Cloak and Daggers

My fellow MMO newbie bloggers have been diligently participating on Ambermist’s (of Tastes Like Battle Chicken) weekly challenges. So, I told myself to stop being a slacker and participate as well. I’ve already missed out on the first and second challenges. But I wasn’t going to miss out on the third one, which is to  write something about our main character(s) on MMOs.

Unfortunately, real life blew up on me this week, causing me to miss that challenge too. But since I already have the draft written for my entry, I thought I’d just finish it and post it anyways.

The White Lion and The Rogue
As many of you know, I’m pretty new to MMOs. So, I only have two characters that has reached endgame: Aethenbrior, a White Lion in WAR; and Skron, a Rogue in RIFT. Those two are what I’d consider my main characters.

Aethenbrior is my first MMO character that has reached endgame. He also gained a bit of fame in WAR as one of the few White Lions who still hung around in Tier 4 RvR, the class being gimped and all. Overall, he’s a good character. But he pales in comparison to Skron.

So, I’m going to write about Skron.

Skron, watching an open rift raid.

Skron, The Pseudonym
Skron has been around since 1999. Though not as a game character, but as a pseudonym that I used while I was writing for a music zine.

I was just getting into geekery at that time. Music was the only thing I knew back then, and earned a living by critiquing local bands. Unfortunately, one band didn’t like the way how I critiqued them, and got a few threats from them and their fans. While I didn’t take those threats seriously, I was still grateful that they didn’t know the real person hiding behind Skron.

Skron, The Rogue/Shadowdancer/Guild Thief
A year after getting threats from bands, I finally dropped Skron as my pseduonym and picked a new one. During this time, my zine also widened their focus and included other subcultures in our very tiny city. That was how I got exposed to Dungeons & Dragons, when I interviewed a group of professionals in their 40s that would meet up every weekend for their adventures.

When the group invited me to join in, I didn’t know a thing about D&D. But I already knew what my character’s name was going to be –Skron. It took me a while to create him though. At first, I thought Skron (which rhymes with Krom) would be a good Barbarian. Then, I remembered what Skron (the pseudonym) did for me. He cloaked me from real life danger. So, I thought he’d be just like that in our adventures –hide the party from danger (through the use of smoke bombs and shadow manipulation).

He was a fun character to play. While he’s pretty useless in toe to toe combat, he did excel in a few things. His sneaking, hiding, and thieving skills were off the chart. So he was often sent by the party as a scout, infiltrator and saboteur.

Skron, The Ascended 
On MMOs, however, I didn’t get to play as Skron until in RIFT. Because, most of the time, the name would be unavailable to me. I guess it’s that cool. But the Ascended version of Skron was badass. As a Saboteur/Assassin/Nightblade, he had a pretty high DPS. So finding a group for Expert Dungeon runs, and even raiding, was easy for me. I enjoyed playing him, verily, that I didn’t even create a single alt in RIFT.

So, that’s my entry for Ambermist’s third challenge. Late, I know. But better that than never.

Tags: Assassin, Dungeons & Dragons, Guild Thief, Nightblade, RIFT: Planes of Telara, Rogue, Saboteur, Shadowdancer