This is a memoir published on the forums by Philanthropist on January 7, 2005. It is presented here, unedited, in its entirety as it was first posted. Errors and typos have not been corrected.

I wrote this a couple of days ago, thought it might make an interesting read for those bored enough. Ignore my typo's, I was on a bumpy train, on a laptop.

I’m writing this as I sit on the train from Newcastle to a small town in Scotland, going back home, yay. Someone stole my seat, so in the great British tradition, I stole someone elses. Hopefully, everyone will manage to steal someone elses seat, thus, everyone gets a seat, and everyone feels happy that they were clever enough to steal the seat on which they are perched. You see, a problem about stealing someone’s seat is that you can never sit comfortably. It’s just not ‘right’, you’re always waiting for someone to say, “excuse me, but that’s my seat” or “aye tha wewe ladies in me seat!” both of which will make even the toughest man weep.
I digress, sorry.
So, I thought I would try and put in my own words, (as appose to other peoples, I guess) my own, “KingdomofLoathing History”. So, here goes…

I found KoL from a different site, www.sissyfight.com. A member there, Loohzee, posted a link to the site in the “Extracurricular” board, and explained she played it. I read through the posts, many saying that they had found a new vice, and that they couldn’t stop playing. I was intrigued, so naturally, I clicked the link.b
The word Philanthropist means, in short, helping others through charity. I chose the name because a book I was reading, “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” was beside the computer, and the whole title wouldn’t fit. (I made one of my ranks in the clan “Philanthropists” this whole title, a tribute to the book). I chose an accordion thief, because, well, choosing something that had ‘thief’ in the name seemed to be the most interesting, and I’m a musician, so it had to be this one. I was contemplating Disco Bandit, until I remembered I couldn’t dance.
So, I had my pseudonym, I had my character class, but one thing I didn’t have, was a clan. I noticed Loohzee had a clan, so levelled myself up, and joined, at level three. The first thing that was happening in the clan, SiSSYFIGHTERS, was they were trying to corner the ‘pixel’ market. I had no idea what a pixel was, but I thought I couldn’t go wrong in a clan that takes over whole markets! (zomg, wtf!!1).
I didn’t contribute much to this clan, and thought myself very clever when I would donate something that I had just found, and take a hell ramen out, yummy. But no, I wasn’t a good clan member at all. I was eventually booted from the clan, after about 3 weeks I think. I had removed 60 dry noodles from the stash, and sold them in trade. Dry Noodles were valuable at this point; a lot more valuable than they are now, so this was a big thing. I didn’t quite realise the enormity of what I had done, since it was ‘just a game’ at this point. But, I was kicked, which was exactly what I deserved. I then joined another clan, that very day. I ‘think’ it was XaanZ’s clan, but it could have been Shadez. I can’t quite remember, but this lasted maybe, 2 days, I left, and wanted to form my own clan. I was starting to get engrossed in the game, spending more and more time on it each day, and chatting in trade a lot. Trade was my home; I met every friend I had at this point in trade. I also started Ramen trading. This was fun, the thrill of seeing someone in chat, selling dry noodles 1k cheaper than in the mall, it couldn’t be surpassed. I had myself a buyer for any hell ramen I could supply him with. The price in the mall was 15k, I sold to him, in vast quantities, at 17k each. I wish I could remember his name! I was making a lot of meat, but gave a lot away. On about 4 occasions I gave all my items and all my meat away in chat, and twice, I put everything I owned in my store for 10 meat. I believe quite a few people became millionaires because of that, and being a millionaire was something amazing. You would see people going in to chat and saying, “YES! I’ve got a million meat, finally!” to the cries of “congratulations!” from all. Now, a million can be made with hardly any trading at all. (Of course, the icy peak helped a lot).
So, my clan, Philanthropists, named after myself: The time I spent being leader of this clan were some of the happiest in my KoL existence. I invited friends, people from trade, using the same method as I have now done for The Rye. I concocted an “invitation”, explaining the new clan, and asking the member to join. I wont go into the clan too much, as there is a clan history being made by The Captain, but maybe I shall explain my reason for leaving, when it was so successful. Winston Churchill and AliceCat both put a lot of energy and time into the clan. I figured, in my juvenile way, that Winston should get some sort of reward, and being the leader of the clan seemed the biggest there could be. So, I made him leader, and left!
Now, when left Philanthropists, I stayed “lone wolf” for a short time, before trying to get into the big league, and messaging Quato. I told Quato that I had spotted his clan on the leaderboard, and also himself on the leaderboard, and I wanted a piece of the action. He made me wait a couple of days, but finally let me in. AFH were just finishing a “clan collection” where we tried to get every single item in the game, including rares (which were very, very expensive back then) into the stash. I put my sole Mr A in there, and a few more items which they had overlooked. A few days later, Mr Skullhead messaged me and said: “For your help in collecting every item in the game with Alliance From Hell”, and I received a consolation ribbon. Wow, was a pleased or what. I was stoked, and wandered off to show all my trade friends. AFH was fun, but that’s about it. There was no…comradery between me and the others, the last straw was when Quato openly flamed Mr Skullhead on the clan message board, I wasn’t going to be in a clan ruled by someone who was a nemesis of one of the owners of the site now, was I. So, I left, and started a flow of people leaving AFH. Jimbowong had left slightly before me, and invited me to join Aflubadubdub! For the extra 3 adv, which is why he had the clan in the first place, for the 3 adv and 500 meat. So I joined, along with Sambob182, and it was just the three of us for quite a while. Then it started to fill up, sanctions such as “must be level 25 or over” were put in place, and I was level 19 at the time. I believe I was, and still am, the only main character allowed in Aflub that does not satisfy the power restrictions. I left the clan after a while, because I felt, again, I was in over my head, and that I couldn’t keep up with the rich, level 30+ throng of players in the clan.
I was still trading at this point, and had started to take an active participation in the forums. At this point, I started playing with the 6 mil I had left, I could have bought a couple of Mr A’s, but I wanted to have some fun. So, I paid people to buff me, one million meat, for a million buffs. These buffs are still there today. (This was before HotStuff started selling mass quantities. Interestingly, HotStuff and I joined around the same time, and constantly met in trade, when he was trying to sell ode to booze, and I was ruining his business by always giving it away free).

Around 2 days after I left AFH, I got a message from Mr Skullhead. Without going into detail, as a result of the message, I was granted access to the Lounge. I had heard about the lounge, so I was pretty excited. This was thanks to Pachelbel, who I had befriended a while before this. He had apparently brought me to the attention of Jick and skully, and the other loungers, and so I was granted access. My links with trade slowly faded away, since a lot of the people I had once knew in there either left the game, were in lounge with me, or did not chat there anymore. Speaking to all these famous players such as Jick and Boozerbear was daunting at first. I met a few players that I had interacted with in the past, such as HotStuff, theitsybitsyspider (who I had given 50hell ramen to, which resulted in part in him becoming a millionaire), and of course, Winston Churchill, and AliceCat (who joined the lounge not long after I did).
Bored yet? Stop complaining, you can always go do something interesting and come back to this!
I also befriended Inari at this point, and she invited me into ******WarClan******, which was notorious at this point, and 1337 to the max. I accepted, and joined warclan. Around 2 weeks later, Quato and his AFH crew joined, so I left, without a pause. Che, who was also a lounger, left at the same time, for the same reasons. We both messaged Skullhead (without realising the other was doing it too), and both asked if we could possibly join Sparkle Motion!. To my surprise, we were both accepted! SM was a wonderful clan, and they were even in the process of getting clan hoodies made. I stayed in this clan for quite a long time (for me), and enjoyed it immensely. It was at this point that I was made a forum made, for the simple reason that I was around when Jick made contests, and we had talked on quite a few occasions. Back to SM. The clan wasn’t really active enough for me; there was nothing I could really do, as the stash wasn’t really used, and the message board inactive apart from new additions and birthdays. You guessed it, (I left), and tried to get into WH23. This was a big failure, the reasons being that I changed clans too often (which is a fair point) and that I would be too ‘mavericky’ for the clan, which I took as a compliment! I stayed without a clan for a long time, trying to prove that I would not leave WH23 if accepted, but to no avail.

Before I tried to get into WH23, however, I had a battle with villa. They were talking about Canadia in villa, and were posting the link of how to exploit it. I copied/paste the chat both to Jick, and in the forums. This made me an enemy of a lot of people, but when one is an enemy of kucolan and his buddies, I don’t think it matters too much. I received many messages commending my post, so it all balanced out.
I finally decided to start all over again, as I had done with Philanthropists, and created another clan, named The Rye (as The Catcher in The Rye is my favourite book). I had become a fast friend of Twiddles, and we had spoken on the phone a few times. She left Aflubadubdub to join The Rye, even though I was the only member. She gave up a lot, and took a chance on me. Then, I spoke to Sambob182 on AIM, who was one of my better friends in KoL, and after a while, persuaded him to join the clan also. And then there were three. He also gave up a lot, and took a chance on me, as at the time, he was Co-Leader of AFH. He left without a word, and villa was in uproar. The clan started to grow steadily, with me taking a few chances on people to invite, such as ThisGuy (because of his store), Mugsy Toothe (because of his humour on the forums), and Don Canneloni (who was new, but made a witty post on the forums). The clan started to fill up, and we now have people such as Tubby, Jacka18l, Scyld, Sambob182, Betrayer, and many, many others that are both famous, infamous, and unknown. Twiddles created a clan forum, using her own website, and we used PHBB, which so far, is a great success. A ‘hierarchy’ started to form, with myself, El Lasagna, Twiddles, Betrayer, and Sambob182 being the ‘admin’ of the clan. This seems to work.

And so, here I am now, writing a word document on the way to Scotland. I’ve left a lot of gaps in this ‘short’ history, as I cannot remember every single detail. I’ve made many friends here in KoL, both approved of by others, and not.

Winston Churchill: Thank you for making Philanthropists such a success, and being a great friend all this time.
King Turtle: Thank you for always being there for me; hopefully I can repay you someday.
Pachelbel: Thank you for believing in me.
Twiddles: Thank you for sticking by me, and never flinching from your loyalty.
CrazyAnnie: Thank you for creating a bridge between villa, and myself even if it didn’t work.

Thank you to all my clan. You all deserve to be in there, and we wouldn’t be a clan without members.

Finally, thank you to Jick, for creating this game, putting up with my pestering to get some Scottish themes in the game, and finally, thank you for completely taking over my life

So, here’s to the NEXT 6 months, let’s hope they are as eventful as they have been up to now:)