1. The classic that we always want to know. What brought you to Mizahar and/or role playing in general? What made you stay?I’ve been roleplaying in some form or another for about six years now. My beginning experience was mostly freeform text-based RP, usually surrounded by preteen girls that used the medium to express their idealized versions of themselves. I became well acquainted with every cliché in the book, which made my relationship with roleplay a kind of love-hate deal. The setups would be different, but I’d see the same characters and we’d play out the same story over and over and over again. I’d been playing in one of these boards for about six months when I got into a disagreement with the admin about how she ran it, and I eventually left the forum entirely. It was then that I came across Mizahar. I initially used it as a way of dealing with the suddenness of losing the community I’d become a part of, but it very quickly became something entirely different. I realized that Mizahar was the kind of roleplay I’d been looking for in every other one I’d joined. Every single part of this place is unique. Everything has a story. Players can explore concepts and journeys in ways that had never occurred to me before. Mizahar is everything that a roleplay should be, and once I immersed myself then I knew that nowhere else would ever be able to offer me the same.
I have to admit, though, that I’ve had my fair share of absences. In the beginning, especially, I was definitely not the most stable of roleplay partners. I think that this was in part due to the fact that I had just come from an environment composed entirely of clichés, and so abandoning that was difficult and there were plenty of times when I just couldn’t write for a week or two. But those kind of absences have always left me a little uneasy, as if being absent for too long would mean that I wouldn’t be able to come back ever. But these absences began to get scarcer, and nowadays going missing “just because” just doesn’t happen. It’s taken a bit, but I feel like I’ve kind of grown into Miz, and being a part of it is much more comfortable than it was a year ago. Mizahar has taught me to examine characters in much more detail than I ever would have thought possible, and my development as both a writer and a storyteller have been heavily influenced by me journey here. I realize that this isn’t an explicit answer to the second question, but I hope I’ve managed to make it clear.
2. No matter how many times I look at your name I still think 'Khasr,' and I think a few others might feel the same way. For people who have not followed your storylines as close as some of the Cyphrus mods or your fans have, what brought on the name change? Can you post a summary of this transition?This is a problem I have myself, actually, and I think that might be because I personally like the name “Khasr” more than I like “Shahar.” “Khasr” has always rolled off the tongue particularly well, at least for me, and I’ll admit that leaving it behind was a bit saddening. Still, the characters themselves are more important than their names, and this was what made me change his. As the player of an amnesiac, I’ve had the unique opportunity to build a person from scratch in a way that standard character creation does not allow. He’s gone through stages of development all over again; in his own way, he’s had a birth, childhood, adolescence and adulthood all through the past year. I knew that he’d forget his name, but when I decided on his memory loss I really didn’t have any idea where it was going. As time passed, however, I eventually realized that he’d never remember it. Khasr and Shahar had become two completely different people, and I knew that combining them would have some very ugly results. Giving him a new name was the natural way to go.
I’ll admit, though, that the transition itself was a bit awkward. I only renamed him in the spring, and so I’d been playing him nameless for almost an entire year. It was a bit challenging, but loads of fun to try and find enough alternate identifiers to write him with that didn’t sound repetitive. I think that this was one of my problems with shifting from Khasr to Shahar: he was still Khasr when he was nameless. This was mostly due to the fact that the account had to have a name, but I’d always call him Khasr out of character just to make planning things easier. That meant that once he became Shahar, the transition was made more difficult by the fact that, until then, he’d never really stopped being Khasr.
3. So...Shahar doesn't know Khida's a Kelvic? How exactly has that slipped by? And how have you managed to maintain this relationship so long?
This one wasn’t actually as difficult as it might sound. Shahar and Khida met in the middle of nowhere, with no other humans around and with only the geology for protection. Back then, being human was much more of a liability than being a falcon, so there really wasn’t any reason for Khida to shift. They learned to hunt together, with him flushing birds for her to kill, and so their entire relationship was molded as a falcon interacting with a human. It kept them fed and comfortable, so she felt no need to change it and Shahar never really put together that she was more than an incredibly clever bird of prey. When they reached Endrykas, she began to shift to interact with other people, but never around Shahar. Again, their friendship was built entirely with her as a bird, and so it wasn’t hard to just let it continue as it was for another few seasons.
4. Where do you see the winds taking Shahar? What are your goals with him as a character?At this point in time, I’d say Shahar’s at a fork in the road. Due to the nature of his amnesia and subsequent “rebirth,” he’s always perceived Caiyha and Semele as very literal mother figures. The first thing he ever remembers is living without any human attachments or contemplations, as nothing but a predator. Everything he knew was based on the primal urges of survival, and even the basic concept of humanity, of being something other than an animal, never occurred to him. He simply was, and that was enough.
When he discovered other humans, the shock of assimilation was definitely a very difficult thing for him to go through. He didn’t really know what to do other than relearn the ways of his people, and he is now completely Drykas once more. He’s building personal pride in his race, skills and accomplishments, which is an entirely human thing to do. Still, he misses what he once was; the simplicity of beasthood is something that is very difficult for a human to reach, and if given the opportunity he’d go back in a heartbeat. It’s his newfound duty to his people that ties him to Endrykas, and, depending on how the world treats him, I can see him going one of two ways: completely embracing his identity as a Drykas, or abandoning it all and devoting himself completely to Caiyha. On one hand, he could be a defender of his people, relentlessly trying to build them back up to their former strength. On the other, he could become a predator once again, living out of his crater and honing his abilities in the wilderness in service to the Goddess of the wild. Both of these options are compelling for me, but I stopped trying to push Shahar a long time ago—he’ll go wherever the road takes him, when the time is right.
5. Did you know right off the bat you were going to pick a Drykas? What drew you to the horseclans during the character creation process?Yes and no. Shahar’s my main character, and he’s been my main ever since he creation. I like to call him my second and a half first character, because it took a bit of time for me to really get started in Miz. I vaguely remember sketching out my first concept as a nuit, then scrapping it before I posted anything. The next was a Cyphrus-based Zith, but he only lasted for about six posts before I knew that he wasn’t going to work. After that, I took a break and just shadowed the forums for a bit without any intention of creating a character. This was what gave me time to really wrap my head around the lore, since I hadn’t even read all of the race pages at that point. When I finally did decide to give a serious effort to make a character, choosing the Drykas was fairly easy. The fact that they’re transient is something that continues to fascinate me, and you can almost literally say that “they were made from the earth and wind.” The sheer amount of metaphors that you can interpret from their entire concept are like candy, but all in all, I think it was the Striders that really drove it home. I actually made the concept for Shahar’s—though I guess it was Khasr’s at that point—Strider first; I knew I wanted a character that would bond with a very difficult stallion that would give them problems galore. This gave me a guideline for Khasr himself; what kind of person would be connected to a horse like that? Why? On what foundations? Looking back, I honestly think that Shahar ended up embodying that much more than Khasr; Khasr was bitter, angry and hotheaded, which probably would have clashed violently with a creature so similar, while Shahar, who was made without any of that in mind, is calm and stable enough to provide the steadying support that a horse like that would need.
6. The Drykas are in dire straights these days. Between the djed storm, raids, and now the threat of slavery from Kenash and Zith, do you see any solutions for the Drykas as a people in the future? Are the plights of Shahar’s people playing into his roleplay?I’m glad you asked this!
Yep, they’ve taken some pretty heavy punches in the last few seasons. I’ll admit to devoting a significant amount of thought to this; I love the Drykas, I really do, and after what you guys did to Denval I know not to assume anything
. I think that a lot of factors would have to come together to stabilize the Drykas again. First of all, I think that the slave raids on Syliras were a smart move, and I was a bit disappointed that I wasn’t able to participate. I think that the most valuable of all slaves would be children between the ages of twelve and fifteen; the next few years of a child’s life result in a complete rewiring of thought patterns and intelligence, so immersing them in Drykas culture at that time would produce assimilated individuals that are also at just the right age to begin contributing to their people.
Second, collaboration with Kenash would be very beneficial. Perhaps the Drykas raid every “unauthorized” slave caravan in the Sea of Grass, but agree to leave Kenash caravans alone in return for splitting the slaves they commandeer? Or if that’s too farfetched, what about collaboration with the Rujaro to siphon escaped slaves into the open grasslands, to become members of the horseclans? I don’t know. The Drykas as a whole are hanging onto threads right now, and the lore mentions their pride; even if they need help, would their pride prevent them from asking for it? Even creating a mutually helpful relationship with Kenash could have a large effect on their general livelihood; right now, loyalty is just as important as population.
This is one of the frustrating things about Shahar’s position. I have so many ideas on how to support the Drykas, but I know that none of these ideas would come to Shahar on his own, at least not in such a way as to spur him to action. He’s generally passive, and kicking him into action would be very difficult to keep in character. He is connected to his people, and he is heavily affected by the damage they’ve taken, but he can’t just get up and go raiding; there needs to be a cause and effect, and without a specific reason for him to do these things all I can do is sit on my hands and rant about it.
7.Do you have any advice to people who are potentially wanting to play Drykas but whom might feel intimidated by the footloose and fancy free lifestyle or the roughness of the Grasslands before making the jump? What do you want to say to them about making a commitment to this race?Don’t be scared, come pet the horsies!
I’d say one of the biggest things to keep in mind is that the plains are dangerous. Really dangerous. This is just as much a blessing as it is a curse—perhaps even more so. Not only does it provide opportunity after opportunity to hone combat, wilderness and horse-related skills, it also offers plenty of ways to develop your character. Death is always on your heels. Your weapon is always within reach. Your horse is always ready to move.
I think that one of the biggest benefits to this is the unique light it puts on inter-character relationships. In someplace like Syliras or Lhavit, you can go through life in personal isolation; married to your job, afraid of connections, recently lost someone, whatever. You can make a character that is wholly independent and doesn’t need anyone else to rely on. In the Sea of Grass, a character like that would die. Quickly. You cannot survive independently; even if it’s just pitching your tent near a pavilion to intimidate predators away, survival depends on working together. Sure you can be prickly or cold, but you’re never really alone. This, I think, is one of my favorite parts of Endrykas: you have to interact with others, and this connects PCs in ways completely unique to the Drykas. There’s always someone interested in not just playing with you, but really connecting. By extension, everything about the Drykas is connected; their families, their animals, even their tents are all interdependent upon one another, and it’s amazing to play a PC as a part of this network.
8. What do you think the pluses and cons of roleplaying in Cyphrus are? What are your favorite things about the region and what are some of its biggest challenges?I’d say that, out of everything, one of Cyphrus’ biggest problems is its ambiguity. A lot of it remains undefined and players are left with their imaginations. Granted, it’s easy enough to ask developers about specifics, but a lot of information is left to be gained on a personal basis. However, the things that are defined are really, really cool. Super-horses. Tiger-bears. Land-shark-lizards. Giant ostritch-velociraptors. Cyphrus has so much awesomeness packed in, it’s hard to describe. So I guess I’d say that I think Cyphrus’s biggest pro is its atmosphere. It’s full of lives lived fast and brutal with nothing but grass separating the earth from the sky. The land ripples like a sea in the wind, constantly moving and changing with life and death snapping at each other without rest.
On the other hand, there is a lot left to assumption. I remember first coming to Cyphrus and really having no idea what exactly “grassland” meant. What kind of Grassland? Steppe? Great Plains? Savannah? Was the grass the knee-high kind, or was it the kind that went over the average man’s head? I managed to get away with simply avoiding the topic altogether, and when I mentioned grass I just wouldn’t describe it in detail. I eventually got it in my head that it was a savannah-like place and rolled with that for a bit, and then a mod was kind enough to clear up the fact that it was a combination of all of these, leaning towards Great Plains with a dash of Mongolian Steppe and a pinch of Africa. A lot of things touched upon in the lore, such as geysers, craters and even velispars, are simply said to exist but no information is given about them. Still, I personally don’t really find it a major issue; it just hasn’t been developed yet, and there are still whole cities that have yet to be opened! Those definitely take precedence over a couple of details in Cyphrus, and I’m fine with waiting until the time comes.
9. You play with two almost taboo concepts in your roleplay that I always advise people against because of the cliché nature of the concepts. The first is antisocial tendencies. The second is memory loss. Your pc is incredibly uncomfortable around other people. He also went a great length of time unaware of his past. How do you deal with these two concepts so nicely without making them fall into the realm of cliché which so easily can happen in roleplay? How do these two factors play into his roleplay and how he reacts in scenes?Heh. Not sure how well, I can explain this one; both of these have always made me a little self-conscious about Shahar, and so I do my best to handle them in a way that’s different from the overdone norms—my success or failure, though, I think rests on whoever happens to be reading it at the time. From what I’ve gathered, people that create characters with these traits tend to use them to draw attention to their characters—they turn into concepts made explicitly for their own creations. I try to do the opposite with Shahar; both his amnesia and social awkwardness are almost completely based in his environment, and they are directed towards his environment. They’re not about him, they’re about everything else.
Let me first say that Khasr, at his inception, was as cliché as can be. He wasn’t an amnesiac, but he was certainly antisocial, and that wasn’t all—dead mother, estranged from the family, witnessing the death of the father-figure; he was just one cliché stacked on top of another. Throughout his early gameplay, I became much more well-acquainted with clichés and their various forms and functions, and he just really began to get on my nerves. It got to the point that I actually had difficulty making myself write him, he annoyed me so much. I’ll admit that his memory loss was kind of my cheat—it gave me the chance to start his character completely from scratch. Now, everything he has become has stemmed from something that has happened in-game, as I have had the privilege to watch his entire personality develop in reaction to his surroundings. I’ve watched him grow up, in a way, which has been absolutely fascinating as a writer.
One of the things I’ve tried my best to avoid is having Shahar be defined by his amnesia. I think one of the biggest amnesia clichés is a person waking up without memory, and the rest of their story revolves around them rediscovering who they are. Shahar isn’t looking for his past. He isn’t fully aware that he even existed before emerging from the tunnels beneath the land. He’s not going to see a trigger and suddenly remember bits of who he was. Shahar was born in a crater in the Sea of Grass. He grew up there, and moved to Endrykas in pursuit of the first human he ever saw. He made his own way. He made his own name. Though they have the same body, Shahar and Khasr are completely unrelated, and for better or for worse, Khasr died when he lost his memory. Shahar is defined by his own actions, by his own journeys, triumphs and failures, and Khasr has never had and never will have any influence on who he is or who he will turn into. The amnesia is a tool to initiate change and to evolve the story, not to somehow make him cooler. Once it was in place, it never really had any more effect on him as a character; that was left to be defined by his environment and experiences.
The social awkwardness kind of followed on the heels of his memory loss. I’ve actually always been nervous about writing it, because it can be very overdone and it was what irritated me about Khasr in the first place. Still, I think a big difference between his awkwardness and “classic” awkwardness is that it doesn’t come from a place of animosity; Shahar doesn’t hate or even dislike society or people, he just isn’t cut from the same cloth as everyone else. The formation of his personality and worldview was already well in place by the time he returned to Endrykas, and they were formed without any influence of civilization. His life revolves around the more basic needs: food, water, shelter, companionship and security. Once he has these things, he doesn’t need or desire anything else. He’s used to quiet, and humans are loud and do many things that Shahar finds baffling. Humans talk and talk and talk, even when they actually say something that could be conveyed in a single sentence. Eye contact is a big confusion; among people, it’s not only prevalent, but also heavily expected. Shahar grew up among animals, where eye contact is an extremely threatening gesture, and being stared at can easily trigger his fight-or-flight instinct. Humans sometimes say words that are supposed to be interpreted as the complete opposite of what they actually mean, and when he doesn’t understand he’ll find himself on the receiving end of irritated and exasperated glances. Humans also have a unique thing called an ego, and the tending to others’ and to one’s own ego is a process with complexities that completely escape Shahar. His awkwardness is a fun way to look at how utterly strange humans can be, which means that its practice it angled towards Shahar’s surroundings more than Shahar himself.
10. You have a way about words when you write. Your ability to create locations and set scenes is astonishing. Khasr’s Crater is a case in point, though I no longer see it present in your CS. Do you have a process you go about for setting scenes in your posts? How do you vary the sometimes never ending rolling grass plains? How do you describe the vastness punctuated by few features – rivers, streams, craters, etc?Aw, thankee muches. Generally, when setting a scene I try to describe things based on all of the senses but sight. For example, if three people are sitting at a campfire, telling readers where and how they’re sitting and what the stars look like can get boring quickly. It separates the reader from what’s happening in the story, and if they don’t feel connected to what they’re reading, then what’s the point of them reading it? I do my best to instead focus on the experiences that everything else conjures; the smell of burning wood, the sound of wind through the leaves, a full belly, that sneaking suspicion that the breeze is going out of its way to blow smoke in your face—these are experiences that can be related to, something that one can point at and go “yes, I know exactly what that feels like.” This makes the scene suddenly subjective instead of objective, and if you trust the reader to use their imagination to supply the rest of the details, they’ll be more invested in a scene that is partially of their own creation.
In regards to the Sea of Grass, I’ll admit that it took a bit for me to work out how to describe it. Usually, I’ll imagine it as a huge, seemingly-endless city; take a plane and look down, it’ll look like nothing but a vast expanse of grey. But go deeper, choose a single spot and focus on it, and it will change into single streets and neighborhoods and hotspots and stores. Maybe there’s a certain café that a bunch of nearby people go to. Maybe there’s a tattoo parlor that’s also the hangout spot for every rebellious teenager within ten miles. A street that everyone has to go through to get to work. The city, like the grassland, isn’t just a big patch of emptiness, it’s a network of life. No spot is completely like another. Since Shahar’s a tracker, he can pinpoint these kinds of things fairly easily; he can follow the paths that the fauna makes as they go about their lives, telling what pack follows which herds and which flock kicked out another. Every square foot is unique, and in their uniqueness make up the illusion of endlessness. It’s focusing on the little things inevitably makes the big ones all the more vast and sweeping.
11. Anything else you’d like to share with the game about your PC, Mizhar, or life? Here’s your chance to stand up and shine.Superheroes are today’s mythology. No, seriously, think about it; ancient pantheons were the lens through which ancient people saw their world. Thor explained thunder. Apollo explained the rising and setting of the sun. Their deities were how they understood the things around them. Their mythologies and their heroes were always made with the direct influence of the divine; siring, granting of powers/object, charging with a quest, etc. These tales shaped the cultures by encouraging the listeners to act similarly to their heroes.
Now, think about today’s method of seeing the world. Our “pantheon,” if you will. The most widespread? Science. It’s how we explain things. We trust it with little to no problem, never doubting its motives and accepting whatever it has to say. It is our lens. And, like ancient gods, it has spawned countless stories starring a hero with scientific—or “divine,” if you will—origins. Superman. Spiderman. Batman. X-men. Our own versions of Hercules, Achilles, St. George. They embody ideals that are meant to be looked up to and lived up to. They are the stories of our culture. They are our myths.
And that is what I have to say.
Also, I’d like to give a shoutout to everyone who put up with Khasr’s awkwardness in his early days, as well as my own inconsistency. You were what made me keep coming back for more. Founders, thank you for building this awesome slice of superness that is Mizahar. Khida… you know you’re awesome.
by Khida on September 1st, 2013, 6:07 pm 
