Birchle

Birchle is an island designer, memmer, and roamer. She is currently found on the Malachite Ocean as a senior officer in the crew Pineapples.

Accomplishments

 * Current princess of Charon Feather
 * Placed second in each of the Quad-Race Weekend races during January 24-27, 2009
 * Placed second in The Unspecified Ambiguous Race on January 10, 2009
 * Finished memming Malachite on November 11, 2008
 * Earned Malachite's first Head Honcho trophy on October 27, 2008
 * Placed second in the Octopi Trick or Treat Sloop Race on October 18, 2008
 * Placed second in the Sprinting Sloop Race on September 28, 2008
 * Earned Malachite's first Bronzed Hand trophy in early September 2008
 * Placed fourth in the Friday Night Lights Sloop Races on August 29, 2008
 * Won an orange monkey, later recolored to grey, in the August 24 sailing competition during the 2008 Olympic Games Festival of Piracy, and placed in several other competitions
 * Joined the island design team in May 2006 after receiving an honorable mention in the contest
 * Finished memming Cobalt on September 25, 2005

A pirate is born
Birchle was originally thrown to the seas by a friend, Shrewd, and washed ashore in the on the Midnight Ocean in early July 2004. First baptized as Kli, Shrewd promptly invited her to join her own crew, the Midnight Raiders. Shrewd, who had recently been promoted to officer, had just purchased her first sloop, and excitedly used it to introduce Kli to pillaging. Kli soon came to love pillaging with her crew, and began working to gain the rank of officer as well. Just before her final test, she discarded Kli and was reborn as Birchle. After quickly regaining the officer requirements, an anxious Birchle took her officer test and excitedly found she had passed it with flying colors. An eternity later, in the young pirate's perspective, Birchle had finally saved up enough to purchase her own sloop, and once it was finished, enthusiastically pillaged even more to earn enough PoE to stock it. From this point on, Birchle became heavily involved in the crew, discussing everything she knew about with her senior officers Nothingfire, Radders, Morrissey (later Springheel), and Drivingblind, and captain Jaymes. A few months later, after returning from an unplanned stretch of sporadic disappearances, Birchle was greeted with a promotion to senior officer. However, not long after, she was again forced to take a break from sailing the seas.

Life moves on
When she returned, Birchle found her crew and her hearties all dormant, and spent a few days aimlessly jobbing and hearing discussions about how many people were now also playing on Cobalt. Eventually, Nothingfire caught her online and informed her that much of the crew had retired, and most of the others had left Midnight and moved to Cobalt, himself included. Wanting to see what all the excitement was about, Birchle began poking around Cobalt as well, but as Brighteyes instead. After a bit more puttering around on Midnight, Birchle got bored of the silence and decided to find her remaining crewmates, moving fully to the more active Cobalt and joining Nothingfire, by then known as Sshook, one of his hearties, Kaylah, and several others in their crew. The crew quickly grew very quiet, though, with most members either retiring or moving on to other crews, so it became increasingly more common for Birchle to also remain offline. Instead, Brighteyes, who had joined the more active Foiled Again almost upon arrival, became much more active.

In Foiled Again, Brighteyes met a few close hearties, most notably Berran, with whom she enjoyed practicing battle navigation by trading duties back and forth, but never really felt at home. Those hearties were then all swallowed by the seas in quick succession, so around May or June 2005, she decided to change crews, joining up with several other hearties in Bad Sushi, who were part of the same flag, Something Powerful. Brighteyes already regularly sailed with many Sushi members, so the switch came as no surprise. With them, she again attained the rank of senior officer, and helped where she could in the flag's taking of, and later, when the crew changed flags, in Valor's defending of the island. Like with the Midnight Raiders, though, several of the older Bad Sushi members eventually began to fade out, but this time Brighteyes was also busier, and had a longer hearty list for when she was online, so didn't mind the quiet.

A few months after Sage opened, Birchle decided to try the doubloon system, and was eventually talked into joining The Lost Lot not long after they joined Go with the Flow. She enjoyed playing in a more active crew again, and had faded out of Cobalt by June 2006, with Sage becoming her main ocean instead.

Winter approaches
Ultimately, though, she became disenchanted with the numerous flag changes, the ocean, and its politics, and returned to Midnight. She eventually ran into Springheel, previously unaware that he was still playing, and was invited to join The Phoenicians. She gladly accepted the offer and made herself a new home. Unfortunately, The Phoenicians, along with the entire Black Sheep Brigade, collapsed shortly thereafter. Birchle returned to working on her long-forgotten goal to memorize the entire ocean, but without a steady crew to play with, she lost interest, waved good bye to her hearties, and around January 2007 returned to the seas from whence she came.

Testing foreign waters
When Birchle learned of the Indigo Ocean, she decided to dust off her German by chatting and pillaging with the players there, even joining the crew and making a few hearties. She couldn't afford an additional subscription, though, so only logged on sporadically.

After Indigo switched to Opal, Birchle appeared a bit more frequently, finding and joining her old crew again, and even spending a few scattered weeks exclusively on Opal. Within days of leaving Midnight, however, Birchle stopped playing on Opal as well.

New lands bring new life
Birchle reappeared after the opening of Malachite to visit the islands she had designed. However, she got caught up in trying to memorize the ocean again, so joined a crew of old Valor mates, Pineapples, in the flag Charon Feather. She also began religiously hunting skellies and zombies, quickly catching up to those who had been joining frays from the beginning, and eventually earned the first Bronzed Hand and later the first Head Honcho to be seen on Malachite.

When Birchle's captain, Pushpin, decided to open an iron monger in July, Birchle was once again growing bored of the standard puzzles and looking for something new to try. After Pushpin hinted at wanting a manager, Birchle offered to help, eager to try out a new aspect of the game, and thereby made her first official foray into shopkeeping. A bit to her surprise, Birchle discovered she enjoyed having a stall to keep track of, and when Pushpin had to leave, she took over fully. Later, she and a hearty, Wildturkey, decided to try their hand at running a few more stalls, and inherited a tailor, weavery, and apothecary instead of letting them shut down.

In between memming, frays, and stallkeeping, Birchle enjoys joining any skill-based competitions that come up. She participated in as many of the 2008 Olympic Games events as she could manage, successfully placing in five competitions and winning her first ever familiar, an orange monkey, in the August 24 sailing competition. She later recolored it grey and named it Bagel, after a nickname given to her by her hearty Ever, and adopted by several others. Birchle has also joined in several sloop races, placing each time with, usually, only a single sailor to help, but is still trying to catch the elusive first place.

Islands designed
Birchle became interested in island design while playing on Cobalt as Brighteyes. At some point, she discovered that one of her Bad Sushi crewmates, Yngvild, was already an island designer and had created several of Cobalt's islands. Yngvild directed her to the thread on the forums, and from there, she made a few poor attempts, slowly learning how to integrate critiques. When the next full-scale contest for new island designers came along, she was ready.

Birchle is one of the winners of the Fantasy Island contest. Her excellent design work can be seen at the following islands:


 * Marmara Odonata, on the Meridian ocean (as well as on the retired/merged Malachite ocean)
 * Xana's Trummet, on the Meridian ocean (as well as on the retired/merged Malachite ocean)
 * A small Cursed Isle
 * Two atolls -- one medium, and one small