Anasyn said:
I think Zelazny was my first series of books I read as a young teenager. I still have the books upstairs.
X
The chronicles of Amber?
Moorcock and the Elric saga were always my favorite, love the anti hero
sajbear said:
So much fan service in this thread ^^ *stamp of approval*
Hellz to the yeahz ! The responses here surprised me in a great way :)
Sogotp said:
I knew the name Aradune Mithara was from a book series I had read but couldn't remember which one LoL
And a couple years back I read a book about Aramith, queen of the elves, a name Aradune mentioned. Can't remember which book either LOL
Regarding Aradune's chat handle , this is what he wrote about it in 2004 and it gave me a good laugh LOL :
"Heck, it beats the handle I used before that, the Privateer, which I used on various BBS boards I dialed up on my mighty 300 baud modem with which I argued incessantly over which was better, the C64 or the Atari 8-bit "
Jason said:
Sogotp said:
I knew the name Aradune Mithara was from a book series I had read but couldn't remember which one LoL
And a couple years back I read a book about Aramith, queen of the elves, a name Aradune mentioned. Can't remember which book either LOL
Regarding Aradune's chat handle , this is what he wrote about it in 2004 and it gave me a good laugh LOL :
"Heck, it beats the handle I used before that, the Privateer, which I used on various BBS boards I dialed up on my mighty 300 baud modem with which I argued incessantly over which was better, the C64 or the Atari 8-bit "
LOL -- so cool you found that old quote!
Jason said:
Wow, seems before Aradune was a ranger in VG he was briefly a warrior . This looks like alpha or something early like that :
Yes, looks alpha-ish. Probably Ranger class wasn't in yet.
Aradune said:
When I was a teenager/early adult I wanted to be a fantasy author -- I'm a huge fan, of course, of Tolkien, CS Lewis, Feist, Moorcock, Zelazny, etc. So I ended up creating a world and writing two short books and lots of notes. They aren't very good -- I wasn't descriptive enough, and around the same time I got into programming and designing video games, being inspired ultimately by Ultima II which I encountered in Junior High.
I was a huge fan of Raymond E Feist growing up, read everything, led me into David Eddings.
Always wanted to see Feist stuff become a MMORPG
Kilsin said:
Wow, this was a lot of very cool info! :)
I had seen Aradune in both EQ and VG (and VGOEmu lol :P) but I had never taken a screenshot of him, I was probably star struck and trying to hide my sharpened and bloody daggers so I didn't scare him away! ;)
Man, this is a great thread.
I have a whole hard drive full of early EQ pics and beta screenies. I have not seen any of them in 14 years, but they are somewhere. Obviously, being a beta 1.2/1.3 beta tester, I of coarse knew who Aradune was. He even grab me and flung me into the air once...
edit: tree thumbs up for Krondor lore.
Aradune said:So the origin of the name Aradune Mithara.
When I was a teenager/early adult I wanted to be a fantasy author -- I'm a huge fan, of course, of Tolkien, CS Lewis, Feist, Moorcock, Zelazny, etc. So I ended up creating a world and writing two short books and lots of notes. They aren't very good -- I wasn't descriptive enough, and around the same time I got into programming and designing video games, being inspired ultimately by Ultima II which I encountered in Junior High.
Anyway, one of the chief characters in one of the books is named Aramith Half-Elven. His father, a ranger named Aradune Mithara. When I started playing MUDs in the early 90s I first started a Paladin (my favorite class I always chose in AD&D) and called him Aramith. Then I discovered that I liked to play Rangers better, and wanted to link the two characters, so Aradune became the character I played the most. Then in 96 when I started working on EQ, I had already played MUDs so many crazy hours, that I'd grown fond and sentimental about the name Aradune and so I named my GM character Aradune (never my actual play characters, because I wanted to be anonymous when I was *really* playing the game).
I also put up the first EQ web site back when we had no marketing for the game and I'm pretty sure I used Aradune as my screen name. So between the GM Character and screen names, people started to remember the name and associate it with me. I then took Aradune to VG, and now he's appeared on Terminus... but this time he's a WarWizard :)
When JP and I were discussing how a WarWizard would look I basically described in as much detail how I envisioned Aradune to look, so this image is actually both representative of a Pantheon WarWizard as well as Aradune Mithara specifically.
I had a really good shot of Aradune in VG but it's lost somewhere on one of my PCs. :(
Another question that is sometimes asked: Why did Aradune the Ranger in EQ wield a two-handed flaming sword called the Fiery Avenger. Well, the first weapon we successfully attached particle effects to was that two-handed sword. And I of course wanted to show it off in screenshots. I had to make it Rangerable. Kinda lame, I know. In VG and Pantheon he is dual-wielding like a proper ranger/WarWizard. And the green platemail is now green chainmail, also more appropriate IMHO.
Only old people like me remember Aradune from Toril and its damn nice to know that we aren't all dead from all the years that have gone by.
A little more information on Aradune. Probably the coolest ranger in Toril (Sojourn) that I knew and we had a many grand adventures together.
Gorsh Sereghis
Anyone else pronounce the name as "A-ra-de-nei" until you heard the devs in the streams saying "Aradoon"? Or was that just me?
Either way, awesome name and look. Glad the War Wizards are modeled after him, kind of a cool easter egg and a sweet look for sort of mythically powerful characters.
Aradune said:BloodbeardBattlecaster said:
I remember the first time I saw 'Aradune is stinky'. I knew it had to mean something being down there on that wall. I wondered who had ticked off some developer. haha!
That was Bill Trost giving me a hard time :) I thought it was pretty funny when I accidentally ran across it, and apparently so have many others :) One should never take oneself too seriously :)
I finally have the answer as to who did that graffiti on the wall...LOL Strange I didn't see this response before. :)
