Drac will be hard to reach for a couple of days

Hi folks. Just to let you know that I will be hard to reach for a couple of days because I have to go walkabout in real life. Hopefully I'll be able to find a place to log on and feed me and my pigs. Should be back in time for mass!

Dearly departed, and the soon-to-be...

I have done one of my periodic checks of the clan roster. There were a few MacTavishes who are officially classed as 'dead' at the moment, one who has 'dissappeared', one who hasn't logged on for several days but is still alive. I thought I'd leave a message here for a bit, before advising the official power structures ingame...

Totally Gone

Muzz
He's done this before so I'll wait a wee while before notifying this guy as gone.

Officially 'Dead'

Kevin Teastone
Daniel the Slayer
Italian Iceman
I'll wait for their profiles to be erradicated before regarding them as truly gone.

Missing But Active

Lady Susan
If anyone knows anything, please let me know if I can help...

Territorial musings

More Musings

I have been looking around at historical stuff on MacTavish. Found this site which contains a lot more useful information than you'd expect at first glance. For the moment, I looked at the maps as it has been a mytery to me where exactly in Argyll our historical lands actually lie. I now have much better Idea - South of Kilmartin (the River Add, actually), North of Castle Sween, West of Highway 83, East of the Isle of Jura. The site of Dunnardrie and the castle/fort is on the River Add at the north of the territory. The Knapdale forest is solid MacTavish country. I wonder if this land is going to be a wood town ingame?

I have yet to go for a cyberjourney to the ahistorical lands I have creatively carved out for us to the North of Loch Lomond - in the Trossarchs (mountainous woody country - would become MacGregor land in the 16th century).

If Argyll opens up ingame for colonisation, would be pretty cool if we established a strong presence in the area around Dunnardrie. Until that glorious day, I intend to stay based in Whithorn. Of course, there'll probably be a lot of Campbells claiming Argyll as their own, so expect to have a bit of jostling amongst the clans. And don't fall for the propoganda which says MacTavish are in some way junior to Campbell. We're not.

I'll post the maps up to give you an easy look (it took me awhile to work it all out) as soon as I find time and inclination to do so.

While the servers are down - musings

Here I am on a Friday night at the Hearth, thinking my thoughts and scribbling them down.

Lucifera, we'll need a day or two's notice if we are to get to Wiggie from Whithorn. I'm thinking of it seriously, might chop a bit of wood at the same time for me smith's forge...

The UCS thing is a real mixed bag of things from a clan chief's perspective. It throws into stark reality the clannish nature of scottish politics. This will be showing itself pretty majorly in Ayr at the moment. Will be interested in any stories from Ayr over the present fortnight.

One thing I am real glad about is that I stayed clear of the term 'United' in our clan's little slogan at our clan forum. I went for 'Scotland - Strong, Free, Independent' over 'Scotland - Strong, United, Independent'. I think I'd rather be free than 'united'. As things stand, we are united with most other clans via the UCS. Two active Ayr (Munro and O'Broin) clans and one local Whithorn clan (Frasers) have stayed out of the UCS political party. Philosophically they do so from a sense of independence. I don't think it will be fatal for anyone, and it does add a bit of spice to the mix. It's funny, but O'Broins voted to walk out of the UCS as we voted to walk in.

And, in case you're wondering, within the UCS I think we MacTavishes have already made ourselves heard in the direction the party is going. Although it wouldn't surprise me if someone starts pulling the numbers on us. For the moment, however, it's a case of watch and learn.

Clan Update

We are expanding our presence. Clan was very prominent in recent RP of some note in Whithorn (Destrata led from the front in a witch hunt). Yankie has started off Pig Rolling RP on our clan forum. Over in Drummore, Lucifera is out fishing with some interesting types in her refugee thread.

In clan events, we have joined the United Clans of Scotland political party. Lady Robin, Antek and myself are our representatives. So far, looks like a bunch of people trying to look at developing scotland by working together. Will be updating as we go on clan forum.

Clan is presently equal third largest. We have several applications for membership up on the forum, and there are a couple more who are thinking about it. Still no official members in Ayr, and the bulk of us still reside in Whithorn. Though I think there's a critical mass in Drummore (I hope you guys are supporting The World's End tavern, run by Luthien Bedwyr MacTavish).

More and more of us seem to be using Signatures on our forum profiles. There's a thread on our own forum where Lady Robin has kindly offered to help those of us who don't wish to make a signature banner ourselves (me personally, I loved making my own banner).

That'll do for the moment. Please leave a message on the chatbox in here if you pass through.

In defence of clans

The following is a recent post of mine at Highlands Hall where someone asked the question abut being in a clan. You can read the original thread here.

I am a clan chieftain, having formed clan mactavish in the early days of scotland. I was a total noob to this type of game, but a bit of an old (jaded?) hand at certain political games (always oppostional till now). I thought of making a clan that wasn't a political machine (having a fear that that was what would happen to many - I'm glad I the fear seems unfounded as there is so much more to clans that that).

So I got into it and MacTavish was formed. Now pretty big, always changing its focus of activity, disputing and scrapping and laughing amongst ourselves but getting to where we're going. We are very diverse in age attitude opinion and playing style. But that's good for us, good for our communities. We're all learning as we go so its an interesting experience. Together.

Almost everyone in our clan was invited in. We've accepted those who asked to join, but not too many of those. I suspect thats because we've kept in the background up to now. There's lots of reasons why we ask people to join, generally because the player has 'style' of some sort. That doesn't mean rich and famous, just means that they seem to be willing to have a go and keep an open mind. Only a fraction of us are active on forums, but that's reflective of RK generally. We try.

Unless you've got a good reason not to, I'd encourage all to join a clan. It adds layers to the whole experience and makes our land unique.

Letter to a Campbell

I just realised that I can print here a copy of the letter I sent to the UCS founder. I sent it Feb 2 (local).

Greetings.

Thankyou for recent missive. I can inform you that our clan is discussing the UCS issue anew. It would appear very likely we will be seeking to join UCS, full membership (ie 3 representatives). And, by "very likely" I mean "almost certainly". The process still has several days to run. But that is the way it's looking.

I have told you this out of respect for you and your position within both UCS and County. I simply ask that you not tell anyone about this until my clan has completed their discussions.

Yours truly,

Dracmuller

More on the UCS

I don't know if any of us have approached the UCS hierarchy recently to tell them what's happening in our clan, but I've just received another request for us to come and send rep's to the UCS. Again, it is being produced as 'not a political party'. As if...

I told their representative that we happened to be considering that very course of action at present and that I would get back to him. I haven't published the letter here because I didn't receive explicit permission.

Pubs and Professions

In recent times quite a few of us have levelled up to level 2. This is our present list of tradespeople, grouped by town.

Wigtown
Lady Susan (Baker)

Drummore
Luthien Bedwyr(Baker)

Whithorn
Antek (Baker)
Dracmuller (Blacksmith)
Lady Robin (Weaver)
Ragehammer (Butcher)
Vermelaine (Carpenter)
Wognot (Miller)

While I'm at it, there are two pubs owned by MacTavishes

The Alba Arms (Muzz of Whithorn)
The World's End (Luthien Bedwyr of Drummore)