Bonsai trees - the art of twinking

She's aging fast, my little rogue. Suddenly I realize that she's got the third of an xp bar left until she'll be old enough to buy sprits (20 year age limit in Sweden). I need to make decisions fast. If I want her to go to BG to take revenge for every time I've been owned as Larísa, it has do be done soon, the moment will pass quickly.

Even though I'm a dedicated PvE player I can't help feeling a bit like doing it. The few guest appearances I've done in the battlegrounds have always ended in a complete failure. And more than once it has been a rogue that has made my life miserable by appearing out of nothing, backstabbing me. My only defence as a flag watcher been to walk around puffing small arcane explosions to discover the nasty little creatures stealthing around in time. Now I've got the chance to switch it all over, I could myself become one of those mean sneakers, mercilessly killing some innocent little newbie, who is all confused, taking his first look at BG by level 19, wondering what it's all about.

Actually as a normal, levelling newcomer you haven't got a chance in BG. At that stage you've hardly heard the word twink, and you don't really realize that PvP is a separate world, and that you'll be meeting players who have specialized in it, players in a completely different division to yourself.

I can't help being a bit fascinated by the phenomena, how twink makers put a fortune in time and gold, shaping their characters until perfection. It's somehow a bit like the art of bonsai - it looks just as a huge, well developed tree, only that it's in such a small scale, but still taken care of, cut by scissors for nails. Or why not compare it to a castrated singer, doomed to forever sing by a angelresembling child voice.

While the rest of us greedily devour every xp we can get, they're facing the opposite problem - how can they get all the best gear they need from instances, without going over the roof? The smallest mistake can be fatal. We've all heard about players who after investing thousands and thousands of gold in a twink accidently get xp after visiting a new place or thoughtlessly making a BG quest. What's done is done, there's no way back. If there was a medicine to eat to prevent you from growing older (as there is in the Swedish childbook Pippi Longstocking) and it was sold at the AH, I'm convinced it would be sold for a fortune.

I don't know yet if Arisal will have a go in BG and hit someone hard in his head with her rolling pin before she rushes into Deadmines and comes out as level 20. She'll never ever become a twink. She'll be a fullgrown rogue with a mind of her own. That's a promise!