Ten years ago today, the first formal Grindstone event happened on the Balmung server in Final Fantasy XIV. The game had only relaunched as A Realm Reborn a month and change earlier, but already the roleplaying community was coming together to establish, well, a community.
Originally started by the Eorzea Free Trade Company as a more low-key place for roleplay, there were only two rules if you wanted to participate: No killing, no magic. At the time, the community at large didn't really have a ton of lore to go on; Everything was new and exciting and not everybody had the means to level everything all at once. The ceiling for what people wanted to express in the play space was so high you couldn't really see it from the ground, and that's exactly where the Grindstone was designed to exist.
Let the High Mages have their omnipotence and unimaginable power. We just wanted to fight.
...I say "we" as if I was there from the beginning. I wasn't. I only heard about it some time later, and to demonstrate how immature I was as a roleplayer at the time, I thought the idea was kind of absurd on its face. Rolling dice to see if you succeed? That's entirely random! It's unfair! That means... GASP! I might LOSE to someone I feel I shouldn't! It's a mentality that I (and many others who got a better grasp of what the point of the event was) would grow out of. It wasn't about winning. It was about the writing.
Within the first year there was the expected churn of organizing and hosting an event; Volatility between players and factions, the fact that a weekly schedule in primetime meant your Saturdays were locked down if you wanted to stay consistent, real life getting involved and forcing absences or changes. Sigyn Shieldbreaker gave way to Sindl Arahan. Sindl gave way to a loose coalition of people familiar with the rules. For a brief period of time, the future of the event was uncertain. That's when I figured "Hell, I can do this."
I have a lot of extremely fond memories at the Grindstone. I've got a lot of not-so-fond memories, too. More than that, so do a laundry list of other people. The Grindstone means a lot to me, but the fact that it also means so much to other people is really what makes me proud of what the event has achieved over the years. Strangers met and became friends. Sometimes more than that (I would still like an invite to the wedding when it happens). Stories were etched, characters were developed. People who had no idea what roleplaying was about walked by, saw a crowd and hung out. Every night was anyone's night, and everyone has a story to tell.
A fishing rod. A frying pan. Arrows tipped with paint. Someone fighting with hair brushes. Impossible come-from-behind victories. That time someone fighting for the first time winning the whole show. The several dozen times that happened, in fact. The time that one guy wrote "attaks with all his mite" and nearly won the night. That hand that got cut off. That lady who emoted giving birth on the sidelines. That kid who kept trying to fight. "FOOOOOORE!"
If you attended the Grindstone at any point of the years, at least one of those probably just touched a memory. That's the thing I keep thinking about as we're on the cusp of this event turning ten years old. Ten! The Grindstone's seen three US presidents, five English Prime Ministers, outlasted the Confederacy by twofold! Children who were not yet conceived when the first fights happened are now old enough for you to talk to and have a conversation with.
The list of names involved both in front of the curtain and behind it is entirely too long to name, or even recall. At least for me. I'm incredibly proud that folks have volunteered their time and their nights and their energy and efforts to make sure the Grindstone exists and will continue to do so. I'm happy that so many people, even if they only showed up once and didn't really like it, at least got to experience it. They got to take something away from it. The Grindstone got dropped into the middle of an extremely large lake and boy did we make some ripples.
Today is October 5th. It's not a date many people could recall many details about, but for me it's always going to be special, even if I wasn't actually there the first night. I hope that everyone who got to experience the Grindstone in their own way feels that way, too. That sometime when the air is just right and someone notices it's a Saturday night, that they can just know that the Grindstone is happening in the same place it always has been.
Everyone night is anyone's night. This coming Saturday, it's everyone's night.
