Once a upon a time in the land of Granado Espada far far way…

Episode 1: Birth

A GE faction was founded on 21st May 07 by a player named Cassase. With the help of his two sisters, Lanif and Faith, the faction named Vradical grew to become a close and warm community. The ‘trinity’ family made great efforts to recruit members from the Cervantes population of players. The addition of capable and dedicated members in the early POBT days made it possible for Vradical to grow in strength and numbers.

At the start of the first POBT trail colony war(CW), Vradical decided to participate as a serious faction. The leaders decided that out of the 20+ colonies of sGE, the capture of just 1 colony would serve as a humble indication of our presence.

Episode 2: The Rise of a Legend

Many other factions stamped their name across the map, some of which are older ‘powerhouses’ like Yakisoba, GoD, Dominion, Carnage. Our strength at that point was the equivalent of minor factions like VietNam and Virlead who eventually entered the later trial CWs. The major factions chose to ignore us in their war against each other, leaving Vradical to battle against Virlead and the rest of the minor factions. Vradical faced its first real obstacles during this brief but turbulent period, but eventually overcame them, proceeding to accomplish its faction lvl 51 and 52 quests all alone as well as taking more colonies towards the later trial CWs.

IAH manager Hrin herself eventually joined us to experience our faction gaming lifestyle for both PvP training and CW. Members also took part in a PVP tournament event held by GMs to learn from the stronger competitors. Our member Faith herself took to participating and winning one of the early GE-forum fanart competitions.

Episode 3: The Warriors of Vradical

The later addition of several powerful members as well as the appointed ‘warleader’ member named Forian, made it possible for Vradical to steadily made progress in CW, taking more colonies. Members had an organised commanding structure with clear division(squads)-based plans every CW. At this point the more powerful members began boss raids, starting with early minor bosses like GS and Thoracs to eventually trying out major ones like Diablo, Dr Fran and Gerero. These raids, whether successful or not, served to enlighten Vradicans on the importance in attaining uber items. Eventually member Maximus aided Cassase in developing what would later become our faction raid item vault database system, which is still used today.

Episode 4: The Yakisoba Threat

Vradical turned to skirmishing against what we termed the CDG Alliance (Carnage-Dominion-GoD) factions during the later trial CWs as a friendly competition. The progress was admittedly unfavourable given that we had no allies ourselves and CW plans had to be cancelled several times during this episode. Eventually we decided to improve ourselves by testing out a small battle against the strongest faction (at that time), Yakisoba, in one of the wars. The result was disastrous; Yakisoba faction was angered by our ‘interference’ due to the heavy pressure of holding against the CGD and threatened to fully attack us to wipe Vradical off the map of Cervantes.

Facing imminent doom, many Vradicans turned up to help out. Given our weaker firepower, we decided to fully concentrate on attacking Yakisoban colonies instead of defending. It turned out our action caused the previous CGD Vs Yakisoba stalemate to end. The end result was saw the fall of Yakisoba from 17 colonies to just 1. The final battle got us 4 colonies and also the animosity of the powerful faction and it’s minor ally, Nogard. The official GE forums for cervantes cw thread was filled with major discussions afterwards. While our action was debated as ‘cowardly’ for mass attacking a lone faction, the lost of Yakisoba’s colonies gave many new factions a fairer chance to capture colonies in cw as seen from the following map, bringing more balance to the server. It was a proud moment for Vradical to have been there to see it happen, for we believe CW is not meant to benefit a single dominating faction. We learned that 1 week later Yakisoba disbanded with its leader’s departure from GE, leaving Cervantes cw largely a republican controlled stage. The exit of Yakisoba however made all us regret our actions when…

Episode 5: Treacheries in Cervantes

On 30th-August 07 before the first official colony war, our then warleader Forian made a treacherous move in a sudden 2 hour evening coup: He secretly used his deputy status to kick the following powerful members of Vradical:

CharliesAngel
chii
Corvenus
DarkNessUnited
desu
Flanders
Forian
LcMeaner
Leecher
LuckyStarZ
Meowz
Mercedes
Mew
SombraOscura
Utopian
XxHaRvEsTForcexX
Zenobia

The sudden unannounced exodus of our finest members was a shock to many of us. Forian shortly left and formed ‘Fenrir’, a faction that quickly grew to become a powerful republican force in Cervantes. Leading members who made so much effort to manage the faction felt the sting of loss. Fenrir eventually increased in numbers from similar CGD defectors and several minor faction mergers, taking the opportunity to commit what was known to Vradical as a ‘betrayal’- Fenrir assaulted and wiped us off the map of Cervantes, holding off our weakened faction at bay for nearly a month. The CGD refused to aid Vradical, choosing to stay out of our affairs.

Vradical at this point saw many of its newer and senior members leaving to join Fenrir and was reduced to an active size of less than 25 members at its worst period. The CGD alliance was dissolved by this point, with GoD’s and Carnage’s gradual disbanding due to internal strife. The last POBT major faction Dominion was hit with a similar betrayal incident – forming Illuminati faction which annexed its colonies from the latter.

Fenrir and Illuminati having similar traits, decided to ally and establish a republic domination of Cervantes cw. Their superior firepower and numbers gradually won them control of the world map.

Hrin herself was forced to leave us after a GE forum post made by Forian accused her of overstaying her visit in Vradical. Even worse, faction leader Cassase and his two sisters later announced their sad exit from GE, passing leadership (by vote) to member Deseus. Acting deputy roles also changed hands to better re-structure the faction for recovery and damage control.

The 2-faction tyranny caused many other factions, including Vradical, to consider desperate plans ranging from disbanding and merging to allying together. Any private attempts on recapturing the colonies were met with prompt joint-retaliation. The remnants of former CGD and other minor factions attempted several failed faction formations and alliance for nearly a month during this ‘dark era’.

Episode 6: The Fall of Tyranny

It was through a combined effort of diplomacy, heavy recruitment and raiding that eventually saw Vradical recover from its month long struggle in CW. An ‘anti- republic’ alliance was formed between many factions to attempt joint assaults to defeat Fenrir and Illuminati. Faced with overwhelming odds, the two ‘traitor’ factions finally fell from power over a 2 week CW joint assault.

The process was slow but steady as anti-republic factions gradually crushed the opposition, giving Vradical and its allies the much needed HP boost from colonies captured to overcome the 2 major factions. The results saw the exit of Forian from GE Cervantes and Fenrir’s unofficial disbanding after 9th-Dec 07’s battle. Their members were reported to have merged into Illuminati who decided to stay out of cw. Allied factions such as WoG, Fukkatsu and Halcyon silently agreed to hold a fixed amount of colonies, drawing clear ‘borders’ to maintain good relations.

Episode 7: An ‘arms race’

Many names have since disappeared over the weeks due to either strife, stress or simple convenience. The latest was Fukkatsu which announced its disbanding – had its colonies and members dispersed among the remaining major factions in cervantes who hold colonies. Illuminati failed to seriously attend cw throughout December since their last major battle. As for ourselves, Vradical saw her management change hands again. Thanks to the kind help of GMs, faction leadership was passed from ‘Deseus’ to ‘That’ and several deputy roles were re-assigned to focus on our current pursuit.

The pursuit of course, is the acquisition of uber items, particularly elite lv100s to boost the firepower of members. To this end Vradical has increased its raiding activities to a (nearly)’hardcore’ level. Minor activities among members include hunting Bellboys and GoldenBats while joint activities consist of farming Vergo, Hellbreaker, etc. The recent V2.4 patch for sGE has introduced new bosses which no doubt demand another round of schedule planning.

The future of Vradical

Has Vradical changed a lot since the day it was first formed? Saying ‘no’ would be a big fat lie. Yet one thing remains true: A faction isn’t defined by its ‘firepower’ or the colonies it holds. It’s the value a faction represents and the faithful support of its members that keeps it going.

No matter what happens in the future, let it be known that Vradical isnt a just a faction; it’s also an ideal worth fighting for.

This post is written by: Doomguard (nicknamed DG by fellow Vrads)