Otori

Name:

The name of Otori was taken from recent novels by Lian Hearn, whose books about Feudal Japan contain a clan with that name. In this era, honour, loyalty and revenge were highly respected traits.

Credo:

Hovering above the decaying ruins, we are Clan Otori. United as one spirit we shall surpass all others!

History:

ashamalee formed Otori on 24th August 2004, after consultation with RL friends (segafreak1999 and Leon_Necredor) both of whom have since left KoL. The first in-game member to join the ranks was Moless, who was found lurking in /villa only hours after the clan was created. Following him, several members from Unholy Slayers found their way over, including ResiLiang. ResiLiang was the most active member, and continuously worked hard acquiring new members, with an ideal size of 100 members in sight. However, many of these new faces soon became inactive, as a large percentage of new members always seem to do. Booting came into play and numbers were cut back. However, those that stayed active and stuck around formed a very worthy core of this new clan. Recruiting continued, under such long-time KoLers as PumpkinEve and Rutabega. After a while, ResiLiang found a new game (Maple Story) and spent most of his time there for a number of months. He has recently returned to KoL, and has rejoined Otori.

An impressive army was built up using funds donated mostly by ashamalee and Leon. After a short period of time, they built up a force to be reckoned with and soon hit the leader board, quickly attaining 4th place for "Most clan warfare wins". Otori was, for a long time, prevented from improving on the fourth position they obtained in this way. More recently, however, Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail stopped taking clan warfare so seriously and Otori moved up into third place. Soon afterwards, Ubiquitous Toad Lickers reached 3000 wins and stopped taking part in clan warfare - this left the field clear for Otori to reach second place. Unfortunately, until head clan cease their efforts in the arena of clan warfare (or until the clan warfare mechanics are changed), there is no way for Otori to hit the top of this leaderboard. Nevertheless, they continue to carry out their battles, eight times daily, every day.

After the changes made towards the end of 2004 (in which clans with less than five members were kicked off the leaderboards), the members of Otori realised that they were only a short whisker away from the power leaderboard. Much shore-whoring followed, with the eventual result that Otori rose to the bottom of the leaderboard in mid-February. The drive didn't stop there, though - they had to maintain their position! It is worth noting that, although there used to be a minimum power requirement to be able to join, it was dropped in late February 2005. Despite this, Otori could be found on the power leaderboard in 12th-15th position, until ascension was implemented. Then they, along with most of the rest of the Kingdom, succumbed to temptation and stepped through the gash. However, they have fared similarly well in this endeavour and can now be found on the ascendingest board in approximately 11th position.

One thing which Otori has always been famous for were its philanthropic buffbots. In April 2005, Tagliatelle contacted holatuwol (of KoLmafia fame), to ask if he would create a buffbot engine that would do what was necessary. It took a whole month to iron out all the problems but, once this was done, the Otori buffbots (sneaksie the Accordion Thief, DragonSlayersAnon the Turtle Tamer and leethal the Sauceror) were stable and running almost 24/7. Once ascension was implemented, they had an even grander vision: a buffbot which could give all of the possible buffs. Testudinata was born. Badmojo and Slashor did most of the work of putting her through her 30 ascensions (starting in June), and she finally went public in early November 2005. At the time, she was capable of providing all Accordion Thief, Turtle Tamer and Sauceror buffs and is on a neverending quest to lower prices by levelling up. However, the recent additions to the Accordion Thief skillset mean that she is no longer the all-singing all-dancing buffbot. However, she is still by far the cheapest buffbot in the Kingdom for those buffs which she does offer.

However, the one thing that most players know Otori for is Otori Week. This was held from 24-31 August 2005, in celebration of the clan's first birthday, and was a week of contests and philanthropy. Otori is not a rich clan - there are not even any truly super-rich members, unlike other old-time clans - but every member dug deep and they collectively gave away hundreds of millions of meat, both in the form of meat and of items. In recognition of this achievement, Jick designed a custom item for them to give away, the Otorian Battle Scar, and the winners of each contest received one of these unique items, in addition to the other prizes.

In early January 2006, ashamalee finally retired as leader of Otori, citing increased real life time pressures. He passed the mantle onto Tagliatelle but, in reality, very little has changed. ashamalee continues to advise on all matters and the clan is still run by a council.

Today:

Otori has grown up from the baby clan it once was and is now seen as one of the major clans of KoL. However, they still have a way to go before they can truly claim to be equal to the likes of Noblesse Oblige or W23. Applications have picked up drastically since Otori Week but they still accept even relatively new applicants if they have the right combination of personality and outlook. As such, they are one of the only major clans which anyone can apply to.

Otori is a very active clan and requires its members to be active in chat and on the forums. Similarly, the ranking system is based on activity rather than karma. Although this may sound a bit dictatorial, it has worked well - everyone in the clan gets to know each other really well and new members are quickly assimilated.

Although Otori might variously be described as a philanthropic, powergaming or war clan, its members prefer to regard themselves as a very close community who also happen to do some cool things.

Otori continue to attack clans daily, even with the knowledge, that they, like many others, can never catch the clan above them. Futility?Bloody-mindedness? We prefer to call it dedication...

Members, past and present:

ashamalee was the clan's founder.

Tagliatelle is the current clan leader, but shares leadership also with Slashor, Stickly_Man and Tichondrius. Badmojo, jotajota, Master Polka, Lukifer and CMorrigu are the other members of the council.

Armak, Macnchz, Errosion, GobbleGobble and Diabolical_Mastermind have all been leaders in the past, but have moved on to greener pastures.

The account Otori was created by ashamalee for safety's sake, and is now used as a clan mule. Testudinata is the one remaining buffbot and is currently run from the computers of Demius and Lukifer. Ivalice is the multi of holatuwol, the creator of the amazing KoLmafia engine which the buffbots rely on.

For a long time, Innocent Bystander and JizmacTheAttentionLovingNinja were members of the clan. IB is the multi of Chrono Mage and Crazy Tourist - Otori has, as a result, enjoyed close ties with Iocaine Powder. Jizmac was the shared multi of Crapstorm and PumpkinEve and was used by them to duck into clan chat after they left the clan. The clan whitelist feature rendered these multis obsolete, and they have since moved on.

Current members (not mentioned so far in this section) include: aaNii, Alhanna, Arkohn, babyslave, Ben San Arizona, Bob the Tea, calamityjane, deedlee, Eggwhite, electricsushi, Fysk, Gamma_Ray, Gorblax, Hekatchu, hockeymax19, Ice_Nine, MarinaraMario, MaryOfDoom, neko chan, NevilDenJacobi, Pastaroni, ResiLiang, scheijan, Spazmatic, spcaemaggot, SPNirology, Tibbiara, Toric, Trigger, Wiggin, Xarous, YaYaMcG.

Past members (not mentioned so far in this section) include: acidsoul, agent57, Akirasan, l337_mo7ha, Capn, Capn Gnarly, Cartman69130, Covante, Crovax1234, DestroyerBeacon, Faerador, Frazzlehoon, Freak Nasty, H4nn3s, Kyle89, lil_stabby, Macbeth417, MasterNick, Matt the Fish, mosm, Nyarlathotep, Moless, Papa Zito, piff133, Riddick09, Rutabega, SeBulba, SpaceMonky, stile58, Tudlow, Volksen and Xenos_in_a_hat.

External Links:

Otori's website: http://www.otori.org/

Otori's clan forums: http://www.otori.org/board/

Chubbles' Official Clan History of Otori (a bit out of date): http://s93982788.onlinehome.us/KoL/otori.htm