And In The Begining There Was Cyber-Wars.

It all started on a carpeted bedroom floor, grey gloom the only mark left by the day. Images still held my mind like carbonite encased Han Solo. Only a handful of people would probably ever remember those early days, back when a scrawny awkward boy tried his hand at taming his wild imagination and putting it to use. Immediately I found myself winging stories and delighting those who got to take part in them.

Back then, two words seemed to encompass every ounce of excitement you could have with a few friends, a notepad and some dice: Cyber-Wars. Originally everything was simple, the options for players so fundamentally generic. Wanted to play a cyborg, no problem, pick a cybernetic limb. If you had some imagination and picked a cybernetic tail then it was easy you just called yourself scorpion.

But as I grew up I kept seeing things that Cyber-Wars lacked. The stories that could be told kept becoming more and more limited. Fortunately, I could also see where it could grow and all the new avenues it could promise. It took years to refine and develop the setting that had been born out of sheer whimsy after hearing on that fateful day about this wonderful new kind of game my cousin had watched his brother starting to play.

Over almost 21 years Cyber-Wars has morphed from it's infant form into a refined and mature setting with the help of brave and adventures souls. Without them, exploring it's depths, it could never have fully fleshed it's way out into the form it has become. Some have forgotten the times spent rolling dice and being swept away to an imaginary universe, others still talk in excited tones and mutter things like "Oh remember that one time..."

In the end, few things have ever touched me deeper than seeing those dearest me get to experience a portion of something born of my imagination and be left smiling. So, every once in awhile, when someone asks me how did Requiem ever begin, I get to smile. And deep down in the back of my mind I can see 3 boys,  dice rolling on carpet as one asks those immortal words: "so you just roll them, and then what?"

What indeed. 

Derek, Andy, Joe; You guys helped ignite the spark.
Teal, Mitchell, Jon, Courtney, without you the flame would have never caught and grown.
I owe to you all the gratitude I can ever give.