#dicu

This may in fact be an innocent case of misidentification. There has been many, MANY 'Stormwind City Guard' guilds. Some have had almost identical names "Stormwind Guards" vs "Stormwind City Guard" vs "Stormwind City Guards" and variations.

The reason likely is however there have been deep problems with the 'Guard rp' scene for quite some time. We won't delve too deep into things but once it was realised by many less scrupulous players that they could achieve a power fantasy with Guard RP they decided to dip their hands into it for that purpose.

Primarily there are two types from this branch, those aligned with the Royal Court cabal (the DiCU as we call them) and those who are essentially set up to aggrandize the ego of the leader and their buddies (who are always the officers of said guilds). These players have been known to, proven to have and in many cases still do cause great disruption, outright harassment and generally promote an incredibly insular and toxic mindset. RP is a competition for them, how many people can they get to obey their nonsense trite 'law books', how many people can they get to accept their 'martial law' and 'lockdown rp' (the latter, highly insensitive when done during the height of the Covid pandemic no less).

To call them roleplayers is actually insulting to actual roleplayers, those who play a role, a character. These people generally play themselves in a sort of lionized version of their real world persona - evident by their constant drawing from real world law enforcement tropes rather than draw from what is right in front of them.

It is targetted by Didonus and his DiCU because Darkshire and Duskwood in general is an active hub of players, and always has been. Some of the things inside it may be odd for some players or right up the road for others, but the simple fact is Duskwood has sustained activity for over ten years without falling off once. Something must be going right there then surely?

It is not in the interest of the DiCU group of players to starve themselves of pliant and willing participants in their system, however you can all do your part by not interacting with Grim Dawn, the Royal Court or those who associate with them.

Live and let live works only when all parties on board are subscribing to that mindset. Argent Dawn steadily started losing that sense back circa 2014-2015, late Mists of Pandaria into Warlords of Draenor. Of course before that you always had those who went out of their way to cause trouble (Note: the ilk of Hrothgarr, Talenthiel, Luciase, Ottaline, Amarae and other old names) but they were (usually) flagged out as the troublemakers they were and accordingly put in containment.

Enter the PCU and suddenly its no longer an issue to organise mass harassment campaigns for those who you deem a "problem". After all, the PCU are PROVIDING you with RP, how DARE you criticize them. Other groups see how this works and start adopting a similar methodology.

It is absolutely better to expose someone (especially someone with a large public following and influence) doing misdeeds than to let them continue the abuse. The Royal Court (and its satellite DiCU guilds) , The Sanguine Eye, The Rotgarde (and the PCU more widely), The Arathi Honor Guard, Grim Dawn to name some examples, all have been responsible for abusing their influence to manipulate and bully others into submission.

I don't understand why guilds signed up to the PCU or why the group gained a lot of power and traction. I do remember the witch hunts and purges in the early days though, the PCU went after certain prominent eras in the community from the previous period and essentially drove them into exile on private servers, or forced them to start anew due to the ongoing harassment, or attempted and failed to drive them into obscurity. I've also wondered if it was Perroy who wanted to go after these players, or if it was PCU officers who brought old grudges with them and Perroy simply went along with it to garner their favour. From what I remember Thunderbraid, Grelind, Hamfist, Arthedun, Shonn and Siavash were targeted. I always found it strange why during the PCU resurgence they never went after Didonus, which always made me wonder if the two groups had any links or affiliations.

A friend of mine was in a guild who was absorbed into the PCU at the time. He said it was a strange time of uncertainty, where officers and members were purged and labelled as traitors and ERPers and then the GM announced that the guild would be joining the PCU.

Times are better now, but there is still work to be done. Thank you for all you've done CoAD.

Firstly, we thank you for your continued support. Sharing our work with the server is a good way to keep our player base informed, especially those who may not be entirely aware of how deep the PCU problem goes.

As for analogies and allegories we have had many given to us over the years. The PCU have made a point since its inception to target players or guilds who they believe are a threat to their narrative, their version of how things should be done as well as individual players who can galvanize others into opposition or to think critically about what is in front of them.

While there is no clear link from the DiCU and the PCU, it is very clear that Perroy was inspired by the methods Didonus, Hrothgarr, Ottaline, Luciase, Hylde and the others employed to sabotage, undermine and tarnish opposing groups. It is likely that why there was no direct attacks from either cult against one another was Perroy largely abandoned Stormwind based RP after the Bloody Verdict ended in shame. There was no overlapping boundaries between turf.

While it is true that the groups are incompatible and dislike one another now, the PCU officers and members who were younger at the time learned their behaviours from the likes of Didonus, Nasias, Hrothgarr, Ottaline etc from earlier experiences on the server. There is a cycle of corruption on Argent Dawn that can be linked to the beginning of roleplaying on this server. Bad apples like Didonus and Hrothgarr created bad apples through their influence, just like Perroy has created his own bad apples through his influence in the PCU.

While it is true that we all have choices, it is sad to know that players have been misled and prompted by fear to behave in a certain way. The editor team might disagree with me but in my view Didonus and his affiliated guilds were a smaller scale proto-PCU. One need only look at the tactics deployed by the PCU, the origins of some members, how someone like Hrothgarr is idiolized within the PCU for what he did to understand how the 'legacy' of Didonus and the Royal Court trickled down into the PCU.

The relationship between the DiCU and the PCU has long been one we have wanted to go into further. The problem is the Didonus clique have, ever since the rise of the PCU effectively become a Forbidden City type set up. They know fine well that their behavior directly inspired and even encouraged the type of action the PCU engaged in.

Their tactics definitely match up. It's well known (if only spoken privately about between players) the infiltration tactics Hrothgarr performed (with full approval of Didonus) were seen as the prototype model for how the Rotgarde, later applied to the greater PCU, have gone about with their own suppression of dissenting voices against their presence and actions.

Didonus still hovers around in the shadows like an unfortunate case of herpes. While the public running of things within the DiCU generally defaults to Nasty Nasias and their subordinates, everything gets passed by Didonus all the same.