Roavin

Warden Commander Roavin

Roavin's Ribbon:

It would not be an overstretch to say that the Grey Wardens would not exist today without Roavin.

Let us go all the way back to 2016. Benevolent Thomas, the founder of the Order and the then-First Warden, was looking to step down from the position after making some serious waves in the Gameplay community over the last couple months following its reboot. Real life had started to intrude with BT’s duties here and he wanted to pass on the mantle to someone else before it fully engulfed him. His options were…limited, to say the least. There were very few viable candidates inside the organization who were willing to take up the burden BT carried with him during his time at the top, and BT himself wanted someone with a refreshing perspective to lead his beloved Wardens in the eternal battle against darkspawn.

So ever the creative thinker, he decided to look outside to find a suitable replacement and quickly marked his man down. He decided to bring in Roavin, the baby-faced Minister of Military Affairs of the South Pacific and someone who had regularly worked with TGW on defending missions before, as his successor to the position of head honcho of defenderdom for the foreseeable future.

Realistically speaking, this should have never worked. Roavin only discovered NationStates a few months ago, he was not a member of any defender organization before and thus did not know how navigate the intricate politics of the faction, he was the newly elected leader of one of the most prominent independent militaries in the game and could not pay much attention to an upstart defender military anyway, and so many more issues we can find if we continue digging deeper into this inexplicable move. This was gambling blindly on a promising newcomer who had the job of reviving an entire faction with little to no help. There was a fine line between bravery and stupidity and BT had not a care in the world when he stomped all over it by appointing Roavin as the newest First Warden of The Order of The Grey Wardens.

And you know what the funniest part is? It actually worked.

Roavin not only met the lofty expectations people placed upon him, he exceeded those beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. A lot of the fundamentals about today’s TGW can be traced back to Roavin’s tenure of an year as the First Warden; the off-update Guardian program, the streamlined ranks, the vigorous focus on controlling the ‘narrative’ with exuberant forum posts and dispatches, and perhaps most importantly, the one-of-a-kind culture and character our community boasts. Despite how much he insists that he ‘sucks at anything culture’, he unwittingly established the unique identity most would know us Wardens by; loud, assertive, fiercely loyal to what we believe in and just in here for a veritable good time. Roavin defined what it meant to be a Warden, and he embodied that distinct spirit better than anyone ever did, perhaps better than anyone ever would. Fittingly, the word itself became almost synonymous with his name over time.

Under Roavin’s leadership, TGW soared higher than ever before. Warden numbers would triple by the end of his service, and we gained some pretty amazing folks who are still with us during that time, perhaps attracted by the allure of being in for a magical ride. And it was indeed a magical ride. With Roavin’s advent came the resurgence of defenderdom, long thought to be dead by pretty much everyone, with interest in defending as an activity rising dramatically. Tag runs were no longer let go simply unchallenged and occupations stopped becoming something that raiders could just show up for and get willy nilly. Every region mattered and was fought for intensely, as the raiders faced something they didn’t expect; resistance. Those who expected this new shift of power to be a temporary fad were quickly disappointed, as the refueled train of defenderdom showed no signs of stopping for the foreseeable future. The defenders were back and they were back being better than ever, with Roavin and his Wardens leading the way. Long gone were the repressive memories of the lows the faction faced in 2013/2014, they were now replaced with hope, hope that the invader menace terrorizing the innocents of NationStates had finally met its match. It would thus not be unreasonable to suggest that Roavin acted as the catalyst for not only TGW’s further growth, but also for defenderdom’s revival in the last half decade. The amazing highs we experienced in 2021 likely would not have been possible without Roavin, who peeled back the complex layers of motivation imposed by past leaders and showed arguably the most important reason why anyone should defend; it is a fun thing to do.

Of course, we have not even talked about the man himself. An infuriating humorist who constantly torments his fellow players with horrible puns and terrifying imageries unsuitable for consumption by the human mind, Roavin also happens to be one of the most levelheaded members of our community, someone you can always rely to be around to provide wise counsel on matters of importance and help fix things when they start breaking down. His enthusiastic love for anything Tetris has managed to infect not only his home regions, but also the entire NationStates community, spawning off a cultural phenomenon that serves as the bedrock for pleasant social interactions between players who would normally never get along. And we have not even gotten into the outstanding feats of technical wizardry he has accomplished, both for the Order and the wider defender community, the details of which would elongate this already too lengthy post.

While the world has already recognized Roavin’s through the passage of Security Council Resolution #347 ‘Commend Roavin’, it feels right that we celebrate one of our most illustrious members in our own, patently Warden way.

Thus, for his contributions to the Order and the wider defender community, Roavin joins the Monument of the Grey