Lha Tschal-je Carinah
Portrait by Peter Norby The woman before you is ageless; her demeanor reflects both the calm of wisdom and the delight of innocence, as does her earnest smile. Full lips and a strong, pierced nose balance her large hazel eyes within a heart-shaped face. Straight, waist-length auburn hair complements her pale olive complexion. She is just over five feet tall and slenderly proportionate, dressed in a black sweater, charcoal pants, black boots, a black leather biker jacket, and a silver pocket watch. (portrait by Peter Norby ~ © 2005)

Carinah was born almost a millennium ago in a world known as Iym, populated by a variety of beings; those native to this world are complex light-based organisms. Carinah's formal title, "Tschal-je", denotes a spiritual and political rank similar to the Dalai Lama in Tibetan Buddhism. Also like the current Dalai Lama, Carinah was exiled. After Iym was illegitimately occupied by the race of a neighboring world, her attempts to lead a revolution failed, but just narrowly. The occupying race, sensing how dangerous it would be to let Carinah live, but not wanting to make her even more powerful as a martyr, marked her forever as "Lha" — darkened one — and commanded her never to return.

For centuries, Carinah wandered the universe, seeking a new meaning to her life, now that she could no longer define herself in the terms of her home. Just over a decade ago, she assumed humanoid form and took refuge in a world called TimeTravelerMUCK. When TimeTraveler stopped spinning, she discovered other worlds and people. One of these worlds, named QWest, was where she made her permanent home. She settled down there, creating an area known as Arch Street, which boasted the famed Kilmarnock Tavern. When QWest stopped spinning a few years later, many QWesters found their way to DelusionsMUCK, and its creator, Mystikite, asked Carinah to be one of its Wizards. She accepted the job graciously, enthused about being able to once again help and inspire her fellow citizens, and excited for this new chapter of her life.

And what a chapter it has turned out to be! Carinah continues to serve as the Wizard of Citizen Relations, and is also lucky to be surrounded by her friends, especially Chrysoval of Lovat, with whom she maintains the area of Ymatryl known as Maiatani, and the Lady Lanya, who has been a great mentor in many ways. And so the worlds spin happily ever after ...

You may find Carinah in the following worlds, listed in alphabetical order: Not sure how to get there from here? You can use a standard telnet program, if you know how to telnet (but remember to turn on local echo first). If you'd rather use software specifically created for mudding, I suggest TinyFugue for UNIX, SimpleMU for Windows and Rapscallion for Macintosh. If you're completely confused, visiting OnlineRoleplay.com might help.

Carinah's "dreamself" or offline self, Halsted, has been mucking about since 1992, and has a bit to say about it here ...

Point Zer0 Portrait, 1989By the end of 1984, I was quite active on BBSes and DDials in the Chicagoland area. The picture to the right is terrifying evidence of this fact. In 1992, I had discovered how to use the research terminals in the library at University of Illinois at Chicago to check my email. (The irony this created for my later profession as She Who Busts Sophomore Miscreants Who Insist On Using The Reference Terminals To Check Hotmail is not lost on me.)

I had also, for some reason, learned how to "finger" a remote machine to see who was logged in, and to "talk" someone on that machine, the precursor to instant messaging. One day I was bored and fingering a machine in Colorado, looking for a friend of mine, and he wasn't logged in but someone else was. I decided to send that person a talk-request.

That person was Merlin. Merlin, being interrupted by a total (albeit charming) stranger, was very eager to turn my focus elsewhere, and so he thought to turn it to a virtual community, specifically TimeTravelerMuck.

TimeTraveler was a whole new world for me, literally ? a text-based one. Like most worlds, it stopped spinning, but I found other ones, like DruidMuck and QWestMuck. That's where my longest-lived character, Carinah, was born. When QWest stopped spinning in 1994, my friend Mystikite started DelusionsMuck, and asked me to be one of its first Wizards. I accepted, and have been the Wizard of Citizen Relations ever since.

A few years later I branched out to other types of worlds, and roleplayed on a few, especially Tales of Ta'veren (as Tazendra), ChivalryMux (as Tiamat and Seadlin), and TrekMoo (as Lhana). Because of my background in both theatre and writing, I enjoy interacting this way, and much prefer it to any other form of game or online interaction. I'm still quite active at DelusionsMuck as Carinah, so stop by via our java applet and say hello!

So how does all of it work, anyway? Basically it's as simple as using telnet to connect to a remote machine. I use TinyFugue in a unix shell account. If that doesn't qualify as "simple" in your world, maybe you'd like to try SimpleMU if you're running Windows, or Rapscallion for Macintosh. Visit OnlineRoleplay.com for more resources. And don't forget your imagination.
Last modified on 14 Sep 2008 by Carinah. Hosted by The Logrus.

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