Character
Zivilyn assumes many different forms. Some have seen him as an old, balding man with a long beard. Though sighted, his eyes appear as twin windows looking out into space. Persons who gaze into those eyes learn their future, including the circumstances of their death. Others report Zivilyn as a prophetic child with black skin, white hair, and eyes of quicksilver. Recently, several scholars have even proposed that the ageless Astinus of Palanthas is a branch of Zivilyn. After all, Zivilyn may maintain several avatars at one time, and Astinus may be one of them. Other studies believe that Astinus is actually the Ansalon-bound avatar of Gilean, it may be that they both use Astinus, perhaps we’ll never know. In whatever form, Zivilyn wields a simple wooden cane that obeys any command it is given.
Zivilyn, god of all wisdom, is the celestial Tree of Life. His branches and roots extend into all times and places. Much as Gilean holds the knowledge of the universe, Zivilyn holds its wisdom. He acts not according to the dictates of his mind, but according to those of his heart. Because wisdom is incomplete without knowledge and knowledge is incomplete without wisdom, Zivilyn and Gilean work closely together. Zivilyn is the companion of Chislev; most mortals view this relationship as a perfect marriage.
Player
I am one of the implementors, and the CO-Owner of Ansalon (along with Solinari), one of the wacko’s coming up with the coding behind the game. I also am an avid player and role-player, as well as pk’er… may seem like an odd mix, but Ansalon is just that. Role play and player kill entwined, as it was since it’s inception in 1996 from Ahotatsu’s AlphaMUD, rising in the void left when ‘The Keep’ was no more, Ansalon has always had a vision of balance between the two very vastly different approaches to MUD playing.
As far as history in text gaming… I began playing ‘Colossal Cave Adventure‘ back in 1979-80 as a near-teen. The game had me hooked, making maps of the place, figuring out what to do, where to go.. I even mapped those damned mazes… Colossal Cave Adventure (aka Adventure) was the very beginning of text games. Later, I played Zork, and Ultima on my trusty Commodore 64… (can you say geek?).
You will find helpfiles on Colossal Cave, and Zork in the game as they were the key things that started MUDding, and a great time for myself. Also, there are some Easter eggs if you remove your light in the dark and look around, reminisce… 🙂
Much time passed, I found myself done with college and stumbled upon MUDding, upon Ansalon (the brain child of Jason/Shane/Dave aka Jair/Deason/Ahotasu) and was hooked. Of the three, Jason does drop in on occasion to see how his prodigy is doing.
Ansalon has become home for many many players, fun, full of players, and the commands are still very obvious. A Merc/Diku/Rom player will still feel VERY much at home here, with many many things added. Things are changed and added very often as we strive to reach the perfect game, but in the process we make absolutely certain that game-play is not sacrificed or adversely changed.
Enough about history.
As one of the current MUD owners, I’m here for the enjoyment of all the players, and for the betterment of the game. You’ll find I do contribute to the MUD community as well, in the form of some code, many posts, and a building/mprog (mobile programming) section which is one of the best anywhere. Our MUD often has people drop in just to talk about programming or building questions, we welcome those with open arms.
I handle the building documents, mprog/oprog/rprog documents, as well as help with the builders port(run by Solinari), the website, create headaches, er strike that (*grin*), I am the head coder for the place and am constantly looking to improve the game. To see the things we’ve done, see: the changes on Ansalon from 99 up to Today. Myself, and a few friends, have also been responsible for the mprog/oprog/rprog revolution upon Ansalon, bringing life to text.
My game is Ansalon, DragonLance at it’s finest.