I found StrangeMUD in April of 1994, and it quickly became my home away from home, literally.  I, too, flunked out of school because of my addiction to this game (great endorsement, huh?).  Growing tired and stressed out living with my folks in Houston, I quit school and set out to meet and live among the people I had grown so close to on StrangeMUD.  I had already built my first area and achieved immortality.

Austin was much more than I had hoped for, so I set up residence with Questor when his roommate moved out.  We ate Ramen and drank Pepsi, and watched Comedy Central a lot.  We also hung out at UT's computer lab regularly, and played spades with Wiilf and Cyntax.  We were in debt, and after about six months, I lost my job on campus, so I bunked with Trillian for a while (we had hooked up with her at Popeye's earlier in the year and hit it off pretty well).  During the time Questor and I lived together, numerous MUD-related crises came and went.  It was a regular soap opera, with all of us being close personal friends and often disagreeing about MUD business.  I tended to side with Trillian, a very rational, practical being, and together we would bludgeon Questor verbally until he agreed with us, too.  At one point, Questor abruptly promoted me to Titan status from Questmaster, a jump of three levels, completely unheard of in StrangeMUD history.  He promoted me not for what I had done, but for what he wanted me to do (copyedit the entire MUD), and he had much more than egg on his face for that decision.  Numerous gods left or threatened to leave, many talked trash behind our backs, and it was almost unanimously agreed upon that Questor and I must be sleeping together.  Fortunately, most of the rifts caused by this situation have been repaired.

Anyway, along came Valen.  He was a coder, which we needed desperately since the departures of Iggy and RoadKill, and the tumultuous relationship we had with the Danish Duo, Quint and BIF.  Valen was a producer, and Questor really liked that.  Some of us had reservations about him, but those fears were realized all too late, and the MUD suffered greatly for it.  He was quickly promoted based on his coding efforts, and named to the policy group by Questor.  In turn, he brought in Reality, his then fiancee.  Trillian grew disgusted with the bureaucracy and red tape, and quit policy after Questor ignored advice against making Valen an implementor.  Questor got busy with work, and I got busy settling into a new marriage and a new job.  For a while, policy policed *everything*.  Valen put the fear of God into our gods for making a move without consulting us, so, as Questor mentioned, progress on Strange came to a standstill.  Soon I was the only member of the Bitch Trio(tm) remaining on policy, and my relationship with Valen and Reality became more and more difficult.

A period of several months passed where our policy mailboxes were empty.  This was attributed, at first, to hardware failure (Valen claimed the machine had crashed and lost all e-mail).  Though it was "fixed", nothing changed, except suddenly things were getting done left and right without policy's approval.  I attempted to bring publicity to Strange by setting up a webring for our players, and an ICQ network without anyone's approval, for which Valen scathed me on the immortal board.  Contained in his post were the words, "as long as I am head IMP".  I did a double-take, and went to Questor and Trillian, demanding to know when he was made head implementor, a position only ever held by Questor himself.  We decided we had to do something about it, but didn't know how to go about it without splitting the MUD down the middle.

One day, I confronted Valen and Reality, asking if policy had been officially dissolved.  The conversation turned toward Valen's coup at the palace, and he defended himself vehemently, though I remained as calm as possible.  I suggested that since obviously a head IMP was necessary, an election be held, and nominated Questor for the position.  Valen blew up and quit the MUD, but not before cursing me a blue streak and posting outrageous accusations against Trillian and myself on both the mortal and the immortal bulletin boards.

The name of the game became damage control, and Questor resumed his position as head IMP, naming me as head of Building, Trillian as head of Administration, and Lucifer as head of Coding.  Some players chose to leave Strange due to the stormy atmosphere while we got our heads together.  But today, we have a great game with a stable administration, and lots of people that care about it.  Special thanks go to Trillian and DrTongue, for setting us up almost immediately with a new domain name and a new host machine, and to Kenny in Canada for hosting us in the interim.