(How I got my nickname…)
Many years ago, after getting my very first broadband connection, I was persuaded to try my first online game – Neocron. My first challenge, then, was to create a character, and give that character a name. Struggling to think of anything, I was drawn to my favourite foods, curries, for inspiration and my first character became “Vinder Lou” (you guessed it, after Vindaloo curry). I rolled various different characters in Neocron, all named after various Indian curries, the last character being one “Jahl Freyzi” (after Jalfrezi curry), all with deliberate misspellings, but aimed at sounding like their curry namesakes.
Various other online games followed: Eve Online; Guild Wars; City of Heroes; and World of Warcraft. Only in City of Heroes did I break away from my “curry” names and try something different, all the others, “Jahl Freyzi” etc. were carried through.
Then along came Everquest 2. The first character I rolled there was a warlock that specialised in disease type spells. So thinking of names for her (um, yes, I started rolling female characters, the simple reason being, most of these games were played in “3rd person” and I didn’t want to be playing staring at the backside of a male character… yeah, I know…). Anyway, a disease dealing warlock… what to call her? I rattled through all my curry names again and then had a lightbulb moment. Another favourite type of curry are Malaysian ones. So I thought, maybe call my new character “Mhalays”, And then it dawned on me that the word “malaise” means illness, disease etc. Perfect. And hence “Mhalaise” was born.
That name has been with me ever since, in all other games where I’ve needed to name a character. Other players, friends, shortened that to “Mhal”. And since then, all my character names start with “Mhal”. “Mhalaise” is always my first choice but where I’ve rolled second, third or more characters, I have kept the “Mhal” start: “Mhalayse” and “Mhalteazer” for example.
Nowadays, “Mhalaise”, and where variety allows, other “Mhals”, all appear in Destiny 2, City of Heroes: Homecoming, Hell Divers 2 and Elite: Dangerous. He/she would also appear in Baldur’s Gate too, except there I’m playing with a pre-rolled character “Asterian”.
And in other online things, I generally go by “Mhalaise”. You can find me under that nickname in Instagram and X, on Discord, and various others. And, obviously, this blog carries that legacy too.