The beginning as told by Morgoth to Prather the Minstrel
   
FLORIDA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY --WINTER 1994
  Wintertime in Florida is usually so pleasant that the rest of the world packs up and
comes down here just to enjoy the sun, but that Friday in January as I walked up the
steps in front of Evan's hall, it was cold and rainy.  There were four of us co-
conspirators, Todd (Orome), David (Aule), Rob (Manwe) and me, I'm Morgoth, aka
Steve.
   
   I was pretty much coasting, doing my second year for a Master's in Environmental
Resource Management and it left me quite with quite a bit of time to devote to what
was then my "real" course of study which was mudding.
   
   Rob, Todd and I were all admins on a MUD called Silicon Realms which we
agreed was becoming a hassle for us.  It was full of starwars stuff and top heavy with
what seemed to us, lazy admins who gave us nothing but grief.   There was no theme
at all.  David was a coder on a MUD called KOBRA.
   
   There's a lot of philosophy that goes into designing a mud.  We wanted something
where new players could get started without being driven off but would still
challenge higher levels.  That's a lot harder than it sounds.  At Silicon Realms, I was
actually told by one of the admins that my job was to put a lot of really nice stuff on
monsters that were easy to kill because it would make the players happy.
   
   Incidentally, next time somebody gives you a hard time about all the hours you
spend on T2T, tell them that there are actually a few of us who consider ourselves
success stories.  I now run tech-support and the WEB development group for an net
provider here in New York.  I kind of stumbled into it (went in to pay my bill and got
hired).  They were looking for someone with WEB experience who could also code
Unix, all of which I owe to time I "wasted" while working on Silicon Realms and
T2T.  Fun stuff!
    In direct contrast to my ethereal, artsy style, David is an organizer  --concise,
sharp and efficient.  We use to kid him about being "The Killer Coder from KoBra."
When I first met him, I thought he was a little overbearing.  He was immediately
ready to jump into the leadership role, almost like, "I am the ruler." We had very
different approaches to the project, different styles, which, at times, conflicted.  Rob
often found himself playing the middle-man in the discussions between us in those
early days, but as David and I both warmed to the project, we began to recognize
each other's strengths and we got by all that.  David and I work really well as a team.  
In May, this year, he graduates as a lieutenant in the Army and like Todd, who is
now in the Navy, he will loose the web for a while.  T2T will miss him.
   
   As I came up the walk, shielding myself from the cold drizzle, I noticed Rob's
black Firebird in the parking lot and since David has never been late to anything, I
figured that everyone was already upstairs.  Even before Rob called the four of us
together, I was really excited about the project.  We all had a lot enthusiasm and
some great ideas.  Though there was never any intention of allowing the theme to
stray from the books, as kind of an inspiration, Todd had a copy of the cartoon
version of the "Lord of the Rings" that he was going to show and I was even looking
forward to that.  So when I got upstairs to the room, I guess I was primed for a
formal meeting on the MUD, but when I opened the door, everybody was huddled
around a pizza, watching Beavis and Butthead.  Such are the great moments.  
Anyway, that afternoon, when the pizza was gone, we officially agreed to start "The
Two Towers" based on the Master, J.R.R.  Tolkien.