It all started when a co-worker mentioned how much fun it was playing FFXI online. I had been spending quiet evenings with a book or playing a round or two of Sid Miers' CivIII, and was ready for something new. Gil Shalos was not my first FFXI character. Niala was my initial character, on Lakshmi.
When my co-worker, Xarion, learned that I was playing FFXI, he purchased a world pass to Fairy so that we could play in the same world. It was an intense summer...but when fall came, he got all grown-up and serious, started a family in the real world, and Gil Shalos was left to soldier on alone.
I thought about simply dropping the character, and playing Niala, but by this time I had been away from Lakshmi long enough that most of my contacts were no longer playing and I had quite a lot of time invested in Gil Shalos. So I continued on Fairy, where I had made a few freinds and had a steadily growing list of people I could call on.
FFXI does a number of things for me: First of all, it is fun. I like computer games, love fantasy stories, and delight in puzzles. Second, it is contact with live humans who are NOT members of my family, co-workers or students. Third, it is a way of meeting people from around the world.
But, as is the case with many things, after a time the primary setting/activity of the game ceased to be enough. So...I began making up stories. As I wrote I realized that these stories would never be usable as publication material--first, because the name Gillian Shalos is borrowed from Barbara Hambly's Dark Tower series. Second, because many of the tales involved other characters and it would be both rude and unwise to share some of them.
Therefore, this year, I am beginning to build a rationale for the character--primarily for my own amusement, altho the plot lines might grow into something else someday. I decided that Gil and Niala were sword-sisters who had attended the same school, and had been posted to separate worlds. As Gil has become a more developed character, I have added others, bringing them in on Fairy. Since they serve as storage and back-up for my primary character, I postulated that they were students who graduated later and were brought in as co-workers. Eliuna is Gil's secretary and keeper of the armoury. Ilita (sometimes played by my oldest grand-daughter) is an experienced gardener. Dethmeister (almost always played by my grandson)is procurer of hides, and other odd bits of merchandise. Serviato is the man-servant, and also gardens. Pierrette is an apprentice whose current specialty is collecting crystals. Of course, the freinds I make on-line, share in the events that are loosely strung together to create the plot...perhaps someday, I'll get it cleaned up so that it can be shared.
Character history, or how I came to waste most of my Sunday afternoons playing FFXI