Near Misses: Becoming Mysrai

I came this close to not being Mysrai. As the clock ticked down to the finishing of my area and I kept finding small details to wrap up for the release, I was all set to go to Hallifax. That’s right: I’m the reason you don’t have Jadice right now.

I’ll wait for a bit while Hallifax and Gaudiguch figure out whether that’s a good or a bad thing. Take your time, I need to go get some coffee.

Well, theoretically you could blame Isune, or Zvoltz, or any of the faceless ephemerals we have hanging around the joint. But Jadice was my ice baby, conceived of a healthy dose of the Snow Queen, a certain nameless Magnagoran, and a drunken evening staring at green and indigo glaciers and making loud ooooOOOoooh noises, much to the annoyance of my roommates.

I’ll be honest: I didn’t want Gaudiguch. At that time, nobody wanted Gaudiguch. It was well known among players and staff as the bastard child of the Basin, stinking of weed, drama, and 4chan. There were more bad feelings and bad politics in the city than there are right now in Washington DC. And I say 4chan because you could barely wade through the city without running into memes. Can has bong hit?

This was about the time Estarra began wrapping up the History of the Elder Wars, and introduced the concept of the Triumvirate. The Ephemeral Who Would Be Hoaracle was thrilled. So was I. We made gleeful plans for tea parties. Fanfiction might have been written. Lyreth and I were plotting snide remarks at each other. The future was glorious, and very shiny.

And that’s when Estarra started trying to convince me that I really, REALLY wanted Gaudiguch.

I was midway through making up suffixes for Jadice at the time and was less than receptive for the reasons previously mentioned. It became a joke of sorts – Estarra would pop in, send me a tell asking if I was really sure I wanted Hallifax, and then go on to something else.

“Look,” I think I said to her at one point, “Unless you’re letting me do Crowley’s Scarlet Woman in Gaudiguch, it’s not happening.”

Estarra stopped asking me about Gaudiguch for the next few weeks while I planned my area release. In retrospect, that should have worried me. When the Creatrix gets an idea, She doesn’t let it drop. But I was in the middle of moving, my area still had detail work to be done, and bug hunting through areas can take a ton of time. So, I ignored the obvious warning signs.

Those few weeks ended. I was ready to release.

“What if Mysrai is a shapeshifter?” Estarra proposes, all of a sudden. “What if…?” And she was off down one of those tangents she goes on, which sometimes results in strange proclamations about marsupials but most often results in some sort of elaboration and extravagance of plot that weaves something into the overall fabric of Lusternia.

I was cautiously impressed. This would allow me to keep the Crowley. However…

“Alright,” said I, “But I want her to be riding a dragon out of Revelations, Mysrai has to shift genders as well, and I’m releasing a pocket at the same time. Also, looking at Their true form causes madness ala Cthulhu.”

Estarra agreed. A couple of weeks later, the Dreadform of Iklara was set loose on the Skarch, various Gaudiguch-related NPCs ended up with shards of Magnora’s tear in their eyes, and the Scarlet Goddess made Her first appearance in the City of Gaudiguch.

I have to say, Gaudiguch, I never looked back.