First off: Slyde and others on Xegony: I haven't played much in the last
couple months, bought a house so massive moving, unpacking, reconnecting,
painting, wallpapering, etc ensued. Then the Holidays set in. So now things
are coming slowly under control, we are taking a bit more time to play, that
and we're too broke to do much else LOL! We've also got 2 crops of twinks
coming along and I'm about to roll up a cleric (HE or Dwarf?) I've never
spent a whole lot of time in Karnors, but Sebilis is fun. Always good to
kill froggies! We are hanging out with and making new friends in Venator
Sapentia since our guild is farily small these days, so they invite us out
to do new places. Plus some of the VS are Excals that left for a larger
guild that could 'do the big things'. They do this without any squabbling
over loot and usually with very good organization.

Now why am I a bard. I wasn't a bard before, UO didn't have them per se, nor
did Realm. I typically tend towards a versatile class in most games. I
started EQ in Beta 3. I made many many characters, sometimes just to get a
look at a new town. Some leveled to 5 or 10, sometimes I changed the stats
and restarted just to see what would happen. I remember a human druid
starting in Surefall: got stuck in the tunnel out she was so blind. Maybe
that's why humans get candles at starting today, hehe. My very first
character was a WE druid but GFay kept crashing. So I rolled up a dark elf
shadow knight. She got as high as L10 before Beta 4 and the wipe. Somewhere
in all these characters, I started a WE bard. Brilinnia was a name courtesy
of the random generator. Leveled a few levels and explored a bit, as in
Faydark to Qeynos at L6 ("What race are you??"). I rerolled her more than
once to see what effect the starting stats would have, played other races
and classes but always came back to the bard. I think that was the main
hook, traveling, but it just seemed to be the class that fit and was the
most fun, even now. I could go places nearly fearlessly because of Selos. I
ran into another bard in Qeynos, of the unimaginable high level of 30
something and he took me out to South Karanas after showing me how he kited
griffawns and borer beetles and explain some of the things he'd learned
about barding. We went to SK to check on the Liseria lute quest and bug or
feedback it since it was still broken. Beta was a great adventure as we
hardly knew what zone connected to which and how to get there. Bards could
travel better than anyone to explore territory and there were almost no
tp'ers, the few with that kind of level were deep underground and rarely if
ever seen. It was freedom and appealed to the type of bard I enjoyed: the
traveled scholar. Corpse locate was also hugely important in those days. I
remember helping a 30 something warrior the day they put the muddites in
Beholder's Gorge. He got blinded and ganged by them and had no idea where
his corpse was besides in the Gorge somewhere. He was bound in Freeport.
I've always carried a lightstone since those days, to aid those not blessed
with good sight. I never got higher than L14 and that came on the last day
of beta, but I knew my main would always be a bard. After gold, I became a
specialist in recovering drowned corpses. It's a funny but good feeling to
zone into Cazi and have your name shouted across the zone and find out this
was someone who's body you pulled out of a river once when they had given it
up for lost. Or go to OOT and recover one your whole guild believes is a
lost cause. My bard can't seem to get lost either. My wizard can get
hopelessly turned around and have to dig for a map, but my bard always can
find her way.
The world is now known and maybe a smaller place for the knowing, but still
I enjoy running across the land, knowing I can lend a hand in almost any
situation. There is a song for everything.

Brilinnia Ban'Sidhe
Excalibur, Xegony