Notice: With the Laurelin server shutting down, our website will soon reflect the Meriadoc name. You can still use the usual URL, or visit us at https://meriadocarchives.org/
Merchant Adventurers
| Website | |
|---|---|
| Founding date | August 2011 |
| Goal | Support, Encouragement, Advancement |
| Main area of operations | Roleplaying, PvE |
| Kinship type | Mixed |
| Friends/Allies | |
| Rivals/Enemies | |
| Kinship status | Dormant (not recruiting) |
| Recruiting Officer(s) |
Background
If you open the door into the room, the draught will set the dust motes gently dancing in the shaft of sunlight though the window. If you should follow the bright rays, you will find yourself at a bookcase. The scroll tucked at the back, half hidden by ledgers and tomes may not immediately catch your eye, it wasn't deliberately hidden, rather, just forgotten.
Should you pick it up, more dust adding to the dancing motes, it will crackle softly, the parchment is dry with age and the faded ribbon will begin to fray and crumble. Carrying it to the table under the window, you will see that the parchment is yellow with age, the old seal long broken. Unrolling it carefully, for rough handling will cause the parchment to flake, you will see a tutored hand had written a record of the Merchant Adventurers in a flowing script.
Merchant Adventurers
As the years progressed, the merchants started looking for new and better wares beyond their borders with which to entice their customers. Many believed that the escorts and guards had earnt an unsavoury reputation and they looked to their guilds to find a better solution. If they were to venture further and trade with races they had only heard of, but had seen the fabulous wares that rarely made their way to the markets, the merchants needed trustworthy escorts.
The guilds met in Bree to discuss what to do about the request from their merchants. The discussion was lengthy, much pipeweed was smoked and through the haze, one voice spoke out; Alderman Morys Cutterridge. He had once been the Sergeant-at-Arms for the local militia and his prowess with blade and shield, combined with his great stature had made him a much respected figure in the town.
Alderman Cutterridge offered his sword and knowledge to build a group that would offer men-at-arms, honest and true, to escort their merchants along dangerous roads to trade with folk from across the mountains, water and wherever trade were to lead them. The new company of men, society, or guild (whatever his fellows chose to call it) would be well armed, skilled in battle and at the service of the guilds of craftsmen.
So the Merchant Adventures were born and grew to be a society of armsmen, traders and craftsmen with links with short, tall and fair folk from far and wide. The society prospered and the traders and merchants of Bree were grateful for honest, trustworthy escorts.
~~~~
Having read the scroll, you carefully roll it up and return it to the shelf on the bookcase. Who knows how long it will be before someone else reads the ancient account of the Merchant Adventurers? For now, they are needed more than ever as those nebulous fears take the shape of strange stories of dark deeds and fearful monsters.
Merchant Adventurers is a rank 7 kin, we have just obtained our kin house and are now in a position to look for new, like-minded members of all races, levels and classes. We are members of the SEA gaming community with many long term RPers and are most active in EU time zones.
The in character society is based in a meeting hall, for which we require staff (cooks, archivists, clerks, musicians etc) and guards to act as escorts. We are also looking for members to RP as merchants too.
Our style of RP is what we prefer to call 'realism'. This means that we try to RP as close to reality as possible, no heroes, no Lords, Ladies or any other type of high ranking figure. Just everyday people going about their daily lives, who may find themselves in unusual circumstances.
All members are welcome to have their own plots, we have our own games masters (with many years experience of MMORPGs and tabletop/pnp GMing) who will assist with involving other members and in character development. Plots and story arcs are merely outlined, never scripted. Some of our longest running arcs have come via a player's throw away line, or their taking an unexpected turn during an evening's roleplay. Power emoting, metagaming and godmoding are all 'sins' that we try to avoid, although occasionally we can make mistakes. Our GMs are there to help clear up any errors or decide on resulting actions or emotes.
We are not in character when questing, this gets around that knotty issue of Minstrels with red glowing hands, Rune Keepers chucking lightning and fire around, or characters being raised from the dead. This does mean that when you are questing, you can ride mounts (even over-sized goats) that could be immersion breaking and generally fighting mobs in areas that a particular race may not be expected to be seen, for example. However, our members are expected to respect other players' and their RP.
Role playing isn't compulsory and we also welcome those who only wish to PvE and/or PvP. All classes, proffessions, levels and races are welcome too. Class and profession need not relate to your character when roleplaying. The founding members are all fairly new characters and aren't yet geared up for raiding. But we will welcome members who raid and their experience in instances etc.
Applicants must be over 16 and, if they RP, be familiar with our style or be willing to adapt. If your application is successful, you will undergo a 14 - 28 day trial period, depending on activity. This gives you an opportunity to see if we are the kin for you and vice versa.
We have an active website, that has expanded from our original guild and Team Speak 3 server.
If you are interested in joining us, please read the information available on our site and follow the registration instructions, or contact a Merchant Adventurer member in game.
