Shyriath Bukolos
Shyriath Bukolos, a real-life resident of Maryland in the U.S. and a graduate of the University of Delaware, is a relative latecomer to Shireroth compared to many other citizens, but has managed to achieve a certain amount of prominence during his time in the country, often to the astonishment of himself and others. Also known as "Shy", "Eshirriat", and "Horgorisa Veusrengoteigeldi".
Micronational History
The First Days
Much of Shyriath's history in micronationalism is no longer extant, the ezBoard attacks having erased not only his best account of the reconstruction of the sequence of events, but also much evidence of his past activity. But the point he considers to be his entry into the hobby can be given a precise date, because it was on the morning of Tuesday, January 9, 2001 that he signed the Declaration of Sovereignty (printed in fancy font on parchment-colored paper) that stated his "cultural, political, societal, and intellectual" secession from the United States and the creation of his own nation.
While Shyriath was then in the grip of a rather libertarian phase of his life, and was less resigned to, and more angered by, the behavior of the political establishment of his mother country than he currently is, its impact remained on his life. Always an odd and socially inept boy, in making the Declaration he vocalized and formalized the lack of commonality between himself and those around him, enabling him to wear his strangeness like a badge.
But it was also the starting point of his micronational endeavors, although at the time he had not heard of micronations and was unaware that any others existed. After making his Declaration, he began work on his first project, which came to be called Bruadar, after a Gaelic word for "dream".
To the Web!
But despite the high hopes, Bruadar never got out of the concept stage, due partly to a flagging of enthusiasm on its creator's part and partly due to his more compelling interest in online roleplaying in a community based in the InsideTheWeb message boards. In early 2001, however, he attempted to use this latter as a basis for a new effort, called Eudemonia. Gathering together some of his best roleplaying friends, he tried his hand at establishing an online nation with them. But the citizens quickly lost interest in the idea, which impressed upon Shyriath the realization that 1) micronations could be an acquired taste, and 2) in order to attract citizens, a micronation needs to be more than an odd name and an idea to start a micronation.
When the experiment, and Shyriath's roleplaying, were ended by the closing of InsideTheWeb's service in March, he spent a number of months wandering around the Internet. During this time, he had his first exposure to the wider world of micronationalism, learning of the many people who had, like him, been creating little countries of their own - albeit with more success. Over the next year, he did little more than observe, as he picked up RPing again on a new service called ezBoard, and tried to deal with the experience of attending university.
But finally, in February 2002, he began again, naming his new country Isodimos (a clumsy Greek way, possibly related to Bastardized Latin, of saying "equal people"; despite this, it ended up being a monarchy). Having learned the lesson that uniqueness is a virtue, Isodimos featured distinctive national symbols, its own conlang, and an interesting system of government, which united the functions of political party and territorial subdivision into one entity. Still, the new experiment faltered, once again due to lack of interest from friends.
It is interesting to note that, at around the same time Isodimos was starting to cool and harden into inactivity, a passerby notified Shyriath of the existence of Tymaria. Despite being interested, Shyriath never got around to examining too closely. Shyriath has often speculated that, had he investigated further, he would've been very likely to join Tymaria, and possibly to bring Isodimos with him, although whether this would have had any impact on the course Tymaria took during March and April 2002 is less clear.
Love At First Sight
Other than a brief contribution to Puritania at its very beginning, and continued futile attempts to make something of Isodimos, Shyriath faded out of micronations for a number of months more. Although he had never had much self-confidence, the apparent failure of his most promising project made him doubt his own ability to create or lead a micronation, a characteristic that is still noticeable years later.
Still, approximately a year after attempting to found Isodimos, he decided to try one more time: this time in the guise of the Grand Duchy of Shirlan. Considerably less flashy and more cumbersome than Isodimos had been, Shirlan was an attempt to create a rather simulationist sort of micronation, to the point of being more of a political RPG; this was partly to make the project more appealing for his friends and others, partially to be different, and possibly as a way of softening the personal blow for himself if it failed again; he rationalized that it was, after all, just a game. But the project did well in its first month, and Shyriath began to hope that perhaps he had done things right.
Around the same time, Shyriath also discovered Shireroth. First posting in a thread about language in General Discussion, he quickly found himself at home in the relatively laid-back atmosphere, and as a result of this personal connection Shirlan became fast friends with Shireroth. By June 2003, Shyriath came to the realization that he wanted to be part of both Shireroth and Shirlan, and submitted his application on June 9, being accepted by Kaiser Raynor X the following day. Only a short time afterward, Shirlan joined Shireroth under the Barony of Straylight.
But things went downhill in the time afterwards. Since before the annexation, Shirlan had been plagued by the craziness of one "SimplyRhedd" (who first appeared in Shirlan by this name, but had many other logins; see Ann Marie). Despite being one of the most active citizens of Shirlan, Rhedd had had a persistent problem of severely misunderstanding Shyriath's commands, of making up her own policies when it suited her, and of generally making no sense in what she did. This erratic behavior only worsened over time, and as most other Shirlanians seemed to be inactive, Shyriath's reliance on Rhedd only soured his feelings.
The temporary departure of Ari Rahikkala as Baron of Straylight, and the elevation of Shyriath to fill the post in his absence, brought the situation to a head. Faced with a Barony he felt unable to properly run, the depopulation of Shirlan and the insanity of its remaining members, and other personal issues, Shyriath felt unable to cope further, and left Shireroth by August.
Homecoming
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Mors I - Viviantia I - Mors II - Mors III - Mors IV - Mors V Progenitor: Mortis Raynor M'Jilliad |
Afterwards, Shyriath would blame himself for the results of his creation of Shirlan. Although inactive, he still occasionally looked in on the situation, and grew bitter over what had happened; he came to see Shirlan as a sort of Frankenstein Monster in later months, which he had unwittingly unleashed on Shireroth to the torment of its people... and he blamed himself for running away from it instead of trying to control the situation. He later gathered up as much of the material he had written for Shirlan as he could find, and deleted it, saving only a few pictures on paper that he had made. To this day, he still dislikes being reminded of the episode, and considers Shirlan one of his greatest mistakes.
He stayed away from Shireroth for months, feeling certain that he would be blamed for what happened should he ever return. Yet return he did, intending to stop only briefly for Shireroth's fourth birthday and pay his respects. And when he discovered that no one seemed to blame him for the Shirlan incident, and encouraged him to rejoin, he re-applied for citizenship once more, becoming a citizen again in May 2004.
In the time since, Shyriath Bukolos has made a number of modest contributions to Shireroth, including works on the fictional culture and language of Benacia, the creation of (and a few strange sermons to) B'caw, God of Spicy Chicken, and the founding of SSHIT. During the course of the Brookshire Rebellion (see also Summer of '04), Shyriath was (by virtue of being largely neutral, siding neither with the reign of Duke Rakesh nor with the uprising of Baroness Alexandra Decens of Alexandretta) propelled quickly upwards to Baron of Alexandretta, and then to Duke of Brookshire.
Finally, on January 4, 2005, Shyriath was granted the use of the Line of Mortis and came to the Throne as Kaiser Mors IV. During his reign, Mors was one of the primary actors in The Lorelei Conflict between Shireroth and Diga. His habit of putting the line "Death spare you all" at the end of each Imperial Decree made it a trendy saying for some time thereafter; furthermore, in his final act as Kaiser, he began a new tradition of adding an epithet to the reign name of each Kaiser, calling himself Mors IV Nerrolar ("nerrolar" meaning "arbiter" in the Benacian language).
See also: Tales from the Khaz Modan