Initially consisting of just forums, the first chat was ready for use within a month. Intended as a place to play for Thayne, Pashen and their friends, all they had were a few rough maps and fertile imaginations. Many thought MR would never get off the ground, but their commitment to the community, dedication to role playing, and just plain stubbornness kept them going. Word spread through the grapevine and by February 2002, they were into the second phase with a third chat, new server and forums. Along with the forums came the guilds and clubs. In May of 2002, Mystical Realms went public.

Thayne and Pashen met online at a freeform gaming site in the fall of 2000 and a chance encounter brought about by a fellow RPer changed both their lives. Diving into playing the nights away, a real life friendship blossomed and has grown into something very special.

Soon the idea of starting up their own RP site was kicked around, then it became a reality. The journey has proven to be both a source of hair-pulling frustration and tremendous joy.

Mystical Realms has grown because of the creative drive the two possess, the support and talent of the staff members and, of course, the patience and perseverence of the dedicated members that have rolled with the changes from the slow beginning to the down times when the site moved.

A special thanks goes out to Kerth, without whom Mystical Realms never would have made it past the forum stage.

In those early years, tabletop gaming was just an extension of the games I played as a kid. There were few rules, and the world we made up our own. Games were not about PhatL00t, but about having fun with friends and making up a story. It was about creating worlds, making enemies and running away with the princess.

As I grew up, my family moved. No matter where we ended up, I had to bring together a group of kids and introduce them to my world. All over the great state of Texas, my family moved. And in every town I discovered little pockets of nerds who yearned for creative outlet.

For college, I went to school at Texas Tech, and got to know some great role-playing buddies. Got married to a magnificent person who, thankfully, was also in love with role-playing. We had many great years in Lubbock, and I have some of my most memorable characters from that time. Eventually we all graduated and had to move on. My family left Lubbock and our college friends.

In 1996, the Internet was starting to become fast enough that communication through chat was a viable option. I thought that perhaps I could find a way to keep all of us together if I could find a chat place that had online dice rolling. That’s when I stumbled into the Gamers Inn. None of my college buddies were able to come into the GI as often as I did, so I made a whole new set of friends. And, typically, with my creative spirit and never-ending drive to try and make something better, I tried to work behind the scenes to make the GI what I thought it needed to be. But the GI was resistant to change. Frustrated, I left for Everquest.

It’s ironic, I think, but something unexpected happened while I was away in EQ. One of my ‘enemies’ from the GI launched an attack against me. I returned to defend my honor, and in that time, I rediscovered a woman I barely knew, Pashen. We had role-played a few times together, but nothing serious. She was a friend of a friend, and that’s about as much thought I had given her at the time. But, in those dark hours of the night, a new friendship blossomed, one that was stronger than any other.

In those hours she and I would dream of a place where the role players could make a difference. Rather than just a collection of vague names, there would be a land, and a city, and eventually other cities and other nations. And there would be an outlet for those tiny pockets of nerds across the world. They could come together and display their stories and web pages and they could be a part of the world in which they role-played.

Pashen and I went through a lot to get Mystical Realms created. We fought, we learned, we compromised, we rejoiced, and we discovered. We learned a lot about ourselves, and just what is important and what is not. I never knew how badly I needed someone that could be just as twisted and dark as I can be. I needed someone to challenge me, to push my creative side and to stroke my intellect. We feed off each other, thrive when we are good, and comfort when we are not.

These days, I’m not around the site as much as I’d like to be. With a family and a job, my online time is limited. And during those few hours that I have, I want to spend it doing what I love to do: role-play. So I have to thank Pashen, Sion and The Enforcer, who without which, the site would not run. I might be the heart of MR, but these people are the mind, hands, feet and body of MR. They have done a phenomenal job making this site and world a reality.

Happily married and the mother of two teenage boys and a baby daughter, affectionately termed DemonSpawn, her home as been the beautiful northern state of Minnesota since she was a teenager.

Pashen has dabbled in many trades, from taxidermy to horticulture, her interests as varied as the characters she plays. Since 1989 she has worked for various artists, involving herself in as much of the business as she could, from production to on the road sales at fine art and craft festivals across the USA. In 1991 she was lucky enough to meet a jeweler couple out of Telluride Colorado that worked the Minnesota Renaissance Festival and has been with them ever since.

As Pashen's boys grew older, it became apparent she was going to have to cut back on her traveling time. Pashen enrolled in the Minneapolis School of Massage and Bodywork in 1997 and has started her 5th year as a massage therapist at a popular health club not far from her home.

Her gaming experience began with Dungeons and Dragons back in the late '70s, she has been both player and DM. Other RPG games included Gamma World and Top Secret although Dungeons and Dragons remained her passion. It wasn't until she learned how to turn on the computer in the summer of 2000 and accidentally stumbled into an online freeform gaming site, that she began this incredible journey into online gaming. With help from friendly players at the site, she learned her way around the computer and grew as an online player.

On a personal note, there are many that helped and encouraged me, a novice storyteller and computer illiterate. Thank you, Dhomas, for being the night owl that you are and greeting me at 4:30 am. Without you there, to explain what the chat was about, I would not be here now. Darveck, you answered countless questions, both IC and OOC, and helped me endlessly. You should receive a platinum award in patience. And Sethliss, you scared the bejeezus out of me the first time I ventured into a fully IC chat room, that ultimately sparked my imagination and kept me coming back for more. The evil Sam Adams, you made a newbie feel welcome and made a point of dragging my character off for role-plays. You went so far as to walk me through installing my first messenger. Not an easy task, considering at the time I didn't even know what ISP stood for, let alone how to download something. Lady Paradox, the time spent role-playing with you will never be forgotten. You showed me how to create webpages, brought me to GeoCities and guided me through the page builder there. Vorador, your whisper in the middle of the night launched a storyline that has continued to this day. You took the time to show a newbie how to fight and put up with my paragraph posts when you were use to one-liners. Drakaina, your dark humor has made me smile when I've been in the foulest of moods. For all the work you've done on the site, a thank you seems inadequate, but thank you, nonetheless. We couldn't have expanded the site without you. And finally, my a'mael, Thayne, you've changed my life in countless ways. You took me to a new level of role playing and I've loved every dark and twisted moment of it. *jingle* I can't imagine my life anymore without you in it.

Thank you all and Happy Gaming!!