In Character > Outsiders

culture and history of outsider towns

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error2:
York and Durham always had such rich history and attitudes. I liked York's extreme isolationist policies as well as the the party life that Derby tried to offer along with vigilant law enforcement and sword farming. Also Durham exists I guess.

Neil Tathers:
Best post ever.

I'm not sure why York had all the crazy people in it, but it did.  We added that to the lore by saying the shaman they captured for resurrections was slowly poisoning them with crazy and that's why they ended up that way.

Derby was fun for awhile, when Rob zombie and his crew were there, however when the other group took over they became just as isolationist as York in a way. Cause if you were a visiting person from another town you had to declare allegiance to there group, or you were hunted endlessly.  I'm glad that it's not like that anymore. 

Durham has always existed.  At one point it was just as bad as York, then a mob lived there, followed by a second mob.  Maybe a brothel at one point.  Now it's home to a murder hotel.

With expensive tennis balls.

Dani:
I believe the reason York was so insane was because of the close proximity of the Native villages, compared to the other outsider towns, which encouraged pking. At least, that was the reason to start with. Over time, wars with native villages dwindled, but York's xenophobia ramped up to comedic levels [and not so comedic levels], and each of us who came in, from Serious Sam, to FAD's alts [i don't remember their names, and I think they actually predated SS], to The Hanged Man, To Aphetto, to the Last Laugh, to The Hierophant, to Surcouf, and so on, each of us brought our own style of insanity to it. There's more I could say with regard to the insanity of York, but since we are now in a position to write the history of each settlement, we can do some judicious editing. There's no one around to complain, the slate is clean.

Durham was mob owned, yes, and they also had an ambivalent relationship with the pirates, since it was the closest outsider village to the shipwreck. They only had problems with Dalpok, the other native villages were too far away. Before the mob, there was ah...Ron Burgundy? The guy who made the memorial freeway? Jack Bauer? Someone like that, and he started the tradition of Durham being a corrupt political town. I never met him, but that was the style I was emulating when I tried to take over the town as an outpost of shari'a law as Dani al-Ghazali. After the mob, there was a brief time [and even now I wish it had been briefer] when a pk clan from another game came in and tried to impose order. They would have been better suited to York, and I think they did go there at some point when Durham emptied out. And now, as Neil mentioned, there's the current establishment, which brings us, in a way, to the last town.

Derby, hmm. This must be what writing history from the pov of the winners feels like. Derby had many enviable advantages as far as land, the sword swamp, and the only native village they had persistent problems with was Rakmogak, and even then, only the toughest cannibals made their way through the tunnel or across the water. I don't believe I was ever there when there was someone different running things, but I'm aware that prior to the period Neil refers to, there was a number of clans vying for attention, and it made it a melting pot in an affable sort of way. There was a heavy french influence, and I think this must also be the site of many battles between the French and the spanish clan 'ph'.

For a long time, Derby was an enjoyable place to go to while walking the roads, the end of the rainbow. It should not have been surprising, then, that its advantages would create a similar situation as York, where ease of access made it a place for many unfriendly types to go, and many of its residents found themselves in a siege mentality state, which ramped up their insanity accordingly.

To be fair, I didn't help things much. Running Durham as Dani al-Ghazali was very dull [I can see now why the mob didn't bother with politics], and thought it would be amusing to start a war with Derby using pirate pkers as privateers. To put this into perspective, it was like starting a conflict with another nation in order to 1) generate interest away from domestic doldrums 2) get rid of some pkers 3) prank a few notables, only to discover much later that the other side considered it an existential threat and planned to retaliate by killing everyone involved, and their family, and their dog, for the next several years to come.

There is much that could be covered here, but as with York, I think some judicious editing is in order. To sum up, Derby was originally a very chill place, which because of its natural advantages became a target for various pkers and bored drama queens. The organization that dominated this place became hostile to nearly everyone but itself by the end, until one day it left and the island breathed in relief. The one complimentary thing I will say about this group is that they initially had some very good roleplays - among the best on the old site - which they stopped posting on the forum around the time they stopped being chill and became chilly.   

Dani:
Addendum: On the colonies of the outsider villages.

There was also New Haven, which was the project of a player named Solemn. It was an enterprise that began in Durham and was exported to the island to the north, whose name escapes me now. It should be in Parchment Pages unless that's gone now too. I can't be bothered to look it up, and perhaps it has a new name anyway. This island was not terribly resource-rich [at all], but I believe there were some huts there and they tried to make it livable. It was intended for roleplayers to congregate and I suspect it may have been the result of several other island-wide factors I've either forgotten or on the list of things to be judiciously erased from history.

It didn't last long, in any event. About as long as Dani's tenure in Durham, so maybe 6-7 months at best? I don't know why it collapsed, or rather, I don't remember, or perhaps, I dimly remember that I was somehow involved but can't recall the details, so let's just call it a natural development and move on.   

Surcouf had a similar idea with an outpost near York, an island [not Midway, the one to the west of York]. Before that, it was often used as a staging ground for pkers. He also intended it as a place for roleplayers to congregate, under the leadership of Josiah Winthrop, and thought the time was ripe for a puritan, nonviolent settlement. York's insanity occasionally had a religious vibe to it, because insanity is the handmaiden of religion [or vice versa].

It went poorly. There were few roleplayers in York at the time, as it was started in what you could call the Bronze Age of Shartak. The Hierophant was around and nominally supportive, but to put it into perspective, Winthrop was a religious right-winger who wanted to pray the natives into submission, and the Hierophant was what we would now refer to as a prototype alt-right keke-fascist, and the two didn't really mix, though it didn't come to an actual fight. At least this chapter in Shartak's history didn't end with the first party being hunted into extinction and the second party being burned in effigy on the forum [that part had already happened well before this], instead we both just got bored and quit. I call that a win.

I don't recall any other temporary colonies. The French, as I mentioned, did have a settlement near Derby, Port Breton, but I know very little about it. Surcouf was involved, and FAD I think. Later on, I attempted to start a bar there with a native character with a vaguely French backstory, but found it rather boring. Actually I do recall another colony, that was actually called a colony, but I think I'll skip that one. It would not be enjoyable reading.

There was a plan to start a brothel, which fizzled quickly. We were unaware that this had been tried before and the results had gone awry, so we attempted to change it into a traveling circus instead, but it never went anywhere [literally].

etherdrifter:
A slight note on New Haven, it was previously occupied by the faction of Fort Creedy; a faction that still had some minor sway for a long time.

https://wiki.shartak.com/index.php/Independent_Republic_of_Fort_Creedy

To my knowledge, Solemn reached an agreement with the last remaining members of Fort Creedy to establish New Haven.

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