While hiding from the Warcraft guild, on one of my dozen “hiding from the guild” alts, I passed through Stormwind and overheard this noob begging for a mage portal to Darnassassass:

Now c’mon! If you’re going to name your character Christmas, you’ve got to expect joke responses to EVERYTHING. Christmas shouts, “LFM for a party.” Punchlines: Will there be presents? Did you invite Santa? Can I grope the receptionist?

How about the priest rezz macros? “Resurrecting Christmas” Sounds like a Hallmark Holiday Special starring Wilford Brimley, which is probably just the sort of television programming that would appeal to a humorless Warcraft character named Christmas.

Speaking of the timeless battle between good and evil, AFK Gamer began the Christmas season with the mark of the beast.

I’d think Satan had better things to do than marking everything with his devil number, but maybe he doesn’t.

He could spend his spare time running a Warcraft raiding guild … like mine:

The involuntarily-elected guildleader (think of him as The Puppet) and I (self-described Puppet Master) spend a great deal of time wondering who the hell recruited some of these people in the guild (think: The Puppet Regime). Guild PvP night becomes Ganking the Crossroads Lowbies night?? That’s not even worth a griffin fee. It would be more entertaining to go AFK in the battlegrounds and respond to all the cursing tells with “ni hao”.

Anyways. Good news for the Beast-Marked AFK Gamer blog: The Puppet will be helping out around here with reblogging and hunting down news no one can use. More importantly, he has a screenshot collection to be envied. Not winky dinky screenshots of expansive vistas or dead boss mobs with cheering players posing next to their loot — we’re talking screenshots of attention whores, dirty deals and guildmates making complete jackasses of themselves.

Which, as you see above, is rather common.

The other good news about this development is that my gag order has been lifted. Previously, insider guild bullshit was verboten, regardless of its comedic value. (!!!) I chafed under that yoke and had briefly toyed with the idea of making a throwaway level 60 alt to guild elsewhere, but who has the energy nowadays? Not me.

I’ll still cleverly mask identities to protect, well, to protect my own ass, but for the most part … here’s my world and welcome to it.

*Obvious foreshadowing* It’s all about the loot.