Purpose of Guild.

(as found in the WoW Forum recruitment thread)

<Ashes> has been founded to take advantage of the most revolutionary change Wrath of the Lich King will offer: a 10man version of every raid in the game. From Naxxramas through Arthas' fall, <Ashes> will be a close-knit guild that prides itself through its progression in what promises to be a challenging and rewarding from of WoW content.

Proud to be on the Shadow Council server, <Ashes> will also be an RP guild, and we will RP our PvE. This is not to say that we will sit down to chat in the middle of a raid instance, only to be slaughtered quite uselessly by respawning trash mobs; nor will we attempt to compose dramatic speeches while we are desperately pressing 1111111 against Arthas and his ilk (though we might have cool macros). Rather, the ideal of RP-PvE is that we are in character everywhere, and our experience in game as players is our characters’ experience, too. It will be expressed in grim asides between pulls - "More of these enchanters? ...Very well. I'm hungry." It will be expressed in terse reminiscing as we sharpen our blades for yet another night throwing ourselves against the Scourge. And other such things.

<Ashes> seeks to live up to a dual ideal of excellence in PvE and excellence in RP. This is probably not a concept with much mass appeal - but because of Blizzard's wisdom in designing Wrath's 10man raiding progression, that is not an issue of significance. We seek mature and motivated individuals - your current gear and your experience in the game so far are of secondary importance. As a guild, we're preparing for the future of WoW.

I don't want to be the new-guy-causin-trouble, but I was just curious on a few items. (By the way, hi, I'm a new warrior RPer in the guild, though not (yet) a raider.)

For PvE, this post says you're going to stay interested in 10 mans. I completely support this - I've been in guilds (on other servers) that have fallen apart because of the difficulty in growing a guild from 10-man to 25-man (people got tired of Kara and would stop going to help the rest, too many people felt they were getting benched, and Kara runs became an A-team of better geared, better experienced players and a B-team of newer raiders with maybe one experienced player trying to herd them).

Anyway, before I joined, some friends of mine in this guild indicated that you seemed to be trying to recruit more people to begin doing 25-mans. The question is: have you changed the guild mission, or were my friends merely mistaken?

Second cluster of questions pertains to RP, and doesn't need as much of a lead-in:
I read up on your different guards. I was wondering if, as a whole, the guild has some purpose other than fighting enemies of the Horde? What is the point of the 'secret' part of the more secretive guards? Do the Crimson and Hellscream guards have a leader, and who centralizes the three guards (single person or equal council)?
(I'm almost wishing I hadn't established that Zarano is not a Sylvanas loyalist, because I actually rather like Nathanos Blightcaller. Maybe if Zarano becomes sane again, he'll come around to formally becoming a Forsaken.)

Zarano,

With respect to raiding:

In WotLK, there will be a 10man raid for every instance in the game, all the way through Arthas. That is the progression I am interested in for Ashes. That is, in fact, the reason I returned to WoW as something other than Waiting for Warhammer In TBC, though, we will hit a roadblock after ZA unless we advance into 25s. Moreover, ZA is actually somewhat harder than a lot of the late T4 through early T5 content we are skipping. Our progress in it has been a rewarding challenge!

To this end, I have been scheming ways to get us into 25man raids since it became clear that Ashes was going to be a success. For a time, I thought of expanding the guild as you've described hearing, but I ultimately decided against it primarily because I don't want to deal with downsizing it again for Wrath and the related drama. We would do 25s for fun and because that will soon be our frontier, not because the focus of the guild is changing. Having been an officer and raid leader in two huge guilds on two different servers, I much prefer the closer knit style where - while some people are subbed out for others and not everyone always gets a raid slot - no one is deemed "filler;" I also like knowing each and every member fairly well.

The short answer is that your friends were not mistaken, but that the idea was dropped; if we go into 25s, it will be through working together with another guild. If anyone has any leads on such an alliance, I would welcome them, especially if there are interested RP guilds about so that we could maintain our IC raids.

With respect to RP:

The storyline(s) I have planned for the Guards are mostly oriented toward the plot of the next expansion; as such, they won't be doing too much until then, and I would welcome proposals from anyone to take roles as a leader or active agent for their faction. We really do need more Orcs in the guild, though...

As far as a leader goes, Agrivain is the leader of Ashes overall as well as of the Apothecary Guard. The overall plot arch of the guild, which is also intended to involve the Scourgebane Resolute and other groups on ShC, will concern the New Plague and its spread. I'll also be reprising my old character Valgasha's role; he is working with the Royal Apothecary Society as an "adviser," unbeknownst to anyone but Agrivain and a few others affiliated with the Apothecary Guard. The idea is a bit of a military / fantasy drama in which the guild's mission of destroying the Scourge and serving the Horde, and the Forsaken's tertiary goal of spreading their Plague come into conflict. With Valgasha hanging around to screw things up even more.

For now, I don't plan to run anything major RP-wise until the expansion draws closer, other than a few small plots leading up to it. Karazhan is the first (for reasons that will soon be more clearly revealed), and the second will involve going to Naxxramas. I'm pretty sure everyone will have a blast.