History from Long Ago, and Amnesia

Theris

So, I have played Achaea on and off for a long time (I think about 10 years). Since I went long spans of several years without playing, and since I have tended to be a serial org/class changer, I don't really remember everything my character has done in the past. Now, a lot of organizations want to know my character's history. I generally mention what I can remember, and play off my forgetfulness as disorientation from my soul being absent for so long. However, I'd like to compose a background and get more into RP, and I feel like "I have amnesia" is kind of lame and overdone.

@Tecton or @Sarapis are records kept of character activity, such as what organizations they have been members of, and when? I know that some of the orgs I've been part of, like the old Runewardens guild and the Mojushai, don't even exist anymore, so I probably can't go back and check their records.

Have any of you older players run into this problem? How have you addressed it? If I can't conjure up the use of admin-power for assistance, I suppose it could be interesting to actually roll with the whole absence-induced amnesia thing, and make discovering his past a part of my character's motivation. The problem is, part of me feels like that's sort of lazy storytelling--but on the other hand, I don't feel like I can just make stuff up, since some of it would be at odds with my character's actual in-game history. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

Aereidhna

This thread might help somewhat, some players discussed there how they dealt with this issue:
http://forums.achaea.com/discussion/3535/waking-up-after-years-of-sleep

Tael

I would be pretty surprised if they are. And I don't think many (if any) orgs actually keep records of past members.

Also, realistically, if you don't remember because you've changed orgs so many times over so many years, it's unlikely that many other people remember either. I think you have a fairly blank slate if you want it. And it seems to me that, if you the player can't remember your character's history, it's probably pretty reasonable for your character not to remember so well what they were doing many, many, many years ago. I don't think that necessarily has to be full-blown amnesia - you can just chalk it up to normal forgetting.

One option you have for framing your return from dormancy that often works pretty well is to suggest that Theris was simply "in the background", rather than actually being in some sense "gone" while you were dormant. Maybe he was roaming the forests. Maybe he was living as a hermit. Maybe he was one of the many, many people described in room descriptions in villages or cities. And you could tie that into the forgetting too - maybe it's unsurprising that years of living in the forests largely alone has resulted in memories before that becoming a little hazy.

The last two times I went dormant, when I came back, my RP explanation was that Tael had been away on a sort of sabbatical, stepping back from the life of an adventurer for a while to do more mundane scholarly research.

Theris

Ah, thank you. I'll have to lurk on that thread for ideas!

The question still stands though as to whether records are kept for players independent of organization records. Does anyone know this?

Kayeil

Could come up with an IC reason why you might've forgotten. I know a character IC who spent their dormancy in Creville Asylum, so it explains more current character traits and could potentially be used to explain forgetfulness if they wanted to use it that way. I mean, in real life, we as human can't always remember as well what we were doing 20 years ago... now imagine trying to remember decades or centuries of time. It's totally understandable!