Well, I'm just going to mention the three that I've seen in action over the past several months - apologies to the rest of you. I'm sure you're great as well
Oliver - Oliver spends a terrific amount of time preparing sermons for this incredibly over-the-top lawful good character who is a priest. The sermons? Absolutely brilliant, and exactly the type of thing you expect from any prestigious and zealous fanatic. In my opinion? This character is more devout than our friendly Cordor priest in the Triad temple that sells us kits and whatnot.
Junior - Junior is a knight - and I can't see him in any other way. He acts "Exactly" how you would expect a knight to act who would stick by, sword-in-arm, behind those he has pledged his loyalty to. At the same time, he doesn't have the blind-loyalty that some may have. Overall? One of my favorite characters to speak to IC. The character has a sort of complexity about him that I can't explain, but more on that later. He would rather "run then walk" when he is summoned.
Kristofer - Kristofer is someone that I've seen less of than the previous to, but one only needs to hit, "Examine" on every other object in the Mystran Temple and around the Arcane Tower to see what this character is about. An artist, for sure. Someone who has pledged their art to their cause, through altars, statues, paintings, etc. etc. etc. The amount of time the player has put into the fixtures must be astounding - and that's not including gathering the materials. The player has added a certain realism in the environment that is true to his character and very respectable.
But, I've said all of this already, I wanted to mention the REAL reason I'm giving this Kudos. When you're playing Arelith, there are going to be times where you are going to meet inconveniences. This may be a time where you witness an OoC friend who you would normally kill, or having to fight 30+ players because you are doing exactly what your character should do (That was quite a show by the way). These characters get it right. Every. Single. Time.
There have been times that their characters actions have gotten them exiled. Rather than "You know, I don't want to get banished from place X because my character is insanely devout. I'm going to let this slide because it is horrible not being about to go to place X and it's overall a huge inconvenience that I don't want to deal with."
You know what they do?
They say, "I signed up for this, so I'm doing it right." and take the fall for their actions.
I think they have dealt with more conflict and annoying issues because of their characters than any other player I've seen. Most recently, I heard that they left an incredibly fun event because their characters would have done the same thing. They missed out on FUN because of what their characters would ACTUALLY do. Who does that?!
They wouldn't hang out with warlocks no matter how great of OoC friends they were. They would lose IG friends because of something THEIR characters saw as, "Unholy" they would rather be hated by the entire Island of Arelith then disobey their character's true character traits. The players have a mind of saying "This is what I signed up for" when they hit the "log in" button, and the devotion blows me away.
This doesn't even mention what they've done with the sermons, the gatherings, and help that their priestly characters have offered others. I'm sure most of us have some idea of how insanely accurate that is for a temple.
Lastly? The level of complexity. For characters that are hard core, "Black and White - Good and Bad" there is a great level of complexity. Really? I can't quite explain it. You would think that a "black and white" character would be easily predictable, but you would be surprised! Just like any real person, they have flaws, and there is an unreal amount of depth there.
If you haven't done so, spend some time with them. They may annoy you at times, they may kill your friends, but overall, you will get the same experience as you would get from pious knights in a novel about the renaissance. The realism, devotion to a character's concept, and IG dedication is probably the best I've seen so far.
Kudos all around!
