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This is by no means the “definitive story” Just my take on it from my time, I was there every week from the time Silvermane took office until well after the group was promoted to HP. I was back and forth from Waco and Tyler for the last few years. So I was active for a year in Waco, then out in Tyler hitting people there for a year, then repeated that cycle a few times.
In no real order of relevance, I’m just gonna try and go down the list as I remember it happing.
- Around the time the population really began to swell and the group was promoted to Duchy, and the year or two after. There was only a hand full of people with any interest in politics. The more popular members of the group that were interested in politics (Silvermane, Bereg, Etc) honestly got sick and tired of having to deal with the constant bickering and power grabbing by a small group (Sleet) that seemed to think the park needed to be under their watchful eye. For the great majority of the park members, nobody cared at all about politics.
- Two issues came up around this time within the group. First there was a group that came out, formed a household, and was basically using the park as a recruiting spot for their beliefs (I personally don’t care what anyone’s religion is, I’ll still hit ya with a stick! I think religion should stay separate thing from the game) the fact that this issue needed to be addressed was one problem, the way it actually was addressed was another problem in its self. (I don’t remember the exact details, the group was asked to not come back) This rubbed some people wrong, and created a deeper divide between the group in power and the rest of the group.
- Around this time, the group was awarded HP.
- The next issue involved Records and awards being “padded”. This issue came to light and created another splitting point, where a certain person(Sleet) was adding credits and awards to some of their favored people. Over the next year, Sir Heimdale stepped down from office, several people left the group and never came back, and shady book keeping continued. There was a grumbling in the populace that if you weren’t a member of certain companies, of friends with certain people outside of amtgard you wouldn’t get awards.
Finally we reached the point when the populace finally got really interested in what was going on at the top; a new group of “leaders” started to pop up and worked the old guard (Sleet) out of power (and they left the game for a few years). For the next few years we had a solid group of people in office, and while numbers were a little down, people were coming back out. This cover the reigns of Deer Slayer, Sylvanista, Aessic , Crickett, Sven , and Kayrana. Over this time, the group seemed to run pretty smoothly, the major problem was a lot of the players were getting older and the mundane was taking over their lives, the group just wasn’t getting new members as fast as the old ones were moving on.
This starts to get us to the beginning of end. We began to see the former park leaders come out, at first just playing, but over time starting to try and get back involved. (I was in Waco around this time, so I don’t know the full rundown on what happened). When I returned to Waco, The issue of park demotion was the big tension point. I was asked to step in (by Sleet) as Regent and help rebuild numbers, (I was not part of her political cronies, I was the guy to keep the peace with the rest of the populace). And my personal opinion was that the park stepping down due to numbers was the right thing, however… I felt that if we got numbers back up, we should get out HP status back (I Believe that was the final deal for demotion, you would have to verify with Forrest. I wasn’t there for any of the conversations between Forrest and Sleet that got to the compromise, I simple heard the rest second hand). This was not the popular opinion. Most people (Sleet) were afraid that if we gave up the HP status, nobody in Waco would ever be able to get high enough on Ladder awards to get knighted. This was the big sticking point on the demotion. And the Waco group felt it had Knight worthy candidates that the kingdom wouldn’t acknowledge. Ultimately, after the group was demoted, Sleet and her Cronies figured out that they could petition for an HFS contract, then Knight whoever they saw fit. That was the ultimate straw on the camel’s back. There were 2 or 3 people in Waco that felt they should have been knighted, a couple people in Waco who were knights (Kayrana and Terarin) who felt they may not be worthy. I can’t say whether they were or were not… I think one may have been, the other I think might have had too many awards tied up in the “padding” scandal to have ever been a real candidate.
At the end of the day, the Waco group as a whole wasn’t interested in traveling to be part of the kingdom on a larger scale, and the kingdom was not as active with the Waco group as it has been in recent years with Rising Winds, and now the Dreadmore group. A lot of the problem should have never gotten to the levels they did.
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