Pikestaff the character was born when I was about 13 or 14 years old and the Internet, as we know it, was juuuust starting to catch on.
Back then the interwebs horizon was filled with names like Altavista and Hotbot, and one of the very first things I did was go searching for “Redwall“.
See, back then I was super in to the Redwall series, a set of books that was about anthropomorphic animals in a sword & sorcery fantasy world who spent their time solving riddles and fighting bad guys. Pretty much every single book had the exact same plot (just with different names) and I just ate it up.
Apparently so did a lot of other kids my age because I stumbled across a very living world of Redwall roleplaying message boards.
Obviously I had to join in, so I invented a character named Pikestaff– a hare (my favorite species from the books) who was a big goofball and possessed a voracious appetite.
Now I have a confession to make. It make shock some of you who didn’t know this before.
Ready?
…
I was baaaasically a cross between a troll and the living personification of Goldshire. To me, the funniest thing in the world was showing up in the middle of someone’s super serious RP and attempting to subtly turn it into Pokemon or the Matrix. At least I was classy about my trolling, I guess, because it wasn’t a game to bother other people with as much as it was a game to see how much I could get away with. I invented other characters who served similar purposes, such as the SCV of Death or a dragon named Windshifter who would become rather prominent in my life later, but I digress.
Whether because of or despite of my notoriety, Pikestaff the hare became a rather well-known character across the Redwall forum-o-sphere in the late 90s, and occasionally I’d even set aside the humor and actually do some “real RP”. Occasionally.
I didn’t get to spend as much time on the Internet as I would have liked to, and eventually the “InsideTheWeb” software powering some 95% of Redwall message boards went kaput, so Pikestaff didn’t stay in the psuedo-RP realm for very long. I incorporated her into stories (mostly satire), and sort of turned her into a general all-purpose alter-ego, signing up for things as Pikestaff or Pike.
That’s where the name came from.
The persona remained a hare for a long time, although it never felt quiiiite right. Anytime I drew a “self-portrait” of myself, for years, it was usually some sort of cartoon android or robot, not a hare. But then when I sat down to actually come up with a robot character for myself, that never felt quite right either.
Then, a revelation!
What if I combined the two?
Thus Pikestaff the Clockwork Hare was born.
These are the voyages (extraordinares)…
I actually had an SCV of Death in a SC game I played with a friend… Flung a lone SCV at a base area intending to actually build there. Forgot about him for a while and when I finally went to look at the odd green blip on the far side of the map, I found that SCV killing random Protoss builder units. 😉 I pulled him back to base and kept him till the end of the map. I was proud of that little unit.
Hahaha, I love the way you wrote Pikestaff’s voice!
“…it’s bally impossible to lock ol’ Pikestaffy out of a feast, wot wot?”
And bonus points for mixing Redwall with the Northern Lights… er, the Golden Compass. Do you have any place we can find these old Pikestaff stories?
PS: Almost forgot, yay, new blog!
I’m in ur blog, subscribin 2 ur feed!
*ahem*
Looking forward to all future endeavors.
Been following you for awhile and wouldn’t think of not tagging along for the ride. Best of Luck
Added 😉
May you never thirst for blog-fodder!
Yay another blog to read! ^_^
Your illustration up there with the wind-up is hilarious. I am glad that you are still writing!
You won so many geek points in one single post I think my head exploded with the awesome.
I mean…HI PIKE. 😀
NERD! <3
Woot new blog, it’s all Pikey and stuff!
LOL Tawtaw.. your two blogs in here look very similar. For awhile i thought instead of going to a different blog i was merely going to an older post on your first one. i was confused!
Seriously!
I have to go read “The Long Patrol” again. My druid is named after Twayblade 😀
PS-Excited about the new blog!
Redwall was awesome lol.
If I say my son is just now getting into Redwall in a big way, will that make you feel really really young or will that make me look really really old?
Is there a community for random, whatever you fancy, personal blogs? I’ve always struggled to find it if it exists.
Also, when I started on the internet I delved into Buffy chatrooms, RPGs, fansites, fanfic.. ha. I always went by the name ‘Willow’ (yup, verrry original!), so when I started playing WoW it gave me a good chance to change that. Finally settled on Jaedia about a year ago.
Redwall was, to use a popular phrase back when I was reading them, “the bomb”. One of the few books back then that I genuinely wanted to read.