Saving...
The Cabal is an online gaming guild focused on player versus player conflict in multi-player games such as Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Shadowbane and World of Warcraft. Founded on the Lake Superior shard of UO, the guild has since moved on to new servers and new games. Our goal in each new online world is simply to dominate in engaging PvP conflicts.
It All Began in Ultima Online
The roots of TC go back to 1997 and a previous UO guild known as the Knights of Law. Oddly enough, KoL was an anti-guild sworn to hunting down murderous player killers. During KoL’s war against the PKs, certain Knights of Law began to became envious of the freedoms, power and wealth possessed by player killers. At the same time, they were becoming resentful of the laws imposed upon them by Ultima Online and its false sense of justice. It wasn’t long before several members of KoL broke away and formed an evil guild of PKs known as the Dread Lord Society.
The DLS marched out across Lake Superior striking down anyone they came across. Many player killers flocked to the DLS and swelled its ranks. When the DLS came to an end at the closing of UO’s Dread Lord phase, a new guild called The Cabal was founded by the core DLS members.
The Cabal was a small guild, but declared an open war against any guild that would accept the challenge. They also claimed to war in the name of Guardian, and that their enemies must accept his rule or perish. With each victory, more and more players swore alliance to The Cabal and their evil patron, and from these new recruits a sub-guild was born called Guardian’s Chosen. TC / GC would go on to dominate the LS shard both through guild warfare and the murdering of innocents.
It was then that a new challenge presented itself. The UO PvP shard known as Siege Perilous allowed for unrestricted killing in a harsher environment than LS. Guardian’s Chosen invaded the SP shard, quickly rising to the top of the food chain, forcing most of the shard to unite against them merely to survive. As we departed SP, the Guardian’s Chosen sub-guild was merged with The Cabal as part of its Outer Circle, while the older Inner Circle still serve as the guild’s oligarchic leadership.
EverQuest Changes the Game
With the allure of UO fading, TC began to search for new worlds worth conquering. Some moved on to compete in Counter Strike, while many others tested out Everquest and Acheron’s Call. The EQ PvP server of Sullon Zek promised much excitement, but only delivered endless hours of character leveling and sporadic, unfulfilling PvP. The sides were completely restricted and the battlefields where PvP could be found were far too remote. It wasn’t until Dark Age of Camelot that TC finally reunited.
Dark Age of Camelot Begins
On the Morgan Le Fay server of DAOC, the Cabal slowly built up its numbers and soon became the dominant guild of the Hibernian realm. Unfortunately, like Sullon Zek, MLF was a world of pre-chosen sides and pre-defined battlefields. Although it allowed for a fair amount of PvP conflict, the static realm divisions and limited landscape of DAOC did not provide an ideal environment for the constant guild-based warfare that TC sought. And so, The Cabal eventually departed the MLF server in search of a more unrestricted online world to war over.
After MLF, TC established itself upon the Andred PvP server of DAOC. Andred had a much less restricted combat rule set than the normal servers of Camelot, and its laws of no-realms / no-alliances allowed for a much more chaotic, guild-centric PvP environment. However, the thrills of Andred did not last beyond the initial two or three months of play, not only for The Cabal, but for most guilds that started there. TC stayed among the top 5 PvP guilds on Andred during our time on that server.
Once again, the guild roamed divided from game to game searching for excitement. Many fought in first-person shooters, such as PlanetSide, Counter Strike and Call of Duty, while others returned to UO’s Lake Superior shard for one last adventurous plunge into the second dimension, re-establishing TC as the top PvP guild on that server. TC had also established a small but deadly presence on the Mourning and Scorn servers of Shadowbane until the recurring technical terrors of the sb.exe file chased most SB players away, including the bulk of The Cabal.
World of Warcraft Destroys the Market
In 2004, the guild landed on Azeroth playing in the World of Warcraft beta for several months before emerging on the Stormreaver PVP server when the game was finally released at the end of the year. As always, TC rose to the top of WoW’s player versus player community, becoming the most recognized and feared guild of the Horde on Stormreaver. Night after night, TC led the Horde to a constant stream of victories in Alterac Valley. That particular battleground was referred too once as “Cabalterac Valley” by a Game Master when the guild won the Battleground in six minutes (this was before the zone was nerfed beyond recognition).
Eventually WoW began to grow old and the guild began searching for a new home. The year was 2008, and it was growing to a close.
Warhammer Get’s Hammered
In September of 2008 The Cabal moved to Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. The move was plagued by overcrowded servers that required queue times in excess of 2 hours to log in. The choices were to have interminable queues to login and lag to death in PVP or move to a dead server and skate lag free through zones with no enemies to engage. Add to this the fact that the game launched with a collision detection issue that would crash the servers in big battles and you have fun on the bun.
Needless to say the guild diminished greatly during this time as some folks left for greener pastures. Guild leaders tried to find a game to satisfy the group but it was too late to repair the damage. Warhammer dealt a powerful blow to the guild. Some members continued on in the game, while others returned to World of Warcraft to satisfy their hobby. Other games that were played included Lord of the Rings, Global Agenda, APB and more. The guild couldn’t find a home. The search continues even too this day. However…
A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away…
