What does Hyperborea mean?
The name Hyperborea was chosen by Bloodstar, the founder of the game. It is named after a book with the same title by Clark Ashton Smith (Ballantine paperback, Amazon.com). The book contains a collection of stories about the mythical land of Hyperborea. The name has its roots in Greek mythology where Hyperborea is the "Land beyond the North wind where there is perpetual sunshine". The name is composed of two parts 'Hyper' which means 'much' and 'borea' which means 'north'. Auroris borealis, also known as polar light or northern ligt, is named after the same word. Hyperborea means 'much north', or North Pole.

The name Hyperborea returns in a number of other words. Listed below are the ones we have found so far.

Platanthera Hyperborea; the northern green orchid. Here Hyperborea means 'of the North' again, while Platanthera is the family of orchids.

It is also a track on the brilliant Substrata-album by Biosphere, in which "vocal samples recount a journeyman's dream of returning to a harmonious and carefree life, while the sounds of ice shifting on the sea's surface suggest a colder, harsher fate"

You can take your pick which of these is the reason for our name.

The history of Hyperborea
Hyperborea has been around since about 1993. In the beginning, Hyperborea was a closed site which was hosted on a host New York (panix.com). Later that year, we went public and moved to a host in Florida (sundial.net) that later changed its name to baughsoft.com. In July of 1999, we had to move to a host at Tilburg University in The Netherlands.

Hyperborea has been founded by Bloodstar, but he resigned as game administrator at the end of 1994. Moab took over at this point and remained game administrator until early 1996, after which Gwydion took over. Otto, who took over as admin after Gwydion resigned in 1998 has stepped down in favour of Imgar in April 2000.

As of March 2000, Hyperborea has its own domain. The game can currently be reached at hyperborea.net 2000. The homepage can be found on http://www.hyperborea.net/.

Organisation of the game
The game is played by players. Hyperborea has fifty player levels. When level twenty is reached, players can become wizards under the condition that they have sufficient quest points. Wizards do not participate actively in the game, but they are building new areas and quests. Wizards begin as apprentice wizard, after which they can become full wizards, senior wizards, high wizards or even archwizard. Climbing up to senior wizard is a matter of productivity. Senior wizards who do perform exceptionally well can be raised to the status of high wizard.

Since April 2000, the organisational structure of Hyperborea has slightly changed. Hyperborea is ruled by the Council of Archwizards. The Council takes all decisions about fundamental changes to the world, it also mediates in case of conflict. The Word of the Council is Law. One of the members of the Council takes on the role of Chair. Since April 7 2000, the Council of Archwizards is chaired by Imgar.

Close advisers to the Council are the High Wizards. Senior wizards supervise Full Wizards and Apprentice Wizards.

Currently, the Council of Archwizards is composed of

• Imgar
• Yellowboy
• Otto
• Sandman
• Jeiger
• Roy

The only High Wizards are Paladin and Cyor. The Senior Wizard Vawn supervises the full wizards Dakkon, Firedrake, Luthien, Tiberius, Targor and Zipper and around twenty apprentices. Archwizards Emeritus are Bloodstar, Moab, Gwydion and Jazrac.