Thank You.

Shaddus

It's come to my attention that Thax's name has popped up on the right side of the HELP GODS list, marking him as inactive. When he started giving 30 day truefavors a while back, it didn't click with me that he might be leaving in some way; in my hubris, I thought that perhaps he was apologizing for being so consumed with the new guilds, because I know he had been doing a lot of work in the background. It appears that I was wrong. 


When Thax was starting to appear, I'll admit that I had been hoping that it was Fain. Fain was such a strong influence on Shaddus, and even in myself, his player. While I've had an amazing amount of roleplay from many gods over the years, Fain was the one that got me hooked on orders, the one that made me fall in love with Magnagora.

When I first started playing Lusternia, I was somewhat limited to 1-2 hours a day in my downtime at a job I was working, and my character in Celest didn't really advance very far. I didn't have a lot of time to read the histories, or role play, or do much of anything. Said character's divine interactions were generally with Terentia, and they didn't get along at all. After a while, I quit playing her, and ended up starting Shaddus around the time that the Ninjakari opened. I decided that I wanted to make Shaddus more three-dimensional, and after looking at the orders, picked Fain. I've never, ever regretted my choice. Order members like Sthai, Morvior, Karnagan, Melville, Thoros, and Vathael made me really examine myself and what I wanted out of Lusternia. While I'll never be as amazing a  roleplayer as they are or were,  they were a goal to be reached toward in many ways. As well, Fain was the consummate role player, always keeping me on my toes and quite often scaring the bejeezus out of me. His rituals, his godrealm, the many surprises he had for us and the almost flippant way he viewed us as mere playthings or pawns in a titanic game of chess, each of these helped shape Shaddus in many ways. Fain was, for Shaddus, his raison d'etre. Period. 


So when Drocilla appeared in Magnagora one day and announced that "He has returned", my heart stopped for a second. At the time, Fain's order had fallen into disarray, his coffers empty, his followers low. I scurried around to make an offering to Fain, scraping up esteem in hopes that he wouldn't take his anger out on me. When Thax showed himself, I was...well, disappointed at first. Not my kind of divine anyway, I thought, in a sort of sour grapes moment. How wrong I was. 


After a short while, I pondered why I cared. Was Fain all that Shaddus was about? If he never came back, would Shaddus just keep waiting? Would there never be another divine that Shaddus was interested in? So, I prayed to Thax. My reply, when I received it, arrived stamped on a metal plate. "Come see Me."


Thax's words didn't shock me at all. I didn't fit in with those who would seek him out,as Thax pointed out. Shaddus was no warrior, and never really had been. For all intents and purposes, Shaddus was more of a scribe, a provider, a teacher. And yet, I took a leap of faith and told Thax that I was ready to become more than I had been, ready to rip out that most important part of who Shaddus was, and replace it with something more, something unknown and strange to Shaddus. 


Fain and Thax were, for lack of a better term, day and night in so many ways. Fain was a micromanager, and loved to set his "pawns" against each other to see who wanted their victory more. Backstabbing, greed, cruelty, these were things Fain cherished in his followers, things that Shaddus simply wasn't good at. 

In the small time I had to get to know Thax, I saw that he was all of the good parts that Fain possessed as a deity to worship, but none of the (to Shaddus), drawbacks. He was disinterested in backstabbing, didn't want people groveling to him. He wasn't interested in shiny things, and we even had to prod him to come up with a symbol we could throw on designs. He was straightforward and to the point, and wanted his order to work together to achieve their goals. He simply wanted his orders followed; the hows and whys were unimportant. This really resonated with me, as well as those around me. 


So to you, Thax's player, thank you. I don't know what you're doing now, or if you'll even see this, but you definitely made an impression on me and others in the short time you were in Magnagora. Good luck in whatever you're doing now. 

Thalkros

Echoing Shaddy's sentiments here, was a bit bummed to find out Thax had left. Years and years ago when I first started playing and I was reading the histories and such, Thax was one of the really cool sounding Elders that stuck out. I always joked about jumping Orders if he was ever taken up as an active divine, mostly because I'm probably the biggest WH40K fan in existence and serving the Machine God would tickle me for eternity.

Then of course I find out during my hiatus he did indeed get picked up and I wasted very little time at all moving Thalk over from Raezon's Order. I left behind an OH spot, Avatar role, and Cult I had held for many many years to get a bit of fresh air for my character. Do I regret it? Very slightly, actually. Just for the fact that that was a very large investment of my time and essence that I felt I personally just threw away. I don't blame Thax's player however, burnout(if that's what it was and hopefully not anything serious) among volunteer roles is very real and the job is often times a very thankless one.

So like Shaddus said, thanks for the fun while it lasted. The handful of interactions we managed to have were fun(and comical at times) and hope all is well.

Vatul

@Thax - Thank you for all that you did, seen and unseen in Magnagora. We'll miss you, and I hope that whatever you're doing know is something that you love!