inspired build, which to this day is still one of my favourites. He died fighting alongside Haense against Courland in the Riga War.

 

I played a Marked Man trainee which was a group intended to act like Witchers. Never quite made it to a full blown one what with the PK clause stuff that was important to the group and dying on my final trial. I knew what I signed up for though.

 

I played a commoner who managed to seduce an enemy king’s daughter and then had to flee to the fringes of society in the Westerlands in a kind of avoiding punishment by joining the Night’s Watch kind of way. This was an incredible experience I must say with the storytelling and theme that was going on there. One of my best characters hands down and he was not intended to be anything special, in fact I started playing him just to help a friend.

 

I played another knight, this time a Horen-Rothesay and joined the Westerlands’ Kingsguard because I was the nephew of the Queen. When the Westerland was destroyed by darkspawn, he moved to Lotharingia where he had some family connections and ended up becoming Grand Knight.

 

I played another orc and was once again the son of the Rex. He went on to become Yazgurtan, the kind of head steward for the orcs. He was executed after humans took the orcish capital.

 

I played another knight which I know is becoming a trend. I was invited to come play with levirad who was starting up a houseguard for the new Duke of Adria at the time chumpchump. The knight quickly went on to become the second in command and sit on the Duke’s Duma which was a highlight with how fun chumpchump always made it like when we kept voting about who to throw out of a window into a pile of manure.

 

I played my very first orc’s son who became the Warchief of Clan Braduk. During an event he killed an Inferi or some other kind of demonic monster, I can’t quite remember, and picked up a cursed sword that slowly poisoned his mind and turned him mad. It was a very, very fun character to play because of that.

 

I played once again another orc who was mad but in a different way. He was a Lak who worshipped the spirits to the point of obsession and wore a voodoo looking mask. He was essentially a troll for WoW mixed with a deranged Yoda which was fun for making up some random roleplay with newer orc players.

 

I played my first Haenser since the very beginning of my time on the server with @6xdestroyer, @Chronics, @ggteixeira, and others in the Hounds of Blessed John. He was a peasant who taught himself to read and write to better convert pagans to Canonism and after the Hounds died off he became an author. He was also the genius who came up with my proudest invention I’ve ever made on the server; the Shaking of Faith or as we called it in vc the shake and bake.

 

I played an orc again to help out @Boomzerang who was aiming to be the next Rex so played his brother. Most of my roleplay on him consisted of starting arguments with his brother and consistently losing but all the Lur trials were very fun to do.

 

I played my first ever dwarf which is where I met and became friends with @Beamon4 and @TheFirstShroom and became an Irongut. I rose through the Legion quickly and became an officer for teaching the men how to do the cha cha slide in game. He gave me my appreciation for the dwarves.

 

I played another dwarf, this time a Starbreaker and @Nooblius' famous dwarf (Norli) character’s brother. He was a bit of an unserious jokester who only really was interested in cracking terrible jokes that didn’t land and creating jewellery. He gave himself the self professed title of Dwedmar Merchant Extraordinaire but don’t think he ever actually managed to sell anything.

 

I played a human again when Beamon asked me to help him and @Publius with House de Falstaff which was originally Savoyard in origin. I went and played in the Empire for a bit before being wrongfully executed by @ErikAzog (looking at you buddy) like a dog which is what brought me to where I have been for a while now and am still a part of; Haense.

 

From then on I started to play a Haense character, given to me by @LouisGY and @GMRO who I had met briefly in the dwarves. I joined House Ruthern and my next character after that initial one where I was finding my feet in the vast history and culture of Haense that was admittedly a little overwhelming was the next Duke of Vidaus. I got my first Aulic position which is on the council of the top people in the kingdom as Speaker so it was my job to run the Duma, the legislative body. It was fun when people made it fun and I remember @Malta starting a riot that got out of control. Everyone went along with that roleplay and had a good time with no OOC about it which is always refreshing. I also rewrote the entirety of Ruthern history when I played him, which was a huge post and probably my best piece of writing out of my whole time on the server.

 

After Ruthern I kind of fell into playing @Dyl’s character’s kid who was a second generation immigrant and a Rhenyari (a Farfolk culture). I didn’t expect anything to come of him, all I knew was that I wanted to get involved with church roleplay so became an acolyte on him. Well he went on to be probably my most successful character ever. He became a Bishop and through roleplay with gusano’s heir to the Kingdom character he ended up being entrusted to become Lord Palatine of Haense, the Chancellor essentially and second in charge. He then was also promoted within the Church to Archbishop of the Haense diocese. When the High Pontiff died he ran for Pontiff and got it becoming Sixtus the Fifth. I can’t say I did well as Pontiff because I ended up going inactive due to burning myself out and map transition didn’t help where it was hard to find a remedy for things going on in humanity at the time but the roleplay was always fun especially when I made an effort to spend a full week in every nation I could before moving onto the next one. I do not envy anyone who becomes Pontiff, it's hard.

 

Then I played a prince which I didn’t make full use of because I was Palatine and then Pontiff at the same time but I had fun being a charming if not obnoxious prince when I had the time to do it.

 

That takes us pretty much to the present where I have an old man character doing army stuff to help newer players in the Haense army and my Kortrevich that had admittedly been kind of sidelined since I became heir to the kingdom which has so far been stressful but an opportunity I’ve wanted for a long time now.

 

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ASK AWAY

 

That’s pretty much the full story, condensed as it is. What with being the heir to a Kingdom and the eventual head of a community paired with my near ten year anniversary of joining and hitting 2000 posts it seemed like an opportune time to make an AMA. Feel free to ask me anything even if it’s not necessarily about anything character or LotC related.

[Dyl 2088]

love this guy, great dude and i believe he'll do an amazing job in the haense community as the nation leader and community leader.

[Andustar 4143]

I have two questions.

1). Do you actually enjoy Buckfast?
2). If you're Scotch drinker, what's your favourite kind? I'm a Talisker fan myself.

[CheekyNolan 5420]

Just now, Andustar said:

I have two questions.

1). Do you actually enjoy Buckfast?
2). If you're Scotch drinker, what's your favourite kind? I'm a Talisker fan myself.

 

1) Absolutely not, I think it's horrible. My forum title is Buckfast Rhapsody mostly because at one point people in the orcs were putting it on the music bot on loop whenever I joined vc. I did have a friend though that claimed it tasted better with milk. I didn't put that to the test though.

 

2) It's going to sound bad coming from a Scotsman but I'm not overly a whiskey drinker but when I do I tend to just go with what I know which is Glayva. It's not high brow in the slightest. Honestly I'm a terrible drinker, I drink the cheap stuff and too much of it which is what leads to the Frank Sinatra karaoke in vcs at 4am.

[Jihnyny 5233]

You ever plan on playing an orc? and if so, in a leadership position?

Thoughts on old lotc compared to today?

Favourite animal and arm day technique?

[Gnomeh 470]

Would you ever consider playing a Gnome perhaps? Change it up a lil bit and do some whimsical RP

[Gridlock 1033]

45 minutes ago, Nolan_ said:

He lived in Saltstone, a Pyke from Game of Thrones inspired build, which to this day is still one of my favourites.

I still miss Saltstone to this day and regret how much unused potential it had.

[Borin 7645]

celtic or rangers

why are you lot so awful at football

 

[garentoft 9265]

love you big time nolan an all-time favourite of lotcer of mine and glad to see that you're becoming the next BIG SHOT (spamton reference)

 

some questions (from the heart):

1) when is the next Gusxarnol meetup

2) can i throw up in the bathroom of our hotel again at like 5am

3) can we trade cards in pokemon tcg pocket (when the feature is implemented)

4) do you love me

5) when is the next frank sinatra concert

[DahStalker 3692]

u kept killing me in Athera 

[CheekyNolan 5420]

1 hour ago, Jihnyny said:

You ever plan on playing an orc? and if so, in a leadership position?

Thoughts on old lotc compared to today?

Favourite animal and arm day technique?

 

1) I have played quite a few orcs over the years but the highest I ever made it was to Warchief/Wargoth and Yazgurtan. If I were to play one again though somewhere down the line I'd be more than happy to fill a leadership position if the roleplay kind of lends to it and is something I was interested in pursuing/the best candidate for. 

 

2) Old LotC and modern LotC are almost unrecognisable in some ways. I will say that discord has probably caused the biggest change across the board and in a lot of ways not for the better. Pair that with the metaplay stuff which I think is so unspecific and all encompassing that basically anyone could be guilty of varying degrees of it and be banned for it then you've got a perfect storm in my opinion. Aside from that the OOC drama that seems so pervasive these days wasn't anywhere near as prevalent back like 6 years ago. Sure old LotC had its major issues, can't deny that, but people tend to paint the whole period with the same brush because of the toxicity and racist jokes (and sometimes not jokes) that occurred which absolutely shouldn't be allowed. It's not 2014 anymore and we do know better in that regard. But we ignore some of the things we did better I feel. Rules were fairly easy to comprehend and you didn't need an old head or someone in a vc to overly explain how to do everything, pvp wasn't as complicated and rule bound and it still worked out with less hassle than it does now, and honestly staff teams old systems were better.

I don't have an issue with anyone in particular on the ST but just to use them as an example. When I was on Event Team (which was the precursor to ST along with Lore Team) I found the whole system of putting on events just functioned better. Whole communities weren't largely ignored and a sort of quota was in place and managers did keep an eye on what you were doing but you didn't have to run everything by them. It was far more free to do as you liked as long as you didn't touch the big stuff like dragons, aenguls, etc. I think right now an overbearing system of rules bogs down the ST and combining ET and LT together into one team was a wrong step in my opinion because nobody has any clue if someone is really meant to be doing events and if they actually are putting them on fairly consistently or if they are writing lore behind the scenes. There's not a lot of transparency there like there used to be.

So yeah tl;dr - discord has shifted things to the more OOC side of LotC and I'm not overly fond of the current organisation of staff teams which I feel were better back then, a lot of things seemed like they were changed for the sake of change to look like something was happening.

3) My favourite animal is a Red Deer Stag and controversially I like arm day the least out of the cardio/core, leg, and arm days of which I do each one once per week. Bench press is mainly what I do on arm day with 5 minutes on the rower and then alternate between sets of 10 pushups and sets of 10 ring rows for warmup before doing the press. I do 10 sets of 10 at increasing weight which right now I was sitting at I think 50 kg this week I then do jumping pullups until I burn out and then finish the day. I will reiterate though, I dislike arm day the most and it's my worst.

 

1 hour ago, Gnomeh said:

Would you ever consider playing a Gnome perhaps? Change it up a lil bit and do some whimsical RP

 

Honestly, I'm not really opposed to playing any race. All of them have their purpose and fulfil a niche I just have a thing of when I start playing a character I like to have an idea in mind of roughly what I'd like them to be like or do as a profession so I have something different to work off of. I need a bit of inspiration for the character is what I'm kind of getting at but I think it's easy to find if you give it some thought and come up with how you could roleplay something interesting about a character based on a quirk, job or even their race if it's a more niche one.

 

59 minutes ago, Gridlock said:

I still miss Saltstone to this day and regret how much unused potential it had.

 

I need to have a look at it again honestly if it's on the museum or not I can't remember.

 

59 minutes ago, Borin said:

celtic or rangers

why are you lot so awful at football

 

I am actually not big into football, I like rugby far more but if I had to pick it'd probably be Rangers but largely because they're just the more popular team in the town I'm from. I think we're just bad because we've got a smaller population by a lot than England and I don't think we put as much effort into teaching/practicing it at school, not properly anyway it's mainly a piss about.

 

[Xarkly 17299]

you going to apologise for breaking my ankle yet

[CheekyNolan 5420]

1 hour ago, garentoft said:

love you big time nolan an all-time favourite of lotcer of mine and glad to see that you're becoming the next BIG SHOT (spamton reference)

 

some questions (from the heart):

1) when is the next Gusxarnol meetup

2) can i throw up in the bathroom of our hotel again at like 5am

3) can we trade cards in pokemon tcg pocket (when the feature is implemented)

4) do you love me

5) when is the next frank sinatra concert

 

1) Summer 2025 is gonna go crazy

2) I can't stop you but please for the love of God don't when I have yet to go for a shower like last time

3) Yes but you have to promise me you'll stop draining your bank account to buy packs on a digital card collecting app because you won't need to have anything traded to you at this rate

4) Lots <3

5) I got a warning last time for being too loud by the neighbourhood watch so got to lay low for a while

 

25 minutes ago, DahStalker said:

u kept killing me in Athera 

 

I'd do it again and keep doing it

 

5 minutes ago, Xarkly said:

you going to apologise for breaking my ankle yet

 

Over my dead body bucko

[Chronics 482]

I will never forget the Johnstown days those were by far my favorite days on the server!

What was your favorite part of Johnstown?

[CheekyNolan 5420]

2 hours ago, Chronics said:

I will never forget the Johnstown days those were by far my favorite days on the server!

What was your favorite part of Johnstown?

 

My favourite part is hard. I did really love our like peasant town hall build where we held meetings but I think when we took part in the Scyfling Invasion eventline and dressed up as Scyflings to infiltrate them and burn down their fleet of longships was a real highlight.