About Homeward Bound

My second Utopia-based fiction was written as an introduction piece to a new Kingdom. It was Age 11 (Q1 2001, soon after I left Canada) and I had actually done the unthinkable. I had traded into an existing Kingdom, taking over someone else’s province. This is expressly forbidden by the rules of the game, though many people did it. The main motivation was either to move into SK’s (Super Kingdoms), or to join people you knew. For me, it was the latter reason. My own Kingdom was dying a natural death, and my then-girlfriend had an opening in her Kingdom due to someone announcing his intention to leave. Hers was a good Kingdom, with a good track record, and a group of players who had proven their ability to play together as a team. So I traded in, despite my earlier conviction that trading wasn’t good for the game.

I made reference to my trading in the story, with the notion that Dhuergar rules the province by proxy, since in-game, I was not playing Dhuergar Warhammer. I can’t remember the name of the province or its ruler. All I remember is that it was a dwarf province, which is lucky for me, because I know how to play a dwarf province.

In the story I also gave an indication of my game-playing experience, by mentioning all the different races I had experience with (Dwarf, Elf, Avian, Faery, Human, Halfling). In fact, I’ve tried all the different races in Utopia, including Undead and the “newer” Gnome (replacing Halfling) and Dark Elf (replacing Faery), except for Orc. The mechanics of the Orc race don’t suit my play style very well, so they’re the only race I’ve never played on any of the Utopia servers. Besides, I could never imagine Dhuergar Warhammer as ruler of an Orcish province!

Incidentally, I didn’t stay in that Kingdom for too long. A few Ages later, my province was deleted, most likely for being a traded account. I can’t confirm that of course, but I suspect that, since a few of us from the Kingdom were deleted in one purge. It was quite common for Swirve to purge the servers of multi accounts or other cheaters every once in a while. By the time I was deleted, I didn’t mind it. My ex had already stopped playing, and I had no particular attachment to the Kingdom, so I took a hiatus from the game when it happened. It was a break I needed.