Before there was anything, I was 14.
Rift, as a name, before it was anything else, was the idea of a fullness from emptiness that got encapsulated in a poem I wrote back when I was something like 14. I am not finding and linking that thing because a 14 year old's poetry is terrible :-P. The gist of it was that I guess by then I'd figured out I was odd. Between being ADHD, dyslexic and perhaps mildly autistic I'd never really fit in. The idea of that poem was back when was embracing that the idea that only by accepting myself as a break in what was normal would I truly be complete, and that trying to pretend that I was the same as everyone else would be like drowning, like dying slowly. ...I wasn't a happy 14 year old.
I started fighting when I was 17, fall of 2003 in the realm of Chamonix at Grinnell College in Iowa. Though I've said it before, I'll mention it again. Back then I was terrible. It took me on the order of months to reach the point where when the battle started I actually moved or responded instead of just freezing and standing there while I got hit. The first weapons I ever picked up were "aho" and "baka" two huge blue swords which had at one point been reds, but had been broken so often that there wasn't much left of them now. While it was murderous on my wrists having the ability to batter other people's weapons aside was good when, even trying to get myself to swing, was a mental effort.
Back in Chamonix
As I started to develop as a fighter I started to be an "all in" kind of fighter - a brawler if you've read rock, paper, scissors. At first I started to just look for backs because I wasn't able to match up to other fighters on the field, but as time went on I started to be able to beat people 1 on 1. I still found joy in finding a gap and backing a bunch of folks though. When it came time to choose a name I choose "Rift". For a year no one really used that name because apparently it didn't suit me much. I was still a silly kid who was more "Eric" then I was "Rift".
A year later and we got a new group of freshman to join us. To them I became Rift. That was also the start of the original blades. A group of fighters who met on Wednesday nights to practice and learn new things. For the first time I had to start to think about how I fought, reverse engineering what I knew so I could help the new fighters pick things up. All around me there had been good teachers if you wanted to fight red, or arch, or fight sword and board. But there was no one to teach florentine, so I decided I would be that guy. Some version of that first set of things I taught to the freshman back then have stayed with me and become part of the "boot camp" I now put people through. 10 years later, much of what I had to say then is still good advice, though, since then I've learned more and added to what I started teaching.
About 3 years into fighting I think I probably hit the peak of my speed to the point where I could match shots with Peter the Quick. Although, looking back on it, I wonder if it wasn't just my noob foo that caught him unaware. On that field day ages ago I came to the realization that speed wasn't enough. Sure, I landed shots on people before they could counter strike, but there shots came in a second later and at least on that day, most of my opponents were armored while I was not. So I'd take arm or torso armor and then die. I realized then that I'd either have to develop the skill to be able to not get hit, or I'd have to armor up so that when blows were traded I'd be on the winning side of the engagement. Of course, the latter option would only work person to person once my armor was broken I'd be on the losing side of the engagement again. So, it was time to start over and start learning some technique, rather then just flailing wildly at great speeds. But, by that time, with my (foot) speed at the highest it's ever been people knew better then to let me get around the sides. Now that name "Rift" meant something. I'd become the hole in the lines, something to be wary of.
For "CHAM-...Anduril"
Clearing college I didn't fight much for the first year or so, until I landed down in Anduril after my own series of mis-adventures that mostly involved bad decisions around women... which remains an ongoing theme. It was there that the name Rift really became a thing and took root. I simply started by introducing myself with that name and it stuck. There was a day where Brian walked up to talk to me while I was on the field and called out "Eric". The person literally standing next to me replied to him "There's no one here by that name". Apparently the name "Rift" was the dominant one people knew me by then.
Having to do something of a restart after not fighting for a while I had to re-learn the things I'd once known, but without the athleticism I had in college from being able to eat, sleep and fight to my hearts content my body wasn't in the same shape. I still threw down a murderous volley of blows that sounded something like a machine gun when I started to go off and my foot speed was fast, but now at 24 with a job that started with me getting up at 5:45am, my stamina wasn't what it used to be. So I started to learn technique, properly. Rather then just reverse engineer what I knew back when I started the blades I started to really think about all the body mechanics involved in how I moved. I started interacting with more fighters who had historical knowledge of a set of body mechanics like Tulga who had a system for how he fought with a board. As I matched wits with him and other fighters like him I started to develop my own system in an attempt to counter specific fighting styles that I encountered.
Another year passed. I knocked the rust off I straightened out my own ego, I got my life more together. In the next few years the realm of Anduril / Sword at UCI had taken off. My presence in that space and my efforts to push myself to be a competitive fighter had changed the face of the small campus club to the point where many of the original members weren't there anymore. In spite of this myself, Ana and Cheeseheart spent our time visiting any new realm that started up, showing them belegarth and did what we could to help them get off the ground. We visited Andor much more frequently and had a good relationship with them. Some realms got off the ground and stayed that way like Desert Winds, others failed to last long, like several attempts at a "Northern Anduril". Eventually though the region had plenty of fighters to the point where even Battle for the Ring had taken off, after 2 years of being on campus.
All the things
For my part, traveling everywhere, fighting bel, ampt, dag and even a few LARP systems, all while striving to improve my own skills had really shaped me into a good fighter. Dag was good practice at getting around enormous shields and learning to dodge stabs. Amptgaard taught me speed in a way that no other system did and opened my mind up to new shot angles. While many of the shots you can throw in ampt don't have the torque to work in bel, many of the shots can still be executed if you throw them right. The LARP systems taught me about pin point accuracy because any deflection in those systems is sufficient, and you aren't allowed to get within two feet of your opponent. Additionally, their hit thresholds are much lower so I had to lose some of my speed in order to actually play. Bel was still my main grind so it let me practice what I learned in all the other systems to see what would work in my own.
As new people joined who only fought dag or bel some of the shots that I had learned to throw or had adapted from ampt confused the new fighters. At first I tried to explain what I knew in order to pass it along to people, but after I was ridiculed for doing so I decided it was easier just to explain it off as "magic". As those years went by I also started participating in camping events in a way I hadn't when I was back in college. I wound up taking a bunch of technology with me to campouts despite the way it might ruin someone's medieval experience, when they complained it was 'sorcery'. Eventually, taking a queue from one of Anastasia's kits I named myself a mage. At this point "Rift" started to be more then a name, it started to take on the aspect of a character.
"Magic"
As the joke about all my skills being "magic" became more prevalent ("How did you dodge that?!" "Magic ;)") a second identity developed. The joke instead became that I was a time mage. By altering the flow of time I could escape lethal swings, or appear behind someone by way of explaining the impossible. Back when my swings sounded like a machine gun going off the other joke was that my ability to swing and block at the speed that I did was the result of a phantom third limb that gave me those extra actions but only appeared when I started swinging. (The simply truth of the matter was I had short weapons that I could move fast, and excellent body mechanics to avoid having to move much).
More time passed. I developed my own seal as the set of weapons and armor I had increased from 2 blue swords, to 4 blue swords, to 4 blues a shield, a red, some armor, etc. My full inventory is now; 4 blue bats, a flail, and a red blocking stick, a red bat, a glaive, a set of torso armor and two shoulder pauldrons and my shield. My seal is made of 3 parts. A predator's teeth similar to what you'd see on a wolf, an eye, and inside of it a fire. The symbol was meant to reflect my fighting style. Animal instinct and a burning ferocity guided by insight. After all, anyone can pick up two swords and flail, but to really be any good at florentine you have to kill your enemy AND not be killed. In some versions of the symbol there was also a vortex to remind me of the first meaning of that name. I also hoped that having a set of different colors in a pattern that were moving I might throw off my opponents.
By now my name was well known, as was Anduril's. There was a surreal moment in time where, after being basically mistreated by Chaos Wars a few years in a row, the event did a 180. Instead of us being nobody we were now somebodys. I can still remember that moment when Cedric, leader of the Empire (a group of units that were banded together, including Elite Blood Falcons [EBF]) stopped me while I was walking onto the field to let me know I could use his pavilion and that he had a beer for me if I wanted it. Also during that year I knew I had made it as a fighter when, during a unit battle, and representing the blades alone three fighters from EBF broke off to kill me and Elwrath, one of my old idols and then field commander, told them not engage me because I would kill them. ...and much to my own surprise I did. After baiting out the first shieldsman and killing him for free I managed to then close on the spearman and remaining shieldsman and pick up both kills for an arm.
The world was a beautiful place and things were going well.
"Broken"
Good things only last so long though. While things had gone well for me in the fighting world that had not gone as well for me in real life, and I was starting to stress out about work/money and just generally staying alive. Partway through a new job that was already looking like it wasn't going to end while I broke my leg and ankle. For the next 4 months I couldn't stand, let alone fight, or participate much in the unit that I'd created which had reached it's peak height of just over 20 people. I tried to offload (forcibly) responsible for running the unit to anyone who I thought might be able to do so. In the end no one really wanted to be responsible for running a unit that wasn't their own. As my own influence began to wane more internal conflict began to crop up, eventually tearing the blades apart as people with different visions for the unit competed over it's future. Eventually, I got on my own feet again, but I wasn't the fighter I was before I broke myself.
Now 28, still with a job (though a better one) and without any other real form of exercise then fighting I had to once again bring myself back up. Without being able to stand the musculature in my legs had degraded and in my right leg there was now a bunch of scar tissue I would have to work through before I could get that back. After 4 months of not throwing a single swing and using my arms primarily for crutches the musculature for certain swings, like wrap shots, had also degraded to the point where shots that I had taken for granted as being easy because I would throw them repeatedly, several times a weak, had become sloppy, inaccurate and slow. My honor tanked, as all the reflexes I had developed for taking shots had been out of use and discarded. Many of my blocks also disappeared seemingly overnight and tangential skills like field awareness, or even tracking shots which hadn't been used simply ceased to exist.
Returning from being on the bench injured seemed to be the last blow the blades as a unit could take with them already struggling. A year later it collapsed completely, in part because of internal conflicts and in part because of my own frustration and unwillingness to commit more energy to it.
Recovery / Then came the Void
I am nothing, if not persistent however, and in time most of those skills came back. I pushed my legs as far as they would go, eventually working out the scar tissue that had developed. I started practicing swings that had long gone unused with the help of some of the people I'd trained in my time around Orange County (thanks JK!). Eventually I was mostly re-assembled in part thanks to my own drive to recover and in part due to the charity of the fighting world around me that had grown attached to having me around (because who doesn't enjoy watching a man in a wheelchair joust).
After some more disasters with a particular woman even the gear I had was reset, with my weapons bag disappearing, taking all my stuff with it. Now, without a unit to put time, energy or money into I had time to actually develop my own kit, after YEARS of getting shit for not being all about garb. The first thing that got built was the now infamous "acid trip" garb (made by Nicole). My own response to garb-nazi-ism that in additional to being comfortable to wear I knew would annoy anyone who cared too much about garb.
This is where the idea of the void really came into it's own as it's own piece of lore. The crazy garb that I wore somehow passed at most events until it was part of my identity to the point where someone a person recently identified me as "hey, were you that guy wearing the blue"? The weapons I carry used to be crafted by my own hand and given names as though they were ceremonial objects. Now older and with more money but less time I started to commission pretty much anything I needed built.
My garb became normal fabric that had been twisted by the void, a consequence of traveling through time and space. My weapons, which had previously been ceremonially objects were now simply pieces of void, all mostly identical and with a unique property that let them pass through solid objects (also known as half wraps and footwork). The joke became that when I broke a bat it was discarded back into the void, until a new one fell back out so that I could continue fighting.
Full Circle
At 30 I've now come full circle. I used to be a joke because I was awful. I didn't have a place where I fit and I wasn't sure what to do with myself. Now I joke about my skills because otherwise I fear that my own ability would go to my head and corrupt me with overwhelming ego. I never want to forget where I started from, so I can maintain my own humility. Now having spent the last decade teaching new fighters, helping realms get off the ground and helping pick up slack at events (though never officially volunteering), it's not so much that I have a place or a home for myself, I'm simply welcome everywhere instead. It's been quite the journey so far and I'm glad it's not over yet.
TheyCallMeRift
Time mage and denizen of the the void. Known for fighting with two weapons that seem to pass through material objects like shields or other swords, striking into the soft tissue of his opponents. The blows rain down at supernatural speeds, perhaps from using magic to accelerate his own body. Seemingly always in reach yet never quite there, strikes seem to unnervingly pass right through where he ought to be, probably the result of short distance teleportation. Sometimes he'll appear behind an enemy line with little to no warning, choosing to instead to teleport a greater distance. He wears strangely colored garb that while perhaps once a normal piece of cloth has now been mangled by his travels through the void. He is most to be feared when his hair blazes unnatural colors as this is a sign that he has free access to the mana he needs to cast his spells. Strike when the color has burned out and he's at his weakest. Recently he's taken to making and distributing potions which are just as deadly as he is so treat them with the greatest care when ingesting, or find yourself, like the juggernaut laid out for the evening over a hay bale.
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