...back in the day (as in, fifteen years ago, give or take), we had the RDI community really engaged with helping to flesh out Audalis. 

One thing we did was a couple of contests, where we gave away actual, tangible prizes for winners.  I'd be open to something like that again, except I'm not sure that we have enough regular users to even bother with such a thing.

Last night, my new script auto blocked 635 attempts by hackers to use SQL injection attacks against the site.  Sadly, it's not autobanning them properly, looks like a permissions issue.  But I'll get that figured out.

We also stopped two brute force attacks.  Site seems plenty responsive, so this stuff is clearly working.  I haven't had to reboot in more than a day, now. 

It's getting better and better. 

Added an automated check to instaban certain script kiddies using some of the more common methods to attack the site.

Hey folks,

I moved this to "posting games" as it is, well, a game. 

That cool?

Well, okay.  If it technically started in 1990, I guess we have a few months to go. 

So it's ABOUT to be 30.

I was browsing around, and came across some info in the staff forum about the 25th anniversary of Audalis. 

From 2014.

That means that, yep, sure enough... the campaign setting is now 30 freaking years old!!! 

It's been so cool to see all of Eol's great work adding the Capasha stuff lately.  I'd love to maybe see if we could recruit other people to help fill in more gaps, get some community involvement like we once had.

Or is that a tee totally crazy pipe dream?

Man, I thought you were going to try to hook me into some Overwatch with you.  I am disappointed. 

Reached out to Pekka via FB messenger.  He plans to post tomorrow. 

Satan doesn't exist in this game. 

She can choose the name.

Well, probably not.

On the bright side, maybe Aranwen gets grandchildren soon? 

Does that make Ch'dau your cat-daddy?

We're not an adventuring party!  We're a really odd little family! 

So I'm officially dying for Raven to post.  I can't handwave through this, as this was a MAJOR development, and Cedric's insight could be super useful.

But man, I'm itching to go go go go!

Saints
Rams
Bears
Lions
Jaguars
Raiders
Bills
Seahawks
Titans
49ers
Patriots
Colts
Packers
Steelers

...I think that the spell you are looking for is a houseruled one.  Locate undead bride, abjuration.

Thanks for the report.  This has been resolved! 

Wooooooooo!

I restarted the mail service.  Let's see if that helps. 

Been an up and down (way too much down) evening, but we have a new firewall in place that is supposed to be better.  We shall see.

We have added a new piece of security software specifically designed to combat denial of service attacks.  Let's see if it helps.

Loving the emotional response here, folks.  You are making it a riveting read!

You and she are cut from the same cloth, Reralae.  You never know; you could try shooting her a PM.  While Vanadia is retired from the Inn, she isn't gone; she is married to Alacrity.

Vanadia also twice ran a younger Bladesinger - En'Aranthea.  I am certain that the two of you could have an excelletn talk about the Bladesingers.

Comments here are fine.  I figure that we can just edit the first post to link to the child threads of any characters.  Discussion is a good thing, no reason to kill it. 

For our very first legend of the Inn, let us hearken back to the earliest days of the place.  This was around 1999 or 2000, when I was in college and had started the Inn on Angelfire, while  hosting the message board portion on a free bulletin board host that has long since slipped into the void.

There were so many players at the time, and I ran with an ambitious idea; three distinct games, all happening at the same in-game time, all working on threads of the same overarching plot that would one day come together.  Naturally, it was in fact overly ambitious; one of the three games fizzled out fairly early on, though the other two showed remarkable staying power, running literally for years (though they ended up organically going their own ways, never seeing a merger).  One of these games, "Meanwhile", featured the esteemed Vanadia, one of the founding members of the RDI staff, in the role of Runyacath, a sylvari Bladesinger. 

If you never got the pleasure to play with her, I am very sorry; Vanadia was a master of prose, of making you see and feel her character's thoughts and emotions.  Runyacath was a complex, deep character who carried a lot of emotional baggage with her, and was an absolute joy to read. 

The character was wise and thoughtful, yet decisive and brave.  She developed a romantic connection over the course of the game with the party's antihero leader, Zibli, and in fact helped to change him for the better... helped him to let go of much of the rage that was pulling him down a dark path.

Runyacath was also incredibly important to the Audalis campaign setting, as she was the first truly worthy character of the Bladesinger class that I ever DMed.  When Runya was adventuring, we lacked a great deal of the Audalis source material here on the site; in fact, much of it had yet to be created by the community.  Vanadia herself ended up developing a lot of the standards by which later players have been expected to live up to; the various steps of the Bladesong, the teaching methods and discipline, all were groundwork that Vanadia laid through her play, much of which became canon source material for the Bladesinger class.
 
To this day, I cannot think of a Bladesinger without thinking of Runyacath, how that character behaved, as the standard by which I judge all other Bladesingers.  She truly embodies the entire idea of this series of posts, as a true legend of the Red Dragon Inn.

One of my big regrets of the site is the fact that some of these earliest games are not available for the public to enjoy still.