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
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. During that time the Tarakian guild was known as a particularly effective warring machine and also without it being a specific goal that guild managed to place at least one of it's members in hof every reset.
The history of the early resets as written by Corvus Corax:
The History of the Tarakian Guild
The Tarakian Guild rests on its rich history of Honor and reputation to support that honor. From the creation of the Guild based on the Pact, we have protected our members and our ideals for as long as the history of Server 3.
Hogfather founded the guild in late november, only a few days after the creation of Server 3. We grew strong and loyal members by word of mouth and became one of the largest and most powerful guilds in all of Terra. Dispite our size, we gained little recognition. The Tarakians used that to our advantage so only those mages who truly wanted to benefit the guild joined, and made us stronger. We had few enemies, and lived by the pact. The Tarakians, through the diplomacy of our founder and through adherance to the Pact, had the honor of being the largest guild to never go to war. The Great War
In early january, a rogue guild called Fist of the North star had shared control of the top ranks with our trusted ally guild, the Lords of the Realm. Members of this rogue guild of seven members, Chadruc, Alastor, Groda, Tezcat, MasatoTC and Jaz, would jump down in rank so as to be able to hit those with half their power then jump back up, often hitting Tarakians. Using this tactic they helped secure the top ranks for only themselves and the Lords of the Realm. We had no alliance with the Fist, but the Fist were allied with the Lords, so the Tarakian leadership consitantly offered agreements of peace despite having two or three attacks on our top mages each day from a Fist member. Tensions grew as no reply from Fist leadership would come.
One of our own Tarakians, Cain, retaliated with devils. The entire Fist jumped upon him, destroying half of Cain's power. The arrogance of the Fist, not even allowing mages to retaliate by exploiting the double power limitation or gang banging any who would retaliate enfuriated the Tarakians, who have lived by the pact that a guild will only defend against unwarranted attacks. Plans were underway to educate the most arrogant of the Fist, Groda, who led the crippling of Cain and threatened the entire guild.
On Blood Monday, January 10, 1999, the entire Tarakian guild united against the arrogance of Groda, some estimates of the items and spells used on him range above 500. Only the most loyal of guilds could unite half of its members on one night. Groda lost a week's worth of turns, had all his troops destroyed and lost all his items and geld that night. Only protection and the non-lethal desire's of the Tarakian guild kept him alive. We wanted to prove to the Fist of the North Star that no one was untouchable, and we succeeded.
The following day came to be known as the Day of Betrayal, as the Fist of the North Star had their friends within the Lords of the Realm annex the Fist and declare war on their own allies, declare war on the Tarakians, they initiated the Great War. The Tarakian guild had offered forgiveness for the attacks from other Fist members, we knew that the Fist would do everything within their power to destroy us and we accepted their attacks without retaliation. This betrayal, however, was beyond the scope of understanding. No Tarakian would ever conceive of betraying one's own ally, even under the guise of protecting another. We prepared to defend ourselves against the onslaught of the largest guild in all of Terra.
Although they were the largest guild, their war tactics were severly lacking. Only a few lords actually got involved, showing what a paper tiger the former Lords of the Realm really were. Groda deleted, and Chadruc quickly fell against Petroy. The former Fist seemed to be spearheading the Great War, with a few of the top ranked mages aiding with spells. The Tarakians only attacked the Lords that attacked first, and made short work of a few of them. We had succeeded in killing 3 mages in the top while they had only killed one of our own through a death and decay. Once they started adopting some Tarakian tactics and even one truly powerful strategy that only the top ranked mages could pull off, then the war started becoming a war of attrition, with mages falling on both sides.
The Lords of the Realm offered peace on the second wednesday of the Great War. That same day our revered leader, Hogfather was killed in battle. The two-faced nature of the Lords of the Realm caused the war to continue, seemingly to the reset. The next day the Mirrorstar Academy joined the war "not to win, but to show that they will not stand by to the oppression of the Lords of the Realm." The Mirrorstar Academy leadership lacked the necessary experience to do well against the war refined Lords of the Realm, but their support provided too many targets for the Lords to handle well.
The Tarakians needed to instigate a final blow to the Lords, and we did so by attacking Fate, ranked 8 at the time. The Lords of the Realm had a great deal more to lose than we did, and so we used the same organization skills against Fate that we used against Groda. Cain, newly appointed Minister of Vengeance to replace Walker Sky, the former Minister of War, used Walker Sky to devil all of Fate's army away while our remaining mages assaulted him with spells. Fate lost more than 20 mil power that day.
This instigated the Midnight Conference by Fate and Drak-Korin, who we would learn the, with Miles, had the true power within the guild. Corvus, seemingly against his will but for the good of the guild, hammered out a peace agreement between the two guilds. Fate would survive, and the Great War came to an end. The Hacker War
Soon after the peace accords, several encounters with mages that had pestered both guilds during the war occured. The next day, Miles, Paladine, and FierceFoo were deleted by crackers. The Lords of the Realm immediately went to war with the cracking guild, Total Destruction. These cheaters boast their illegal activities by posting guild kills on their web page, most of which come from non-guild servers and obvious hacks. The Tarakians also lost Brolo and Ratlov to these hackers, so we quickly went to war against the guild, now fighting on the same side as our former enemies.
Using our common war knowledge, the Total Destruction guild fell quickly while other mages where seemingly randomly hacked into and deleted. There were no other Tarakian losses, but White Tower and Lords of the Realm lost more mages to the disgusting activities of the crackers. The Tarakians and Lords of the Realm now became allies in less than a week after they were bitter enemies. Many will not forget the Day of Betrayal, but the Tarakians have finally forgiven the Lords of the Realm. The end of an Era
As Server 3 drew to the final reset, the Tarakian guild came to end the server with finallity and grace. Despite the log-in bug which erased Petroy's, Shangrila's and Mageke's chance at finishing in the top 10, the Lords of the Realm and Tarakian guild shared the final 10 spots roughly equally. Only the tenth ranked mage was not a member of the two guilds. Our top finishers were Red-One, Ygo, Spectral, and Gambold. Also, Cain finished at rank 15 with a spell power of only 240. One doesn't need a high spell power to get up to the big boys, but it helps.
Post Reset, Server 1
Server 1 and 3, fused, and the Tarakian guild moved to server 1. No longer were we one of the only large guild, yet it seemed that, along with the Lords of the Realm, we were the only honor-based, defensive guild in Terra. There existed hidden guilds, pacifist guilds and guilds of guilds, yet there was nothing quite like the Tarakian guild in existance. Our honor was tested within two weeks within the new Terra. Heat in the Top
As various mages wrestled for the top spots even before they were finished researching, powers began to emerge. It became clear that a few guilds had their minds set on being on top, and that they would use whatever means to make sure that only they had complete control of the top spots. The Drakkhan Empire, headed by Myth, was the worst example of this power grabbing.
Even during the first week, confrontations between Tarakians Gambold, Petroy, Utopia and Cain arose from Drakkhan's Myth and Morgoth. The Drakkhan mages held control of 3 or 4 of the top 10, and would coordinate attacks on any other mages who would threaten their position.
The Tarakians took a passive stance, not wanting to start a war before we even finished researching. Myth was quick to apologize and declare that there would be no more attacks on Tarakians. We accepted this temporary truce, welcoming the good natured message that Myth gave us.
Soon after, the Drakkhans would again coordinate attacks against Tarakians(and many others) in the top ranks. Desiring the greater good over immediate war, we declared them level 3 enemies, and let those who were attacked retaliate. Once again, the Drakkhan Empire gave us a message of desired peace.
Not long after they gave us a second letter of good will, only a few days had passed, they attacked every Tarakian within range without warning. After immediate messaging, they blamed the death of one of their one in the lower ranks on Ashram. Ashram replied that he had attacked the mage, Dim, once successfully and that dim retaliated eight times, then was heard of no more. The Drakkhans seem to merely check the chronicle rather than actually ask their own for the story before acting. The 10 Hour War
The Tarakian Guild would no longer stand for the tyranny that the Drakkhan Empire represented, and responded to their declaration of war in kind. Given over 12 million power in retaliations against myth, and 8 million against Morgoth, we had the means to teach each mage a lesson and dig them a grave to study it in. Under the leadership of Wildcard, in his last official duty as Minister of Vengeance, we were able to coordinate a strike that involved over 15 mages immediately at 13:00mt(machine time), with more Tarakians active as they logged on into the night. Petroy gained his retaliations through devils, and Hammarubi and Utopia cleaned out the remaining troops with their retaliations. BaoChou took Myth's last fortress at approximately 20:00mt. Ashram took full advantage of his retaliations against Morgoth, then Cain and his army of a lone gorilla finished off the remaining Drakkhan pest at approximately 23:00mt. The Taint of Total Destruction
After this stunning Tarakian victory, the executed Drakkhans cried in uproar on the Banquet Hall that they were deleted through cracking, and accused the entire Tarakian guild of cracking into a mage so that it could attack with devils. It reeked of Total Destruction.
Mordain, the Ambassador from the Lords of the Realm, quickly gathered information and found that the Total Destruction guild was active, and had a hatred of the Drakkhan Empire as well. Apparently, they kept tabs on the guilds that had so quickly eliminated them before reset, and found an oppurtunity to get revenge on the Drakkhans in the wake of the Tarakians.
Not understanding terms such as fair play or honor, they simply cracked an unaligned top 10 black mage and deviled Myth, Morgoth and mages of other guilds that were in the top 10 that they didn't like. Not only did this bring terrible light onto our education of enemies, it almost saved Myth and Morgoth by putting them into protection. McCloud and Mageke could no longer participate through siege.
Believing the Tarakians to be the TD crackers, members of the Doom Riders of Khimriz the Red who joined in against the Tarakian guild deviled us, and deleted, with flames burning red on the Banquet Hall. They however, seemed to be the only ones who would challenge the honor and reputation that the Tarakians had earned through the months. Many mages, unaligned and unknown, such as Pete and Thane, came to the defense of the Tarakian honor. Obviously the words that we used to form the guild have been put in practice and gained the Tarakians the reputation that we deserve.
Thank Terra. The Dissolution of the Lords of the Realm
The Lords of the Realm had a strong presence on both server one and blitz two, creating a strain for their leadership. When a war broke out on blitz two between the Weavers of Reality and Lords of the Realm because of consistant breaking of the Non Aggression Pact between the guilds, their leadership was strained even further. Soon after, the aggressive and problem ridden A Tribe Called Quest declared war and called in as many allies as they could against the Lords of the Realm.
Drak-Korin, leader of the Lords of the Realm, knew that he could not devote his life to both servers, and also knew that his fellow lords where pushed to the limit having to fight a war on two servers. Corvus offered Tarakian membership to any willing Lord of the Realm. Many accepted the joining of the guilds, as we already had many lines of communication between the guilds, and friends on both sides.
The Tarakian guild grows stronger with the true joining of the last great mages from server 3.
The End of Terra II
Soon after the dissolution of the LotR Armageddon was upon us. The Tarakians with their allies fought well capturing all but but one of the top ten spots. The Tarakian Immortals included Aelthian, Fiercefoo, Spectral, Dragonfire, Beachbum & Gambold.
The Legacy
After the end of Terra II many of the original and Founding members were quite weary of the game and constant changes. Corvus looking to take a "working" vacation hoped to have Cain tor Cobalt take over as GuildFather. However Cain as well as Cobalt, Mageke, Bao Chou, Bambara and many others had decided to retire from the field of battle. Wanting to keep the mages together Petroy volunteered to assume command of a new guild that would carry on the Tarakian Guild's Legacy. This was a troubled time for the guild as Petroy due to other constraints had to leave Terra mid way through. From that point Zorath took command until a warp in the fabric of Terra caused him to lose control of his mage. From that point Wildcard took on the reigns of leadership through those last troubled weeks. Terra III was most notable for the Destruction of the Inner Circle which the Tarakians had helped found but the Legacy was not a part of and the Machevelian plot of the Alliance of Free Kingdoms to destroy the Legacy. However despite the vicious attacks of 6+ guilds the Legacy not only managed to survive but STILL place a mage in the top ten of Terra.
Return to Glory and the Formation of TACT
As Terra IV dawned the Tarakian Guild had returned to claim its rightful place as the top guild of Terra. Also of note was the formation of TACT, a collition of Guilds. Similar to the Inner Circle and the United Nations of Terra before it TACT is comprised of guilds who work together for mutual benefit. However unlike those previous groups TACT has developed a close knit alliance between all its members as well a common Foreign policy and the foundation of the TACT academy which trains new mages to improve the overall level of competition.
Only the future will tell if the Tarakian Guild will continue its dominance of the the Top Ranks but the signs look good.
The history of these resets has unfortunately never been written
The history of the latter resets as written by Rymlen:
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 (Figo 1), Wereguild (Redruin 4), Azazel (6), Chitty Chitty BangBang (Calavera 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.
