Chris “Xanthus” Bennett’s first event was Tournaments of Creathorne 1997. He played regularly through 2002, and semi-infrequently through 2004. He also helped in the sadly failed attempt of the Southern Realms chapter in Oklahoma City.His character was a member of multiple nations including Thorne Valley and concluding in Achoria “Viva la Empire!” He was also a priest of Xaos in the Church of the Five Ladies.
When asked about in character achievements he said, “I don't know of any specific IC achievements I can really mention without incriminating people, but having (at the time) one of the few Interventions in the game after the spell system change was pretty cool (I learned a lot from Nate Carr in that respect, one of the best intervention casters I knew)”. He added, “I liked to think that I made a bit of a difference when it came to my contributions to the game. Be it NPCing, helping with feast holdings and so on for a few of my friends events, and with helping get the Southern Realms off the ground with Cole Wichman and Woody Woodworth down here in OKC”.
He stated, “ My most memorable times at Realms were events like Creathorne, North South War and Queen of Hearts, the biggest events of the year, at least at that day. Storming Myth Drannor, fighting in a huddled bunch with my friends in Thorn Valley when surrounded by dark elves, storming the castle at N/S War and of course all of the wonderful friends that I've sat around camp fires with.”
He has been living in Oklahoma City for the last 8 years with, “my best friend and the love of my life Sabrina on a dare between us, eloping and moving to OKC because we couldn’t handle being apart. It was the best hasty decision of my life. We have a five year old son named Tobias and a pitbull named Khaleesi”.
He currently works in the IT field, most recently for Dell within the Enterprise group, and is working on VMWare certifications. He also work as a freelance writer for the game company Dreamscarred Press (authors of the Pathfinder RPG supplement Ultimate Psionics) and has published my first book with them, Path of War (that we previously told you about in “Happenings on the Emerald Path). He is currently working on Path of War: Expanded and Psionics Augmented: Soulknife. His current hobbies are playing and running Pathfinder games, attending a local Vampire LARP, and spending a lot my free time hanging out with his family, cooking and writing.Speaking as someone who remembers Chris as a bit of a bitter, sulky, dark youth, it has been amazing to watch his life from a far and see him grow (I suspect thanks to the influence of his wife and son). He’s turned into not just a pretty great grown up but also an optimistic and positive one.
He says he’d, “love to visit soon, but not sure if I can make it all that way up there or not. I’m planning on attending GenCon this year to pimp my book and see the sights, and if I can make it back to New England, that’d be more the better.”
And he closed by saying, “The only other things I’d like to add or share, is that you all should appreciate the Realms. It’s nearly impossible to recreate the magic of the game we all love anywhere else. It takes patience and hard work, pure love of the game and a willingness to let people be people and not hold that against them, and most importantly, the ability for everyone involved to check their egos at the door for the sake of the game. That’s a hard combination to get, and I love and miss the Realms terribly for this ability. The Realms will always hold a special place in my heart, and I’m glad that I was a part of it for a short time.”