The Blade Keepers

The Blade Keepers
Leaders	Vio (TBK Amethyst)
Founders	Vio
Founded	1 February 2011
Status	Closed (4 May 2011)
Members	N/A
Focuses	F2P Multi
Ideologies	Honour ARPK
Colours	Green (February - March) Blue (April - May)
Heraldry	Team-37 Cape
Motto	Your Blade is only as strong as your Heart

The Blade Keepers (TBK) was a clan founded by Vio in 2011, and an exodus of the Wilderness Guardians. A short rivalry occured between TBK and WG which lasted for around one month, before TBK's closure in May 2011.

Formation

TBK and WG meet in the Wilderness and a cease-fire is called, 12 February 2011.

In January 2011 Vio (as WG Amethyst, the Historian of WG at the time) recieved a temporary suspension from the clan for an unrelated issue. After offering and rescinding his resignation, he reached an agreement with WG staff to leave for an indefinite period. Around this time, Jagex had announced the "re-release" of the Wilderness, reverting PvP to near it's original state prior to the updates on 10 December 2007. Having previously founded and led a number of moderately successful clans before joining WG in 2009, Vio chose to found a new clan once again and created The Blade Keepers. He adopted the RuneScape display name TBK Amethyst for the majority of the clan's lifespan.

TBK opened on 1 February 2011 and saw a reasonable amount of success at the start, mainly through in-game recruitment. Within 2 months of opening TBK had over 50 members - more than WG at the time - though WG had better levels and significantly more experience. A notable event was a fun steel war against Guardians of Guthix, where TBK unexpectedly doubled GoG's member pull and completely dominated the fight despite GoG's attempts to cheat. An important factor in TBK's numbers was a merge between TBK and another small clan, The Vigilantes. The merged clan retained the name and attributes of TBK, though grew considerably in size, and the TV leader Madz was given a staff rank - much to the displeasure of a number of the original TBK members.

Although not intended as an exodus from WG, TBK also recieved a number of former WG members including former warlord WG Justin. Even so, TBK was initially on considerably peaceful terms with WG for the majority of February 2011, with the initial aim of supporting WG with PvP events such as raids and anticrash services. While joint trips were not officially held, members of the two clans would often be permitted (and sometimes requested) to attend the other clan's raids without issue, and on at least one occasion the two clans met in full force within the Wilderness, without engaging in a fight.

Rivalry

Due to the perceived nature of Vio's departure from WG along with the ex-members who had joined the new clan, TBK recieved a degree of hostility from WG. After approximately one month, a rivalry developed between the two clans, which lasted throughout March and into April 2011.

Initial Hostilities

WG ambushes TBK during a PK trip, 27 February 2011.

The event which sparked the rivalry occurred on 27 February 2011, when a group of WG members decided to hunt TBK during one of TBK's PK trips. Vio was partially aware of WG's intentions, but chose to allow the engagement to occur - believing that a rivalry could serve as beneficial to WG, based on his experience as Historian of WG. WG successfully managed to ambush TBK, killing Vio and several other members with ease. Vio would go on to sabotage subsequent diplomatic talks to try and resolve the situation by making unreasonable demands - one of which was that His Lordship returned Vio's Rune armour set, as well as the two sets that Vio had PKed and lost when WG attacked them. This was done with the clear intention of instigating formal hostilities, and a rivalry was declared on 1 March 2011.

For around two weeks in March 2011, ambushes continued - WG is known to have sent spies into TBK (in violation of their Honour code) so as to hunt TBK on further raids. Despite TBK having reasonable numbers with consistent pulls of 20 or more members, WG's significantly higher levels and experienced resulted in WG winning all of the engagements within the first two weeks, with TBK almost always having to call a retreat immediately after encountering WG.

The rivalry continued outside of the game, spreading to the Zybez fansite where WG would coordinate to "rep bomb" (give a large negative rating to) all of TBK's topics such as recruitment and aftermath posts. However, on some occasions this would work in TBK's favour as other neutral clanners would often condemn WG's actions. WG were supposedly an honourable clan, well-established with an eight-year history, and to be seen in hostilities with a less-than two-month old clan nowhere near their size and strength resulted in a degree of negative public perception.

Relationship with Team Power Rangers

TBK and Team Power Rangers force WG to retreat to single, 18 March 2011.

On 18 March, TBK recieved unexpected support from Team Power Rangers (TPR) - a significantly stronger team aware of the ongoing rivalry. WG had been hunting TBK on during a TBK raid, when the combined power of TBK and TPR managed to force WG to retreat to single for the first time. Shortly after, TPR member Vindicator offered an unofficial alliance (called a "minionship") to TBK, in which TPR would provide full support to TBK in dealing with WG. In exchange, TBK would combine forces with TPR for the team's larger fights. Seeing this as an opportunity to hinder the onslaught from WG, Vio accepted the offer.

As a result of the minionship, WG's ability to engage with TBK decreased significantly and hunts occured far less frequently, as TBK almost always had TPR's support. However, the minionship resulted in TBK being obliged to take part in large-scale fights alongside TPR, against much stronger clans - otherwise TBK would have been left to face WG on their own. TBK and TPR would combine forces on almost all of TBK's subsequent raids during March 2011, and large PKRIs were held against Generation X and The Alliance - the latter a syndicate comprised of four clans: 'The' Clan, The Gladiatorz, The Mighty Red Dragons and Clan Jaguar.

The relationship with TPR lasted for around a week and a half towards the end of March. While some members - Vio included - preferred and enjoyed the long and intense PKRIs, a large portion of TBK preferred the smaller, casual PK trips and wars that the clan had previously been involved in prior to the rivalry. Though no longer a significant threat in-game, disputes with WG continued across forums and fansites throughout the remainder of the month.

Exodi and Closure

A photo shoot with the then-newly-released clan cloaks, 12 May 2011. TBK's colours had been changed from green to blue.

Aside from the rivalry with WG and controversial minionship to TPR, TBK had additional problems to deal with. These included members unhappy with Madz's undemocratic staff position, and TBK Dan - a member who caused a significant amount of internal drama. As a result of these multiple issues, a divide began to form within the clan. The result of this was two exodi breaking away from TBK in the final few days of March 2011. The first was Radiant - a clan founded by former TBK council member Sakura Kane and additional staff members, and the second, Colossus (formerly titled Elysium) - founded by Madz. Between the two clans, approximately half of TBK's members would leave to join either, including all former members of The Vigilantes and all TBK staff members aside from Vio.

Vio immediately put the clan into lockdown in an attempt to resolve the situation - ceasing all events and opening up topics for discussion about all of the known issues on TBK's forums. This ultimately did not stop the mass leave, but would eventually result in a peace treaty between TBK and WG in April 2011, ending the rivalry. Minionship with TPR was also severed, though Vindicator was brought into TBK as a replacement Warlord given his extensive experience in higher-tier PvP. The full month of April saw TBK attempt to recover from the losses, returning to their initial focuses of small and casual PK trips, non-PvP events, and hosting recruitment programmes such as Operation Sunrise in an attempt to replenish lost numbers. The clan underwent several major changes including a forum switch, and the clan's colours were also changed from green to blue and gold with the release of clan cloaks, in order to distinguish a new era of TBK.

They experienced only moderate success, and throughout the month Vindicator would express a strong desire to close the clan and refer the members to Exalt - a recently-opened clan in which he was a leader. Vio initially rejected the offer, but after a full month TBK had failed to return to the level of quality they had been prior to the start of the rivalry, which had taken only two weeks. After a considerably unsuccessful attempt at hosting the clan's first planned fight (against Thunder Gods) since the exodi, Vio accepted Vindicator's offer and closed TBK on 4 May 2011, referring the remaining members on to Exalt.

Aftermath

Rather than joining Exalt, Vio chose instead to join Ascension. After approximately two weeks, Vio was invited to rejoin WG, prior to The Reckoning on 20 June 2011. Vio was also given the position of Leader of the Descendant Guardians during The Reckoning, which caused a considerable amount of controversy with WG - given that he had been the leader of a rival clan and promoted to junior clan leader within the same year. However, Vio considers his leadership of TBK and the clan's notable achievements to have influenced WG staff's decision to promote him. He would go on to lead the most successful iteration of DG, which lasted for almost two years, after which Vio was promoted to Warlord and Second-in-Command of WG.

Neither of TBK's exodi - Radiant and Colossus - experienced any major success, with both closing or falling into inactivity within the same year.

Trivia

• The name "The Blade Keepers" was inspired by a ficticious clan name His Lordship had created several years prior to TBK's opening, though exact details are unknown.
• TBK took a large amount of inspiration from WG - adopting an ARPK policy, referring to PK trips as "raids", using a Team-37 Cape as it was the green version of the Team-17 Cape which WG used during their peak around 2007 and 2007, and even sharing the same font WG used for their media at the time ("Kelt").
• Despite leading hostile clans, Vio and His Lordship maintained their friendship during the rivalry, with Vio even attending one of WG's real life meetings while still leading TBK.