AdventureShane

Shane's longest lasting and most well-known character Titus Romanus Merula (I think?) through Legacy to Stugace's 2014 rendition of Legends of Rome. He is shown here as Medicus Romanus on LoR.

### Aliases

hope6699, AdventureShane\_, benyot, bjarp, smooth\_brain, Adventure\_Shane, Shane

## Introduction

Shane is a long-time veteran of Romecraft, having joined some time during Corondium. He played on Corondium and Frontier Island intermittently and wasn't an active member of the community until Legacy. While Shane was generally regarded as a good RPer and had achieved some minor roleplay rankings, he developed a very notorious reputation for his aggressive personality and short temper. His reputation peaked from Legacy to the 2014 reboot of Legends of Rome. He was regarded as being less aggressive in later servers. His long-term disappearance from the community lasted from around 2015 after the last Respublica server up until 2018. He is still at large to this day among the remnants of the Romecraft community.

## History

### Corondium

It is mostly uncertain what Shane was doing on Romecraft during the Coro period, as there are no known screenshots or accounts of his activity during this period. Out of all the servers he played on, he probably the least amount of time on this one. All that is known is he most likely used the same Titus character and was in the Legion. He was briefly involved in some skirmishes against the HyrdAiken.

### Frontier Island

Shane was only marginally more active on Frontier. He used his classic Titus Octavius character and was a member of the Legion first and then spent the rest of his time in Classis. He may have spent some time in SPQR but it is uncertain if this was during Frontier or Corondium. He was an adopted member of Rykurock's familia and lived in the family villa in the corner of the island, where their large wheat field was located. Shane's controversial reputation arguably had its origins on Frontier, where he had began speaking more, resulting in him getting in trouble more. He was minorly punished on one occasion for stealing a gold block from an abandoned cultist cave in the volcano mountain, and another time for an unknown verbal offense. This is the known extent of activity and actions done by Shane on Frontier.

I remember being a part of some really huge events (back when Romecraft could actually fill up a whole server), and maybe one of the ending battles, but I'm not 100%.

### Aetas Antonine

Shane was in the Legion and was one of the legionaries shown in the AA trailer on Youtube. He was involved in battles against both the Horde and the Picts. He was not a very good PvPer and surprisingly wasn't known for complaining about it. Shane was PvP killed by Picts on some occasions for exploring alone. He briefly joined one of the Pictish tribes under a new character. Shane vanished from the community long before the end of AA until the peak period of Legacy.

### Legacy

(Note that my memory from most things on Romecraft is pretty spotty, especially around Legacy since I did so many different things it's all kind of gotten blended together at this point. I'm sure some of it is out of order but it should be close enough.)

Shane's negative reputation reached its highest point on Legacy. He became much more active starting on Legacy. This increased activity is associated with his increased notoriety. His longest lasting character, Titus Octavius Merula was used on Legacy. This was the most fleshed out, more "official" rendition of Titus that Shane used up until 2014 LoR, when his character was killed. Shane joined Legacy in November 2012, playing in the Legio for a very short time until switching over to Classis. It's believed he played in the SPQR at one point before switching back to Classis again for the rest of his time on Legacy.

Shane's character Titus was first an adopted member of the Tarpi Gens under Nate\_Rush. He was in a family with Nate and Jaybirdey, and a few other members who were loosely active. The Tarpi Gens may have merged into the more prominent Romanus Gens, but this is uncertain. Titus was later adopted into the Romanus Gens with Atexur, Jaybirdey, Ricutza, and Beebono. The Romanus Gens was relatively successful and rich (although nowhere near the richest on the server), with all of its members in a variety of positions in either Legion or SPQR.

Shane served as acting Optio at one point under Classis, which naturally led to a short-lived OOC conflict with Knightgaurdian13, pbo32, and a few other players. Shane did not achieve the rank of Miles (or whatever the Classis equivalent was) until Legacy, having only served in the Legion/Classis as a Tiro. His first and only promotion beyond Miles on Legacy was when he achieved the status of Clinicus in Classis under Nate\_Rush as Medicus. At one point he may have also been a Lamiam but this isn't remembered. Shane also briefly served with Turma, also as a Clinicus. He may have vanished from Legacy some time after joining Turma or possibly switched back to Classis again before that. His character Titus had one child who was played by Cha\_Laaad.

Titus was flogged at one point for disrespecting the Aquilifer who was at the time played by marino94. The Aquilifer was a top member of the Ilius Gens. This event was a driving factor in his loyalty to the rebelling Classis faction led by Praefectus SolvedRumble. Shane was heavily involved in the Legacy Civil War both on an OOC and RP level, having been one of Solveds closest fellow IRP conspirators, and was one of the last rebels to return home even after the pardoning of all Classis rebels. He temp-RPed a praetorian guard under the service of the pro-rebel senators. He was killed in PVP almost immediately by the loyalist praetorians, who were using OP admin-created weapons (THIS POST WAS MADE BY CLASSIS REBEL GANG ™). Titus was part of the initial skirmishes with loyalist forces, as well as the failed rescue attempt to evacuate the injured Praefectus Classis from his town villa. Afterwards, he stayed in the snowy mountain fort made by the rebels until the civil wars end and the rebels were pardoned.

Some time after the Legacy Civil War, Shane was a member of Turma. He spent alot of time around the frontlines around the horde city known as Heratium. Shane, Beebono, and Ricutza are the only ones known to have been to and fully explored Heratium before the final invasion and get out alive, as well as returning for other visits. This was not done in RP but only in OOC, as reporting their visits in RP probably would've meant they would get in trouble with the admins for visiting Heratium without permission.

I'll just write the rest of the Legacy section in more casual terms to keep it simple, since the details are pretty weak in my memory. As far as I can remember, the civil war period was the height of my activity. I think I was active for a little while longer after joining Turma, but I think my activity dropped off some time around the time Legacy lost its official status from Stugace, which was when Legacy starting going downhill anyways. I know for a fact I wasn't around for the end of Legacy though, I had vanished completely by then. I was involved in plenty of different OOC and RP conflicts all around the Legacy period, ranging from refusing to catch leprosy from Renagade, to getting into several arguments with RAD over a variety of subjects. I was temp-banned on several occasions and kicked/muted more times then I can even count.

All things considered though, I had a blast on Legacy. The Civil War was probably the most fun I've ever had on Romecraft. Building the perfect Domus, flying up above town on the glitched flying gates, the giant horde airship battles, the list goes on. Those were truly the glory days. For now, that's about all I can remember about my time on Legacy.

### Incursio Britannia

Shane spent a fairly short amount of time on IB and was fairly uninvolved in any major ongoings on the server. He appeared for opening day and took part in a few of the opening acts for the Legion and owned a starter insula room, but this is about the extent of his participation in IB. Shane was quickly drawn away from IB due to Respublica opening around the same time IB did and then eventually going on to play Romecraft Legends of Rome much more then both of those servers.

Another contributing factor to Shanes lost interest in IB was due to the fact that he felt only a tiny section of the community was being catered to by the staff and given unfair treatment in the form of favorable events and OP items that other players were not treated to, such as Iwasa's lightsaber-esque steel sword.

### Romecraft Legends of Rome (2014 Stugace reboot)

Shane spent a significant amount of time playing on Stugaces 2014 reboot of Romecraft Legends of Rome, which is sometimes also referred to as "Summer LOR" or "LOR 2". Much like his time spent on Legacy, his increased level of activity on the server's community came with an increased level of notoriety and infamy among its members. While Shane was less notorious on the LOR website forums then he was on the forums for Legacy, he was still very aggressive and agitated many incidents on the forums. This behavior was generally not reflected in any real capacity on the server itself, however. Shane was on fairly good behavior in the OOC chat on the server.

Shane joined right around the height of the servers life and started off with a Roman legionary character who used to be a marine, medic, and military engineer otherwise known as Titus Romanus Merula, a canon continuation of his Legacy character, as the two servers shared the same timeline. Titus quickly rose to prominence in the Legion as a Clinicus and then on to being a Medicus, though he often took on a dual role as an unofficial cavalryman/scout. Titus became somewhat close with the Tribunus of the Legion, Tom\_Clarks character. Titus formed close bonds with several other characters and eventually formed the Cult of Minerva, a clandestine cult that existed to subvert the Roman balance of power and worked closely with other hostile factions on the server, such as the Dacians and the Illyrians. Illyria wasn't ever an official faction on the server but moreso refers to the secret base(s) that Ricutza and Shane managed together on the server for their nefarious efforts on the server that they simply referred to as being Illyrian pirates. Titus used his influence over the Tribunus who was also leader of the nearby colonia to convince him to dedicate the towns temple to Minerva. Eventually, Shane grew more and more bold in his efforts to terrorize the Roman faction from the inside with the help of his other cult members who included Ricutza, Beebono, urausa, and others. By this point, Shane was serving both the Romans and the Illyrians (who were ran by Ricutza) as a double agent.

During one such bold effort, one day they had started a raid against the Romans from the inside and were now directly attacking the Romans by opening the gates and letting their disguised raiders inside to kill Romans. Shane, Ricutza, Beebono, and urausa had successfully attacked and killed several Roman soldiers and civilians until Tom\_Clark called online a more numerous force to deal with them, forcing them to eventually retreat. After dying and attempting to come back, Ricutza became separated from the main group of Shane, Beebono, and urausa while they tried to retreat on horseback. Shane was not able to get back to his horse in time and was forced to run on foot. Despite pleading for help, urausa and Beebono abandoned Shane while Ricutza scrambled to get back to him to assist him. Shane was chased in the nearby desert by Tom and his legionaries until finally being surrounded. After finding out the true identity of Titus, the Tribunus swiftly executed him by cutting his head off with his sword. Even after Titus's treacherous actions, a memorial was erected in the desert where he died. Following these events, Shane was heartbroken by the loss of his most important character and was granted special permissions by the admins to play as a ghost character for a short amount of time and haunted the Tribunus on a few occasions.

Eventually Shane created a new character called Appius, a basic Roman legion character who had a very cheesy Greek crossbow and was a military engineer. This character was largely insignificant and it can be assumed by this point that Shane began to lose interest in LOR until it's closure sometime in late 2014 as there are no accounts of what Shane was doing on the server after creating Appius.

Other notable events during his time on Summer LOR include Shanes temporary involvement with the Anatolians in attempt to reveal to location of their undiscovered base, "The Razuler Incident", his time as a Minotaur character, time spent with the Dacians, discovery of Petra, completion of Rad's parkour course, "paranormal Anatolian activity", and Dingbata vs. Shane.

### Respublica

After the fall of 2014 LOR, Shane moved on to the new iteration of Respublica. Given his less then favorable reputation and insulting behavior on Respublicas first server (Respublica Origines), he was very cautiously allowed to play only under the condition he was forbidden from using the forums and had to be muted in the OOC channel on the server itself. This was quickly rectified after Shane proved he was able to act responsibly on chat and the forums and kept his OOC interactions to an appropriate level, only receiving a small amount of warnings for his actions. Shane followed a basic path as a Caesarian Legionary in the first server and didn't do very much besides partake in some PVP battles, explore the map, and get into mischief with Ricutza. During Respublicas modded iteration following their first run, he spent most of his time with Ricutza in the modded survival world rather then playing on the actual setting map.

### Disappearance (2015-2017)

After the last Respublica server, Shane pretty much vanished from the community again for a long period of time, despite their still being large and thriving Romecraft servers in existence. Shane was blacklisted from some servers before even joining, which played a big part in this loss of interest. It's uncertain what servers these were, but they were likely the less popular spin-off servers that came after Respublica that were run by less prominent members of the community who were attempting to hold the RC brand together. Even on the servers he was not blacklisted from he chose not to play on them or was simply unaware of them.

### Return and Bellum Sociale

After a long-term hiatus from Minecraft and RP beside occasional visits back to the game to see what has changed, Shane finally returned. Some time in early 2018, Shane decided to see if any new Romecraft servers were still in existence. After a basic Google search, Shane discovered a new server had just launched called Romecraft: Bellum Sociale, created by Atexur. Shane decided to join up with Ricutza once more and together they got started on the server. They ran into an old friend of theirs, 1337Sammiches and the three of them joined forces with Brutus\_Lucinius and Doddzeh to create their own group on the server. Together they split off from the main town and founded their own settlement at the disapproval of the admins. The admins, while not pleased with their already very small server splitting off into different towns, decided to allow it. They attempted on numerous occasions to break up the settlement using hordes of mobs but Shane and his group fended them off. In yet another attempt to circumvent the systems of the server, they kidnapped a player named Lubot3d who played as the very valuable blacksmithing profession. Bellum Sociale was very crippled as a server by the fact that it had very hardcore professionalism where players could only craft certain items based on what their profession was, which did not work well for such an inactive community. Shane also ended up just asking different staff members for profession roles and ended up secretly getting almost every profession role on the server. By the second week of the servers life, it's dwindling server population was essentially at zero and Shane and Ricutza basically had free reign over the server until Atexur banned them for trying to start another settlement again and getting into a personal argument. Bellum Sociale shut down a few days after this incident.

Following this bad experience, Shane, Ricutza, and Sammiches decided to become the new trailblazers for the community and went on to start their own series of Romecraft servers.

## Characters

Titus Octavius/Romanus/Tarpi Merula (Coro - 2014 LoR)

Appius? (Legacy and Incursio?)

Brutus? (No idea, just remember having a Brutus character at one point in later servers)

- Various others

I honestly don't really remember any of my characters beyond Titus, the rest of them weren't particularly memorable or important to me.

## Servers

I've owned two Romecraft inspired servers of my own. The first one was simply known as Legends of Rome (2018), and the last one being Romecraft: Britannia (2019). In the future, I plan to create full pages for these two servers. Even though they were very short-lived, I think they still deserve to be counted as part of the history of Romecraft.