Beginnings

My first experience with the Northern Reavers began in the realm of Albion on the Iseult server. I was not in a guild at the time, and a friend contacted me one day and asked if I would be interested in joining one. Although uncertain about joining a group of people I didn't know, I joined. I was immediately welcome into the best group of players I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Up to this point, I had only grouped with the few people I knew in real life who played DAoC. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised at how friendly this group of complete strangers were.

New Lands

After being a member of the guild for several weeks, I logged in one day to find guild chat strangely quiet. For this guild, that is unheard of. Evidently, numerous guild members wanted a change of scenery, and had recreated the guild in Midgard on the Igraine server. I decided to try it out and see what it was like, as I had never played in Midgard before. I created a shaman character (against the advice of many, I might add) and started exploring this realm. We began to develop our characters, and the guild expanded.

Initially, Northern Reavers had a single guildmaster. Over the course of time, guildmasters changed and we began to restructure the guild to better suit the environment we wanted to promote in the guild. In pursuit of this a group of guildmembers decided to leave the Northern Reavers and form a guild known as Hand of Tyr. In the meantime, the Northern Reavers continued to restructure.

Rebirth

Eventually, we settled on a structure where the guild is governed by a Council of Elders, with a junior council to aid them. No single member has control over the guild Members of the junior council are selected by the Council of Elders as needed when the guild grows. Rank in the guild is used as a means to manage communication within the guild and alliance, and is based solely on level. As we moved to this guild structure, many members of Hand of Tyr chose to return to the Northern Reavers. To signify this, the Northern Reavers guild changed its logo and colors to the logo to the left. The colors match those of the Hand of Tyr and the emblem is the Valknut, a Norse symbol of union, pride, honour, courage and convictions.

Wandering

Many members scattered to other games to try out greener pastures. Some went to Star Wars Galaxies, some tried Everquest, and others went to World of Warcraft. I was one of those who wandered, trying out first Star Wars Galaxies and then World of Warcraft. The site also was moved to a different host, resulting in the DAoC portion of the site being removed.

Return to the old ways

Gradually, more and more members came back to DAoC after trying out other games. With the introduction of the classic ruleset servers, many Northern Reavers members decided to move to the Gareth server. Rather than continuing in Midgard, many chose to play in Hibernia and joined the guild Desolation. I recently returned to DAoC myself, and am playing on the Gareth server.