It is rather long but for those of you who have some interest in remembering Egypt of the past and how things were and have the patience for a longer read, you might enjoy it.
(Late May 2003)
The evening of Year 0, Akhet III-9, ten new immigrants arrived in
central VOK. The welcome banner they arrived at was located just south
east of the guild Clan of Tahp-Ra-Mahn. These new immigrants were
Starscream, Hyp, Rageslc, Untor, Melk, Shitus, BillPullman, Steve,
Iceflow, and LilAmyRae. Most of these immigrants came from the same
place outside of Egypt and knew each other from there. There was no
mentor present but that didn't bother them. They figured they had
enough people and could try to figure it out themselves. As these
immigrants were learning how to get their first skills and techs, they
stumbled across the Clan of Tahp-Ra-Mahn camp. For the newbies, this
camp was a huge impressive site to see. The next step was to pick a
place to setup their own camp. After some debate it was decided that
camp should be just on the other side of the mountain range that
bordered the NW side of Clan of Tahp-Ra-Mahn. It was a spot that was
fairly close to the schools and universities where they had obtained
their first skills. The location had silt, water, and clay all very
close. There was a guild located just down river from this location.
One of the members of this guild happened to be in Egypt at the time,
Kalar. Kalar helped the newbies by giving them some better flax seeds,
some jugs, and advice on how to do things. This made things a lot
smoother on their first night in Egypt.
After just a few days, Shitus, BillPullman, and LilAmyRae left Egypt.
The group was down to seven people. The camp started to form with the
most basic buildings now up. The main goal at this time was to build a
guild hall capable of holding up to 10 members. As work toward this
goal was happening, a flaw became apparent with the current camp
location: not enough trees. There was heated debate over a new camp
location, as they didn't like the idea of having to rebuild their
current buildings and there were public buildings nearby that Kalar had
shown them. However, the first camp was uprooted and moved a few hundred
coordinates west where there were more trees. Shortly after this move,
the group lost two more people, Melk and Steve, and were down to five.
Steve had been a good trader for the group in the brief time he was with
them.
The new camp was located in a grassy valley bordered by some hills, a
road, a row of trees, and a small lake (duck lake). Soon the guild hall
was put up and the Sheldeen Empire was born. However, there was an
established guild right on the other side of the row of trees named LIX.
LIX was none too happy that the newbies set up their camp so close. At
this time the Sheldeen members had not been in Egypt long enough to
really understand what would be considered too close to an established
guild. Fairly early warnings were sent from LIX to not come any closer.
The next thing the Sheldeen Empire needed was mines. Luckily, iron
turned out to be right in the new camp, and thus mines were put up. LIX
was very angry, the new mines would pollute the trees. The situation
escalated into a shouting, yelling, name calling situation between
Sheldeen members and LIX members (Kiloman, Staze, AnubusCockBlocker,
Loreleilee). Sheldeen had a meeting about the incident and decided that
they did not want to fight with their neighbors every day. The iron
mines were torn down and LIX shared one of their iron mines with
Sheldeen. Certain members of Sheldeen were encouraged not to talk to
any LIX members until they could control themselves better. Soon it was
discovered that the iron in Sheldeen was actually the cap of a copper
vein. Copper mines were built and the fighting started all over again.
The fighting ended quickly this second time though. Sheldeen and LIX
again reached a truce. Both guilds worked together to populate the
entire copper vein with mines to prevent other guilds from getting it
and polluting the trees. An agreement was made not to work or use any
of the mines except the two farthest away from the trees. This
permanently ended the fighting between Sheldeen and LIX, but they were
definitely not friends. Sheldeen's main goal at this time was to see
what buildings and things LIX had and build them in the Sheldeen camp.
The real goal of course was to eventually get new buildings up before
LIX did. The first success toward that goal was getting a wine tasting
table up before LIX had one.
In these early days, Sheldeen had to establish trade contacts and find
experienced players to rely on for advice. Kalar continued to be an
invaluable trade partner, and helper to the new guild. Some guilds just
a bit to the north near the central VOK x-roads area also helped, among
their members were Dexterhate and Darthbobo. House of Bes and Amira
were farther to the NE but they turned out to be very important as well.
Amira was a great person to talk to about how things worked and had very
newbie friendly trade list. The first therms, camel meat, milk, and tin
were obtained from Amira. One of their nearest neighbors to the north,
Somebob, became the main petro supplier as well as giving mushrooms for
the very first Sheldeen endurance and carry foods. To the south of the
camp, a public camp was discovered and the dual charcoal ovens there
were especially useful. One of the builders of the public camp,
Warmerdam, was also very nice and traded Aluminum to the guild.
Sheldeen lost another member, Iceflow, but gained three new members.
Melkbot was the previous member Melk's cousin and he was with Sheldeen
for awhile and was a great helper. Anknub was another newbie that joined
the guild, although his time was relatively short. He refused to read
any information regarding Egypt and how it worked, wanting to discover
it on his own. He soon left Egypt in frustration. Los, joined and quit
as well. You might say Los joined at a poor time. Members of Sheldeen
were still so new to Egypt themselves that they probably were not the
best people to guide new citizens. Los got fairly immediately burned
out helping with the aforementioned wine tasting table. He spent a lot
of time giving people TUG wins to allow them to gain the skill to detect
the marble, and working the quarry with no endurance food available.
One day a very nice person come to the Sheldeen camp, Rendell. He
taught a number of acro facets to the guild members. He was able to
teach Starscream eight different facets, which at that time was a lot.
He was great to chat with and came back to visit the guild a couple
different times. He had a microphone and could broadcast all over
Egypt. Starscream liked Rendell a lot and listened to his radio channel
and chatted him often. Rendell, even talked to Pharaoh and helped get
the acrobat test changed to become more doable and fun. One day out of
the blue, Starscream heard a rumor that Rendell was quitting. When he
talked to Rendell about it, Rendell said that naming a flower Hatch's
bud and hiding it in the desert was a slap in the face and the last
straw. Rendell quit and said "Thanks for all the fish". Sheldeen
Empire was shocked at the news but does get one of Rendell's former
silver mines which was a metal type they didn't have good access too
yet. Starscream's chats with Rendell were his first experience with
flowers in Egypt.
(early-mid June 2003)
Kalar, was sad because his guild had all quit. It was the second
time that had happened to him. So Sheldeen Empire extended an offer for
Kalar to join the guild as he had been a good friend since day one.
Also since the feud with LIX has long been over, Lorelielee has become
friends with Untor and Starscream, and invited them to join BPOC. BPOC
is a meta guild, led by Somebob, which at this time was a
trade/chat/joint work channel between central VOK guilds: LIX
(Lorelielee, Kiloman, AnubusCB) Waterthread (Somebob, Modesitt,
Slyfeind-Hotep), Extopol, Oasis (Hodhr, Servant, Hoth), Dead Pirates
(Zomboe, Rivenchan) and now newly added Sheldeen Empire. One of the
first things that happened after joining BPOC was the salvaging of Dead
Pirates camp by Somebob. Since only Rivenchan and Zomboe were left in
the guild, and neither of them were playing much, the camp was removed,
though under some protest as no one is happy to see their camp taken
down. Meanwhile, the Sheldeen camp had added an industrial park
expansion a couple hundred coordinates to the west of the main camp.
Untor, Rageslc, and Hyp worked hard to get a series of ore infernos, set
up a series automated mines on three copper/iron veins, and finally
build a deep well mine out there. After a while Rageslc had pretty much
stopped coming to Egypt. The remaining active guild members started to
feel the burnout of pushing so hard to get the camp "caught up" with the
other top camps in the region.
(early-mid July 2003)
Starscream at this point was tired of building the camp, and decided
to move on and try the art discipline. Hyp continued to get the most
enjoyment out of building things and went the Architecture route. Kalar
picked conflict as his main interest, and did very well at TUG. As a
result of Kalar's TUG performance, Sheldeen became one of the most
marble rich guilds in the area. Untor choose no discipline, worked on
acro a little bit, and played far less than he used to. Starscream, in
his art phase, choose to build an opticon just a bit north of camp up by
the central VOK x-roads. As he worked on his opticon design day after
day, a newbie moved right into that area and built a camp there. The
newbie told Starscream that he wanted to study food properties, and
asked if he would help eat food for data points. While it was a fairly
odd request, Starscream agreed to help Quizzical get these food data
points. Quzzical of course would go on to publish a lot of information
regarding how food works, especially regarding food bases. Now initially
Sheldeen Empire did not like Quizzical. He came across as a very spammy
know-it-all newbie that kicked their butts in conflict games. In
addition, BPOC, who Sheldeen is part of, did not get along with
Quizzical. Somebob and Quizzical were fairly publicly feuding over land
boundaries, forum posts, and other things. However, over time any
resentment toward Quizzical evaporated and Quizzical became a strong
ally of Sheldeen Empire. In addition to assisting Quizzical with his
food studies, Starscream and Quizzical jointly started a fishing guild
in central VOK. As a close by northern neighbor, Quizzical has been one
of the top trade, chat, and work partners Sheldeen Empire has had to
date. At one point based on how much daily chatting, trading, and
working with Quizzical happened, there was an open debate as to whether
an invitation should be extended to him to merge with Sheldeen.
However, forum posts by Quizzical indicating that he had a strong
opinion about being a soloer were the deciding factor, that even if an
invitation was extended he would refuse it. BPOC has over time mended
their fences with Quizzical too but it was a slower process.
One day Pharaoh was working on a judging system for a newer test
called pyrotechnics. So Pharaoh called for volunteers to help test out
the new judging system, and Starscream was one of the first people
there. So he was all ready to help try it out but he couldn't get it to
work at all and kept telling Pharaoh "it won't work", "it won't work".
Pharaoh at first did not understand, but then realized that Starscream
has not signed up for a the pyrotechnics test at the University of Art
yet. So just like that Pharaoh created a brand new University of Art
out of thin air right there for Starscream to go sign up for the test of
pyrotechnics. Then Starscream was able to participate in testing the
new judging system. Starscream is a apparently a slow learner, as this
will not be the last time he forgets to sign up for a test before
attempting to do it.
(mid July 2003)
A very historic day in the Sheldeen Empire was the day that hardwood
obelisks opened up. Members of the Sheldeen Empire always read the
about the latest techs, buildings, and tests that were discovered in
Egypt, but never were an active participant. Sheldeen Empire had been a
newbie camp with just basic buildings for most of its existence. Over
time it had become bigger and had been catching up. The very day
hardwood obelisks opened, Starscream, Kalar, and Untor all built one and
passed that test (Hyp had passed stone obelisk earlier). Sheldeen had a
brand new wood treatment tank, a building that had just opened a week or
so before, and had the supplies to take action when the tech opened up.
Sheldeen was officially no longer a newbie camp, and was caught up with
the current tech cycle of Egypt. However, the happy moment would not
last as one of Sheldeen's most active members, Untor, called it quits
soon after this.
Starscream's attention shifted from art toward festivals. He spent most of his time working on wine flavors, fruit trees, and beer recipes. Kalar dabbled a bit in various things, but still pursued conflict tests as his main goal. Hyp was still doing arch tests and working on the few high end buildings the camp did not have. BPOC changed. LIX, Waterthread, and Dead Pirates no longer existed as independent guilds, because too many of their members had quit. For the remaining members (Lorelielee, Somebob, Slyfeind, Zomboe, Modesitt) BPOC became their primary guild. Most of the old guild buildings were either torn down and rebuilt as BPOC or were transferred to BPOC. Sheldeen and Oasis continued to be independent guilds that were part of BPOC, but it was clear that BPOC was no longer just a chat/trade channel between guilds.
(late July 2003)
One day Starscream and Kalar were standing in the camp and a newbie
came into the camp named Asrael. Asrael had a bunch of questions and
her mentors Asarel and Asarelah were not available that day, so
Starscream helped answer what he could. Over the next weeks Starscream
and Asrael talked back and forth often. Starscream wanted Asrael to
join Sheldeen Empire, but she wouldn't. Asrael built her own camp right
across the waterway from Kalar's former camp and the original spot that
Starscream and Hyp had started their first camp. Coincidentally,
Starscream began to work with one of her mentors, Asarelah, a quite a
bit at this time. Asarelah was a big time festival coordinator and
supply distributor. Starscream, who had been working a lot on wine and
beer flavors, became a good partner for her goals.
(mid September 2003)
Sometime after that, a new technology, clear cutting, came out and
turned Egypt upside down for a week. A number of people were very angry
because their trees were clear cut. Somebob, for some reason, chose to
clear cut the trees right through the heart of NVOK's Theopolis guild,
one of the largest most active guilds in the game. The backlash against
Somebob was severe. He had a lot of name recognition as a forum
moderator and had with his clear cutting attacked a very large and
active group. Somebob became the scapegoat for all clear cutting evils.
The Egyptian backlash combined with some outside of Egypt problems that
Somebob was experiencing drove BPOC's leader to leave Egypt. Sheldeen
had for the most part been fairly dependent on Somebob first for petro,
and later for things like thermometers and nut's essence. Well as the
camp building had become more and more complete some of the focus
shifted toward obtaining the high level skills. Around this time
Sheldeen made the push to get at least one member to have Bot Id 2, Lab
Con 2, and Salvage 4.
Somebob returned to Egypt about a week or two after he quit. After
the massive clearcutting, Slyfeind feared guild-wide retribution, so he
fled to take up exile in a small camp in Seven Lakes. Sly having
starting his own smaller camp began to prefer a simpler life rather than
the power guild that BPOC had become. At this time Sly actually
completely resigned from BPOC and Waterthread.
(late Sept-October 2003)
Kalar decided to leave Egypt at this point, and Sheldeen was down to
only Starscream and Hyp. There was a disagreement about what to do.
Starscream thought the guild should fold, and they should make BPOC
their primary guild just like LIX, Waterthread and Dead Pirates had.
Hyp still found the most enjoyment and fun in building his own camp,
pretty much by himself. So there was a difference in philosophy,
Starscream did not want to build things, but wanted to use things that
had already been built. Hyp wanted to build things, even things that
have no practical use. Hyp did not see a full merge with BPOC as
beneficial towards his goal of building everything for Sheldeen. So the
full merge did not happen. Instead, Starscream tried his hand at
mentoring and recruiting newbies for the guild. He finally got the
aforementioned newbie Asrael to join Sheldeen, and convinced another
newbie, Dyrathe, to join. Neither newbie worked out quite as planned.
Asrael was very nice and helpful, but she soon packed up her solo camp
and joined Iyr Ari'el, to be with her mentors, Asarel and Asarelah.
Dyrathe was probably a combination of Starscream not adequately
mentoring him and him just not being a good Egyptian. He built his own
mini camp just outside of the Sheldeen camp, using Sheldeen resources.
Then he whined about how hard it was to build a pyramid and that no one
was helping him enough and then left. Another newbie, Madmanxtra asked
to join the guild and was let in. He seemed very nice and eager to work
with the other members of Sheldeen. He helped a lot on a venery project
with Starscream and Hyp. He started having other problems outside of
Egypt and eventually quit coming to Egypt, which was too bad. Slyfeind
in the meantime had re-joined BPOC but still lived in 7L.
(early October 2003)
Hyp had taken the opticon that Starscream originally built right near
Quizzical's camp. He had his own design put up and was having some
difficulty getting judges to come down and vote on it. All that was
solved one day when some traders from Africa arrived in Egypt. These
traders setup carts in all the regions of Egypt, and they just happened
to setup their VOK cart right next to the opticon. Many people traveled
to see and trade with the trader and came right to Hyp's opticon. As a
result Hyp easily picked up the judging votes he needed and his opticon
passes that Art test.
(flower phase was mostly late November 2003 - early February 2004,
formal garden actually passed in March 2004)
Starscream now entered his flower phase. All Starscream did at this
time was plant flowers, make fertilizer, fertilize flowers and breed
them. Most of Starscream's in game time was spent chatting about
flowers and their genetics with people like Qetesh, Tickle, Zanix,
Sigil, Rana, Blizzard and many others. Flowers were the most fun
activity Starscream had experienced in Egypt, especially the genetics to
get different sizes. Sheldeen Empire was the proud home to Egypt's very
first dwarf x2 lily, giant sandbloom, and giant x2 sandbloom.
Starscream was also able reproduce flowers that others discovered, like
giant x2 roses, dwarf x2 roses, and dwarf giants. The end result of the
flower phase was a formal garden dedicated to the unique sized flowers
of Egypt. The formal garden also featured a pond, painstakingly laid
out with upside down tadpoles. The formal garden was a hit and
Starscream passed that test, the score of the gazebo stayed in the 490s
even up to 30 judges. The other positive outcome of the flower phase
was that Starscream remains good friends with many of the people he
started to get to know and chat with about flowers. During this time,
Starscream proposed to Asrael, and she said "maybe". Over time Asrael
and Starscream's paths had somewhat separated. Though she was still a
member of Sheldeen, she has spent almost all of her time in her own
guild and with those guildmates. She said she was not sure she wanted
to be married at all, or if she did get married maybe it would be to
someone in her own guild.
(November 2003)
A little bit later, Kalar returned to Egypt. Kalar took the place of
Madmanxtra on the venery design and helped complete that project. The
C07 contest happened and Kalar did a good job and won a microphone, AFK.
Starscream used this microphone to interview as many venery owners about
their courses as possible. Eventually a big race contest was held one
weekend at Sheldeen Empire venery course. The winner of the contest was
Brightshadow of Theopolis. The Sheldeen Empire course got great reviews
and passed the test (Jan 2004). Another event that happened shortly
after Kalar's return was the VOK mega site getting built a mere 6-7
minutes NE of the Sheldeen Empire camp. Kalar, Starscream, and Hyp
participated in building this structure. Kalar was even in charge of
coordinating the bricks for the project. When it was completed, Hyp was
tied with Ravious to be Egypt's very first Master of Architecture.
Considering his love of building things, and the fact that he was the
primary builder of the entire Sheldeen camp, this was a great honor for
him. At around this time Asarelah, good friend of Sheldeen, left Egypt.
(January 2004)
Aoife, a person Starscream first met in Qetesh's flower guild, led a
VOK pilgrimage group that had Starscream, Hyp, and Kalar in it. This
pilgrimage sees the return of Rageslc to Sheldeen briefly to assist Hyp
in the pilgrimage, because the real Hyp is unable to make it himself.
Rageslc and Aoife are opposites. Rage being very science and logic, and
Aoife being into literature, poetry and writing, and in fact working in
an English department for a school. So they argue a lot during the
pilgrimage. At some point in their arguing Aoife says "Oh yeah! Why
don't you come down to my office and say that." So RageSLC of course
stated that he does not know where her office is, but soon it is
revealed that in fact he attends that very same school that she works
for, and actually does know where this office is. After a few moments
of stunned silence regarding the revelation that they are very close to
each other outside of Egypt, their arguing pretty much came to a
complete stop. One of the most funny moments in all of Egypt. Around
this time BPOC lost Modesitt, one of Waterthread's original founders.
(March 2004)
Somebob was having more problems outside of Egypt and was losing
purpose inside of it, so he left for the second time. One day there is
news in Egypt that Somebob had died of SOTS poisoning. This was very
odd since Somebob had always been very anti-SOTS usage. Bob fought and
debated with Teppy regarding the death of Somebob. About five or so of
BPOC's members would have had access to poison Somebob if they so chose
(including Starscream), but there was no motive for them to do so. In
fact, these five people had been in strong contact with Bob to not leave
Egypt in the first place, and were hopeful that someday he would return.
Eventually, Teppy did bring Somebob back to life on the grounds that
someone illegally accessed and poisoned him. The scape goat was Hoth, a
former member of Oasis and BPOC, as the probable person who did the evil
act. Many in Oasis and BPOC did not believe it was Hoth, as he had left
Egypt a long time before and had always been on good terms with Somebob.
Anyway, Somebob was back and the resurrection apparently revitalized
him, as he resumed his active leadership role in BPOC.
Hyp, probably as a result of some combination of: the Sheldeen camp being mostly finished, himself becoming busier outside of Egypt, the constant talk of this telling of Egypt coming to an end soon, and the lack of new arch tests he was really interested in entered a mostly dormant state. He visited Egypt and worked on things only every once in awhile. Starscream had not given up on wanting to someday marry Asrael, after all she had told him "maybe" to his earlier proposal. Their relationship in Egypt had gone in streaks, there were times they chatted and did things together quite regularly, and times they were busy with their own guilds and projects and were not in contact with each other. Starscream asked again and Asrael finally said yes, she would marry Starscream. Kalar left Egypt for the second time, saying he would be back for the end of the telling.
(April 2004)
The Starscream and Asrael wedding date finally happened. Starscream
uprooted most of the flowers that were in the gazebo and used them to
decorate the altar for the wedding. The wedding was great. Hyp was able
to make into Egypt for the occasion. It was a triple wedding with
Aoife-Olofath, and Sesostrus-Uret also getting married. Hobbes
officiated the wedding and conducted the ceremonies. The wedding marked
a merger between Sheldeen Empire and the Iyr Ari'el guild (Hobbes,
Cassie, Asrael, Waav, Infracat, Jaxun). This was not the only merger
the Iyr Ari'el guild experienced at this time. Really, the Iyr Ari'el
guild was founded and run by Asarel and Asarelah. Over time, new
members joined and other guilds merged in. The Iyr Ari'el of today was
part of a mix of various guilds, buildings, and people spread throughout
central and southern VOK. So Iyr Ari'el (along with the other guilds
that were part of it) is to be salvaged, and centrally relocated and
merged as Piso Ilios. Kalar had returned to Egypt much quicker than
expected, which was good news. Kalar was even able to attend the after
wedding festivities. Kalar's return was quickly marked with one very
high note. He became Egypt's first Oracle of Conflict. By alas this
great honor would not last, it turned out that Egypt's office of
Conflict had some faulty record keeping. Once the records were
straighten out, Kalar actually became the second Egyptian to wear the
title Sage of Conflict. Kalar hopes to soon become Egypt's first Oracle
of Conflict again.
(May 2004)
The history of Sheldeen would not be complete without a slight deeper
mention regarding on of BPOCs more interesting members, Zomboe.
Zomboe, is one of the oldest citizens Egypt has. He has been living in
Egypt since a time period called Beta 1, and has survived Beta 2, Beta 3
and now Telling 1. Zomeboe, has built enough camps and buildings that
he has no desire left to participate in that aspect of Egypt. He does
however visit Egypt fairly regularly and specializes in gem cutting.
Zomboe was responsible for many of gems cut for Sheldeen Empire's
various projects mentioned above including the venery, set's ladder, VOK
mega, and opticons. The day that Khenemetra's ship came to Egypt and
was offering Egyptian's bags of zircon gems to cut for a contest,
Starscream hurried right down to get a bag for Zomboe, who was not in
Egypt right at that time. Sure enough as expected from someone who does
nothing but cut gems night after night, Zomeboe finished among the top
cutters in the contest. There he, along with the other top cutters, got
to pick a prize for all Egypt, which of course was the cheaper arsenic
we have today. Also in the end May another good friend of Sheldeen
Empire and fellow BPOC guild member Hodhr decided to quit coming to
Egypt. Hodhr's greatest achievement coming just a few weeks earlier
when he completed the Distant Plains pyramid project he lead near (0,0)
in the center of Egypt.
(late May 2004 - June 2004)
So Sheldeen sits mostly empty, at least compared to what it once was.
Hyp, checks in about once or twice a week to see how things are going.
Though we may see more of Sheldeen's Master Architect again as the end
of telling starts. Kalar, still regularly comes to Egypt though far
less active and often than he used to. He will get his wind chimes up
and continue to play conflict games. Starscream has become the fifth
person in Egypt with the title of Master of Thought. He only has a
couple thought tests he is working on as personal goals yet. Starscream
has been so busy working on things all the time, that he has felt so
many people have helped him, and he has had no time to help others. So
he hopes to use some of the remaining time helping people with their
projects, like his new wife Asrael, guildmate Kalar, and some of his
long-time friends in BPOC. Even though Sheldeen is mostly empty these
days there is still plenty to do. Starscream and Kalar chat and do
things with on a daily basis, the BPOC crew: Somebob, Loreleilee,
Slyfeind, Zomboe, the new Piso Ilios guild: Asrael, Hobbes, Cassie,
Waav, Jaxun, Infracat, plus others they have met along the way, Qetesh,
Aoife, and many more. Starscream is in a way enjoying the game as much
now as ever with fewer hardcore projects, and more time to chat and play
around.