Freeworld: Gathering of the Clans - The Guilds of FreeWorld - by Arwen

A number of guilds (or clans) call FreeWorld home. At the beginning of phase 8, three main guilds were in place-US (United Souls), ChK (Crimson Hell Knights), and GoN (Guild of Ni). A few others started, such as Royal Family and Blue Dragons, but they didn't get established enough to last. Looking into the history of each of these guilds was fun and I talk to some of the members at length.

United Souls

US, under the leadership of GuardianZ, is the oldest guild in FreeWorld under the leadership of GuardianZ. I talked to Z, as the guild members call him, and here's what he had to say about US:

"United Souls was originally started by Karrde and Prowler during alpha phase 5 as a means to hunt Shadow Weavers for their rare sword drops to be sold to other players. With the sword market blossoming, soon the guild had many members that became wealthy from the sword trade. At that time, the guild was mainly formed of the richest and most powerful players of the game. Karrde, however, had to leave FreeWorld completely, so leadership was passed onto Prowler. Under the leadership of Prowler, United Souls continued to be the most powerful guild and dominated all other guilds entirely. By the end of phase 5, United Souls was the only guild left in the game.

"The guild, however, suffered a setback at the beginning of phase 6, as many members did not return for the new phase. The guild was left with only a few dedicated members: Prowler, Rain76, Capeal, and I, which at the time formed the high council. United Souls quickly regained much of its former strength by recruiting many dedicated members who still remain members of the guild to this day. Due to strict recruitment policies to accept the dedicated and elite players only, recruitment was very slow.

"Phase 7 was probably the harshest blow to United Souls, as new rules were passed that no moderators or developers were allowed to be a part of player guilds. United Souls, being a group of the most elite players since the started of phase 5 had all the game moderators as members, and included several developers. So with the new rules set, Prowler, Shaena, Rain76, and Capeal were forced to leave United Souls. It was at this point that United Souls leadership was passed onto me. Although with very few members left, United Souls has still remained the most respected guild in the game, but to get into US you have to be mature and invited by a member of guild and someone has to second the invite then you get voted on by guild members.

"To this day, the remaining members of United Souls include wolfmancomith, Deadzone, Arwen AKA (Angel), Number_2, MicRodzz, kornflakes, Tw1Z1tD and I (GuardianZ)."

Crimson Hell Knights

Crimson Hell Knights came into the game at the start of phase 7 under the leadership of Gil Gadal. This guild came in to game already formed. I will let my good friend Gil explain more:

"Ok I will continue on from where Arwen left off. We did come into power just before the beginning of phase 7 under the leadership of...well, myself, as always. I think I stumbled on to Freeworld through my never-ending search for an MMORPG that has everything that I am looking for...something that gives me the freedom I had once so long ago. I read about Freeworld and thought that it wouldn't hurt to try it out. So the push began as I introduced myself in the FreeWorld forums and got myself pretty well known in the short amount of time I had.

"While this was happening, I rallied together all the members from the ChK that were interested. Some came and posted over at the FreeWorld forums. Because we were already an established guild, moving into the game was quite easy, as there were not many guilds around at the time apart from US. The phase came out and we had a good 25 members in game--I feel it would be pointless to list them all but you can see most who played on our members list at www.crimsonhellknights.tk.

"ChK is still a MMORPG-focused guild, but we are now trying to focus more towards one main game instead of many like we were before. We have been around for four years and we will still be around for many more to come."

Guild of Ni!

The GoN! (or Guild of Ni!) was formed during phase 7 of the FreeWorld Alpha testing led by Kakashi and Sestren. I will let Kak, as we call him in FreeWorld, tell you about the forming of GoN!

"It occurred to Sestren and myself that there was a lot of money to be made off of the then-farmable trees of Northern Orc Woods, so we in turn decided to start calling ourselves "The Lumberjacks of Ni!" Why? Because each of us resembled one of the Knights of Ni! in the fantastically hilarious movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," so it only seemed natural that that influence rubbed off on our title. Later though, after lumberjacking had lost its fun, we decided to become the "Knights of Ni!" and at about that time, I had considered joining the Crimson Hell Knights, founded by a mate of mine, Gil Gadal. However, I could not bring myself to be governed, so therein, Sestren and I together formed the now dubiously notorious band of FreeWorlders known now as the Guild of Ni!

"Our most active roster has been, and more than likely will be, a select few of us including: Sestren, Pazza, CrazyMofo, Halthar, Sucky Ducky and myself. As to some of our other members...we'll see when next phase comes about. And that, my fellow countrymen, is the history of the GoN! in a nutshell. To join GoN! we're always taking applications, however, a shrubbery never hurts to win our favor."

Guild of Deities

And there is one more guild that I saved for last, called GOD. This guild is very special because it's the FreeWorld home of all the mods and devs of FreeWorld, as led by Draconus (Clyde Bielss). GOD stands for Guild Of Deities. When you think of how these people have total control over our FW lives, well, I think the title speaks for itself.