First, a disclaimer: I've been an Icemule resident through many characters and at least a couple of decades. In that time, there have been occasional storylines that ran through, but it's largely been a sleepy little town on the edge of nowhere, and that worked just fine for me.
Then Necios "happened."
I'm sorry to say that I'm not one of the characters who knows the GM behind every decision/event/merchant. I've been inordinately pleased over the years with any number of merchants/doodads/events, but never had a name to paste onto the experience in my mind. On the few occasions where I was able to marry up merchant to GM, I've tried to make it a habit to email the GM in question and express my gratitude.
Necios changed a lot for me. He cropped up out of nowhere, it seemed, and all of a sudden there were whispers about an Icemule "guru". Players who I had known for a long time started rumbling about changes being afoot, and I was intrigued, but a little skeptical.
Soon there was a player-founded "Discord Server", and Necios was there, interacting with the players, discussing his plans for the town, and I was hooked.
Little did I know that was just the beginning.
Necios has been amazing, and that's just fact. He took this sleepy little hamlet and turned it on its ear. He has an EPIC storyline that he's been rolling out, and it's gotten the whole town involved. I've made friends in town that I never even saw before now, and it's directly due to Necios' machinations. His storyline has drawn us all together, and the combination of that and the Discord server that he 'commissioned' (handled expertly by Ms. Enestrie) has made this town feel more like 'home' than it ever had before.
Necios is approachable, friendly, helpful, kind, thoughtful, patient, creative, and bold. In all the best ways. He frequenty sits in our voice chat during invasions/storylines and cracks jokes alongside the rest of us. He's a treasure for our not-so-sleepy little town.
A few specifics, just to clarify my meaning:
Necios came up with the idea of ICICLE: a group of citizens interacting with the town guru to improve the town. In that, he's been involved with all the little bits of RP that THEY have come up with. He's gone along with their ideas, implemented a good many of them, tasked them with various things, and gotten them INVOLVED with the story in a way that most adventurers don't get to experience.
Necios has been very helpful with any number of events I've been a part of. Whether White Haven was running a fisticuffs tournament (Necios provided 'color' in hysterical ways), or the TownCrier was running a TownHall (Necios brought in the North Gate Guard for questioning, and was hilarious).
In addition to those things, I now have a NAME for the merchant behind some of the amazing work I've gotten. Necios is the GM behind Tanki, and in that role he has assisted me with getting some of the most amazing tattoos I've ever been lucky enough to receive. He's always kind, even to those of us stumbling with ideas, and he never fails to take an idea and make it better.
I hear a lot of negativity at times about this game, and it makes me shake my head. At the end of the day, this silly little game is about people, and relationships. Necios has enriched the game for so many of us up in Icemule, and we're thrilled to have him.
Kudos to Necios, for all he does, all he's been, and the enjoyment he's brought to all of us up in the frozen wastelands.
