Intro: Rhoelyn, the Toon

Because everyone likes to know what the bejoolies is going on, let's continue getting to know the different themes and types of posts you'll find here. Meet the charcoal grey theme:

./who Rhoelyn of Proudmoore

(c) Blizzard Entertainment, 2007

Allegiance: Alliance
Race: Nightelf
Class: Priest, Shadow
14 / 0 / 47
Played: 58 days
(over 3 years)
Level: 70
Tradeskills: Herbalism (375)
Alchemy (375)
Raid Experience: Molten Core, Onyxia, Blackwing Lair, Zul'Gurub, Ahn'Qiraj, Karazhan, Gruul's Lair and more

Overview:

The scene is Teldrassil, sometime roughly in the middle of the World of Warcraft Closed Beta Test. One moment, Conservator Ilthalaine was standing alone on a grassy hillside. The next, he was staring at the game's latest newb, a silver-haired young priest wearing a shiny, green 'Rhoelyn' tag over her head.

Five minutes later, after she'd floundered around, learning the basics of moving and clicking and controlling the camera, he gave her the first quest on what would become a long and illustrious career in Azeroth... and beyond.

Baby Rhoelyn (or Rhoelyn I, as I like to call her) loved all the typical newb things. She danced her funky nightelven dance. She jumped her funky nightelven jump. She Smited some boars and imps and panthers, and over time, she managed to be less newb and more kena. (I'd say 'face melty', but keep in mind that face melting came along much later.) She figured out what Shield was for. She practiced her Heals and made funky resurrection macros. She made it all the way from level 1 to level 52... and then Beta was over, and she was wiped from the servers like so much errant data. But somewhere, on the other side of the computer screen, the knowledge she had earned of how to NOT be a newb priest endured!

Thus, when the live game began and people were scrambling to be the first to login, Ilthalaine found himself once more staring at a purple-skinned toon wearing a shiny 'Rhoelyn' tag. Only this time, he knew better than to underestimate his newest student. Armed with 52 levels of unproveable experience, Big Rhoelyn (Rhoelyn II) blasted her way through Shadowglen, then Teldrassil, and then an Azeroth that she had already defeated, stopping only to read every single in-game book she found. :P

As a result, Rhoelyn was hardly the first toon to 60... more like toon #198,204 to make the level cap. Approximately. She trailed her friends, but they were all kind and amused by her witty /g chatter. When she was level-appropriate, they helped her through all kinds of group activities, and she learned all about both solo and party play. She turned out to be passingly good at whatever needed doing, fun to play with, dedicated to her guild and her friends, and just generally a nice toon to have around. (Only a few people she's come across would disagree, and that's really because they wore their loincloths too tightly.)

Before the Burning Crusade came, Rhoelyn had the opportunity to get a lot of raid play time in with her guild(s). She had leveled with the Shadow talents, melting faces (once face-melting was invented) with evil joy, but she quickly switched to Holy in order to save her errant friends' lives in Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, Onyxia and more. Those experiences taught her a lot, not just about being a great priest, but also about people and devotion and the life cycle of guilds. She carried all of this into the next level grind when Azeroth gave way to Outlands in the advent of the Burning Crusade.

Now, having fought her way up to level 70, she resides primarily in Shattrath City where she devotes herself to her current guild, . She has returned to a Shadow talent spec, and lends her face-melting power to the guild's second Karazhan group, which she helps her good friend, Ultarn, to lead. Outside of raid time, she can usually be found pursuing some futile attempt to earn enough gold for her epic flying mount, gleefully mixing Alchemy potions, or farming for herbs so that she can resume gleefully mixing Alchemy potions. She takes great joy in learning about her fellow adventurers, including tips, tricks and abilities for classes not her own.

The Gyst: Rhoelyn of Proudmoore is the World of Warcraft toon whose experiences and abilities translate directly to game play. Journal entries in soothing grey will be discussions of game mechanics, strategies, play styles, PvP and all kinds of practical advice for the people who sit in front of a priest of their own. Here is where you will find class-related ways to improve your play, but if you think the only 'voice' you'll hear from is Rhoelyn's, then you might be in for a surprise.

To be continued ...