Shin Ravenloft

Guild Leader: Lunakitty

The Rebuild

Upon news of Genestealer's retirement, Lunakitty took it upon herself to reform Ravenloft into a new guild in early (around 3rd~5th) September 2003.

"Shin Ravenloft" ("shin", meaning "new") was formed from the remaining Ravenloft members: Sixe, Lumialle, Lenor, Ezell (who later rejoined as her huntress Lewelyn), Xheif, Lord Raven and Nicko.

The west Prontera flower girl became the new rendezvous point for the guild, as it was were Lunakitty, Sixe and Lenor would usually meet up to start their hunts.

Along with the old recruits came some new faces: the young acolyte Tobei (who would later become the guild's famed "White Whale Hunter" aka Dark Lord), Dark Lamour (a hunter Lenor tanked as an archer), Dragon Force and Jellopy: 4ea (the guild's pure forger).

The guild reached its peak in activity when the assassin, teylo, was invited into the guild by Lenor upon his wish to have a guild for his assassin.

During this time, Glast Heim Prisons lv 1 become the guild's new regular hunting spot. teylo's unique ability to "attract" a huge number of monsters made for very fast levelling. Unfortunately, all of the good work was usually reduced or cancelled out thanks to teylo's tendency to attract too many monsters. This earned him the reputation in the guild as "super death magnet".

Along with DragonForce, who had an unfortunate talent for attracting too many bugs in Prisons, the two of them upheld Shin Ravenloft's proud tradition of mass-mob guild deaths - a proud tradition that was previously upheld by Lord Raven and Ravenloft huntress, Fuyumi.

Changing Times

As time passed, iRO began implementing patches to the servers that would drastically change the player's gaming experience: first Comodo, then Turtle Island.

It was during the Turtle Island (TI) patch that SR's levelling ground of choice became Turtle Island lv 4.

During this time, SR quietly began to build up respect and a reputation among other well-established guilds on iRO Loki. SR was always seen together in TI4, and as a group, they rescued a number of other individuals and parties who were overwhelmed by the turtle mobs.

It was also in TI4 that Sir Cyrus. earned his reputation as an insane mobber. The mobs of turtles that he was able to gather (without dying) were so huge that it had its own unit of measurement - the "Cy-sized" mob. More often than not, it threatened the existence of everyone on the map, including his own party.

The next stage in the evolution of SR as a guild occurred after the introduction of guild wars through the "War of the Emperium" patch.

Ill-prepared for the arrival of the patch, SR was not able to acquire a fort at the beginning, and spent a month supporting Playmates (PM) and Slaughtered Saints (SS) in their WoE efforts.

Conquering Prontera

Then, on the faithful day of February 18, 2004, SR managed to win their first fort in Prontera: Valkyrie Realms 3. The claim was even more spectacular and unexpected given the fact that it was a weekday siege and half the guild either sleep, work or study.

However, SR was far from prepared to hold the fort. Preparations where necessary and had to be done fast. teylo worked diligently to level another wizard to help the defense, Lunakitty started a recruitment drive.

The result was inevitable, SR lost the fort to the "addicted." guild. But not before valiantly maintaining the defense for 40 minutes - longer than the guild expected to stand.

Homeless, SR was once again back to helping SS (who have settled into Valkyrie Realms 5) and PM (who owned a Geffen fort).

During a particularly quiet siege, PM priestess Coolmint, suggested that SR leave their post and try for a fort in Prontera. With Sir Cyrus. leading the charge, he managed to single-handedly break the emperium of Valkyrie Realms 3 within the dying minutes of the siege.

For the next two months or so, SR made VR3 their home. Their WoE effort was strengthened with the formation of the guild extension "Shin RavenIoft" (upper case "i" in place of the "l"), under the leadership of teylo's wizard "teylo kun" and Lewelyn's priestess "Yurei". The longest run was 20 days (6 straight sieges successfully defending), which broke Exodus' previous record of 11 days.

Then, complacency and mis-communication started plaguing the two guilds. SR became unable to successfully defend the fort. With each loss came internal bickering and a huge rift started to separate SR1 and SR2 - a rift that was made worse as Lenor and teylo's relationship grew sour and real life events made Lunakitty unable to log on regularly.

After a few sieges of homelessness, Ryuzin rallied up enthusiasm to reclaim the old SR home - an effort that was well answered by both guilds. They managed to reclaim VR3 at the beginning and hold it against the likes of Yuko Ogura from The Shiny Ones, and Barf from Cataclysmos.

Sadly, the defense for the next siege was not answered as enthusiastically, and Lunakitty had no choice by to scuttle the fort.

It was the last time SR would stand as a self-sufficient WoE guild.

Conquering Payon

However, SR was far from being dead in the WoE game.

During their reign in VR3, SR forged an alligence with the No Love (NL) guild, who previously held the record for holding Valkyrie Realms 4 (84 days in a row successfully defended) until the "Novae Inflammo" incident*.

SR continued to Help NL defend VR4 until NL was once again kicked out by the original Geffen alliance - Gaia, Eternal|Asura, and Playmates (who forgot that SR was now allied to NL). Having nothing better to do since the servers for the Geffen and Alde forts were down, they came and attacked the alliance. Although the defence stopped many break-in attempts, they were finally worn down and NL lost the fort to Gaia.

NL decided that it wa time for a change of scenery, and with SR's help, they successfully overthrewn the Dragon Slayer's guild from the Payon fort, Balder Guild 2.

Unfortunately, the stay was not long. The alliance was kicked out at the next siege by a 7 guild rush and after that, both NL and SR followed their own agendas for a few sieges.

Disagreements between NL, SR and SS caused both NL and SR to break off their alliance with SS and forge a three-way alliance with the Dragon's Pride (DP)guild. A share castle policy was in place, and together they wreaked havoc in Payon for a month or so: successfully taking and defending Balder Guild 5, Balder Guild 2 and even Balder Guild 1 - the fort that was previusly held by the German guild, Godlike, for more than 100 days.

However, the Payon alliance, which then primarily consisted of Cataclysmos, Sasuneac and the Fatty Chubby Kitties guild, where adamant about keeping the SR/NL/SP alliance out of Payon. When the Payon alliance "promised" Balder Guild 1 to Elegy, a new guild established by ex-XGMR knight Melancholy, it became harder for the alliance to stay in Payon.

Internal problems got the better of the SR/NL/DP alliance, and it was decided that it was better if each guild acted on their own for a while.

"Internal Bleeding"

In the mean time, relations between SR1 and SR2 continued to degrade. With SR1 no longer sieging by themselves, SR2 became inactive. There was little to no interaction between the two guilds.

teylo kun eventually broke up SR2 and the remaining members were merged into SR1. teylo kun did not rejoin the main guild however, instead following Yurei and Ryuzin and joined the Insurrection guild.

At the same time, SR1 struggled to stay inactive as real life issues started getting in the way of game commitments - especially for Lunakitty who was busily preparing for her own real life wedding, and Sevenne who was making preparations to under take overseas work.

In their absence, Lenor and Sir Cyrus. were left as sole stewards for the guild.

While Lenor did her best to keep the guild active through "guild road trips" and the rallying troops for seiges, Sir Cyrus. did his best to keep the guild competitive in WoE. He worked closely with Jinku~, DP's WoE leader.

With SR continuing to struggle with attendance for sieges (the guild often sieged at less than half the guild's capacity), it was decided that the guild would continue working together with DP.

Wanting to pursue their own plans, No Love's place in the alliance was replaced with the Heroes of Hyrule (HoH) guild. Together the three of them conquered Prontera forts, moving between VR1, VR2, VR3.

End Game

Suddenly disaster struck the guild - a faith worse than any hacking.

Gravity's heavy hand of judgement once again struck the guild, and indefinitely suspended both accounts held by Sir Cyrus. for "benefitting from a 3rd party program".

Emails of protest were sent to the iRO GMs by guild mates and allies - but they were all swiftly dismissed with automated replies or ignored all together.

Thoroughly outraged by the unfair judgement placed upon their friend, the three original poineers of Shin Ravenloft - Lunakitty, Lenor, Sevenne - all decided that the iRO was no longer worth supporting and would quit at the end of their current subscriptions.

Game commitments were wrapped up and WoE arrangements were finalised. On November 21 2004, the guild participated in their final siege. The guild funds and treasure collected over the year was distributed among the SR members who chose to remain in the game.

A memorial screenshot was taken on the orc map in the Geffen field - the same map where Ravenloft took their final guild shot.

Then, on November 28, 2004 SR officially quit as a guild with a celebratory dead branch party on Turtle Island 1.

* See the WoE section.