Staff Blog: Be the Change You Want to See

Humankind defines itself through stories.

From the gods of yesteryear to the video games and movies of today we look to stories of others for inspirations on what we, ourselves, can be. When we gather among our closest friends we tell stories of our own lives, the moments that have helped define us and make us who we are. Some of us tell sweeping epics, others speak of smaller tales or fanciful fables of the way things were. All of it matters. All of it is an effort to explain to others who and what we are, why we do the things we do. The best of us manage to convey our stories so well that others take something of us into themselves, adopting behaviors, responses, even idioms that they’ve only heard. Identity changes, grows, evolves, refines.

In the last quarter of the twentieth century a few friends came up with an idea based on old war-games played by historians and military strategists. It was a new way to tell a story, an interactive tool that permitted a group of friends to inhabit an entire world of their own making and create avatars to enact their will through it. No longer did they have to hear the stories of others; they empowered themselves with the ability to create them. This system, simple at first, quickly branched out into a variety of genres and worlds as people devised their own ways to play and this new kind of storytelling flourished.

Stories evolved from one generation to the next but even in the beginning there was an undercurrent that seemed worked into the framework. Humans were seen as average or less than, the measuring stick for the greatness of other species that could be played. Humans – the creatures that had created the game in the first place! – were viewed as boring, dross, dull. The modern world and modern humans were made a mockery of, becoming little more than an iteration of Human: The Victiming.

It seems a little less than fair.

Our planet, for better or worse, is dominated by the human race. A thousand thousand different cultures have risen and fallen and finally produced us. To make a mockery of ourselves, while sometimes necessary, was being used to weaken us in our own heads – to make ourselves less so that we don’t have to take responsibility for what we could be. Four people in two different countries have created a magical rite meant to give humans back some of what they’ve lost, making human life matter again in a fictional setting.

Here is a world for you that is very much our own, a world where a single person can make all the difference, where every life is important, where the avatar that you create can accomplish Great Works, where even a simple life can become a sweeping epic to inspire both the world in and outside of imagination. Take up this system, craft your stories and live them out. Take up the mantle of the generations before you, the civilizations that strove to be more than what they were, from the Babylonians and their quest for the stars to the scientists who split the atom.

Be the change you wish to see in the world and fight for all the dreams you possess. Here is a world worth fighting for.

Aaron is the principle author and creator of the Triune Legacy mythos and the 8Fold Soul System. Find out more about Aaron and the rest of The Triune Legacy Team. This Staff Blog entry was posted on July 16th, 2009.