I arose from a series of varied roleplaying forums and instant messenger roleplays, the majority of which were some flavor of science fiction, mostly because I lived in an isolated place and had few other forms of interaction or entertainment. I was much out of my league as they would be considered "Advanced" here on the Guild while I was at best a very low "Casual", but those members present only inspired me to do far better by constantly trumping me left and right. In many aspects I began to mirror their ability or outright had them teach me what I should or should not do as a character and roleplayer, short of the obvious that we all know an roll our eyes at, but after a few years the sites all almost simultaneously splintered and the people disappeared. I wandered for a time after that, which also aligned with a "dark age" of sorts for my person.

I returned only to actual roleplaying when I found a group that played "Dungeons and Dragons", which I mention in quotes because it was about as loose a tabletop version of Third Edition could be as almost everything was rolled for at random. Every game was absolute chaos, but at least I had people who were willing to try and teach [i]some[/i] elements of the game. That brought me into the world of fantasy, a concept I had previously disdained because it seemed to have no rules. After researching and mastering a few actual tabletop games, I realized how much I enjoyed the framework and spirited it away for my own purposes and that is then what led me here; the continual search for somewhat structured roleplaying.

Oh? The names? That's one of the most depressing elements. I have actually lost the names and I myself would be unrecognizable to the players then in this day. They've just all sort of blurred away, but their impact hasn't.