World of Warcraft®

Khromie burst into her best friend Sizy's workshop, squeaking at the top of her lungs. "Sizy! Siiiiizy! Looook! I'm in the New Tinkertown Times! They published my essay!"

Sizy turned off her welding torch and lifted up her mask to greet her friend. The two gnomes held hands and jumped around in circles, squeaking their little hearts out.

"But, um, Khromie?"
"Yeah?"
"How come they published it in the Humor section?"
"Obviously because they don't have a section for Super Brainy Smart Essays."
"Of course!"

After some more squeaking and jumping, Khromie poured them generous helpings of bourbon and Rocket Fuel for a toast. "To knowledge!" she said, raising her tankard. After Khromie knocked back her drink and most of Sizy's, too, the gnomes took turns reading aloud from Khromie's essay wearing their Monocles of Awesome.

What I Learned About Shamans!

by Khromie Overspark

I have had the Good Fortune--as my blue octopus cow friends the Dreidels like to say--to listen to lectures on Shamanism by my friend Catroo, a real life shaman (and also a Dreidel!!!)! This essay chronicles all that I have learned from her!

Shamans go by many names such as shamalamabambams (females), shamalamadingdongs (males), shamwows, shazams, and shampeoples. The variants of the term evolved because some find shaman to be gendered language.

Shazams are masters of the four main elements: banana, sausage, tree, and snake. Elements are long and sort of cylindrical. Elements can be hard or soft. But, the secret of the shampeoples is not about what shape or size your element is, it's how you use it.

Shamwows control the elements by carrying pet rocks in their pockets. These pet rocks can be summoned at will, which basically means taking them out of your pocket really fast and throwing them in the face of your opponents.

My pet rock is named Pony! He is made of solid stone. Now that I am pretty much a professional Shamalamabambam myself, I hope to learn EVEN MORE about all of the elements, especially Banana because I think that would taste best with ice cream and summer is coming!

I can't wait to learn more about Shamans from my friend Catroo who is really pretty and smart even though she forgot to bring snacks to her lecture once! There was a buffet at the last one, though, so I hope there's a chocolate fountain at the third lecture, I'm just saying!

I mean, we could like dip bananas into the chocolate fountain and that would be like studying elements and eating delicious things at once, I'm just saying!

The end!

Ketyru sat in a corner of her rented room in Stormwind, darning some clothing she'd torn (again). Nearby, her friend Chenzen sat reading a newspaper. His robes were covered in stains from his coffee, as he was chuckling so hard. Ket tried to ignore him, but a loud burst of laughter from the normally reserved Mage drew her over.
"What is so funny, old man?"
Chenzen glowered at her from under his brow, the shook out his paper and read the passage aloud. By the end of it they were both laughing so hard they had to lean on each other.
"Oh," Ket gasped, wiping tears from her eyes. "I do love that little Gnome. She makes the entire class worth the while!"
"I'll bet," Chenzen snorted. "Sounds to me like she could use a good bonking. Knock some sense into her."
Ket leveled Chenzen with a look, but he just grinned back. There were few people whose humor she could tolerate, but then, they'd known each other for quite some time. She let him go...this time.
"Go back to your own quarters, you old goat!" She shooed him out the door. "I have notes to go over and another class to plan."
The mage retreated, his shoulders slumped dramatically. "All right, I'm going. If you need me, just use that Glyph I inscribed on your hearthstone. You know how it works by now, I'm sure."
Ket nodded and waved her friend away once more. She glanced into the cracked mirror on her dressing table. Her cheeks were still flushed from laughing.
Yes, Khromie certainly made things more enjoyable.

((Chenzen used with permission from his retired owner. <3 Khromie, will totally find a way to make the fountain thing work next time! Remember, next class, April 25th!))

Last thing this realm needs is more small RP guilds. Thanks for further diluting a community that's already measured in parts per million.

Ricktrolled - First, good job on the name. -_-

Second: I'm well aware that Cenarion Circle's Alliance community suffers a bit from its RPers being split into many small guilds, but this is just a symptom of not having a larger pool of roleplayers to draw from in general. Inevitably, people will get tired of other people's drama and want to get away for a bit; the formation of small guilds is one response to that. Transferring to or spending more time on another RP server is another response. When we were creating Wellspring, it was with the hopes of filling the niche of RP teachers and connectors. Ultimately, I'd like Wellspring to convert existing non-RPers on the server to being even casual RPers by offering a resource to ask questions of and small-group classes to practice in; to draw in players from other servers and forge connections through CRZ; and to build ties with more isolated or reclusive groups of RPers on the server. All this is so that when someone asks, "Hey, where's the RP?" we can tell them. I don't expect these things to happen right away, especially not when we're still building a solid core for our guild and its internal culture, but I'm looking forward to the day when it does happen. We've already welcomed the members of one small guild (Mihari no Hitoshi) to our ranks as well, and there's something to be said for the ease of finding RP inside a large, active guild, but having one or two clearly dominant guilds on the server does not replace having a diverse, vibrant, wide, and deep RP community with lots of different kinds of RP to offer. I'd rather have the latter than the former.

Imperon - Thanks for the kind words. :) If you ever think of a way that we could get involved in one of your storylines in LO, let us know.

Ragefang - *waves around extra pairs of skimpy cloth pants and waggles eyebrows*

((Well so long as Aloom and I are over in that silly tavern in the middle of Blackrock Mountain talking up the world's end and this server. I'll always point out that Wellspring is a good place for starter RPers to poke their heads. And if it's okay I'll send them to you directly. ))

Huh, I had forgotten Ricktrolled's post.
Anyway.

This server could actually, still, use more RP guilds. Since we apparently base our characters around a certain guild type that they fit into, there aren't enough guild types here by far (by the way, I'm speaking from Alliance perspective only). Almost every guild I see crop up is mercenary or a slightly more neutral spin-off of Pia Presidium. There's basically nothing to compete with Lluchduu Ocheliad, and for that matter there is no guild that's just straight evil, though I guess that actually makes sense.

I can't think of a guild that's truly chaotic good.

Before Wellspring, there had been several school-like guilds that had started and then failed due to bad leadership. Wellspring existing is a good thing because it's finally a decent attempt to fill that empty spot.

Last I checked, there are no druid guilds.

I can't think of any extremely religious-oriented guilds.

All the race-related guilds fail due to a combination of bad leadership/rules and other things.

The explorer's guild we had died and I haven't seen anything come up to rival the influence it once had.

We had an inn-management oriented guild once but it also died due to a bunch of negative things.

Aloom stayed guildless for a damn long time because there was no RP guild that fit her character and, to an extent, there still isn't but at least Wellspring comes close.

You can have a bunch of people split off into hundreds of tiny guilds and still have a thriving RP community - being in different guilds doesn't stop people from coming together. If anything, it would be better to be around 10 or less people with characters similar to yours that can help you develop as opposed to splitting off into one of the three giant guilds where, more and more, I see people privately question joining because their character doesn't fully fit.
Obviously we could also use more people on the server. A couple hundred more could join and we'd still have a cozy, small server feel compared to the giants known as Moon Guard and Wyrmrest Accord.

If any of my information is off, I apologize. I didn't really play during Cataclysm and have only sporadically played during Pandaria. Whatever happens, my post can't be any more negative/trollish than Ricktrolled's.

((Well so long as Aloom and I are over in that silly tavern in the middle of Blackrock Mountain talking up the world's end and this server. I'll always point out that Wellspring is a good place for starter RPers to poke their heads. And if it's okay I'll send them to you directly. ))

Aloom moved her hands away, sitting back in place and admiring the crisp, golden pancake she had so delicately placed upon Izby's head, resting lightly upon her horns.
She leaned forward, resting her chin on the top of her hand and said in a slow, mumble of a voice, "the gnomes will kill us all."

Glanced around at the sound of the voice, pancakes tumbling from their precarious perch into her lap and onto the floor. She cursed under her breath. "By the Nauru Elune, I did not hear you this time either. How do you always sneak up on me like that?" She stooped to clean up the clutter from the floor and tossed bits of the pancakes to her turtle, Speedy. His energetically charged purple shell crackled under the intensity of his happiness. She looked down at his change and nibbled a pancake herself. "Cinnamon? And what about the Gnomes?"

Izby - Tossing people our way is great, as long as they understand that there won't be someone on at all hours. :)

Aloom - Hear, hear.

Alniyat, I think this is a great concept for a guild. It would be a great benefit to me personally. Unfortunately, attending a research university would not be something my character, Azzy, would do. It doesn't fit with the personality I have created for her. Since I have decided to try to role play with as much immersion as possible I don't think it would work.

That said, I do have two other characters here on CC. One of which might fit in. If not, is there still a possibility I could be included in some of the events you host? Or join your OOC channel (is that even allowed - no worries if it isn't)?

I really like your idea of creating connections between role play guilds to create a more dynamic community. :)

Azheira - you can absolutely /join Lotus and come to our events. <3 I'll try to post the non-regular stuff here in the forums so people can find us; we also RP pretty regularly at our Tuesday night assemblies (held in the Explorer's Hall in Ironforge - the same spot Troubadour is held). And if you have any suggestions for OOC topics you'd like covered, let us know!

The Wellspring School has merged with Phoenix from the Ashes to form Elemental Expeditions! You can find Alniyat, most of my alts, and several other former Wellspringers in the new joint venture. Wellspring continues to exist as a guild but will not be receiving a lot of attention or RP effort. Elemental Expeditions shares a lot of the same OOC goals that Wellspring did, but under a new RP concept (explorers and dungeon delvers).

If you have any questions, post here or whisper me in-game. :)