Gryffindor clan history...

[carnelianfire]

I'm just popping by for a quick visit. I'm not too active in DC these days... I got kinda burnt out on it for various reasons, but I still enjoy visiting DC places... and I don't know when I'll be back, but I figured I'd check out Gryffindor and see what it's all about.

*waves hello*

[veela]

Hi there! You should come back and visit again. This is a great place to hang out, even if you aren't into DC.

[carnelianfire]

Thank you for the warm welcome... I don't get much of that in DC these days except from my old council members. That has a lot to do with my not being quite as active as I once was so it's my own fault. Hehe.

I don't wish to take over the other thread on sleep, so if someone would be so kind as to explain what function "Karma", "Exalt", and "Smite" serve? Granted, if it's somewhere else on these boards, I'm sure I'll find it eventually. I was just too lazy to look when I first posted...

I'd also like to hear a little about Gryffindor Clan. Who started the clan? What are the clan's goals? ... or shoot, I simply love entertaining stories... so if you've one, I'd be tickled to hear it! =)

[alanc303]

entertaining stories? Sorry, nothing interesteing...Karma is how "good" a person is...When you exalt, it makes their karma go up. WHen you smite,it goes down.

[Torra]

Hiya Carnelianfire:

Glad you stopped by and hope to hear more from you.

If you want interesting stories go to the spammer thread...It's great fun !!!!!

P.S. about the whole exhalt/smite thing.....you can exhalt 1 person an hour.... but you rarely even see smiting here in Gryffindor and even then it's done as a joke or in a joking manner.

We're terribly civilized round herra. We even have a Brittish Enchanter LOL

[veela]

A quick history of the clan:
Well, the person known as Vyriello got potter to start playing DC. Potter got hooked and started his own clan: Gryffindor. He and Cynder worked really hard to recruit and get Gryffindor up on the lists. It worked, but as Potter's time became limited, he decided to start up the forum and hand the clan over to one of the most active members, Justthisguy. That's why Potter is administrator of the forum but not clan leader.

[Cynder]

Little bit more of the story (leastwise... what I remember)

Potter had gotten me hooked on DC. After a few months he started talking about forming his own clan.

"Why would you do that?"

"Because I can."

"You're nuts! Running a clan is tons of work."

"Not if its small... just family & friends."

I couldn't understand why anyone would start a clan & not try to grow it, but I just shrugged & he started Gryffindor. Only then... he started pressuring me to switch all my characters into it!

"But there's no abilities --- why would I want to switch? I still don't understand why you started the clan. If I started a clan I'd try to see how fast I could get it to grow big."

"Switch your characters into Gryffindor & you can be a co-leader & grow it if you want."

"You don't mind? You're the one that will have to do all the work as clan leader."

"Won't be that much work. It'd be nice to get some abilities and we can send out the extra equip as welcome packages."

That made sense --- I'd been sending him all my extra equip that I just couldn't bring myself to sell. It's so hard to sell something when you know that somewhere there is a newbie who would really love to have it!

I really don't think he expected me to actually grow the clan. But I wanted the abilities & it was a challenge! It was tricky because we decided that we wanted the clan to stand for friendliness, helpfulness and honor. Therefore recruiting members from existing clans was totally out!

We also weren't interested in just adding characters or power. We didn't really want the people who were joining clans just for the stuff (besides, we weren't - and still aren't - a very rich clan). We wanted to attract folks who were in DC for the fun & who would make steady clan members. Ones who were looking to add a bit of personal contact to the DC experience. In other words, we wanted to build a community.

So clearly, we were going to have to be creative & careful about how we went about getting members. Potter & I started writing down the clanless character names from the fame list after we played our characters. We figured we could reach folks who were either new & had never tried a clan before, or were not playing very frequently. I would send out a letter:

"Hi, I noticed you do not belong to a clan. I'd like to invite you to join Gryffindor. We're a friendly bunch & try to help each other out...... Cynder"

I'd send out 20-50 letters a day. Kept a database so that I wouldn't accidently send to the same character twice -- sent thousands of letters! Only got one negative response & I think I managed to smooth that over --- apologized & sent some goodies for disturbing him. Potter started trading bunches on the trading post & answering questions in the clan hall.

We started getting 5-10 petitions each day. Kinda surprised folks 'cause we came out of nowhere & within a couple months we were in the top 12! Lots of existing and powerful clans were very friendly & helpful to us when we were young & just starting up... Particularly Tarsla - clan leader of.... uh.... was it Guardians?... Anyway, Tarsla was very helpful!!!

Potter would send a petition & a welcome package with a letter --- he'd say to send stuff back when they no longer needed it & that if they had any questions about DC or just wanted to say hi -- to feel free to write Potter or Cynder.

We got lots of pen pals & made lots of friends (Hi, Justthisguy!). I wanted a website & started working on one... ran into lots of real life problems (another whole long story) & the project got delayed... so Potter started up this website & forum.

And that's the story of one of the younger, but hopefully one of the friendliest clans about. (well... sort of... I suspect there's a bit more that Potter could add )

[carnelianfire]

I think I remember when your clan was first created. That was about the time I started to pull away from DC... or shortly afterwards. Of course, I didn't have time to keep tabs on clans like I did years ago... I knew more about the community outside DC than just about anyone. Of course, I couldn't keep that up. Life finally caught up with me-- demanding more and more of my time.

It's nice to see this clan growing so nicely. I've certainly enjoyed visiting and plan on continuing my visits. I consider myself more at ease here than I've been at any forum since I used to visit Torm Guardians for rootbeer floats (that was back when Bullwill still frequented the boards).

Gratz on creating such a successful clan!

[Torra]

Well, somebody has got to be Clan Historian.....for the inquiring minds and all. It could go in Magonagal's Thread as part of our standard reference material??

And there came to be a free knight of the realm, by the name of Potter, who wished to establish his own kingdom....And he was aided by an Amazon, Known as Cynder, who pointed out the massive task that this would be. And thus did the Knight and the Amazon create Clan Gryffindor. And then did the Knight become smoted by the demands of the real world and bequeathed his throne to Sir JTG.

And all the while Lady Cynder did quest for personages to populate the noble realm of Gryffindor, where chivalry is not dead, honor above all else and a belief in kindness and generosity did color all deeds. . . . .

I'm positive I saw a note from Hermione that indicated that she LOVES to write books reports....I wonder if she could be tempted???

[Hermione]

Lol, book reports were simply the easiest school assignment I remember. Not something I do for fun...
I vote we cut & paste the starts we've got, and add on as whimsy strikes!

[Potter]

Aaaawwww, shucks guys... (there's no good happy/embarrassed smiley, just combine these ones in your head and that's what I'm doing):

What Cynder and I did didn't actually matter as much as you being awesome people attracting more awesome people sort of snowballed.

Oh, and I'd hope that you would remember when we were just getting going, Carnelian, 'cause you were one of the "powerful and friendly" clans that helped us, lol!
You got the timing right anyway, in our DC letters back and forth you'd warned me about your declining interest in DC. Whatever the case, I learned some of my first clan leader etiquette lessons from you.
Glad to see that life is treating you well enough to stop by. ;D
It means a lot to me.

about the clan history....
I am still waiting to hear from Silent_Rogue and kumquat about what they want their page in the Hall of Remembrance to be about. (you remember that page on our website, www.ClanGryffindor.com, right? ).
But since that was originally built to remember the clan histories of the clans that merge with us, perhaps we should have a historical page of our own there...
Let me know what you think.
Regardless, I will start a history thread in Mcgonagal's area. If everyone would go there and type up your personal historical relationship with Gryffindor, I'd appreciate it.
(we'll cut and paste from here and when I can get a few hours I'll put my account there as well.)

Thanks again for being such fun people ;D, keep it up and we'll take the DC world by STORM! ;D

[Torra]

This past week I've been visiting some other sites and WOW, ours is really impressive.

Easy to use/navigate
Frequent postings
AND easy to read

You guys did a really great job setting up this site ;D

[veela]

Yes, the biggest thing I've noticed is that ours is so much more organized and easy to read. The others all have way too many graphics and text clutterings the pages.

[Wahoo]

Hi veela! The quick reply box is a nice feature, too. I'm using it now! This site is a pleasure to use. Big signature graphics are cool looking, but really chop up the thread.

[magicmuffin]

I appreciate the coloring on this forum. Some forums have light writing on dark backgrounds and it's hard for me to read unless the writing is in "bold."
I wouldn't mind if we could have sigs though...sigs of moderate size, of course.

[Hermione]

**** an earlier post asked if anyone had a complete list of Terry Pratchet books..... Cynder


Yup, of course!
Here goes, non-Discworld first:
Truckers
Diggers
Wings (These are also available in a single volume called "The Bromeliad")
The Carpet People
Only You Can Save Mankind
Johnny and the Dead
Johnny and the Bomb (the last three are also available as a 3-in-1, "The Johnny Maxwell Trilogy")
Good Omens (With Neil Gaiman, who is also an excellent author. Anyone read "Anansi Boys" yet?)
Strata
The Dark Side of the Sun

Discworld Children's Books:
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
THe Wee Free Men
Hat Full of Sky
How Now Brown Cow (VERY VERY young readers on that one)

Regular Discworld:
The Colour of Magic
The Light Fantastic
Equal Rites
Mort
Sourcery
Wyrd Sisters
Pyramids
Guards! Guards!
Eric
Moving Pictures
Reaper Man
Witches Abroad
Small Gods
Lords and Ladies
Men at Arms
Soul Music
Interesting Times
Maskerade
Feet of Clay
Hogfather
Jingo
The Last Continent
Carpe Jugulum
The FIfth Elephant
The Truth
Thief of Time
Night Watch
Monstrous Regiment
Going Postal

Other odds and ends:
The Science of the Discworld (w/ some other folks)
The Science of the Discworld II: The Globe (w/ those same other folks)
The Discworld Companion (haven't read this one)
The Streets of Ankh-Morpork (Think this is a map with commentary, but I don't know, I haven't read it, either. Most of these Odds and Ends are with other folks, by the by)
The Discworld Mapp (Maybe this was what I was thinking of?)
A Tourist Guide to Lancre -A Discworld Mapp (Okay, so there are SEVERAL maps)
Death's Domain
Nanny Ogg's Cookbook
The Pratchett Portfolio
The Last Hero (This is good!)
The Celebrated Discworld Almanac
The Unadulterated Cat (don't know anything about this)

Yup, I sure like Terry Pratchett!