E-Samurai Interview: Brennon
[09/28/2004] [The Interviewer] State your full Amtgard name for the record.
Brennon Viridian. Any titles? Viscount, Warlord, Sword Knight, Master Wizard, and Defender of the Emerald Hills twice. How did you come up with your name? I chose the most common mispronunciation of my mundane name. When did you start Amtgard? In June of '97. What's your earliest Amtgard memory? I remember my first day out. It's stuck with me after all this time. I went out to the Duchy of the Midnightsun, borrowed a blue flatblade from Rath, and proceeded to leg people. Stick jock or flavah? I'm pretty much the seminal stick jock. I'm in Amtgard to hit people, and that's it. Everything else I do for Amtgard is geared towards making the game better so it grows and I have more people to hit. Aren't you in some kind of company? I'm in the Green Dragons, and am currently captain. Before that, I was a Justicar. GCA? I am a proud member of the Golden City Allstars: Amtgards Premiere Fighting Force. When you have to kill every motherfucker in the room, accept no substitutes. What would you say is Amtgard's single greatest purpose? To have fun. If you don't enjoy it, don't play. I think too many people get caught up in trying to be important, or take themselves too seriously, or take their awards too seriously. Come on people, it's a game. Yes, it has some serious social structures attached to it, but it's still whacking people with foam. What's your favorite event? Probably Bannerwars, but I have a love-hate relationship with it. I spend the three months before Bannerwars each year working my ass off to get eighteen people in six points of armor. I hate that. But the ditching at the event is phenomenal. And, of course, going home with the bragging rights is always nice. I love that. What's your favored class, and why? I'm a power-gamer. I play whatever class is most advantageous to the situation. These days I normally play Reeve though. I find if I participate in battlegames with less than thirty people, I end up unbalancing them horribly. I do, however, really enjoy running battlegames that people have fun participating in. I run a lot of different stuff, try to keep the populace excited and interested. Get them to fight with their minds as well as their weapons. What's your favorite weapon combination? For a long time it was sword and shield. Then after a while, I changed to Florentine. These days, I don't care so much. Weapons are weapons. I'm going to kill somebody no matter that I'm using, so I tend to pick a combo and go with it for a couple hours and then switch to something else. What's your favorite shot to throw? I really enjoy sticking people in the side with my 'Madu of Questionable Legality.' If I do it just right, I can hook their ribcage and make them nauseous. You're a sword knight. How'd you get that? Insanely hard work and dedication over a long span of time. What does the sword belt mean to you? Nothing. It's a trip of white leather. It's the ability to play two classes I don't think are worth playing. Sword belts, knighthoods, and awards in general mean nothing in our game. They are not consistent from kingdom to kingdom, and therefore I can never know if Sir Such-and-Such is really worth his belt by my standards or not. It's generally better to just not pre-judge people based on their awards. Do you think there are too many knights in Amtgard? I think there are too many bad knights in Amtgard. I would really like to be able to look at a knight and know, for a fact, that this person is one of the best people in the game at their chosen profession. As it is, it doesn't really tell me anything about them. 6.1. Good, bad? 6.1 is good. I wanted to change the name to 'BrennonGard', but Phocion wouldn't let me. Anyway, it will be finished and released soon. Hopefully there will be much rejoicing. IKBOD. Good, bad? Depends. Most Amtgardians aren't capable of brushing their own teeth, let alone planning and organizing something as diverse as an Inter-Kingdom Government. I'm in favor of standards that unify our kingdoms into a cohesive game, but I don't think we need (or could support) an IKBOD at this time. I would be in favor of extending monarchs' terms to a year and giving them more power, though. I think that would make the governments more stable in and of itself. BLBOD. Good, bad, and why? I don't really have an opinion about it, actually. It's the people in a body that make it worthwhile or not. The BLBOD has been different things at different times depending on who has been on it. What's the best thing to happen to Amtgard in the last five years? The upswing in inter-kingdom travel and communication is really the driving force in the game. I think it is that alone which has made all the progress we now have possible. What's the worst thing to happen to Amtgard in the last five years? Lukor and Avalon. What's your single fondest Amtgard memory? Strange, I don't really have any 'fondest' memory. Nothing I look back on with nostalgia and go 'awwwwww.' Most of my memories of Amtgard are tied up with emotions other than 'fond.' I have a lot of memories that I enjoy thinking back on, however, none of them really stands out as my favorite. Getting knighted by Lief and the GCAs at SKBC was pretty nifty-keen however. What's your worst Amtgard injury? I haven't had any really major Amtgard injuries. I've had some bad sprained wrists and ankles that benched me for a month or two, but never broken anything. In fact, I've never had a broken bone. I'm just resilient. Who do you most admire in Amtgard and why? Newbies. It takes a lot of courage to do something as odd, cliquish, and unaccepted as Amtgard. What does the Emerald Hills mean to you? Utter, never-ending embarrassment. My kingdom really seems to work hard at constantly lowering its standards in a quest for the absolute lowest common denominator. There have been ups and downs, of course. And recently, we have gotten much better. Still, there is rampant thugery from the Corsairs, Sable Pride is mostly a collection of people who care so little about the game that they wouldn't play if they couldn't smoke pot, and our knights circle goes on these periodic jags where suddenly it's not okay to not knight people just because they aren't good at what they do. My kingdom used to be a bunch of hard-hitting, pipe-toting mofos. Now it's a joke. What is the greatest misunderstanding people have about the Emerald Hills? I think most people associate me with my kingdom, as though we reflect each other somehow. I think I can speak for my kingdom as well as myself when I say that the two have nothing in common. If you could visit three (and only three) kingdoms, which three would you pick? Why? I haven't been to VSR or MS... So I guess I would like to visit Neverwinter, CK, and the IM. I really enjoy those three kingdoms. What do you see in your Amtgard future? More work. After the rulebook, I've got some other projects I want to work on. Things that will hopefully bring us closer together as a game. And more hitting of people, of course. Do you have anything you'd like to say to the readers of e-Samurai? Everybody, wherever you are, work to make your group a better place with higher standards. People will always rise to a challenge, but only if you make them.
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