Hero

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Irving Monster

level 90

[Insert witty motto here]

Age 12 years 5 months
Personality neutral
Guild no guild
Monsters Killed about 303 thousand
Death Count 150
Wins / Losses 51 / 65
Temple Completed at 04/06/2013
Ark Completed at 08/10/2016 (161.8%)
Twos of Every Kind 120m, 158f (12.0%)
Savings 8M, 708k (29.0%)
Pet Landshark Fido

Equipment

Weapon blade of infinite dullness +100
Shield chariot wheel hubcap +102
Head choke collar +100
Body cloak of artificial modesty +100
Arms sacrificial limb +101
Legs dragonscale stockings +99
Talisman amulet of industrial strength +99

Skills

  • chakra bending level 94
  • swear-o-matic level 82
  • oak cloaking level 79
  • flying bird level 77
  • lion belch level 66
  • pathological honesty level 65
  • brainstorm level 62
  • somersault squatting level 60
  • lossy compression level 59
  • Cheshire smile level 55

Pantheons

Gratitude64
Might8473
Templehood6529
Storytelling372

Achievements

  • Honored Favorite
  • Honored Renegade
  • Animalist, 1st rank
  • Builder, 1st rank
  • Careerist, 1st rank
  • Martyr, 1st rank
  • Shipwright, 1st rank
  • Champion, 2nd rank
  • Fiend, 2nd rank
  • Hunter, 2nd rank
  • Raider, 2nd rank
  • Saint, 2nd rank
  • Coach, 3rd rank
  • Freelancer, 3rd rank
  • Moneybag, 3rd rank
  • Savior, 3rd rank

Hero's Chronicles

It was a dark and stormy night when I hurled forth the mute, lifeless, stupid lump of clay that would become Irving Monster. Working tirelessly I would come to give him a form in my own, devastatingly handsome visage. I blew air into his lungs to give him breath and voice (my first mistake, as he hasn’t shut up since) and imparted the divine spark that he might worship his creator and bow to my every whim. Unfortunately my divine spark imparter was on the fritz and he wound up being far more of a barely sentient, disobedient drunk who can barely string a coherent sentence together. As I began to follow and chronicle the exploits of my creation, I came to realize what a long and frustrating adventure this would prove to be. Since Irving is too busy spreading praise (or something) in my name, I have taken the opportunity to write his chronicles. Here, in all its uncensored glory, is his tale…

After several weeks of bumbling adventures Irving Monster came to discover how all his limbs could be made to work together to achieve the common goal of propelling his carcass through the wilderness along the many milestones between towns. He started bumbling slightly less and managed to find the coordination to attack and defeat some of the lesser creatures he encountered on his travels. He even learned to write (albeit poorly and with atrocious grammar and nearly illegible handwriting) and keep a log of his adventures. A slave to his baser functions, Irving’s adventures usually consisted of uncovering new and more repulsive bodily functions and satisfying his most primitive urges. By far his most favorite of all his body parts was and remains his liver. He has found many interesting ways to abuse it. All seem to involve ingesting massive quantities of beer and other alcoholic beverages. In fact it usually requires my most potent lightning bolts to pry his butt from the barstool to get him back to questing in my honor.

Monotony and loneliness finally set in and Irving decided to find another soul with whom to pass the down time when he wasn’t fighting other creatures or drinking himself into a stupor. Since his usual state of disheveled, malodorous repugnance made finding a mate next to impossible, Irving decided that beating some poor, unsuspecting creature into a stupor and tying a rope around its neck was the next best option. He eventually met one such creature that was even worse off than he was and stunned it long enough to leash it to prevent its escape. He and the creature came to respect and love one another. I came to view the situation as a case of the blind leading the blind.

After much killing and destruction of increasingly larger beasts and monsters, Irving managed to collect a small pile of treasures. Wandering into Tradeville after one of his more profitable days, he discovered that other people, particularly traders had a great interest in the variety of trinkets and doodads he had collected and were willing to give him shiny round things in exchange for them. At first he seemed dubious such transactions, but after entirely too detailed an explanation (involving charts, graphs and eventually stick-figure drawings), the trader convinced Irving that the gold coins, although inedible, do have some value. They can be traded for beer! With this realization, questing took on an even greater importance for my intrepid hero. His poor liver would never be the same.

Although adventuring and matching wits with his friendly pet (and usually losing) was fun enough for a time, Irving came to crave a deeper relationship with his fellow heroes and heroines. To that end he began to seek out a group with whom he could share tales of his adventures, sing bawdy songs with, learn new skills from, and pass along his own words of ‘wisdom’ to. On one fortuitous trip to town, Irving got drunk with a friend who talked to him of something called a guild. Irving was intrigued by the tales of camaraderie, wild adventures, and, of course many many nights of drunken parties. He tried several different guilds, finally settling on a group called Guild Name. Despite their uninspired motto, “insere hic gilda nomen”, translating to “join this guild name” and their woeful pitch to encourage Irving to join, which started with “You will be in a guild”, Irving found the Guild Namers to be a good lot. At first glance I found them to be mired in mediocrity, and a group that should give change if given a penny for their thoughts. I feared for Irving’s intellectual development, which had already been slow and painful and was looking to halt even further, possibly throwing the transmission of his mind into a sudden and damaging reverse. But the folks from Guild Name had good taste in cheese and an affinity for bacon, so I knew Irving would at least be able to keep his strength up. After a good many adventures with other Guild Name members, Irving has become an active and often vocal member (much to the chagrin of many other guild members) of the guild council, surviving long enough to reach the highest ranks.

With a great deal of wandering, killing, selling, drinking and repeating the cycle, time passed and the seasons began to change. In the fall, when the weather turned and the rainstorms came, Irving decided that shelter was maybe a better idea than sleeping in the gutter with the rainwater flowing past him. After several failed attempts to build shelters from stolen beer mugs, branches, old newspapers and leaves, Irving became frustrated. In his anger he got lost in the suburbs of Godville, where he noticed for the first time the temples that had been built by other heroes in honor of their Gods and Goddesses. He wandered into several of these temples and found them warm, dry and relatively safe from marauding monsters. Building such an edifice was as daunting a task as Irving had ever contemplated (since most of his ‘ideas’ involved hitting things on the head and getting mind-numbingly tanked at the bar), so I, as a frustrated, but loving God, decided to gently nudge him in the right direction for beginning his construction of my monument. Initially this was a difficult transition. Irving, still yearning for as much gold as possible to spend on beer, neither understood nor took kindly to my use of godly power to convert his gold into the necessary bricks. After trying to ‘return’ the first couple of these bricks to me by throwing them straight up into the air, and having them fall back to dent his already thick skull, Irving came to realize that I was serious about my temple being made of nothing but the finest in modern construction materials. He grudgingly accepted the exhausting process of planning and building the monument to me. After many, many months of encouragement and many more months of whip-cracking on my part, Irving finally laid the last brick, swept the last of the dust under the entryway rug and opened my glorious temple for all to see.

To be continued… ____________________________________________________________________________________________

23:06: Carefully placed the last brick, swept all the rooms, opened all doors, and cut the ribbon in a stately manner with my sword. I can’t believe it’s finally happened! After all these months of work, the temple in your name is finished, my Lord! I feel crazy with happiness. —> Temple completed 04/05/2013 23:06 (My birthday in RL! Happy birthday to me!) ____________________________________________________________________________________________

My favorite part of Godville has quickly become submitting and editing ideas in the Ideabox and Enhancement Room (ER). I love the creativity and humor that developing and submitting ideas creates in me (and by creativity I mean the ability to modify other people’s brilliance). I also love seeing the cleverness and creativity of others. It seems ironic that my favorite part of a ZPG is the one part that requires only my input, but whatever… As this is the case, I’m using my hero’s chronicles to keep a log of my favorite rejected ideas, so that all of Godville may bask in my unrecognized genius. :P

- Earthly News: Wondering if all this pain is worth the gain…

- Diary Entry: Almighty, this is by far your worst idea yet. I’m totally in!

- Earthly News: Through the crossroads, with a hellhound on {his¦her} trail… (delta blues reference)

- Earthly News: Abiding… (from The Big Lebowski)

- Diary Entry: This is my %hero_equipment%. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My %hero_equipment%, without me, is useless. Without my %hero_equipment%, I am useless. (The Rifleman’s Creed, as seen in Full Metal Jacket)

- Diary Entry: Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty %monster%! (from The Planet of the Apes)

- Earthly News: Singing the Boss-Monster Blues…

- Earthly News: The {hero|heroine} is ignoring the droids {he|she} is looking for…

- Earthly News: The hero is feeling grazed and contused for %hp%…

- Earthly News: In Russian Godville, right path finds you…