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The LegendMUD Immortal Staff
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The LegendMUD Immortal Staff
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The staff of LegendMUD has a very varied background, which contributes to the success of the mud. The majority of our current staff are players who submitted proposals for improving the mud, either via additions of areas or code, or other major contributions. One element of the system that it is important to emphasize is that being an immortal is treated as a job, with ongoing responsibilities and a need for professionalism. People who no longer have the time or the energy to devote to their immortal job simply move down to the inactive list, with no judgements made about their dedication; everyone on this page cares deeply about the mud, but only those who are active remain as full staff. If you are interested in contributing to LegendMUD as an immortal, please refer to the Reference section, where you will be able to find documents of interest to those who wish to propose. The staff is here to help you and to improve Legend; they are here to help you the player, in other words. But they can best help you if you direct inquiries and problems to the appropriate individual and department. |
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Mertjai |
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Building
The Building department is in charge of expansion and maintenance of the mud world. Staffers work on improving existing areas with new mud features, and on additions of entirely new areas. If you're interested in submitting a proposal to the Building department, read The Builder Proposal Outline for more information.
Coding
The Coding department works on and maintains LegendMUD's code base. New features are constantly being added. If you would like to propose to the Coding dept. please see The Coder Proposal Outline for more information.
Player Relations
The Player Relations department has charge of social events on LegendMUD, including the Legendary Timesnewsletter, roleplaying events, trivia and other games, other elements which, though not part of the game system, enrich mud life. They also handle complaints and disciplinary problems, not unlike a virtual police force. They ensure that harassment and misbehavior have no place on LegendMUD, in accordance with our Player Code of Conduct. They also handle a number of administrative tasks. If you are interesting in submitting a proposal to the PR Department, read The Pr Proposal Outline for more information.
Head Immortals
The department heads are each responsible for an area of life on LegendMUD. Their responsibilities vary according to the job, and they each head up a staff which works on that area.
Immortals
The full immortals are each specialists in a specific department, although may well be assistants in the other departments. The brunt of the work in the department therefore falls on them.
Assistant Immortals
Assistant immortals are new immortals still in training, or those who do not have the time to devote to the job that being a full immort in that area requires. Many of the staff are assistants in multiple departments beyond their primary one.
Emeritus Implementors
Emeritus implementors are acknowledged for their ceaseless committment to Legend, which produced what we have today.
Inactive Immortals
Immortals who go on leave of absence, or simply disappear from the mud, are placed on the inactive list. Their job powers are restored to them once they are again able to contribute regularly.
Retired Immortals
Retired immortals are those who have chosen to leave the staff, and have the option of remorting. Their contributions will not be forgotten.
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Bart Bart started playing Legend at about the same time he started singing professionally, which has made for a very noisy household from time to time. When not touring Australia with various opera companies, Bart spends his time relaxing at home with his miniature poodle (very masculine dammit) and 2 kittens, not to mention his wife who pays the rent, allowing him to keep singing! |
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Breton Breton is one of the original builders at LegendMud. He is responsible for Casablanca and WWII North Africa (and it's naked, weaponless soldiers). He earned a degree in History from the University of Maine (http://www.umaine.edu). He too ended up at Legend via Worlds of Carnage where he whiled away many an hour with the founding immorts of Legend. Ah, the days of 2400 baud. Now Breton can be found mostly afk, if online at all. He works as a programmer/integrator in South Portland, Maine. He lives in Buxton, Maine with his family. That's about all. His web site can be found at http://camfam.bravepages.com but it's not much to see at the moment. It's redeeming quality is a link to some photos. He is desperately waiting for the chance to get DirecTV DSL so he can have a static ip and run his own servers. He is also waiting for Neverwinter Nights. |
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Charity A founding implementor (along with Sadist), Charity came up with the idea for Legend's theme while a history major in college, as a way to evangelize history to the techhies who play muds. In the pre-departmental days she oversaw area creation, general administration of the mud and the imm staff, and contributed to the high-level design, including the ideas of eras, trans quest hubs of overlapping areas, and the herbalism system. Student days were followed by stints as a teaching assistant/grad student, stained glass artisan, and currently technical writer for the state of Texas. Having retired from imphood to supposedly spend more time on these RL pursuits, she still devotes most of her mud time to behind-the-scenes stuff like immort documentation. Currently a builder and assistant admin, her areas usually languish at either 20% or 90% done. Charity plays Legend regularly, but with one exception her characters are pretty mediocre. She and her cat share Sadist's Austin house with him, his cat, and a third feline that neither one wants to claim ownership of. |
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Chaykin Chaykin's origins are shrouded in mystery. He appeared among Legend's citizens many years ago, having apparently endured some brain-damaging sort of trauma which left him without the gift of great intellect but with an unflagging ignorance of his own mortality. Being the ultimate example of mind over matter, he believed himself immortal for so long, now he is. The player behind the mask has been playing Legend since October 1994, grew up in Massachusetts and currently lives in New Hampshire working as a home theater installer. |
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Deanna Deanna lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her two cats and life partner. Her area, gold rush Melbourne, is full of the places she visits daily, but set back in time about 150 years or so. She hopes that players have as much fun exploring her area as she did researching it. One of Deanna's main loves in life is food and cooking, and you get get a sample of what she likes from the transcript of her lecture on this topic |
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Ea! Ea! lives in Chicago working in network security. He is currently in the Coding department and has worked on many changes to the Mud's code base, including large parts of the fight system, the pkill system, and many other smaller changes. |
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Firefly Yet another Dane joined the immortal staff on April 4th 2003 - Firefly. When she joined, she was finishing her Masters degree in Math and Physics, quite a feat considering that she's been addicted to LegendMUD since late 1996. Firefly is working on bringing Japan as it was around year 1600 to come to life - hopefully there'll be a little bit for everyone once it's done. |
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Haley Haley lives in North Carolina and works as a QA Manager. She is currently the Head of the Admin Department and has over 4 years experience as an immortal to LegendMUD. |
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Herbert Hello there! My name is Herbert... I will be your new assistant PR for the evening and would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself.. For many years I have been playing roleplaying games, this may have something to do with imagination which I pride above almost all else or it could have something to do with my obsession with pushing that STUPID red button, which almost always ends with me being splatted. As I said Imagination is very important to me because I also like to write, nothing award winning or printable but small slices of impromptu entertainment for people, tailormade for their specific likes and dislikes. And arent the best moments in life when you can make someone smile and forget the world, if only for a moment? So yes yes indeed, I like imagination, writing, roleplaying, and of course those mechanical monstrosities which make our love for the game so available... computers. Many moons ago I came by an Atari 2600 and it was love at first sight, Blue Square vs Pink Square was decidedly the best, and so as I grew older technology grew with me and like some scary symbiot I kept up largely, but always as a hobby. I hope this has explained a little of who I am, what I like, and what I do, and I would love to invite you all to track me down and say Hi whenever you can, I can even help with some things so try me out! |
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Hrath I started my mud "career" back in 95 playing around with a CircleMUD with the other local Linux geek, but lost interest trying to find a non-commercial one online, (mudding two people over ethernet is really -THAT- funny) In June 2000 I was introduced to LegendMUD, and mudding was again worth spending time on. I'm 23 years of age and male. I'm probably what would be referred to as a nerd, in computer terms. I tend to use humor alot, so if you don't understand me, or worse don't understand me and feel offended, I am -probably- joking. I'm not english native, so bear with my english skills. I treasure my privacy. and hopefully I respect others, atleast I tend to think so. In addition to using humor alot, I tend to be quite silly, ironic and the likes. I'm not a wiz with C, but hopefully I will be, I guess time will tell... Besides that, well, talking with people usually gives you a hint of who they are, have questions? feel free to ask me, I do however reserve the right not to answer if it is a little too close to home. When not on Legend or a new work project, I usually spend my time trying out new types of software, spend countless hours setting up config files for my favourite programmes, help friends with technial problems, visiting my family or the likes. |
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Huma Huma goes by the name of Shane in real life and hails from Michigan. I graduated from Michigan State in 2004 with a degree in Political Science which I can do absolutly nothing with. I currently work for my father selling insurance and playing legend when no one is looking. My hobbies include computer gaming, basketball, baseball, and avoiding the pressures of the real world as long as possible. I started playing this game sometime about 1996 and after many years of being loud and obnoxious Immorted in March of 04. I like long walks on the beach and dinner by candle light, my dislikes include back hair and 80's mustangs. |
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Jenna Jenna lives in Melbourne, Australia with her husband, dog, 2 cats and 3 fish. There used to be 4 fish, but one of the cats intervened. She works for a educational software/systems development company as a glorified Sys Admin (it gets a funky title). She was first introduced to the land of unix 15 years ago - to play nethack. After 10 years of playing on Legend, she's finally immorted. |
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Kaige Kaige, a founding immortal on LegendMUD, worked for 2 years as a professional game designer for ORIGIN on the Ultima Online project. Sounds familiar, huh? No, Kaige and Ptah aren't the same person. Nor is she some fancy mob he dreamt up one night. They met at Washington College during her senior year, got married the week before he graduated. From there, they went to the University of Alabama, where Kaige began a graduate degree in Economics. Since Alabama didn't agree with her and she had a lot of free time, a large number of areas now bear her name. She also dabbles in coding, and her projects include the late auction system, seasons, the phases of the moon, the free form clan system and enhancements to the original acts system to provide builders with more flexibility. As implementor, she attempts to make sense of the chaos and make sure what already exists works. Much of her real life timeis taken up by Elena and David, her and Ptah's children. |
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Kheldar Kheldar listens to many forms of music from pop rock to classical. He designs, programs, and plays fantasy style video games. He also reads various literature, mostly within fantasy and sci-fi genre. Kheldar's been mudding for several years and has been playing LegendMud for a little over a year now. |
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LadyAce Originally from Oregon, LadyAce has been playing Legend since December of 1994, and graduated in 1998 from the University of Chicago with a Bachelor's Degree in Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations. Since then, she has been employed at the same university, working with computers. Her hobbies are biking, embroidery and various crafts, reading, writing, jujutsu, and cooking. |
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Lenore In real life Lenore can be found stomping around Toronto praying for patio season. She spends her week days knee deep in html and actionscript and in her spare time enjoys painting (her current favorite medium is chocolate), photography, making jewelry and feeding her reality tv addiction. She has been playing LegendMUD for about 6 years and was the GM for Intempesta Nox. She is currently working on Industrial Hawaii. |
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Lirra Lirra is one of the older playrs of Legend MUD, having started in October of 1993 when the game was still in its pre-open stages. She graduated from Washington College in 1996 with a BA in Fine Arts/Drama. Lirra spends most of her 'free' time online, aiding in the creation and adminstration of several text based roleplaying games, holding a position of Wizard for a Tales of Ta'veren MUSH, and Goddess of Cuendillar MUX. Creating plots and plot-related events is her specialty, though she helps out in other areas of Legend MUD when an idea strikes her. Lirra became an immortal in August of 1996, ascending past her troubling career as a mortal, known chiefly as the one of the few people to have the worst set of stats ever from the original stats/skills system when the game first opened. In her carreer as a mortal, she was a member of the Hermetic Order. She quit the Order due to some adminstration problems and later joined the Knights of Legend, where she was dubbed Lady Lirra. Later, she married sir Dominic Hastur, the proposal coming to the shock and surprise of the Lady. There was something of a scandal between herself and Sir Crowe during a time when Sir Dominic had to be absent for a long time, and soon after Dominic's return, Lirra had joined the ranks of the Immortals. |
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Lorenzo Lorenzo has stayed in Chicago, USA long enough now to call it home. He spends days as a jack of no trades with the University of Chicago, where most of his time is sunk into making network servers go (and then stop, sometimes with a bang). On the side he enjoys reading, riding, open-source software development in the public interest, though somehow much of that time goes into maintaining a semblance of order on some computer or other. He still prefers his Commodore 64 to whatever the Internet came up with last week, although he's got to admit that Google is onto something. He's been a player on Legend for almost five years -- too long to be young, but not long enough to be veteran. |
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Mariachi Mariachi's been playing Legend since the late twentieth century. After toying with the idea of immorting for many of those years he finally had time to commit in twenty ought-six and dove in. His real-life interests are many and cover lots of areas. He's got no kids but he and his wife are considering getting a puppy. He works in publishing for a large textbook publisher in the top-secret cutting-edge special-forces custom textbook division, and is gradually getting a Masters with the intention of teaching High School English or Classics or Theater, whichever they'll let him talk about to impressionable young minds. |
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Mertjai Mertjai has been playing Legend for.. ever? He's a transplanted Canadian in Washington state who enjoys English naval history. He works on computers for his profession, and in his spare time, he works on computers. Did I mention he works on computers? He has a daughter, a wife, a cat and a dog. |
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Ptah Ptah is one of the founding immortals of LegendMUD. As a professional game designer with ORIGIN, he was Lead Designer forUltima Onlineproject. He graduated from Washington College in 1992 with a BA in English/Creative Writing and Spanish Literature. He also holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Poetry from the University of Alabama. During his graduate studies he also studied hypertext theory and design. A large part of the mud is his building, and his code work on Legend includes elements ranging from numerous skills and spells to the speech and moods system. As implementor, he mostly set direction for new development on the mud. He is currently working for Verant on Star Wars Online. |
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Rufus Rufus has been with LegendMud for quite a long time. Almost boasting a degree in philosophy, he has also worked at Origin Systems as a game designer. As head builder, Rufus oversaw the implementation and maintenance of the areas on LegendMud. He now spends most of his time on Legend coding, but continues to work on several areas as well. |
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Rusalka Rusalka recently graduated with a library science degree at the University of Texas, Austin. She also did an MA in English Literature from the University of Colorado. During the course of her working life, she has worked as a babysitter, an university food services worker, a writing tutor, a grader, a teaching assistant, an adjunct writing instructor, a temp, a technical writer, and currently, a humanities reference librarian at an university library where she perseveres in an neverending quest to Know Everything. Rusalka's "Real Life" interests include books, wierd BBC shows such as "Black Adder," molecular biology, rubber stamps, Anime, and music (she plays recorders, piano, and acoutic steel string guitar). Characteristically enough, Rusalka first learned about MUDs through a 1992 article in "The Atlantic." Intregued, she inquired further and eventually found LegendMUD. Rusalka's Legendary career included being the GuildMistress of the Hermetic Order, in between various bouts of being slain by the Vampire. Rusalka has won expies for her role as a GuildMistress, MUD citizen, and roleplayer, as well as for her work on Tudor England. Set in 1600, it features both Queen Elizabeth I and Shakespeare. She held the first position of Head of Player Relations where she facilitated roleplay, games, discussions, and other things that make Legend more than just a "mere" game. As a PR Assistant, she currently runs the OOC Prize Machine, so let her know if you have suggestions for cool prize strings! |
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Sadist A founding implementor (along with Charity), Sadist completely rewrote the Diku/Merc code to provide Legend with its base. Although he allowed himself to be talked into using other peoples' design for a lot of features (losing the magic/tech efficacy differences in tech/magic eras was particularly disappointing), every major system still has Sadist's code as its underpinning, including such critical features as our mobacts. In RL, Sadist conducted the feasibility study that convinced Origin a massively multiplayer graphical game was possible, and he thereafter became key programmer of Origin's Ultima Online. He has worked on five other online games since leaving Origin to found his own company, Wombat Games, which is working on its own first massively multiplayer online role-playing game as well. Sadist is an avid Everquest player and has recently started playing Legend again, usually in Everquest downtime. |
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Sandra Sandra has been playing Legend since early 1995, give or take, and has been an immortal for most of that time. You can see some of her building work in her areas - Salem, Boston, Pittsburgh, and Legends of the Past or speak with her about various Legend issues. She also tends to dabble in the code from time to time, fixing small bugs and writing the occasional spell or skill while she learns to code better. In real life, Sandra lives in Austin, along with her four cats. |
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Sasha Sasha has played Legend MUD since 1995, only taking a break to fall in love with, and marry, her shiny-new husband! They met at Burning Man, woo woo, and live in NYC with 4 (rather nice) cats that she didn't want, but took in, because they were found sadly wandering the streets of Hell's kitchen. She's the creative director at a big interactive firm in the city, designing websites and such, but spends most of her time overextending herself and obsessively planning -- her next big trip around the world, the renovation of her loft, big parties, her theme camp at Burning Man, etc. Sasha's often a little stressed out, but she's nice. |
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Spencer Spencer is a 1974 graduate of UT-Austin, with a degree in the Liberal Arts. He has a supervisory position with the Texas Secretary of State, where he has been employeed for the last 18 years. As you may know, he has two children (both of whom play on Legend). Spencer has long enjoyed game playing and fantasy literature as indoor activities and camping and travel as outdoor activities. As a member of the Player Relations Department of the Immortal staff, he spend much of his time assisting new players get the feel of their new environment. He is also working on some things to entertain players and characters. |
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Straussy Straussy currently lives in Columbus, Ohio. There he works for the College of Veterinary Medicine at OSU as a guinea pig for various new medicines... erm.. as a database manager. He took the job when he realized the girl to guy ratio was 9 to 1. Who knew he would use what he learned from college!? You can find Straussy online, but more likely than not he is oow working on his areas, namely Titanic. |