Talk to the Paw

[jasonjannajerryjohn]

Are you a vandal on Conservapedia? *wink*

I'm afraid I don't know what Conservapedia is... and certainly have never vandalized it. Unless this is an inside joke and I'm missing it!

Nah. Awhile ago I went on "Conservapedia," a wiki from a conservative standpoint, that was back when I was a bit stupid , and I put an article on it about the Town of Odyssey. Some user called Shadowpaw added something about a monkey poo war, and on the discussion page they said it was a vandel who did it, so ya, I might have thought it was you. The article has since been deleted now, unfortunately. Those people at Conservapedia have no sense of humor.

[Reddo]

Hi from your Saskatchewanian neighbor, I have 2 questions.

1. Do you have any ideas/plans for future Adventures in Odyssey projects?
2. What is your favorite computer language?

Hey Reddo.

1. I always have ideas but nothing I've ever implemented before. Years ago (and years before the Gabriel Dragsack saga) I scripted an outline for Dr. Blackgaard's return to the radio series and the story still sticks with me to this day as an amazing way to bring him back and do him justice without diminishing his death. Well, in fact, he wouldn't actually be alive but the stories would focus on his past in a pretty cool way... I don't expect it to ever make on the show anymore, but maybe I'll write some fan fiction to explore that angle. It would have been epic!

2. PHP. Hands down. Most people probably wouldn't consider that a top tier programming language, and it's not, but PHP is so forgiving and so simple... maybe I'm just more familiar with it than any other language, but I just find its simplicity so refreshing. If I want to build something, PHP is the first place I turn to because I know I can get it up and running right away. You don't need to compile the code... you just save the document, refresh the page, and it will immediately let you know if what you've done works or doesn't.

Least favorite language would be Haskell or Prolog. Never learn those languages if you can help yourself.

Sound like some interesting ideas, I always like the Blackgaard story line and wish that they would have explored it a bit more and talked about his past, I doubt that'll ever happen though

PHP, interesting choice, I like PHP too, I actually wrote a bunch of PHP for the rating systems on the wiki, it's nice not to compile things, my favorite would have to be C++ though, it's what I started with and what I know best, I also like VB for the ease at which it can be used with Excel. And I'll watch out for those two, hopefully I don't come across them in my Comp Sci degree

[bookworm]

I would have posted much sooner, but I had technical difficulties.

Welcome Shadowpaw!
You do not know how honored I am that you cite me as your inspiration for such a great thread idea.
It is extremely gratifying to know that I am not the only one who has no misgivings about reviving Regisville discussion.
With your support added to Catspaw’s, no one can refute me! The paw/paw/bookworm coalition - ensuring that arc talk continues until people go crazy! *maniacal laughter*



So you want arc questions? You will not be disappointed.

What ever happened to the Timeline of Evil? That has been bugging me to no end.

[Sherlock]

Just made it back to this thread and read through some of the questions - an interesting read!

Anyhow, a few of the old timers like myself have kind of drifted away from keeping up with Adventures in Odyssey in recent years while others appear to have become more involved with either Focus or Odyssey. Are you still involved with any Focus/Odyssey-related projects or are you still keeping up with the series these days? If so, is there anything currently happening with the series that might lure a lapsed listener back?

[Shadowpaw]

PHP, interesting choice, I like PHP too, I actually wrote a bunch of PHP for the rating systems on the wiki, it's nice not to compile things, my favorite would have to be C++ though, it's what I started with and what I know best, I also like VB for the ease at which it can be used with Excel. And I'll watch out for those two, hopefully I don't come across them in my Comp Sci degree

I came across them in mine... yikes. Once you grasp them they're not TOO bad, it's just they are no easy languages to pick up and learn. They're very backwards to other languages... the opposite of the forgiveness PHP so readily gives you.

I would have posted much sooner, but I had technical difficulties.

Welcome Shadowpaw!
You do not know how honored I am that you cite me as your inspiration for such a great thread idea.
It is extremely gratifying to know that I am not the only one who has no misgivings about reviving Regisville discussion.
With your support added to Catspaw’s, no one can refute me! The paw/paw/bookworm coalition - ensuring that arc talk continues until people go crazy! *maniacal laughter*

Haha, I love arc talk too... especially now that I don't have to be coy about anything! ;o)

So you want arc questions? You will not be disappointed.

What ever happened to the Timeline of Evil? That has been bugging me to no end.

Well I might not be disappointed but you might be... I don't even know what the Timeline of Evil is. Haha, can you refresh my memory? The term rings a bell but I dont' remember in what context it was used... I'll admit that not everything was planned in advance. In fact, the person behind the Odyssey bank robbery CHANGED during interrogations... I always felt guilty about that, but I came up with a better way to wrap up that arc and plant seeds for the next one so I went with my gut and that was to make AREM the villain. It didn't really change anything drastically... it just added another dimension to the multi-level conspiracy I was trying to create. As for the timeline of evil, I'm sure it was a device I intended to use that was dropped or forgotten about... depending on what it was referring to though (if you can remember in what context it was used, I might be able to dig up some notes on it or remember what it was supposed to be.)

Just made it back to this thread and read through some of the questions - an interesting read!

Anyhow, a few of the old timers like myself have kind of drifted away from keeping up with Adventures in Odyssey in recent years while others appear to have become more involved with either Focus or Odyssey. Are you still involved with any Focus/Odyssey-related projects or are you still keeping up with the series these days? If so, is there anything currently happening with the series that might lure a lapsed listener back?

I am not involved with Focus or AIO at the moment. I actually had been "out of the game" for a while when the live show took place last year. In fact, I was so out of it that I hadn't heard the last 3 albums by the time I arrived in Colorado! I was able to catch up to the end of album 49 by the time the show started (which helped, since I was in the "Information Station" and needed to be able to answer all questions related to AIO) but I didn't hear album 50 until a month later. So I guess, since no episodes have aired in the last year, that you can say I'm all caught up... although I haven't listened to much of Darien's Rise or even know what the upcoming titles are going to be.

They still get my opinion on things and I knew while watching the live show that it was the last time we were going to have that Whit, but as I've gotten older, time for AIO becames harder and harder to squeeze in. I'm hoping once I have children of my own that I can get back into it, listening with them... but for now, I'll tune in at irregular intervals just to get caught up and then forget about it for months at a time.

[Elementus Green]

Shadowpaw,
How did you decide on the names for the main players in the regisville saga? How long did you spend planning?

[bookworm]

Well I might not be disappointed but you might be... I don't even know what the Timeline of Evil is. Haha, can you refresh my memory? The term rings a bell but I dont' remember in what context it was used.

Um, yes I am a bit disappointed. Especially because you made it out to be this big important thing and then apparently promptly forgot about it, and now even dropped it from your memory.

It was from the previous arc to Regisville. The Davari kidnapping.
Davari kidnapped Margaret because she somehow got hold of this thing called The Timeline of Evil which, well her own words would explain it better:

I came across some information that scared somebody who wanted me silenced. The information was a timeline of events. Many of the events have come to pass, but many more are scheduled to occur. Unfortunately, this list was taken from me upon my kidnapping. A dark evil has been mapped out for the town and I implore the citizens of this town to track down a copy I made.

The idea was that if we solved the arc in time, we would find the timeline and be able to prevent future disasters. Of course, it didn't work out that way. Margaret was killed and when we finally discovered the Timeline's hiding place, it wasn't there. We thought it was destroyed, but it turns out that the villains had gotten it first, and it was now back in their possestion. Thus they were able to continue to carry out their plots while we were/are unaware.

Now I never really expected us to find it, because that would kinda eliminate the possibility of major future arcs, so I was not surprised when we missed it. However I was surprised when nothing more came of it. I suppose the Regisville Arc was the next event it foretold, but there were others that never came to pass. Which is probably good for the sake of our town, and I shouldn't be complaining, but I am because there wasn't even an attempt at explanation. It was just completely dropped.

[Shadowpaw]

Shadowpaw,
How did you decide on the names for the main players in the regisville saga? How long did you spend planning?

Well I think there was only a couple of names that were "invented" for the Regisville saga... I think Davari Hassan and Gabriel Dragsack were about it. To get Gabriel, I poured over an anagram generator for several hours the night I created him trying to find a name that would seem somewhat believeable... I probably still have the results saved somewhere, but the name "Gabriel" was the best starting point, especially because of the Christian conotation. The generator pumped out many variations but the one that stuck with me was "Gabriel Sack Drag." I think I was originally going to go with that but then realized if I rearranged the letters, the name suddenly became a bit more believable.

Davari Hassan I have no idea. Hassan probably came from "24" which I was, and still am, a huge fan of. Davari was just kind of a cool "terrorist" name and I think it was one of those things that it only took a few seconds and his name was invented.

The idea was that if we solved the arc in time, we would find the timeline and be able to prevent future disasters. Of course, it didn't work out that way. Margaret was killed and when we finally discovered the Timeline's hiding place, it wasn't there. We thought it was destroyed, but it turns out that the villains had gotten it first, and it was now back in their possestion. Thus they were able to continue to carry out their plots while we were/are unaware.

Now I never really expected us to find it, because that would kinda eliminate the possibility of major future arcs, so I was not surprised when we missed it. However I was surprised when nothing more came of it. I suppose the Regisville Arc was the next event it foretold, but there were others that never came to pass. Which is probably good for the sake of our town, and I shouldn't be complaining, but I am because there wasn't even an attempt at explanation. It was just completely dropped.

Actually, I DO remember the Timeline of Evil now! It was a real thing. I had created a thread that listed (somewhat cryptically) the events that had already unfolded, with only a couple of events that had NOT unfolded. The timeline of evil even included the Blackgaard DNA auction arc, and discussed the creation of Gabriel (without naming Gabriel) and gave dates specific to posts that Gabriel had made. If you cross referenced certain things in the timeline with posts by Gabriel on or around these dates, you would discover some symmetry.

The timeline of evil ended with the date of the election and the rise of "darkness" (referring to Blackgaard) and some stuff that would occur after the election. Well, I can't remember what, but the only thing I knew at that time was that the board colors were going to change and that Blackgaard was going to be back in full evilness. I had little clue where the story was going to go, so the "timeline of evil" was not so much a foreshadow of what was to come, but a summary of what had already happened with one clue relating to the future. I wanted people to find it, read through all the things and realize that only one thing has not yet occured and start preparing for that event... which lead me to the problem.

After writing it, I realized that by PROMISING an event would occur at the election, I was shooting my story entirely in the foot. Even if no one picked up on the cryptic dates being related to Gabriel, they certainly would expect something to happen on the election night. The whole story was geared towards the element of surprise... Gabriel being revealed to be Blackgaard would have been less dramatic if people were expecting it and I wanted people to think the arc was over with and then BAM it continued. Fortunately the time expiried and I deleted the thread and replaced it with another one from Glossman. I sadly don't even have the thread at all saved... I was so relieved I could delete it without people seeing it that I just kind of did it without thinking... plus I couldn't move it anywhere else because mods/admins had access to the "deleted board" and would have read it anyways. So in the end, the reason the timeline of evil was never brought up again was because the timeline ended with the events of the election... likely, had I continued writing arcs, I would have incorporated the timeline back into a future storyline and made it make sense, but at the time the Blackgaard arc was unfolding, the timeline was only going to announce (cryptically) Blackgaard's rise to power... and be less focused on the future and more focused on revealing previously unknown details about the past several months leading up to the election to give people an idea that something devious was at hand.

I think I summarized the timeline in Glossman's "replacement thread" in a poem fashion... something about sheep and darkness. Haha, but it's been years since I've thought about any of this stuff.

[Sapphire]

Shadowpaw, what was the Regisville Saga exactly? What was it like? Pardon my ignorance, but I was not a member during that time.

[Shadowpaw]

Shadowpaw, what was the Regisville Saga exactly? What was it like? Pardon my ignorance, but I was not a member during that time.

I'll try to be very brief... This forum is a fantastic resource by the way:

The First Church of Regisville
With the thread entitled "Looking back and Gabe's Posts" a must read.

The Regisville saga was a continuation of the previous arc which had occured a year earlier. In that arc, cryptic messages started appearing that an auction was going to be held on a specific date. At the same time, an item which have been available for purchase in the shop since day one had gone missing... a strand of Blackgaard's DNA. People put two and two together and realized the auction was for the DNA. Well, the price for the DNA was so high that no one person could afford it... that was until someone robbed the Odyssey bank and took money from everyone's vault. This money went missing and all the villains from Odyssey's past were put on trial. The citizens were allowed to question the accused to try and determine who was guilty.... unfortunately, the guilty party was none other than the person who was providing the clues about the auction in the first place and who had access to everyone's bank account from day one: AREM. He, along with Philip Glossman, made off with the DNA before the citizens solved the mystery and things went quiet...

Well, the next saga began about 8 months later but no one knew it. A member joined the board named Gabriel Dragsack. He was lighthearted and fun to be around but super annoying, always using n00bish language and tons of smileys. He started making friends and proclaimed his desire to run for mayor... this was unheard of in our town, as no one just joined the board and decided to run... but he was persistant and his friends grew. That was until Gabriel started having public fights with prominent members of the board. He privately attacked Pepper Doyle after joining her group "The Brotherhood" only to discover their distaste for the "Blackgaard Clan" and then prominently left citing differences of opinion. It turned nasty and he apologized. He then picked a fight with Top Crusader and again got knocked down a peg and his reputation became known as somewhat of a hot head who had a bit of a temper.

It didn't phase him though and he continued making friends and publicly discussed an illness he had that caused him to be this way... he joined up with the richest person on the board, Fenix, and the two of them set out to to create a campaign that could not be stopped... and they had the financial backing to buy every single person off, along with the funds to purchase advertising and "spies" to keep an eye on the opposition to always be a step ahead.

Meanwhile, the town was attacked by a terrorist known as Davari Hassan. Davari set up "bombs" in the various locations around town that, when deonated, destroyed the entire board. The First Church of Odyssey was the first casuality. Clocks ticked down announcing the next detonation and every time the bomb exploded, the entire forum would go missing from the town. His demands were simple: he wanted the ruku virus and antitode from the members who owned the items. If they surrendered their items, they would stop the bombings. Gabriel ran on a platform that he was willing to negotiate with the terrorists, while David O and JesusFreak777, the front runners in the election and owners of some of the items, refused to give up their items. Things escalated until ultimately the items were handed over. Thus the bombings stopped and Gabriel and Fenix continued their attacks.

A few things were said in private on the JF and David O board that Gabriel brought to light and followers began realizing that everyone was playing dirty in this campaign... and things were so tense that a run off election was held to knock out all other teams except the top two. David O and JesusFreak won and Gabriel / Fenix finished second. The teams that lost (mostly) rallied behind Gabriel with a few stragglers going to the other guys. The dislike for Gabriel was so strong at this point that I was dealing with users complaining about him on a DAILY basis, trying to find out if there was a way I could ban him from the board. I explained that nothing he did was against the rules and while I didn't care for some of the things he did, nothing he said was ever an outright lie... he was a master of manipulation.

Finally the day of the election took place and the vote came down to a tie. I was in a conference call with 10 other members when the results were posted and I got an EARFUL when I had to cast the deciding vote and the vote was given to Gabriel Dragsack and Fenix. People were not very happy with me... about 10 minutes later though, Gabriel made his first post as mayor and revealed everything was a sham... he threw Fenix into prison, appointed a rag tag bunch of mods (no offense to those who selected!) and plunged the board into darkness. Rules were changed, signatures were banned, money could no longer be earned and the board got a new theme... Regisville. Dr. Blackgaard and Gabriel Dragsack were one and the same and everyone had been fooled.

The next week was spent trying to take down the Blackgaard regime, ultimately ending with him being... well... who knows what happened to him. But things were restored to normal and I retired from the board.
I hope that sums it up?

[31899]

That a cool story arc. The ToO seems to have an interesting pat that I unfortunately missed. Are there any other story arcs you can tell us about or story arcs you considered using but didn't? and, Now that Christmas is almost over will you be leaving again soon?

31899

[Marvin D.]

Shadowpaw, do you know if there'll be any new story arcs in the near future? And are you planning on permenantly staying on the ToO?
MnT

[LizzieG]

Welcome back, Shadowpaw!

...a bit late, but at least I'm expressing my regards while you're still here!

I've enjoyed following this thread, particularly your latest post summarizing the Regisville Saga. I didn't know anything about the early Blackgaard DNA arc... and it was fun reading about events which I only barely understood at the time, being a very new member then. I am glad, though, that I got to experience the shock of the Gabriel Dragsack reveal!

Hmmm, questions. Are you excited about the final season of Lost?

[NateMaxwell]

Dear ShadowPaw,


Some of the ideas you used in the Gabe Dragsack arc helped me in my first term as mayor on another AIO forum when I did a Story Arc with Blackgaard in it! Thanks a lot!

[31899]

I am assuming from your lack of response you have left again. It's unfortunate, I would have liked to hear more, but I guess not until next time. Bye.

31899

[bookworm]

Actually, I DO remember the Timeline of Evil now!

What a relief. And what an explanation! Thank you so much.


You beat me to the punch on my second question.
Who came up with all the Gabriel prearc posts?
I mean all these.

In hindsight the truth was unbelievably clear. I could not believe no one caught any of those until after the fact! I cracked up going through those. You covered everything! Absolutely brilliant.

Who came up with those, and weren’t you a bit concerned that someone might catch on?

[Taq]

Yay, bookworm + Shadowpaw cited me!

bookworm, I'm loving your fascination + enthusiasm for the storyarc.

[bookworm]

bookworm, I'm loving your fascination + enthusiasm for the storyarc.

fascination + enthusiasm = obsession

Seriously though, thank you. It is nice to hear some support.

what was the Regisville Saga exactly? What was it like

That was an incredible summary by Shadowpaw of the events leading up to the takeover, but let’s not forget the other half of the story. Everything that happened after the election, when we had to find a way to save our town and get things back to normal.
Definitely look through the Regisville Forum. You get a better sense of what happened by seeing the actual threads than by just hearing an explanation.

Because there was no official recap of this arc, I took it upon myself to make my own way back when. It has no commentary by me or anything (which is probably a good thing for the sake of length) but it is a collection of the important threads from the arc, in the order they occurred, so you can see the progression without having to sort through all the other threads.

The beginning - This was the first revelation of who we had actually voted into office.
The confirmation - As I said, hindsight is 20/20.
The continuation - This is when the actual change to Regisville took place.
The intervention - This is when ideas of how to stop Blackgaard began flying around.
The threat - This is when things started going crazy, it was now or never.
The solution - This is when we finally figured out what we had to do.
The conclusion - This is the explanation we got at the time.
The last word - The bad guy always gets it.

And don't forget to check out The Fenix Interview for some extras.

[Shadowpaw]

That a cool story arc. The ToO seems to have an interesting pat that I unfortunately missed. Are there any other story arcs you can tell us about or story arcs you considered using but didn't? and, Now that Christmas is almost over will you be leaving again soon?

31899

Hmm. It's been years I'm afraid. I believe there was only three MAJOR arcs that occured... the Bennett Charles takeover (which was meant to guage how people reacted to storylines... this only lasted a day or two), the Blackgaard DNA Auction (this lasted a week) and the Gabriel Dragsack arc which lasted for months. That was by design... I was very disappointed with how quickly the previous two arcs got wrapped up and I wanted to make it longer so that people could actually participate in it even if they happened to miss part of it.

To be honest though, most storylines were planned shortly before they began. We had (maybe still do?) a team of people who helped me manage the NPCs and bounce storyline ideas around which was critical to the success of the earlier stories. Gabriel Dragsack was entirely kept a secret from everyone except Fenix and Trent... the Davari storyline was only created because Top begged to do a storyline about the Red Scorpions and I figured it would be a perfect way to reintroduce storylines to the board and give the story planning team something to do.

Shadowpaw, do you know if there'll be any new story arcs in the near future? And are you planning on permenantly staying on the ToO?
MnT

That I don't know... not that I'm involved with anyway. And I won't be here permanently but I will keep checking this thread from time to time!

Hmmm, questions. Are you excited about the final season of Lost?

Umm... hello??? I thought there was no such thing as a stupid question (and I learned that from AIO), but you have proven me wrong!!!

Dear ShadowPaw,


Some of the ideas you used in the Gabe Dragsack arc helped me in my first term as mayor on another AIO forum when I did a Story Arc with Blackgaard in it! Thanks a lot!

You're welcome! Glad you enjoyed it.

I am assuming from your lack of response you have left again. It's unfortunate, I would have liked to hear more, but I guess not until next time. Bye.

31899

Haha, no, I'm still here... just didn't have time to reply! Sorry!

Actually, I DO remember the Timeline of Evil now!

What a relief. And what an explanation! Thank you so much.

I did find this for you:

Everyone,

This is a basic list of important (and some not so important) facts about the timeline of events of the board (as much as the board is supposed to know):

2005

April 1: The Town of Odyssey Created
May 1: AREM shows up, warning of impending doom
May 1: Shadowpaw is de-admined / jailed and renamed 1115100040
May 1: First term elections draw to a close
May 2: Ballots announced as missing, results not revealed.
May 3: Bennett Charles stages an illegal takeover of the Town Odyssey, destroys AREM and claims Margaret Faye has given her blessing.
May 3: Citizens race to solve AREM's final clues, discovering a couple of account with information to help bring down Charles.
May 3: The real results are uncovered and Bennett Charles is brought down. Shadowpaw imprisons him and AREM is treated like a hero.
May 3 onward: Margaret Faye is not heard from again and Bennett Charles is imprisoned.

More information can be obtained from this thread and this thread.

July 12: Shadowpaw pms "Secret Informant" about an opportunity
July 20ish: A bug in the board cripples the town and some accounts are deleted
July 21: Rachael is the first to discover Blackgaard's DNA is missing
July 21 onward: Hank Murray, Professor Bovril, Abdul, Tasha Forbes, Richard Maxwell, Alfred Brownlee, and Jellyfish appear
July 23: Mysterious guest post appears in Crestwood, once decrypted leads people to believe the DNA will be auctioned off
July 24: Auction begins, the DNA is up for auction and villains/members bid for it
July 24: AREM returns to the board, dropping strange cryptic clues related to the auction and the people bidding
July 24: NSA shuts down the banks to prevent people from bidding on the stolen goods
July 25: Abdul robs members of the Blackgaard clan
July 25: Bank accounts re opened at the close of the auction, citizens realize their accounts have been drained of funds
July 25: Various villains rounded up and sent to prison, all with motives.
July 26: Prisoners released on bail, NSA conducts investigation and forces prisoners to answer questions. Glossman is revealed to have been controlling AREM and escapes with the DNA once everyone realizes they have been played.
July 26: Alfred Brownlee reveals he had figured it all out and was trying to help
July 26: Eugene Blackgaard reveals Richard Maxwell was the first AREM and different from this one
July 26 onward: Richard Maxwell not heard from again

This is easy to follow in the recap posted here, minus a few elements that were only recently introduced.

Everything remains calm, for a while.

2006

April 15 onward: Nearly all stocks begin to fall
May 3: Bennett Charles released from prison.
May 5: Bennett Charles manipulates members to donate money to him to start a faction
May 7: Bennett Charles creates "The MAC Lovers" (using Robo to buy it and Eugene Kendall to lead it) with trouble makers making up the faction. It's a front for anti-Shadowpaw propaganda and eventually turns into anti-administration
May 18: Margaret Faye sends out a distress private message to DanP740
May 28: Secret Informant arrives, using the account to protect his real identity and announces that on July 12 he received a private message from Shadowpaw the previous year that may have some relevance today
May 30: Margaret Faye sends out a distress private message to OrigamiKid
June 12: Shadowpaw discovers the existence of the "MAC Lovers" faction and shuts it down
June 21: Shadowpaw last seen in public
June 23: Davari Hassan joins the board, making threats
June 24: Davari and the Red Scorpions kidnap Catspaw, Me, Eeyore, NatetheGreat, Rachael, Kris Doyle, Evil Chick, and J-man and demands $20,000 ransom to release them
June 25: Dr. Watson pays the ransom and Davari releases all but Catspaw, Me, and Eeyore
June 26: Davari demands the three hand over the ruku virus and TA-418 or he will kill a victim
June 26: Catspaw, Me, and Eeyore refuse, Margaret Faye is killed and reveals that she went missing because she uncovered a timeline of events and has hidden it in an abandoned user account. A series of riddles will eventually lead the board to this account where the timeline will be made known.
June 26: Project D.O.L.L.Y. appears on the stock market
June 28: Margaret Faye leads the town back to Secret Informant.

That's the story that you know thus far... have I left anything important out?
Nuggets of information are released here but no formal board has been created yet to contain all of the new storyline stuff. That would be a great benefit to a lot of people, I think.

You beat me to the punch on my second question.
Who came up with all the Gabriel prearc posts?
I mean all these.

In hindsight the truth was unbelievably clear. I could not believe no one caught any of those until after the fact! I cracked up going through those. You covered everything! Absolutely brilliant.

Who came up with those, and weren’t you a bit concerned that someone might catch on?

I believe of all Gabriel's posts, only 1 was not posted by me. I originally told Fenix he could use Gabriel at times I was not around to mask his identity, but I realized I would probably second guess every decision Fenix made and people might notice a change in style... so I realized it was better to keep everything self contained.

So every clue was posted by me. Actually, a LOT of clues have never been posted for the public because they were said in private messages to people. I'll have to log into his account some time and dig those out for you guys... maybe tomorrow! Haha. It was a TON of fun though... I was unbelievably nervous the first day I created Gabriel thinking someone would notice the anagram. And then I was a little bit nervous the first few times I posted hints... but I soon discovered just how far I could push the envelope. Gabriel was just believable enough to remain, well, believable, but he also had this bigger than life nature that allowed him to get away with silly things like posting a skeleton for the "post a picture of yourself" thread or pretending to be so into the RPG aspect of the board that he wants to look into the tunnel at Whit's End... or that he wants to track down Richard Maxwell.

I LOVE this post in the thread "If You Knew When You Would Die What Would You Do?":

I would do everything in my power to obtain a cure, if at all possible. If that failed, I would make arrangements with friends to come and retrieve my body, once the technology was available, and have them revive me! While I wait to be revived, I'd try to find a way to torment my enemies from the grave!

So innocent and no one picked up on it, but it detailed the entire story arc right there including references to Blackgaard's Revenge.

[J-man]

Haha, I can see how you would be nervous. It's so obvious if you're looking for it. The problem is, nobody was looking for it, and by the time we were looking you were keeping us busy with other things.