Historical Events and People/Avamar/Investigation1

This is of historical significance in BattleMaster
Avamar
Where	East Island
When	Summer 2005
Significant People Involved	Richard Garner, Josh Rogala, Paris
Topics	OOC Cheating

This report was compiled just after the Coimbrahiem situation in an attempt to understand the nature of the rapidly deteriorating situation on EC. The cross boarder study proved to be most enlightening, but is sadly incomplete in a few areas being only one of the three reports on the matter.

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The Black Hand started in W. Sirion after it was moved to Avamar city following the second failed rebellion against Evylears and the victory of Oligarch. TBH was made as a political movement with a cool sounding name because people like such things, to try and do what two other groups had tried before to overthrow the government of W. Sirion and replace it with another. Unlike all earlier attempts the BH planed on doing this peacefully, thus stopping Evylears from calling in Sirion aid like he had every other time. To that effect the younger members of the realm, lead by Lalakis devised a plan, or more specifically tuzokus hatch the idea, either way they started a political campaign near elections. Most people of the realm supported the new political party but an individual, Draco, (Richard Garner, he appeared on the discussion list in July talking about [Discuss] RE: Reason for Leaving Richard Garner), didn't think victory was assured and thus asked a few of his friends to join the game temporarily to help stuff the ballot boxes. The other BH members didn't know about Draco's request and continued with business as usual.

When elections rolled around Intro was the winner and Evylears defeated. The fact that the BH won the election while Evylears had a duke as a supporter and a Republic government should not be down played, out of 20 people only about 6 were with Evylears. To show that there were no hard feelings; the new government appointed Evylears as banker and continued about their business. That’s when the infamous message, "We have too many people in the realm, some of you should leave," was sent by Draco (Richard) and some people deleted themselves. Upon seeing this Evylears immediately called the election into question which is when Tom decided to step in as UN Elections Inspector, re-held the election and lock the kingdom boarders to ensure no new people could join.

So the election was held again and the BH came to power in W. Sirion. Evylears, upset about his defeat, set the taxes to himself and called a rebellion. It was defeated, but somewhere along the way Evylears destroyed Avamar city’s entire infrastructure, before being banned from the realm along with about 6 people. Their names are recorded on the BH wiki page for all to see.

So Evylears fled to Sirion where he convinced Doc to help him get back his kingdom, wasn't that hard or that surprising really. At this time W. Sirion tried to continue it's peaceful relations with Sirion and the NA like usual, but the work of an independent Oligarch infiltrator, Jain Sunn, (James Dalton) to assassinate Evylears before the election and the instance of Evylears lead Sirion to the conclusion that the BH and Oligarch were working together. Stuck between allying with Oligarch and fighting Sirion alone it isn't surprising that W. Sirion chose Oligarch

Now the fights between Sirion and what became Avamar were going badly for Sirion, but they were completely in game so they're more of a foot note. At this time the BH got a wiki page, which was created by Lalakis originally, but heavily edited by Draco II, as his old character was dead. If you read the old wiki, most of the really, irritating remarks came from Draco the rest was mostly harmless rp and bragging. So the stage is set, the newly named Avamar is winning against Siroin, Fontan is neutral as par the Son of Patrick treaty and there are rumors flying of this super elite shadow organization thanks to the wiki page and word of mouth

Now Sirion has a history of getting it's allies to fight for it, so it started talks with Avamar about peace. Then taking the responses of Intro, they heavily (and badly in my opinion) edited them and sent them to Fontan who was governed by Alexi. The result was Fontan's declared war on Avamar after a protracted argument and more then a few witch burnings in Fontan for those who spoke against breaking the treaty. Fontan's stance was that Avamar had already broken the treaty by trying to destabilize their realm with the rebel groups that were causing trouble at the time. Enter the Fontan rebels.

This group, who were Greek supposedly, contacted Avamar in an effort to gain assistance and advice. At first Avamar, or more specifically the Servants of Jarbosh, did offer this, until they discovered that the rebels were cheating at which point they immediately notified you.

>From: Tom <tom@lemuria.org>
>To: Josh Rogala <homestararmy@hotmail.com>
>Subject: Re: BM - Clear Cheating
>Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2005 23:53:51 +0200
>
>Well it appears someone I am involved with in preparing my rebellion in
>Fontan is cheating.

Thanks, we'll be checking this and take appropriate action.

The group then compounded their cheating and rejoined the realm multiple time in rapid succession calling a fair number of rebellions, all of which were blamed on Avamar. Eventually Fontan declared war, which is what Sirion wanted, (this isn't a problem in itself, just a good job done by Doc, but it did lead to this mess) and with Fontan's help Sirion managed to turn the tide

As an aside, at this time the Anti-Alexi page was created by Draco II to vent his anger though it was actually blamed on me.

Well things continued to escalate in Fontan, it became very unhealthy for a person to suggest that maybe the BH wasn't evil and the general sentiment was that Avamar must be destroyed to free the game and that they needed to be driven out by whatever means necessary. Unfortunately the fact that Greeks had attacked Fontan, and Greeks were in the BH caused a short circuit resulting in the general feeling being that Greeks were bad for the game because they cheat. (Doubtlessly you remember the arguments at the time so I won’t include any text files unless you really want to read them again.) It was at this time that the Drachenwald incident occurred which I know little about since I don’t play on Atamara

At the start of the war between Fontan and Avamar, Draco was the only BH left; all others had become more interested in other RPing exploits, such as the newly formed Knights of the People, or were too new to the game to care. Draco eventually left Avamar because the new players wouldn't bow to him and traveled to the far east... you probably know more about what he did there then I. With Draco II’s departure the BH pretty much faded from Avamar and life continued forward with new ideas and things.

While Avamar was moving away from the BH things were becoming a more dangerous in Fontan with the whole thing escalating into a shouting match between the two sides, neither would listen to the other and both were certain they were right. The result of all this was that Arcturus and Alexi were put on the inquisition for being "bad for the game" and soon after you paused the game and we got titans. After that Fontan calmed down and since they were no longer being accused of cheating Avamar left it be and so things continued quietly until about the present day.

Just before Paris became the main focus of attention, new characters, working for the now departed Draco, arrived in Avamar and stirred up all kinds of trouble. It has been theorized that Richard is still playing the game somewhere but no one is certain about this. [Note: This was proven at a later date]

Now; Paris is the center of attention. As part of an Avamarian raiding party to Envora he was seriously wounded for a very long time. When he woke up he found himself isolated from the rest of the army and decided to tag head to Perdan while at the same time the Prime Minister of Avamar asked for economic assistance. After the request was denied Paris headed north again only so that he was only one region away from Westmoor when Birgamir ceded; so Paris joined the new realm, and since he was the only one alive he managed to elect himself Judge. At this time Birgamir was using the OOC ban feature improperly and was punished by the GM’s by being removed from office. So Birgamir was stripped of office, which would trigger an election and then assassinated by an Oligarch infiltrator Achanarius. Thus to ensure his rise to King was uncontested Paris protested the general so he lost enough prestige to be ineligible for ruler, and so Paris became King. With Paris' rise to power, the old argument between Fontan and Avamar started up again as you know.

So in summary the Black Hand was a group of younger players who managed to get elected into W. Sirion and then enjoyed poking fun at the senior players they defeated. Since the BH was so successful other groups started to call themselves BH causing wild rumors to spread about cheating and world domination. At the height of it’s power the BH consisted of nine noblemen who’s controllers came from all over the globe and at present there are but three left who were part of this now infamous organization. Since their rise to power the BH has managed to avoid tyrannizing Avamar with most government positions being controlled by non-old-members.

The main contribution of the BH is pretty much separate from the organization itself. The players who made up the BH are characterized by being open, friendly, and work well with others even if they are not known in RL which they continued to practice long after the BH dissolved. Avamar has been successful, (well generally so) because all new people who join are greeted and treated as friends and thus quickly develop a loyalty to Avamar. I can say from personal experience while collecting info for this report that Avamar has shown a remarkable level of cooperation and teamwork as well as a friendly, fun environment, despite the efforts of some to drive them from the game. I actually hope that eventually everyone will act something like this.

That just about sums up my report; if you have any questions or wish clarification please don’t hesitate to ask.

PS: If you’re absolutely dying to read Fontan messages from the recent argument they can be found here:
http://www.angelfire.com/80s/my_ftp/ugh.txt
http://www.angelfire.com/80s/my_ftp/ugh2.txt
http://www.angelfire.com/80s/my_ftp/ugh3.txt