It’s not the leaving of Liverpool

With a wimper, the cuddliest, cutest and mostly harmless „Alveran“-Forum for the German-Style Pseudo-RPG DSA (= Das Schwarze Auge) today announced its closure.

It is the only place in the whole internet that caught the cuddly atmosphere that one could perceive as being a positive thing about the whole DSA-affair.

Ultimately, I frequented the site for its quite encompassing and expansive database of reviews of DSA products, including linked fan discussions on the particular product as well as some very nifty timelines for the gameworld of Dere (basically the same anagram trick as Oearth, just in German). One of the Old Ones is chained to Deres Crystal Sphere, didn’t you know? At least that’s where my Dere 3.5 D&D meta-campaign kicks in, fueled by Siembiedan Family Atomics. As it happens, cuddly Derean Villages and Gods have a higher shock value when burnt or staked than most other Fantasy worlds.

Sadly, this fine Internet ressource (Alveran) is no more. It had been freelancer operated. Think of them like being Palladium freelancers that got shafted by a new comittee of owners.
That is bascially what happened. They had „fiefs“ and were allowed to influence the gameworld. That was the whole payment for their writing work. On top, they operated this Alveran site out of their own free time and pocket. Because the fiefs had been taken from them, they are packing up their toys and leave. A sad day!

Such are the happenings if you seperate the escapist worker from his imaginary material base of production. Historical immaterialism predicts the collapse of the hobby any minute now.