Circle of Power
CHAPTER 1: Origins Circle of Power was originally founded on the guild server by Soulless. CoP had modest beginings but after getting its feet wet for a couple of resets eventually developed a fairly significant member base. Forming alliances with a number of other guilds CoP attempted to prove itself in battle, taking on a number of terra's most powerful guilds. After a particularly brutal and bloody conflict, CoP and her allies had failed to force a restructing of the guild server power base. Although no clear victory emerged for either side, the failure to dislodge their enemies from the top forced the leadership of CoP to consider moving in another direction.
CHAPTER 2: Moving Servers, Cowboys From Hell, CoP: sub Metalium, First Hall of Famers Starting with the second reset of Ager 1, Soulless, now known as Stigmata, relocated Circle of Power to Ager. Many of the players felt that the slower pace of Ager would be more accomadating to their schedules and CoP set off to prove it belonged.
Unfortunatly, guild peace did not last long. Some members felt that the leadership of Stigmata's leadership style was to agressive; they felt that the guild's reputation had suffered from lack of clear and effective management. Led by (I need help, sadly I can not remember the player's name and the old archives are lost) more than half the guild spilt off to form a new guild called The Cowboys from Hell. CoP was fractured and crippled. The majority of its top players were now gone. With the loss of most of it's power base, the CoP leadership at the time decided to approach an ally for help.
Contacting BelZPock (not sure of his ager name) CoP leaders requested to be taken in as a subguild of Metalium. Before the CoP/CFH spilt, Metalium was one of CoP's strongest allies. Now without much an ally left, Metalium was more than willing employ the remaining CoPers as part of their guild. For CoP, it was a blessing. Able to maintain it's independent identity while still enjoying the partership of a powerful friend, CoP began a long rebuilding process. In fact, by the end of the reset, CoP successfully placed two of its members in the Hall of Fame.
Chapter 3: The Dogs of War With the conclusion of the reset, Metalium decided it no longer would be a part of Ager. CoP was once again on its own. Luckily, some successful recruiting and retention placed CoP back in the drivers seat of its own destiny. Working hard to build partnerships, CoP successfully signed mutual allanices with guilds such as the Legion of the White Rose. This reset marked the beginning of a conflict that would simmer for more than 3 periods of terra history. Although most of the records are now lost to time, a battle began to emerge between CoP and The Ringlords. Both guilds felt it was their right to move up terra' ranking list. Unfortuatly that meant conflict.
The drums of war grew loud on both sides. After desperate negotiations failed, conflict erupted. With most of its members focussed on ranking, CoP lacked the substainal middle and lower ranked players needed to fight and win wars. CoP's leadership made the decision to request the aid of the LotWR. The Ringlords responded by asking their allies, Middle Earth for help. The battle did not go well for The Ringlords. CoP took the top advantage earlier, blasting down the highest ranking Ringlords. With the coordinated support of the LotWR, a bitter battle occured for the remainder of the reset. Both sides suffered heavy casualties and in the end two key outcomes occured: first, the Ringlords and Middle Eart were wiped off the face of terra in the waning days of the reset. the second, and for CoP, unfortunate event occured when a number of guilds sympatetic to the Ringlords cause struck down potential CoP hall of fames in final hours of the reset.
Chapter 5: The High Watermark of History With the war won but hall spots lost, CoP rededicated itself to return with more power and promise. Stemming from an incident that occured late into Armageddon, when a CoPer (coincidentally, also the author of this very history) assisted mages from the Army of Darkness in an effort to have an AoDer hall at the expense of a LotWR ally, a budding relationship with AoD and subsequent falling out with the LotWR occured. After the formal annoucement of a CoP/AoD alliance CoP and LotWR parted ways. This reset was rather uneventful from a war perspective. Buttressed by powerful allainces, an active player base, and strong leadership CoP took command of many of the top ranking spots. In the end, CoP secured a couple of hall of fame slots and considered the reset generally succesful. In fact, it was probably the high watermark in CoPs history.
Chapter 6: The Last Ride War. Blood. Chaos. During this reset the entire server was ripped apart by war. No guild was spared. At one point, every major, and even the majority of the minor, guilds were at war with each other. For CoP the conflict began early. Near the completion of research for most players, a particular Ringlord began to heavily target CoPers in his power range. After a strong response from a number of CoPers failed to rectify the situation war became unavoidable. For two resets tensions between CoP and the Ringlords had boiled. Now they exploded. An impromptu BBQ by CoP led to the death of the Ringlord in question and now war was unavoidable. Led by Elvish Presley, the Ringlords were detemined to rectify their prior defeat. From the CoP perspective, the war started well. With a player base of around 30 with most ranking in or near the top 100, CoP bashed the Ringlords from the rankings. However, the early success would be shortlived... This war would not be fought with allies. With all of terra at War, the conflict between CoP and the Ringlords was left to fester on its own. This time, the Ringlords had an answer for CoP. For weeks the war dragged on. The Ringlords had stablized into the middle ranking levels while most of CoP stayed near the top. However an important reality began to emerge; CoP could not finish off the Ringlord mages. The lack of experienced fighters, little diversion in color (the author of this text was CoP's only Red mage which proved to be an insurmountalbe problem as the war dragged on), and unwillingness of some CoPers to drop from the top and fight allowed the Ringlords to slowly beging to take control. For weeks, the Ringlords used a powerful combination of tactics, focussed heavily on using green mages with treants to pickoff CoPers one by one. In the end, more than half of CoP was dead. When an alliance of mages led by Topia and AoD cast Armageddon, the final battle in CoP's long history began. In the early hours of conflict the remaining CoPers and Ringlords clashed on the battlefield. Tremendous attempts were made by both sides to gain an advantage. The Ringlords knew that they would have little time before the remaining highly ranked CoPers would eliminate them all. But the unplanned reset (geddon was cast making people unable to rework their play schedules) created problems for CoP. In the end the Ringlords were dead but most of CoP no longer had a chance win a hall spot. In a last ditch effort CoPs two top ranked mages, who had controlled the number 1 and number 3 ranking spot for nearly the entire reset still had an outside chance to hall. But the efforts of the ringlords proved to have been to much. Although CoP began the week of geddon with 6 of the top 10 spots, no CoPers achieved hall status.
Chapter 7: The end CoP as a power base was done. After the prolonged Ringlords conflict many members decided to retire from terra or move on to a different guild. Stigmata took the remaining players to AoD in a merger before retiring himself and brining to an end the long and proud history of Circle of Power.
Written by Yalith, former CoP member and long time player of Archmage
