The travels of Nora

 Introducing... Nora the gaming bear!

This summer, I had an amazing time visiting digital friends on our way to the awesome folk festival Underneath the Stars (which happened to be also organized by a fellow gamer). Uh, I mean: Nora travelled from the Netherlands to England to visit her gaming friends and I was lucky enough to be counted amongst her entourage!

It is always to travel the realm in between the digital and the physical. If you "know" people online, will you know them when you meet them in the offline world as well? This summer eight gamers that knew each other from games met in various formations. I would love to tell you how that went!

I was planning to do this 'live' when in England, but since we were travelling a lot and ended up at places with bad or no internet all the time - and honestly said, at the moments I did have internet, I was enjoying myself too much to crawl behind the laptop - it just didn't happen. But now I'm still left with a crap lot of bear pictures and bunch of good memories.

So please bear with me (har har) (oops, that's probably -50 readers) when I tell about our adventures in separate stories, not necessarily in chronological order. But first things first: what's with the bear?

A history of gaming bears

Before I can tell you the story of Nora, we will have to go back deep in time, back to the year 2007 when people still greeted strangers with /salute (to get that deed done) and quests were offered as a popup window with a wall of text...

In that time, there was a lore-master called Morthalion roaming the digital lands of Middle Earth. Wherever he went he was accompanied by his bear friend, Norman. It was commonly accepted that the bear was leading the lore-master, and not the other way around as an innocent bystander might presume, as Norman was making the important tactical decisions (such as running off to ninja pull the wargs in Barad Guldur and wipe the whole raid).

Norman inspired the formation of a kinship, which was appropriately named Asylum. Many battles were fought and won, and many would groan shiver at hearing their roar.

But the lands of Middle Earth became deserted, as the age of MMO players grouping up was over. Instead, the members of Asylum reached out to the stars. There, high up in the sky, they fought epic lightsaber battles. 

In spirit Norman travelled with them, but in physical form he stayed with Morthalion in Middle Earth. But the story is not over yet, for Norman has a cousin from the north: Nora the gaming bear.

So hereby you're officially introduced to my new series: the travels of Nora. I hope you will enjoy reading as much as I will enjoy writing.