NarniaMUCK History

NarniaMUCK began in 1999, when Mike Hansen and his fiancee, Jeanette Merrill, conceived of the idea of a Christian-themed MUCK as an outreach project. Together, they brought NarniaMUCK online in May of 2000, hosted out of Mike's home in Arup, Denmark.

As neither Mike nor Jeanette had run a MUCK before, they began recruiting help to get the game built and ready to open to the public. In February of 2001, Mike happened to run into Jennifer Boeyink on another game. He mentioned his Narnia-themed MUCK in passing, and Jennifer, who had written gameside programs for several other MUCKs, offered to pass some of her programs on to Mike. Mike accepted immediately and brought her to NarniaMUCK, where Jennifer began uploading and writing programs, and building.

Mike, Jeanette and Jennifer (also known as Voyager, Illys and Wixenstyx, respectively) continued to develop the game for the next three months. The game first opened to the public in May of 2001. There were a few false starts, including a period during which the database experienced mysterious corruption that caused a series of devastating crashes. Fortunately, Voyager and Wixenstyx finally straightened out the problem and the game became stable again.

Voyager and Illys contributed what they could, but with wedding plans, schooling and Illys' plans to move from the U.S. to Denmark in the way, the time they were able to devote to NarniaMUCK necessarily decreased. Eventually Voyager turned administration of the game over to Wixenstyx and a staff of regular players. The first MUCK staff consisted of Paxa, Squeakacheek, Hlao, Argus, Shadeleap, Iris and Perelaai.

The first role-plays were set into motion around this time. The combat system was introduced and developed. Archery was put into place, as were systems for cooking, magic and commerce. The MUCK grew despite all predictions to the contrary, and before long it was sustaining a regular and loyal membership.

In August of 2005, Voyager and Illys finally decided the time had come to give NarniaMUCK a new home. On September 14, 2005, the game was moved to the United States under the generous hospitality of Marstmelo, where it resided for four years. The server was then entrusted to the care of Feaelin, who had come aboard with Wixenstyx in 2001 as a MUCK server expert.

As her career restarted and her children grew, Wixenstyx also found herself with more real life commitments and less free time to spend working on NarniaMUCK. In September 2010, after nine years as NarniaMUCK's headwizard and primary creative force, she turned the gameside administration of NarniaMUCK over to Feaelin.

Taking over the role of headwizard in addition to his role as caretaker of the server, Feaelin worked hard to clarify and simplify processes for both players and staff. As well, he implemented a number of invaluable improvements to the server side of the game, including moving the MUCK to its current narniamuck.org domain, and integrating the game, the website, and the forums. In June 2012, however, Feaelin also found himself needing to step down from the headwizard position, although he continues to graciously host the game's server.

NarniaMUCK is currently run by a team of volunteer staff members.