TownCrier Player Spotlight on Lornieh

By Macillus, TownCrier Correspondent
27 Lormesta 5118 // January 27, 2018

A note from the author

After returning from a long break in May 2017, and having met several others who had come back recently, I thought it would be fun to showcase returning adventurers. When I first sat down with Lornieh, I thought I was beginning the first in a series of interviews with returning characters. Our in-character interview lasted about five minutes. And then it got deep.

I realized that the reasons we return, and the reasons we leave, and the reasons we stay and play are much less the backstory of our characters – and much more the story of our lives. The players.

This is the story of the player of Lornieh.

A New Beginning (1997)

She was having a tough time. She had just moved from Colorado to North Carolina. As a junior in high school, it wasn't easy being in a new place, and it was hard making new friends at school. To make it worse, her small internet service provider, WoW! Online, had just gone out of business, so she had to move to… AOL. But all was not lost. Unlike her high school friends, her internet friends came with her.

  "So I went from WoW! to AOL and one of my WoW! friends found the game.  He asked me to start playing [GemStone] with him.  It was just a white screen with text then.. But it was sooo fun!"

It was magical, and it was fun, and it was new. It was 1997. AOL had gone unlimited. 56k modems had just arrived. GemStone and DragonRealms were the top two titles in the industry.

She was 17. She was happy. She had Elanthia – and she had friends.

  "I made lot of friends, met quite a few in person even."

One of those friends, a fifteen year old from Pennsylvania, played a character named Gureth. They spent hours together in game, and in time developed real feelings for each other. Her parents even drove her up from North Carolina to meet him in-person. Theirs was a young, innocent, GemStone kind of love. It lasted about a year until Gureth, who was supposed to come visit her, canceled his long-awaited trip. He'd been in a fight at school. His mom had grounded him, so he couldn't come. The reasons didn't matter to Lornieh, though. Left lonely and crestfallen, she walked away from their relationship.

Over the next few years she continued her adventures in Elanthia. While she lost touch with Gureth, she made new friends, and new characters, and collected happy memories of the game during that carefree time in her life. Eventually, she went off to school, and played a little less. She got a job doing data entry, and played even less. She just got busy... and then she didn't play at all. She didn't quit the game, so much as she just moved on - that was around 2001.

The Return (2005)

Lornieh's player is still doing her data entry job – and thanks to the capped-level typing skills she picked up from GS, she's doing quite well. She also started talking to Gureth again. After having lost touch for quite some time, a mutual friend reconnected them on AoL Instant Messenger. The connection was still there. They renewed their romance. They got married. They also returned to Elanthia together.

It was during this time she created Lornieh, and a lot of other characters – one of each profession, and multiples of a few. She loved the depth, and the complexity, and the unique experience of each class and race. She immersed herself in the world. Yet, while her love of the game grew and evolved, her love with Gureth ran into trouble. Despite a long friendship and deep connection, there were things about him she didn't know. He had a problem with alcohol. He racked up a lot of debt. And he was abusive. After less than a year of being married, they divorced.

She was devastated. Not just emotionally, but financially as well – Gureth's out-of-control spending had left her encumbered with a crippling amount of debt. She was lost and alone. She tried escaping to Elanthia, but she couldn't – every time she logged on, every time she adventured in a familiar place, she was reminded of him. This time, she stopped playing because she simply couldn't bear the pain.

The Road (2006)

She left it all behind to start a new adventure, on the road. She became a truck driver. She had as many different driving jobs as she had characters in GemStone. She drove all sorts of routes, from over-the-road, to local, to regional. She drove all sorts of trucks, from dry van (regular trailer), to reefer units (refrigerated), to gravel trucks (belly and end dump), and even hazmat tankers.

On the road for 70+ hours a week, she had her job and nothing else. She worked 12-14 hour days, 6 days a week. At one company she unloaded the trucks by hand, throwing boxes down rollers into the store or rolling them in herself on a push cart. In addition to the long hours and strenuous conditions, sexism and harassment were a daily reality for her in a heavily male-dominated industry. She had to work twice as hard to prove herself. She became a much stronger person, physically and emotionally. She had to – she didn't have a choice.

  "Being in trucking definitely made me a stronger person, females aren't always treated that well in that industry. I wouldn't take crap from the men, or my employers."

Year in and year out, she drove. One morning at 12:30am, on her way into work driving a hazmat tanker, a group of teenagers hurled a large rock through the side window of her vehicle. As the window shattered, shards of glass tore into her body. The surgeons removed what glass they could, but she returned home with an unknown amount still under her skin.

  "There's a large piece 5mm in diameter still in my shoulder.  I STILL have glass coming out of me."

The Pain (2016)

For a few more years, despite the toll the job was taking, she kept driving. By the end of 2016, her body had had enough. Everything happened at once. She started losing the vision in her left eye. She woke up nauseous, unable to make it to work to start her 4am shift driving a gravel truck. Severe leg aches landed her in the emergency room. The doctors couldn't tell her what was wrong. One day in the middle of a route, her eye pain became so severe that she had to stop the truck and have a manager come finish the route.

  "I couldn't handle it. I'd try to get out of bed to go to work and I'd get dizzy and fall out of bed, hit my head.  I just couldn't do it anymore."

Her medical bills mounted up, as her employer's patience thinned. Severe depression set in. After 11 years on the road, she was done. She finally received a diagnosis: fibromyalgia - a disorder characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain accompanied by fatigue, sleep, memory and mood issues.

She tried to keep working while she struggled to manage the pain. She'd get cortisone shots in her knee, and head straight to work as a dog walker - struggling through her route. Employers said she took too long. After six months, it became too much. Unbearable pain and overwhelming medical bills had taken their toll. She had no choice but to declare bankruptcy and apply for disability.

Coming Home (2017)

She'd lost almost everything. Almost everything. She still had a longing for adventure. And so she turned to games. She tried a few MMO's, but just got bored. A new game would come out, and the player base would move on, and the magic would die out. She wanted somewhere with imagination. She thought about GemStone. She'd even dreamed of GemStone from time to time, but so often those dreams would conjure up the painful memories of Gureth.

She realized, though, that those memories were causing less and less pain as time went by. And that maybe now she could face them. She could face that pain. Maybe now, she was ready to come back.

  "I'd dream a lot of GemStone over the years.  Kind of odd, I know.  I recalled the old days of 'AT RAT, AT RAT'.  When I came back, I came back as F2P.  It was like old times.  It was like coming home."

She started a free-to-play character. As an empath, she made friends quickly. She was hunting in the catacombs, and healing in Town Square Central, and having a blast. Though playing an empath was harder than she remembered. She had to link to heal people, and couldn't heal the same person repeatedly. Finally, she found out that F2P were the only ones that had to link to heal, and said "Forget this! I'm reactivating my old account!"

  "I reactivated my account, and little Lornieh was still there, along with all my current alts."

It was a bit daunting coming back to her old characters. So much had changed, and with so many alts, she had to relearn each profession as if she was starting over. She met Evrali, who got her using AIM again and introduced her to Silvak, who helped her to fix her old characters. There was so much to learn.

  "I was blown away by chrisms, ensorcelling, armor skills, shield skills.... it's crazy!  Lich has been a life-saver."

A few months in, she met Pukk. "We started a conversation on LNet, and it just grew from there," Pukk told me. "We just hit it off!" They decided that Lornieh and Pukk would meet. From there, the connection between their characters grew, and quickly became romantic.

Pukk was a major influence in her early days after returning. It was Pukk who convinced her to pick one character to focus on, Lornieh. He was level 40, and she was 14 – so he helped her level. He also introduced her to roleplaying events, like Kenstrom Story Time. With the help of Pukk, and the roleplaying awards she received, she levelled quickly.

  "What I have always known: When she loves, she loves. When she is upset, she is upset. But like a flare with both emotions. Burns fast and bright." -Pukk

Yet, as time went on, Lornieh's in-character romantic relationship with Pukk began falling apart. One night in June, he ended it. She was caught off guard. She hadn't realized, as she was immersing herself in her character, how invested she also became as a player. When she got her heart broken, it hurt in game and out. She felt that it might be time to say goodbye. On the brink of leaving, she decided to open up, and posted on the Player's Corner. Then she was REALLY on the brink of leaving. Until one person sent her a message...

  "It was Dreaven who came forward to talk me through it.  He sent me a message, and talked me out of leaving."

She stayed. She stayed because of her love for the game. She stayed because, in Elanthia, she wasn't alone. In Elanthia, she was loved. She stayed because here, despite her broken body and broken heart, she could be the truest part of herself. Putting her heart into her character meant opening her heart - and that was worth risking the pain.

  "I immerse myself pretty far, especially during RP events.  It's like I'm there in the body as Lornieh."

She immersed herself in the world, and she became Lornieh. Goofy, fun, feisty, outgoing Lornieh. Adventurous, friendly, courageous Lornieh. Lady Lornieh, the Beastmistress. Lady Lornieh, the helpful friend. Lady Lornieh, the hero.

Reflections and Insights

Who is she?

  Kipa says, "She plays a strong character that knows her own value."

  Pukk quietly says, "A very wonderful person IRL and it reflects on her characters.  She's a fast learner, and she is very active with her RP."

  Brutish says, "Lornieh?  She's the one ranger I know who SWEARS she knows where she's going no matter what… Sometimes it takes her hours to wander out of the woods."

  Leafiara muses, "A friendly and gentle person, open to many and sincerely interested in them. She plays straightforward but likeable characters and finds ways to include others, and both invents her own RP and participates with Landing stories. Active but never overactive."

When is she at her best?

  Evician fondly says, "When she is in a feisty mood.  When she is trying to get something she wants done."

  Kipa says,  "When she is amongst the Drakes, we are all good friends there and always having fun.  And she shines during events with Kenstrom."

Your favorite thing about her?

  Brokkrsten says, "Her friendly demeanor and willingness to help a soul out."

  Leafiara fondly says, "Her clear love of, well, -everything- GemStone. There are people who just like RP and hate hunting, or people who like hunting and hate RP, or maybe they'll be in the mood for one thing or another... but she seems to love them both."

  Pukk quietly says, "She really cares about helping people and punishing human rogues that upset her."

  Evician lovingly says,  "I call her my angel for a reason. She helped me when no one else would. I was in a bad place with my paladin, and this was before we became a couple.  She hunted with me and helped me stay alive for quite a number of levels.  I fell in love with her in game, and out."

The final word:

  Leafiara advises, "If you're interested at all in RP or in the community, get to know Lornieh or any of her other characters. She's one of the better people I've known, and I've met a lot of them here.

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