A Meadow NW of the Compassion Shrine, Chesapeake (PaxLair Times) – January 19, 1998 – by Winfield — The Band placed several buildings in this meadow. This article is about the founding fathers of PaxLair, a guild known as The Band. It is not a full article about the placement of buildings on this historic day.
The Band was founded October 15th, 1996 as a Guild of Ultima Online. It started only as a dream of our beloved founder Nightfall, but soon the guild grew into one of the largest and most elite guilds on the internet. The Band, one of the first guilds listed in the official UO handbook, has gone through many different Leaders, and also many different organizational structures. The UO Beta was probably one of the more exciting times of The Band. There is nothing quite like playing a newbie character in a world that you have never been to. Band members would meet from all over Britannia to go adventure through uncharted lands and kill monsters that had never been seen before. Daily adventuring groups would meet in front of the dungeon Covetous and led by the brave Sir Lock, would fight their way through the monsters to the hidden castle on the mountain, gaining vast amounts of treasure. We were also allied with the League of Pirates, whom we had a lot of fun with in the beta, but had to cancel the alliance in the final due to server differences.
The Beta ended when the final started. We jumped right into the Atlantic shard and began our characters’ lives. Our first forge was built near the Despair mountains north of Britain. It was the common gathering place for TB members and enemies alike. The Band fought in a few wars with some PK guilds. Even with our forces being led by the great Cyberkhan we didn’t fare well against PK guilds, but we did win a few battles here and there. After a while we saved up enough money to buy the first castle on the Atlantic shard. Later the castle was broken into by bug users and deleted by a Game Master. The GM gave the castle deed back to us but we were tired of putting upwith all the cheaters and bug users that lived on Atlantic. When we heard news of the Chesapeake shard opening up, we jumped right on it.
Many of our greatest achievements took place on Chesapeake. We saved up to build a HQ along with many other types of buildings on a secret island near Yew. We named this area Bandville and held many great festivities there. Thanks to many of our merchants, including the wealthy SoulWeaver, we had enough money to try something new. We founded the first player run town of UO, Paxlair. The town consisted mostly of Band members during its first few months. After we received GM support we were able to lock down furniture and add many new areas like a cafe and arena. Paxlair soon took off, becoming one of the most famous areas in all of UO. The town still runs today, though most Band members have vacated it to embark on more exciting adventures. In UO, most Band members started new characters to role-play pirates on the high seas. Others quit UO altogether, waiting for newer games like EverQuest and Asheron’s Call. When these games are released, we will bravely adventure to these new worlds and explore them. Until then, you can find us in our IRC channel (#theband on irc.stratics.com).
In the meantime (now it is 05/07/02) quite some things happened:
Everquest, AC and DaoC came, many people played those game and many already left them. NeverWinterNights came out a few days ago and we try to regain some organisation within the webpage and the guild to organise some nice gaming sessions…
Extracted from The Band History page
The Band Roster (ca. January 1998):
•Anakha
•Asmodean
•Bonzo
•Callisto
•Clem
•CobainX
•Cotton Eye Joe
•Crimson Dragon
•CyberKhan
•Daegen (Chief of Staff)
•Damiana
•DragonWing
•Drake Woods
•Driftwood
•Ender
•Elminster
•Feanor
•Flynn
•Gator
•Hothram Upravda
•Ictus
•Ishigaro
•Jaegar
•Jamesgang
•Julian Tyr
•Justin Credible
•Killjoy
•Kindred
•Kylar Woods
•Lance Calhoun
•Leah
•Lothlin
•Lorin
•Lucis
•Melchior
•Meridian
•Mikayl
•Molan
•Morgoth
•Onyx (Personnel DH)
•Obsidian Dragon
•Randar
•Shade (Info DH)
•ShadowBlade
•Sibelius
•Sinistrad
•Skifool
•SoulWeaver (UO Viceroy)
•Spudwhumper
•Stamm Steelehart
•Steelboy
•Steelman
•Sylvara
•Thelorn (Band Leader)
•Thorvald
•Thrakhath
•Trowtex
•Wilde
•WildMike
•Winfield
•Winmere
•Xander Steele
•Xavier Lox
•Xavior
•Xizor
•Zaelerion
•Zampa
•Zanshin
•Zonan
•Zyloc
DH stands for Department Head.
The Band Organization
Band Leader: Thelorn
Band Assembly: All Members
Band Court: Daegen, Sibelius, Winfield, Spudwhumper, Steelman, Asmodean
Chief of Staff: Daegen
– Personnel: Onyx
– Information: Shade
Viceroy: Soulweaver
– Captain: Obsidian
– Jester: Zampa
– Events: Lance Calhoun
Description of Positions
BAND LEADER: The Leader of The Band.
BAND ASSEMBLY: Members forum to discuss guild issues. Meetings are held weekly.
BAND COURT: Body of Members to review Member violations of the Charter and policies as well as consistency of policies to the Charter and previous policies.
CHIEF OF STAFF: The assistant Band Leader and second in charge of the guild.
PERSONNEL: The Personnel Department Head is in charge of updating the TB rosters, maintaining the IRC access lists, maintaining the members-only page access lists, dropping inactive members, and accepting applicants.
INFORMATION: The Information Management Department Head is in charge of maintaining the webpage, IRC, and mass e-mail.
VICEROY: This is a single person who represents the Band Leader in-game. The Viceroy is basically the guild leader in-game in a roleplaying and organizational sense. He/she organizes and controls the various in-game guild positions and helps lead the guild in the right direction.
DIPLOMACY: The Diplomacy Department Head works with other guilds to organize treaties and allies in the game. Diplomacy is also our intelligence section working with the Guards on possible enemy guilds.
TREASURY: Manages the guild gold to purchase major assets for TB. The treasurer also accepts and tracks all donations, which are expected of all Band members as donations can be made. The treasurer might also be involved in storing basic sets of equipment for members who need armour, weapons, or spell books.
COMMERCE: This is a position to organize our commercial efforts in-game. They help us make money, set up teams to help mine ore, make armour, and sell them. The Commerce leader is also in charge of running any TB vendors and making items for the TB guard.
JESTER: This person keeps us laughing and in good spirits. The Jester is to participate in, and help organize our TB events.
CAPTAIN: This is basically the War Department. It handles PK Response teams, helps guard our TB assets when they need guarding, and plans our battles against other guilds.
EVENTS: The Event Organizer organizes TB adventures and get-togethers in-game.
ADVENTURERS: These are basically ALL the members of TB with characters in-game. They can form small teams and groups for daily or weekly adventuring. Teams can be formed and dissolved in a single night if they want.
The Viceroy has the power to change any of the in-game positions as the game evolves.
Extracted from: The Band Organizational Chart