The Dark Knights

of Nairen Guild
Guild History - Real World
Why We Started It:
I had been offered a chance to participate in the original beta testing for World of Warcraft because of a loose professional association with one of its developers, but was too busy to accept that offer at the time. After the product had been released another friend of mine - with whom i had spent many enjoyable hours playing Diablo II - encouraged me to start an alliance player on the Malygos server and join him and his friends in their sessions.

By the time i started playing he and his friends were alreay fairly high in level and my low level characters couldn't survive joint missions with them. I decided to solo for a while to concentrate on mastering the game and attaining a sufficient level that i would be more than just a hinderance to them. When i play any game i usually experiment with it for a while to get the feel of the game and its optimum strategies and tactics. Some games take many months to play though, so choices made early on can affect your play for quite a while.

I frequently make some bad choices during these initial experiments and don't feel any obligation to suffer the consequences of those choices forever. Once i have mastered the basics of the game and have a general idea of its strategy, if it is the type of gane that builds on a single character i generally start a totally new character at that point.

About the time i was ready to begin again, another friend of mine, Mark, expressed an interest in starting a low level character and playing with me on a regular basis. We discussed the options and decided that we would play two undead, a mage and a warrior. I based my mage character off of a NPC that was a part of the background in a fantasy role playing game i had created and refereed fro the previous 25 years. Mark named his character 'Efstein' to stress that he wanted his warrior to be a creature that had been created by my mage to serve as his personal body guard. We had fun with that storyline as we played the game.

We played these characters together most of the time and selected professions for them that we thought made sense for their classes. We noticed early that we couldn't cover all of the professions with just these two characters, so we decided to create a few more characters to fill in those holes. Eventually, we decided to play a full set of 5 characters each to allow us to explore the various races, classes, and professions in the game. We started the guild to help us manage the interactions between these characters, but didn't know much about how guilds worked at the time we founded it.

Blizzard's guild creation policy required us to obtain signatures from 8 other unique players to found the guild. We offered inducements of various types to obtain the signatures and assured each of them that we did not expect them to remain within the guild once it was established. More specfically we told them that we had specific things in mind for this guild and that anyone who wouldn't be comfortable abiding by that vision wouldn't really be welcome, but we appreciated their assistance in getting the needed signatures. Most of those signers did drop out once we were established, but a few signers who agreed to abide by the guild code of conduct and protocols opted to remain.

Once we had the requird signatures, Mark and i began to explore the guild related features of the game. Mark designed a guild tabbard that matched our role playing background for the interactions between our characters, and we began saving up to pay for it.
Why We Opened It:

There are some missions that just can't be accomplished by one or two lower level characters. We've had mixed luck partnering with people we don't know, but when we have partnered with some folks it has been very enjoyable.

At the time that Aglutis attained 30th level, i took him for training. Each of the levels that are exact multiples of the number 10 offer a larger number of new spells to a mage than the other levels. I happened to see a 20th level character standing at the trainer, so i congratulated him on his new level and remarked that we both had a lot of new opportunities now. He responded and we chatted about the game for a few minutes.

Toward the end of that conversation i remarked that it had been a pleasure chatting with him but that i had to go round up some additional funds to pay for a few spells i wanted badly but for which i didn't have sufficient money. I told the person that i was 60SP short and figured i better get out there are rustle that up so i could enjoy the use of the new spells and start using them as soon as possible.

Without any discussion or setting any conditions for repayment or reimbursement, this person opened up the trade window, filled it with 60SP, and authorized the trade. I was speechless! It takes a bit of work to round up 60SP at level 20, and here was someone for whom i had never done anything offering me a sizeable sum of money without even suggesting that i pay it back. What a kind, unselfish thing to do!

I noted that he was not already in a guild, and decided that i would offer him membership in ours. He accepted, and has been an asset to the guild and every one of its members since then. In return, i am happy to report that he agrees that giving me that 60SP was a very cost effective use of it. The guild has provided him with benefits, assistance, and fun that made the gift an investment instead of a loss.

This guild was originally intended solely for Mark and myself, but we've made every effort to put that goal behind us and make it a guild that serves the needs fo all of its members equally. We already have a half dozen additional members now, and i expect that to grow slowly but steadily over time if we correctly do our job of making this an excellent guild that enhances the enjoyment of the game for all of its members. But whether the guild grows large or remains very small, Mark and i know that we benefit every time we play from what the newer members bring to the table, and so far they all report that their membership has also benefitted them.
Meaning of Name:
Back in the 80's i was invited to join an informal fraternity that had been founded by some of my friends a few years before. This fraternity was intended to observe the close bonds of friendship, trust, and mutual respect between its members... as well as provide an excuse to participate in some intentional silliness. Membership was limited to the folks among their acquaintances who at all times exhibited open-mindedness, unselfishness, chivalry, and a willingness to be supportive and courteous to all people, whether those people were members of the fraternity or not. Folks who viewed their 'friendships' as a way to exploit people for personal gain were explicitly excluded.

They called themselves the Knights of Nairen in recognition of the code of chivalry practiced by some orders of medieval knights. The word Nairen was coined simply because they liked the way it sounded, not because they attached any special significance to the word. The Knights had a formal greeting, and would sometimes have meetings in which the participants would mostly just get together and party, but wasn't a formal fraternity by any reasonable definition.

After i had known these folks for a while, i was invited to join them as a member of the Knights. I was honored, and accepted with gratitude. Over the years, the fraternity grew to encompass other fine folks (including Mark) and accrued additional customs and observances. We declared the Scottish liquer Drambuie as the official drink of the Knights, adopted a 'secret handshake', created the associated "Ladies of Nairen", and established some other protocols.

Among the things discussed was how we would select for additional members. Some of our acquaintances were offended at being excluded from the group, but the members valued the standards of the fraternity and saw no need to open it to people who didn't exhibit those standards at all times. Eventually we decided that we didn't make someone a Knight by inviting them to join, the invitation was simply a recognition that they had already made themselves one by the strength of their integrity and character.

Membership in this fraternity was an important part of my life and the lives of its members during the 80's and 90's, but as with many things which seemed important to a group of young adults, eventually the more formal aspects of the fraternity faded into the background as we aged. Today the greeting is still used at times among the members, but for the most part the Knights of Nairen is now just a positive memory to its members.

Warcraft II had a class of undead magic users called Death Knights. Mark and i had played that game as opponents many times, and we employed those characters aggressively to decimate each other's forces. While looking for a name for our guild, the obvious pun in its name occurred to me, but we didn't want use it exactly in keeping with Blizzard's policies about use of their trademarks, and because we intended to have other horde races within the guild. Since we had intended for the guild to be just for the two of us, we thought that this variation of the combination of these concepts was an excellent way to remind us of the standards we were going to follow.

As with the Knights of Nairen in the real world, we do not feel that we really determine who may be a member of this guild, but that each player is qualified or not to join simply by the approach that they have decided to follow in playing this game. Selfish griefers, racists, whiners, homophobes, male chauvanists, militant feminists, etc. are not ever going to be a true member of this guild, no matter how they may claim that they will follow its rules. It is among those who think the rules make sense in their own right and would abide by their spirit whether part of this guild or not that we look for new members.
Meaning of Crest: In real life i am an egalitarian in all things. I reject the idea that race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, culture, etc. are useful divisions for determining the worth of any specific individual. My belief is that within each such category are people both good and evil, so prejudging someone based on these criteria isn't just morally wrong, it's also stupid and counter-productive. In my various management jobs i have made every effort to be fair, respectful of my team, and open to input from everyone. I've never personally been comfortable with the belief that subordinates owe some special deference to their manager.

But our role playing for this game takes place within the world of Azeroth. Aglutis is an undead mage who serves the Forsaken and the horde, and as such he is likely to hold some different ideas and attitudes than i hold :-). Further, as a mage of considerable raining and power he is expected to consider himself 'better' than the run of the mill citizen of the horde.

In real life Mark is a talented and accomplished artist. My design skills would fit comfortably within a very small thimble, so it was a no-brainer for me to decide to leave the design of our guild tabbard totally up to Mark. His thought was to use the octopus icon as a statement that the guild will have many arms which can act independently, but only one head. I thought that was pretty darn good to represent us, so after he settled on a color scheme we continued saving for the design fee.

By the time we had accrued the money, another of our new members had asked to have some input on the design. Purple happened to be her favorite color and she thought that it went well with the red that we used. Mark liked her idea to change the border color to purple, and that finalized the design.