Practicing in quite possibly the most beautiful location ever, Wyvern Clan brings Dagorhir to Puerto Rico at San Felipe del Morro Fort Southern Wall and the historic city of Old San Juan. Their story starts like so many others. Akeron heard about Dagorhir from Tumbark (who since moved to Aratari lands), but had heard from similar games and organizations from friends at college - who happened to be gamers and had a small publication called "Wendigo" dedicated to the RPG players on campus.
Tumbark and Akeron worked together and talked for long hours about RPGs, armor craft and foam fighting. They also met with some friends at Akeron's place on San Sebastian street to play Eberron, a d20 D&D new Campaign setting.
Tumbark and his friends organized a Medieval Party (actually the second ever on the Island) to which they invited all the D&D crew, including Akeron. At that party Tumabark had the great idea of holding a small tourney. This hooked Akeron forever.
Akeron is not the only driving force behind the Wyvern Clan. Gytanyya and Kudram have also been instrumental in the development of the Puerto Rican Chapter.
Kudram attends the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez Campus on the west side of the island and wants to start a unit there. Currently he travels across the island to attend practices, an act which shows his dedication to and love of Dagorhir. He is a quiet Geology student who is also Akeron's right hand man and tends to whatever the group needs, from running practices and organizing blue sword workshops to killing Ori.
Beside every good man stands a good woman. Gytanyya organized the trip and took the field next to Akeron and Kudram. She is the group's hobbit archer and huntress.
She said, "I got involved in Dagorhir because of Akeron, of course. He showed me the Dagorhir page and some videos and commentaries from the bulletin boards and I decided to give it a try. At the beginning I did try fighting with swords and axes, but it didn't really call my attention as much as arching. After a while I found out that Archery was my thing so I stuck with it."
She was also the organizer of the group's trip to Ragnarok XXII. She did a lot of research on prices for plane tickets, checked out about Ohio transportation and hotels over the internet, and her favorite part, got maps to learn where the Columbus Airport was and how to get to the Campground by public transportation, Greyhound service, and taxis. They weren't going to be left at the airport on her watch!
All of which lead up to a great Rag quote. Graymael poked Akeron at Rag and Akeron replied, "Yeah, I am a real boy."
If you didn't meet Gytanyya, Kudram and Akeron at Rag XXII, you missed meeting some terrific Dagorhirrim. Their attendance was in no small part due to the generosity and help of others. Akeron listed off many, many Dagorhirrim who helped Wyvern Clan join the 601 other fighters on the field Saturday of Rag XXII. They camped with Eryndor. They were provided weapons by Eryndor and Sirilay of K'lar. They had gotten advice and support from the likes of Kensman Oron the Wolf, Greybeard, Kyrax of the Guard , Polotono and Adrius of Narnia, Lord Freewynd, Graymael and Athron. They all specifically mentioned Wog Spearbreaker of Eryndor as being instrumental and helpful in their trip to Rag. It was truly a joint effort, and Ragarok was better for it.
Gytanyya said about Wog: "Later I found out that Wog was gonna be the wonderful man that he is and pick us up at the airport, and that he had separated a room for all of us in the Best Western near the Campground. Of course, we paid him back (still I think we should have given him lots more), but it was so nice of him to do that for us, and not only that but so many, many other things, like taking me to Wal-Mart like two or three times and taking me to a packing store and to the Post Office in Byesville to send back part of our weapons." (I think we need to clone him.)
Wyvern Clan returned home with plans to continue to build their chapter. They have between 5-10 regular fighters and have collected more than 50 waivers from attendees and visitors on their weekly practices. They are planning on building a better website since they became part of Eryndor as and affiliated Chapter and would like to have a better presence on the world wide web. Also there are plans of registering the chapter as an office of DGBA on the local Department of State Office to make it easier to the chapter to acquire permits and insurance for future events and even better practice and event locations. The Wyvern Clan has also provided a draft of the Millennium Handbook in Spanish, which, when finished, will be an asset not only to the Wyvern Clan, but to other Dagorhir chapters in the US and for the rest of the Americas and Spain. The goal is to eventually introduce the game we all love to a whole new group of Spanish speaking players and setting an example for other languages and would-be volunteer translators.
When discussing the return to mundane life, Akeron said he was having trouble adjusting - the sign of a good Ragnarok. "I already attacked my fan and probably yelled Blue-Blue to some fiction of my imagination while sleep walking around my imagined tent (my bedroom)....and I didn't have that much of melee fightings...it has to be some post Rag quirk I just catched; I wouldn't call it trauma because I can't be happier."
Although it may be difficult to see as much of our brethren from PR as we would like, I look forward to continued friendship and good battles whenever we can meet. Already members of House Manticore have gone to visit our neighbors and who knows - maybe we'll have a regional event in that lovely fort someday.