The Tarakian Guild

Name:	The Tarakian Guild
Server:	Server 3 / Server 1
Creator:	Hogfather
Website:	http://www.angelfire.com/az/tarakian/
Board:	http://www.avidgamers.com/tarakian/
IRC:	#tarakian
Motto:	To defend, this is the Pact. But when life loses its value and is taken for naught, the pact is this ... TO AVENGE!
Status:	Disbanded

Information

An honorable and defensive ranking guild that also became one of the most feared war machines on Terra. Was a dominant guild for a long period of time on Server 1 until MARI gave the news of AM going into pay-to-play mode. This caused the council to vote for disbanding the guild and leaving the game while still on top instead of slowly diminishing into a small group of people dreaming about the good old days, which happened to so many other guilds.

Honorary Members: Mordain, Elvish

Sub guild: Mordain University

Core members who've made a name for themselves in TR as well

• Antioch
• Bale
• Belsambar
• Gummy
• Redruin
• Rymlen
• Saruman

Return to the Guild Gallery

Below follows the history of the last resets of the Tarakian guild. The guild was around since the first reset on s3 and also each reset on s1 in Mari. The history of the early resets can be found on the page linked below. The rest was unfortunately never written.

The Eve Of An Alliance

Terra VIII promised to be a peaceful reset with the Tribe as longtime ally and surprisingly for the first time after many wars a NaP with The Empire, S1’s foremost cheating guild and ancient Tarakian enemy. For many resets the Tarakian guild had waged an exhausting war against cheating while most others guilds didn’t bother and let the Tarakians deal with it while going for a hof spot themselves. Finally this seemed to be over for a while and the Tarakians were glad for the respite since it had mostly harmed their own hof chances while not accomplishing much in the way of mobilizing Terra against cheating. Soon The Tarakians together with the Tribe, dominated the top 100, but there were a few exceptions. As always several Pacifists? mages were ranked in the top but now also a couple of Vampire State Building (VSB) mages, most prominent among them Valsu the most powerful eradication mage on the server and a thorn in both Tribe and Tarakian sides.

Unfortunately Tribe’s presence in the top 100 was almost exclusively green which gave Valsu a practically unlimited source of land while there wasn’t really a lot the Tribe could do in return. Looking back it becomes clear that the massive amount of green mages in The Tribe was yet another sign of their upcoming downfall eventhough they still seemed the foremost power in Terra.

Politics Heating Up

Tensions rose high between the Tribe and VSB but also to a lesser extend between the Tarakians and VSB due to their members frequently landgrabbing eachother. Then when a clash seemed imminent Tarakians and VSB came to an agreement cause in reality they shared quite similar views ingame as well as many members of both guilds being friends. Solid fundaments were laid down for what would turn out a long and mutually beneficial relationship.

More surprising was the growing irritation within the Tarakian guild towards the Tribe, their longtime ally and friend at that time. The Tribe’s topmages were almost all green as mentioned before and their primary source of land was to lore and geld for magical compasses while depending on their vast amount of allies and NaP’s to keep themselves out of harm’s way. Furthermore the Tribe itself already had a huge memberbase which was substantially bigger than any other guild on the server. Their habit of frequently taking in other guilds as chapters in addition to their own was responsible for this constant increase. The Tarakians felt that such decisions were against the spirit of the game since they only caused the game to become more unbalanced due to the formation of huge powerblocs. The Tarakian guild was a lot smaller and didn’t have that many allies or NaP’s but saw constantly targets disappearing due to becoming a chapter of the Tribe. Besides not all of those chapter guilds had a very good reputation when it came to playing fair.

It seemed that the average skill level in The Tribe was a lot lower then it had been when the Tribe became a Tarakian ally which may be a reason behind the intake of chapters. Of course this didn’t go well within the Tarakian guild who felt used to maintain Tribe’s hold on the server and secure Tribe’s hofchances while not getting much in return. Furthermore the Tribe’s problems with Tarakian leadership, their unwillingness to fight against the Empire in past resets and suspicion of the Tribe using a bug to manipulate the black market to increase their resources, did add up to the growing irritation. Last but not least The Tribe formed yet another alliance. This time a seemingly useless one with The French Barbarians (TFB), Tarakians archenemy en close ally to The Empire for many resets now. There was definately a problem growing and waiting to surface sooner or later.

The final blow however, came when TFB declared war on the Tarakia and evidence pointed at Tribe leadership as being behind this move. It seemed that the Tribe tried to increase their own hof chances by decreasing those of the Tarakian guild who had many mages in excellent position this reset while not being bothered by an endless war against the Empire. Politics were definately heating up. The Tarakian-TFB war was pretty uneventful though since soon almost all TFB mages were out of range of the t100 where the bulk of the Tarakian army resided.

The Tribe-VSB/Pacifists? War

At the same time Tribe’s relations with VSB had evolved in some sort of Cold war where both sides were downright hostile towards eachother but it had not yet come to an open declaration of war. Then when the Tribe banged down a high ranking VSB officer, VSB took that as a declaration of war. The Tribe had a superior amount of topmages but they lacked coordination or were afraid to risk their hall-chances which prevented effective retaliation. At the eve of armageddon all signs seemed to point out that there would be a very ugly and bloody war during armageddon. Especially cause The Pacifists? joined the war on behalf of their ally, VSB. Then, a few hours before armageddon, VSB and The Pacifists? gathered for one massive assault against the Tribe and managed to take down all of Tribe’s hofcontenders. Then the Tribe mages came online and retaliated heavily which resulted in VSB being pounded down hard. In order to cope with the Pacifist? agression the Tribe requested Tarakian assistance against the Pacifists? which was refused in the light of recent events and general resentment against the Tribe among the Tarakian mages. The Tribe-VSB/Pacifists? war was truly ugly and at the end only a handfull of VSB mages survived while the Tribe had no remaining members, also the Pacifists? had sustained a lot of dammage but unlike the other two the Pacifists? still had some mages who could compete for top 10 positions.

Tarakian Victory

At the start of armageddon the Tarakian guild gathered on irc to fight their war against TFB, which turned out to be very short and highly effective. Being well prepared and perfectly coordinated, the Tarakians cleared all known TFB mages within 15 minutes, another 15 minutes later there were no TFB mages left on the entire server. Armageddon ended with the best result for the Tarakian guild ever capturing 8 of the top 10 positions. The Tarakian Immortals were: Saints (1), Lartceps (Spectral 2), Oberon (Saruman 3), San Marco (St Mark 4), Rymlen (5), The Goat (6), Palomar (Kabbanour 8) and The Marlboro Man (McCloud 10). While the Pacifists? gained hof positions with DaveMcW (7) and Gilgamesch (9). This would also be the last reset for some time of Spectral, the well respected and brilliant Tarakian diplomat for many resets, and Saruman, ancient and most knowledgable of the Tarakian mages.

A Time Of Change

The start of Terra IX was dominated by the end of the alliance between the Tarakian guild and the Tribe and the start of a new alliance between the Tarakians and VSB. Tribe held it against the Tarakians that they didn’t answer Tribe’s request for help against the Pacifists? and flames rose higher then ever on the various boards of Terra. It was clear that sooner or later hostilities between the Tarakians and the Tribe could only be settled in a war. Since Tarakians nor VSB would accept Tribe’s proxy countering policy several clashes occurred which didn’t improve the situation at all. The tension only increased when reports became known about mercenary guilds that were about to be hired by the Tribe with the intention to kill off Tarakian, VSB and Retribution mages (Tarakians other new ally). Ironically the Pacifists? would be one the Tribe’s first allies this new reset.

At the same time the Tarakians and VSB proved the worth of their new alliance by taking out an agressive, highly skilled, upstart guild called The Fight Club that contended for toppositions in the young reset. Soon though the Tarakians and VSB took their rightful places at the top followed by Retribution, Tribe had to settle for second place for the time being.

War All Over Terra

As usual there were a few Pacifist? mages in the top 100 and they would soon become a problem. The Pacifists? had feared Tarakian agression for resets and relations between both guilds had always been uneasy at best but never hostile. This reset Tarakian dominance seemed to be greater then ever and the Pacifists? felt threatened since the Tarakians had never really accepted Pacifist? policy which was conflict with the Tarakian counterpolicy but were never really inclined to wage war over it. Besides the Tarakians had many members in their ranks who expressed hostile attitudes towards the Pacifist? guild in the past. But at a leadership level VSB had made it clear for the Tarakians that they felt the Pacifists? were needed to secure the top. The Tarakians therefore had no plans to target the Pacifists? and the Pacifists? were informed about that. Yet when Tribe, frantically searching for a big ally, approached the Pacifists? for an alliance the Pacifists? accepted and then became a threat in Tarakian eyes. The pacifists? had proven to be a loyal and very dangerous ally during the last reset when they helped VSB taking down the Tribe and in the context of the current hostile situation between the Tarakians and the Tribe it was obvious that the Tarakians couldn’t allow the Pacifists? to enter the top 100 while not being randomed at all. The possibility of a Pacifist? attack at a request from Tribe was all to likely and leaving the Pacifists? in peace while waiting for that attack to happen would obviously not be a wise course of action. Therefor the famous Tarakian leader Perdita announced on Camp Terra that the Tarakian acceptance of the P? counterpolicy was over and this resulted in occassional randoming of Pacifist? mages taking place. Until now the Pacifists? policy was always accepted by the Tarakian guild in that Tarakian mages who didn’t accept the P? counterpolicy didn’t receive guildsupport when clashing with the P? mages. It was felt that the P?, not landgrabbing themselves unless provoked, were an exception. So in short said mages were on their own but now finally there would be no exceptions at all on the Tarakian rule of only accepting Tarakian policy both in defense as in attack.

Of course clashes were bound to happen with this new stance of the Tarakian guild. And indeed soon the Pacifists? stone-aged Rymlen for countering a proxy-counter, (which by Tarakian rules was considered a random), for an attack that happened several weeks earlier. Rymlen in turn agressively countered those attacks and was soon enemylisted by the Pacifists? Then the Tarakians declared war since the Pacifists? wouldn’t negotiate and continued to take Rymlen down further. Soon the Tribe, wanting to get back at the Tarakian guild, started to assist the Pacifist? mages, first unofficially but later officially. This in turn caused VSB to declare war on the Tribe but sadly the Tribe in turn requested Empire assistance and the Empire with their famous cheating tactics kept VSB from playing a too active part in the war since they had to stay powered up all the time and could hardly move due to spelllocks and movementbots. So eventhough the reset was young a major war had started already.

The Tarakians and VSB vastly outnumbered managed to secure the top 50 but a lot of lower ranked members were slowly pulled down while Retribution was busy fighting TFB another of Tribe’s allies. Gradually Tarakian and VSB’s main weakness showed, due to most of their members occupying toppositions they were rather undermanned in the lower ranks and unable to effectively reach enemy mages. The Tribe and Pacifist? mages working closely together could take down Tarakian mages one by one overpowering from below while staying relatively uharmed themselves. Many Tribe and Pacifist? mages were killed but the situation was deteriorating day by day since more and more Tarakian topmages were pulled down. Mentally many mages couldn’t bring up the effort of staying active since the war took so long, and this effected both sides. A positive exception was Gummy who cheerfully took more land of the Pacifists? mages alone than almost all other Tarakians together.

Devastation Over Terra

Little more then a week before armageddon Tribe called in yet another of their many allies to aid them in their war and so Forbidden Realms treacherously attacked the Tarakian guild without any warning. At armageddon Tarakians, VSB and Retribution barely controlled the top 30 but it proved to be enough. At armageddon the Tarakians gathered massively in irc where they completely wiped out all mages from the Pacifists?, Forbidden Realms, and together with VSB all of the Tribe at the end assisted by Retribution (who had killed off all TFB mages by then) cause there just weren’t enough mages left to take the forts of the ones that were cleared. VSB also succeeded in taking out all known Empire mages and it seemed that victory was complete. The war had been ugly though and a hard price had been payed. Barely 10 Tarakians survived on the whole server. Armageddon wasn’t yet over though, Empire would make it’s presence known one more time reaching a new low by creating 140 red multi mages which succeeded in taking down 5 out of 17 VSB topmages. It couldn’t prevent them from capturing 5 top ten spots though while the Tarakian guild captured 4. The Tarakians who achieved Immortality were: The Lorax (Bale 2), The Goat (5), Blass (8) and Tac (9). Lugubert (1), Wereguild (Redruin 4), Azazel (6), Chitty Chitty BangBang (7) and Neslepax (10) achieved a hof position for VSB and Tigger (3) for Zunft Deutscher Magier (ZDM).

The Dawn Of Terra?

Terra X started well for the Tarakian guild with the joining of several more top Pacifist? mages who followed the ones that joined the reset before and the joining of Mandingo and Calavera who mainly played on b2. One of the Pacifists?, SteelDragon the capable and respected former Pacifists? leader would take over the position of Guild Deputy from Gehn who had disappeared several resets before. That relieved some of the burden of Perdita who due to increasing timeconstraints and couldn’t dedicate as much time as before on leading the Tarakian guild.

Also a new Tarakian ally was introduced this reset, the Covenant. The Tarakians together with VSB took again most of the toppositions right after research without encountering much opposition except from a small bunch of multi mages who took out several Tarakian mages in research. Even diplomatic relations with the Tribe had improved quite a bit and the situation wasn’t that hostile any longer. The Pacifists? weren’t a shade of their former self due to their loss of members but the Empire was still there. The Empire refused to let go of their war against VSB which caused the Tarakians to revoke their nap with the Empire and declare war on them to assist VSB. This in turn caused the Empire to focus totally on the Tarakian guild and yet again the Tarakians were drawn into an early war.

Another War Against The Empire

Although a few Tarakian mages were pulled down under the Empire spellscripts most were left untouched provided that they didn’t hit Empire mages which wasn’t that difficult since almost no Empire mage seemed to be able to breach the explore limited of 3.5k. Empire did have, as always, a huge amount of non-descript mages but neither that nor the oversummoned black mages could harm the Tarakian guild as a whole.

TFB however was a different problem and when Bale countered a TFB mage for devilcountering that was enough reason for TFB to try and kill Bale’s mage. In the following weeks TFB would frantically try to kill Bale’s mage wasting a vast amount of resources on him, all without effect. In the following war quite a few TFB mages were killed but again the problem of lacking enough members in the lower ranks surfaced, except this time the opposing guild was unable to exploit this advantage. The majority of the Tarakian guild couldn’t reach the low TFB mages so no one really worried a lot about this new war.

Another notable event was the mass fog/deletion of most of the Empire mages. Apparently the developpers had enough of Empire’s cheating tactics and decided to take matters in their own hands, which of course was no surprise to the Tarakians or VSB since they had known for many resets that the Empire used low cheating tactics. A few weeks before Armageddon the Tarakians made a NaP with Calculus for the Masses (CftM) who declared in turn on the Empire. For the rest the days till armageddon were pretty uneventful.

At the start of armageddon Tarakians, VSB and CftM had little trouble eliminating all known Empire mages and additionally the Tarakians made short work of TFB. Then surprisingly two more guids would attack the Tarakians during armageddon, first of them Focus of the Living (FotL) who had shown an increasing hostile attitude towards the Tarakians during the reset. The other guild was yet again the Pacifists? but neither them nor FotL posed much of a problem and both were wiped from the face of Terra within the blink of an eye.

Still the Tarakians knew the reset wasn’t over yet and they were proven right when the Empire again used their vile tactics, like in the previous reset against VSB, to take down two potential Tarakian hof contenders. Calavera’s mage was killed and it took 207 attacks to accomplish this, Kab’s mage was severely dammaged so a top ten position was not a posibility any longer. All of those red multi-mages were killed within minutes after surfacing though and the Empire couldn’t prevent 4 Tarakians and 6 VSB mages to end up in the Hall of Fame. The Tarakian mages in question were: Minister of Kena (Elamri 5), Mahan (Jupiter 6), Sniper-x (9) and Arrex (Forcen 10). Yet again the Tarakians managed to live up to tradition and capture top 10 positions. Newbie (Redruin 1), Farmer Paddy (2), Severin Suveren (Figo 3), Eblis (Azazel 4), Kosh (7), Mooshie (Hierro 8) reached the hof for VSB.

The Forgotten Reset

Terra XI started alarming, many Tarakians felt tired after almost constant warring in the previous resets. Most of the remaining Tarakians were unwilling to commit themselves fully and many gave up due to timeconstraints within the first weeks of the server. Nonetheless a small and skilled group would remain active. Unfortunately VSB, Tarakia's faithful ally, had disbanded while new guilds started to dominate the server.

Ancient Grudges

And then there was Tribe, still harbouring ancient grudges, who had gathered a coalition with the sole purpose of fighting the Tarakians right from the start without any declaration of war. As always Tribe's longtime friend the Empire provided ample assistance in typical Imperial fashion.... with cheating. Movementbots and multimages soon spoiled any enthusiasm the few remaining Tarakian mages had for the game. Apparently Tarakia’s overwhelming success during the last few resets was the cause of a lot of envy and resentment among other guilds in Terra and many mages were determined to fight the Tarakians right from the start preventing them to dominate.

No Tarakian Domination

Since the Tribe established diplomatic relations with some of the current topguilds (Calculus for the Masses and Outer Circle) their hold on the top was somewhat more solid than that of the Tarakian mages, nonetheless Redruin the highest Tarakian mage managed to secure a top 10 position and hold it for many weeks under constant assault. The other Tarakians did not manage to establish a stable position in the top 50 due to the hostile environment and the vast amount of enemies.

Degeneration Of Terra.

Soon the Tarakian guild and the Tribe/Empire alliance were warring eachother viciously while two other guilds held the top in relative peace. Disastrous events showed up on the horizon though and the downfall of AM became imminent. It started peculiar when the server was resetted after the vast majority of mages were in protection for days on end. The server was reset resetted and after that reinstated at a timeperiod two weeks back in time. Everything that had happened during that time was undone. Many players saw this and the lack of developpers who should be controlling the game and preventing cheating as a sign of AM's ending and left.

Degeneration Of Terra: The Story Continues!

Unfortunately there was more to come. Besides the threat of multimaging AM proved to be vulnerable to the exploitation of bugs concerning the gamemechanics. Apparently some players managed to find bugs in the game which gave them easy access to all kinds of resources like items, money and population. Suffice to say that this didn't improve the game at all.

Another Tribe-Tarakian war

Most Tarakians had now given up disgusted by recent events but a small group continued fighting fuelled by the fire of vengeance against Tribe's cowardness and treacherous behaviour. There were no high ranked Tarakians left on the server and most of the remaining ones hoovered around the amount of 3/4k land. Nonetheless they managed to drag all of Tribe's topmages down in Tarakian fashion in other words due to superior skill, tenacity, coordination and general brilliance, eventhough being greatly outnumbered. Tribe's highest mage even fled, after losing land to Tarakia, to one of the dominating guilds seeking refuge and claiming sudden neutrality. The Tarakians knew that this reset hof was unattainable but were determined to make sure none of their enemies would reach hof either and they succeeded very well proving beyond doubt that the Tarakians were still a capable warguild.

The End Of The Server

It was pretty obvious that this reset could hardly be called a real reset, bugridden and failing as it was. It wasn't over yet though because on armageddon the server would crash. During armageddon the Tarakian mages continued their war against the overwhelming numbers of the Tribe. All were killed though and had to reincarnate. So it came to be that half an hour or so before armageddon Rymlen the current Tarakian Minister of Vengeance was donating to the gods with a newly created mage named OmgaBomb, named after Omga a topmage heavily dammaged by Kabbanour with the unique item Atomic Bomb. Rymlen hoped to get something useful to use against a topmage since his newly created mage was obviously not capable of summoning a decent army. By pure coincidence and totally unintentional he received two atomic bombs from the gods within a mere minute. Somehow this triggered a bug in the gamemechanics and all of a sudden Rymlen found himself on the #1 position of the server without any forts or army and hardly any land at all but with a huge amount of nettopower. Shortly after this the server went down never to come up again. Most of the hof contenders didn't even get a chance to power up and the end results were never published which was probably for the best seeing how the reset had proceeded.

A Breach Of Tradition

This was to be the only reset the Tarakian guild didn't manage to put a mage into the Hall of Fame but then again no one really did although to this day Rymlen still claims that it was obviously the will of the gods for him to achieve the #1 position in hof. And he for sure didn’t want to argue against such clear Divine intervention.

The Final Reset

Terra XII started pretty easy for the Tarakian guild. They and their allies took the topranks right from the start never to give it away. Especially since some Tarakians didn't bother with research and took possession of the higher ranks right from the start. Now the Tarakian guild had diplomatic relations with a new ally the small guild from former Tarakian Jupiter. Kabbanour Redruin and Rymlen were three other Tarakians who joined that guild. There was also an alliance with three lower ranked guilds Retribution, The Covenant and LoF complemented with a nap with another small guild UIB Academy not to mention a treaty of sorts with the Empire.

Too Many Diplomatic Ties?

It was obvious that there were too many diplomatic relations with other guilds especially since it proved soon that there would hardly be any substantial opposition. The guilds dominating the server in the last reset had disbanded or were unable to take the top because the Tarakian guild and it's allies proved to be too much of a match for any other contenders. The reset would prove to be pretty boring especially since it was extended with one more month by Mari due to yet another problem. This reset went against Tarakian tradition since Tarakians never depended on diplomatic ties maintain domination on a server and because it intervened with decent landgrabbing.

A Farewell To Terra?

No one really cared anymore though because Maritel had promised that this would be the last reset of AM before the game would switch over to the paytoplay system. Soon it was decided that therefor this would be the last reset of the Tarakian guild since there were very few members prepared to pay for a bugridden game like AM. This feeling was shared by most of the mages of Terra and many decided that this would be their last reset.

An Uneventful Reset

After the first month it proved to be very hard to gain land with regular attacks or sieges and the topmages had to switch over to buying magical compasses or loring. This became even more important when the developpers decided to let the server run for 4 months instead of the usual 3 months which only benefitted the green mages with their loring advantage. But since this was more or less a farewell to Terra or at least to the Tarakian guild no one really cared and most were satisfied with this slow and uneventful pace. About the only thing of interested was a call for assistance from Retribution in their war against AoL who fought Retribution on behalf of Shaolin Temple. The Tarakian guild swayed the war in favour of Retribution but it didn’t last long because Retribution made peace with Shaolin Temple.

Armageddon!

For the first time ever the Empire mages had due to their peculiar alliance with the Tarakians and their nap with FoH managed to put quite a substantial amount of mages in the top 100 with a decent amount of land. That was indeed a big suprise since usually the Empire mages didn't manage to reach higher than the explore limit of 3500 acres.

Armageddon Once More!

None on Terra were really interested in fighting the Empire yet again with all it's vile cheating tactics and so the Emperial mages managed to get decent rankings for a change. Eventhough there was an alliance of sorts most mages kept an eye on the Imperial mages to see if they played by the rules. Soon they found out that the Imperial mages miraculously managed to gain land where no one else did. They seemed to be milking the same group of mages over and over again. Of course this was enough reason for the Tarakians to break their treaty with the Empire. They decided to wait till Armageddon and there all Empire mages were taken down without much effort. In the end the Tarakian guild managed to place one mage in hof Jez who took the #1 position as Soulfly. Three hof positions went to FoH, Sandalphon (Faery2), Raziel (Rymlen 4) and Metatron (Valsu 10). The other 6 went to UIB Academy. Jelly Bean (Azazel 3), Thin Man (Bachen 5), Jean Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg (Figo 6), The Ultimate Ganja Tree (IcyDevilz 7), local ganja dealer (Kosh 8) and Ye Liu (Kublai 9).

The End Of An Era

This was a fitting end to the glorious Tarakian guild and SteelDragon and her council decided that this was enough and disbanded the Tarakian guild.

...Or Not?

Obviously the Tarakian guild didn't really end because it was ever more than just a guild. Up to this day many Tarakian mages occassionally visit the Tarakian channel on mirc (galaxynet #tarakian) and many servers (who eventually didn't switch over to the paytoplay system for some odd reason) are still dominated by former Tarakian mages.