What is it?

Simply put, the Kallistiverse is a summary of the majority of my gaming ‘career’ since the early 80s when the very first iteration of Kallisti was created for an AD&D campaign at University. The latest incarnation of Kallisti is in Conan Exiles, an enhanced screenshot is shown on the right. Although played only for one session, the concept stuck in my mind so that several years later when a Play-by-Mail game came along called Saturnalia, Kallisti was re-created for the first time.

So where did the name ‘Kallisti’ come from? Believe it or not, Greek mythology via a trilogy of science fiction books. Find out more on this page: Kallisti – the Origin of a Name

Saturnalia was a write-in Play-by-Mail game run by Sloth Ents, a group of gamers based in Southampton.  This game format allowed me to create a new version of Kallisti as a young, charming thief and I was able to play her through multiple adventures for several years. This version of Kallisti was definitely not a nice person!

At this time I was entertaining myself with writing stories set in my own fantasy world called Mardona (hence the domain name of this site!) This writing habit had been inspired by a walking holiday in Cornwall with a couple of friends from University in 1980, but had developed over time to become a large-scale fantasy world. Having read Lord of the Rings as a teenager, like so many I was inspired to try my hand at it. it seemed a logical development to included Kallisti in this world so her stories could be told. This Kallisti is a much nicer version than the one in Saturnalia! See the Mardona page for further details

In 1999 I discovered a new type of computer game called an MMORPG – Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game and the first one I played was Everquest. Also known as ‘Evercrack’ this was an addictive game and of course the character I created was called Kallisti. Sadly I have no screenshots of that game any more. The graphics were crude in comparison to today’s standard.

When in 2001 Dark Age of Camelot came along, Kallisti the Minstrel was created and I spent 5 years playing her and others in DAOC, eventually becoming well known as the Minstrel Team Lead and having my maps published in the Prima Guides!

2004/5 saw the launch of City of Heroes and the original creation of Kallisti Gold. This spawned the first incarnation of what has later become The Kallistiverse – more on that in the City of Heroes Pages!

In 2007 Lord of the Rings Online was launched and so I had to play. Although my main character was a Dwarf Guardian called Relggson, Kallisti was created as  Champion and played up to level 50-ish by the time I stopped playing in about 2011.

At various other times, Kallisti has made appearances in Star Trek Online, Knights of the Old Republic, The Secret World (and Secret World Legends) and other short lived MMO games like D&D Online.

Most recently, Conan Exiles had a new Kallisti and this has had dramatic consequences to the Kallistiverse, mainly the realisation that the Kallistiverse is bigger than I first thought – City of Heroes – and there are ways to interlink all the Kallisti’s I’ve ever played in games!

The Conan Exiles page contains more detail on the link between Mardona Kallisti and Conan Exiles and more of that will be forthcoming as I’m currently writing the story that makes the link.