Guild Name: Cantus Fidelis
Server: Luclin
Guild Leader: Gaenaria

How did your guild name get chosen? I wanted a name that would reflect the atmosphere I wanted to build in the guild. In Latin, Cantus Fidelis means steadfast/trustworthy song.

Are you the original leader of the guild? Yes

When did your guild come into existence? While the guild was created at the beginning of 2006, most if not all of our members are veteran players and have been friends in game for a long time; I myself am coming up on 8 years and was in the original beta of Everquest (Phase 4)

Do you have a website dedicated for your guild? Yes, http://www.cantusguild.net

How many members do you have in your guild? We have about 76 main characters in the guild. Our members come from all over the world and every walk of life.

What kind of ranking system do you have? Is there much opportunity for advancement within the guild? Cantus has one guild leader and 7 officers. Every three months, two of the officer positions become available to anyone in the guild who wishes to apply. The applicants post their desire to be an officer and the reasons they want the position, along with any benefits they would bring to the guild as an officer. The guild leader and the permanent officers then choose who will become the next two general officers.

The new general officers are then given all the same responsibilities as the rest of the leadership core; raid planning, guild direction planning, social management issues, general day-to-day guild management functions, message board moderating, and everything else that a guild needs to have happen in order to maintain its momentum.

I feel that making officer positions available to the members has many benefits to the guild. It fosters a sense of "ownership" in the guild; allowing members to contribute in a way that they might not otherwise consider. It also introduces members of the guild to the huge amount of work that is involved in running a guild. I've had new officers say to me, "Wow... I didn't know you guys gave it this kind of planning!" It's that kind of insight gained by our members that really help them appreciate the guild and its members on a new level.

What are your current recruiting goals? We recruit the person, not the character. We won't turn away any one person just because we already have 10 of their class already, but we do certainly have our preferences! Clerics are always in demand and we have a minimum level requirement of 69. Of course, real life friends and family of our members are exempt from the level requirement.

Does your guild have a 'charter' and other rules that you abide by to help hold the team together? Any gathering of people over a certain number that are striving towards a series of common goals needs rules and regulatory systems, and of course our guild does indeed have these. They are not overcomplicated nor are they designed to exclude people. Our rules and systems that regulate social issues, guild membership, loot distribution, guild advancement, and personal advancement are designed to be inclusive of even the most casual player without creating undue "drag" on the people for whom it is a little easier to dedicate more time and effort to the game of EQ.

What are some benefits that your guild offers that other guilds don't? The easiest answer to this question is simple... We offer Pacific time zone raiding on a server that is dominated by East coast hardcore raiding guilds.

The longer answer is this: Our guild offers, to the more casual player, the opportunity to advance their character and to experience facades of Everquest that they might not have had the chance to experience yet. The casual, yet dedicated nature of our guild means that a person doesn't have to join a hardcore raiding guild in order to experience many of the same things. For people who cannot or do not want to raid 5 days a week, yet are looking for a group of people who are goal oriented, who achieve those goals, and who have fun doing it.....our guild is for you!

Does your guild exist in other games? No way. EQ for life!

What type of guild do you have, ie: family, casual raiders, hardcore raider,etc.? Wow, this is a tough one... we're a hardcore family casual raiding guild? ... or maybe we're a casually hardcore family raiding guild?

Some of our members call us a "family raiding guild". The truth of the matter is that we can't be described using just some of the terms above. We're a family guild when something bad happens to a member, to their family, or when someone just wants to vent. We're a casual raiding guild when we're out for some fun to kill some farm target and get upgrades. We're a hardcore raiding guild when our backs are to a wall and it's time for us to pump out another victory.

Honestly, we're simply Cantus; that's the type of guild we are; we define ourselves the way we want and at our pace.

What content are you currently working on in the game? Uqua, DoN Tier 4 (Yar'Lir), MPG Raid Trials, Epic 1.5s, OoW/DoN/GoD farming targets (Battlemaster Rhorious, Zun Marum Volklana, Kessdona,Rikkukin, Yxtta Primals, Rampaging Monolith, Circle of Drakes)

Our next milestone victory will be Uqua, after which we'll be heading into Inktu'ta. Our long term plans include defeating Vishimatar, Anguish flagging, and end game GoD zones.

Is role playing an important aspect for your guild? No, although we do have some people that act like ogres and trolls sometimes! But I think that's a different story altogether...

Can you go through some of your great battles and quests you've conquered as a guild? Every raid encounter we attempt, we do so for a reason. Our targets are picked, after much research, based upon what our guild can currently handle, where we need to be progression-wise, and what we need to learn to get there. Our raids are picked so that we are constantly learning new strategies and techniques, so that when we attempt the "next bad guy", we know what's coming and how to handle it.

Furious Jailor for the "Investigating a Disappearance" quest was great for measuring what our tanks could stand up to and how our clerics would handle the healing. It's also a great task to farm for gear.

Defeating Volkara with only 24 people was really great for our guild. It really cemented the knowledge that numbers isn't everything and that strategy and good execution are even more important.

The first time we attempted Tirranun he was one of those encounters that I knew our guild could defeat. We knew what to do, our tanks could take the beatings, our healers could handle the damage no problem, and everyone else was executing the strategy perfectly. However, we would end up being overwhelmed by the adds before we could take down his Ancient form. So we just waited to upgrade our raid dps, and viola he's now on farm. Was great watching that big dragon fall down (and stay down!) and go boom the first time.

Ikkiniz, Trial of Transcendence and Ikkinz, Chambers of Destruction were both encounters that stick out in our minds as "great battles". Ikkinz3 is important to me personally because it really highlights a time when everyone gave 110%; it was one of those encounters where if any one of our people hadn't been giving 110%, we would have failed. Our win against Ikkinz4 was a direct result of the efforts shown in Ikkinz3. Everyone was dedicated to the win and gave 110% when it was finally within our grasp.

Epic 1.5 weapon quests are important to our guild. For a guild in our position they are fairly decent weapons and the clickies are of utmost importance. By the end of 2006 we will have obtained over 40 epic 1.5 weapons for our guildmates.

How often does your guild participate in these events on a weekly basis? 2 to 3 times a week. We do gear farming and epic 1.5 raids on Mondays. We save our larger progression oriented raids for Fridays. During the week we will often have a pick-up raid on Primals or anything else that we have on "farm" status for which we have the people online.

Who would you say is the toughest battle you have encountered? Uqua has been by far the toughest "battle" we've encountered. Our first attempt at Uqua came after the zonewide AoE was fixed and we got all the way to 6trap before it just got too late and we started loosing people. Having never been in the zone before, dealing with the aoe, pulling the traps, and getting the twins dead on our first attempt ever was awesome. We learned a lot from that first run and I'm sure we'll rocket through on our second attempt.

What is the most exciting event you can recall with your guild. Something that makes you think back and say to yourself, "This is why I play this game... " The first time we defeated Volkara was the pinnacle of that emotion for me. We had attempted her on 2 different ocassions before our victory on the 3rd attempt, and with only 24 people! Anyone in the guild at that time and who is still with us can tell you how big of an accomplishment that victory was for the guild and just how good it felt to win based upon strategy, execution, and skill; not just numbers and zerging.

What has been the best expansion for the guild? As far as raid cohesion is concerned, DoN and GoD have been the best expansions for the guild; we have learned a lot about each other in those two expansions. As far as general upgrades across the board, TSS has been the best for that.

What advice might you give to people just starting out with a new guild or planning to start one? To someone wanting to start a guild I would say, "Are you crazy?!" Ha, seriously though, the best advice I could give anyone who is planning on starting a guild would be, "most importantly be patient (Rome was not built in a day, and hey guess what... your guild is not going to be Anguish flagged in 4 months; no matter what your ooc in PoK says!), build a good reputation on your server, recruit good people (not toons), let your accomplishments do the recruiting for you, don't ooc recruit because it just looks trashy.

What makes your guild unique? On a server dominated by east coast hardcore raiding guilds, there really was nowhere for a west coast person with a job, a family, and responsibilities to turn to if they wanted to play Everquest and actually accomplish something. There is now however. Cantus Fidelis is filled with mature people who have jobs, kids, and more responsibility that you can shake a stick at, and what's even better is that we're progressing through Everquest at our own pace!