Four years ago students began arriving in a dormitory that might be best described as a roach infested abomination from the nether regions of the Abyss. These students began to become friends, while wearing the title of freshman. As time passed they became better friends and met new and weirder people. Those they met often became dubbed Grimstari. The title Grimstari was loosely associated with quite a few people. The true born members of the Grimstari, decided they needed to act on their new found prominence.

The Grimstari then created a newsgroup for themselves. This allowed ease of communication and an easy way to spread their gospel. Soon after the creation of this newsgroup, they saw a need for more powerful computing resources. They created Angband. Angband quite quickly grew in different directions from the Grimstari. Eventually they would be two unique entities tied bound tightly together at the core. The Grimstari created Angband and continue to exist within the realm of Georgia Tech. Angband exists within the realm of Georgia Tech, but it also goes far beyond.

The Grimstari and Angband do have many crossovers. For example Angband won the Grimstari Computer of the Year Award. As coincidences would have it, Angband was also the server that tabulated votes for this Awards program. Angband's most valuable asset is the people who run it. We want Angband to be a user friendly environment so instead of forcing computer restrictions we simply have one rule, "If you don't abuse, we won't abuse." Basically users are free to do whatever they want on Angband. If they start to abuse their rights, then we will request they stop. This seems to work very well. With this attitude in mind, most of users have come to really appreciate Angband, for it provides a much nicer and free computing environment. Though occasionally an abrasive user will call down the wrath of the Sys-Admin Nazi.

As time passed some more, we realized that Angband had a great deal of potential. At this time we began to seek out things we could add to Angband in hopes of providing a service to the Internet. We started to add users who needed a place to put their professional webpages. In time we decided to organize our efforts to expand. Our random emailing of people offering accounts wasn't really getting us anywhere. People often accepted the accounts, but never used them. So in a concerted effort to expand our horizons, the Grimstari created Angband Across America, and purchased the *.angband.org domain. We hope that things will continue to progress as time passes.

Grimstari History:

It all started on a stormy night in a small dorm room. It was hailing so strong outside vehicles were being torn asunder. With a maniacal cackle the mage finished his spell and the room erupted in flame. From within the flame arose a small green little man ( or others claim a tall horned warrior ). One thing everyone agrees on is that he talks funny. He spoke to us in a whispering voice, "Grimlock no like proof by induction." Thus the first miracle had occured.

As time passed and worship of Grimlock became a major part of our lives, we felt a need to go public, as the Disciples of Grimlock. Unfortunately we needed a name to confront the public with, and DoG just did not size up with our needs. Grimlock spoke to us once again and proclaimed, "Honor Tolkien, write good books he does." After perusing Mr. Tolkien's excellent literature we discovered the Istari. In honor of them and in honor of Grimlock, we dubbed ourselves Grimstari.

At first we decided to spread the word of Grimlock amongst our fellow geeks upon this Earth by a game known as Quake. We soon grew tired of this game. We then discovered that we had a cult like following on a usenet newsgroup dedicated to Quake. We decided that using a Quake newsgroup for spreading the word of Grimlock was blasphemy so we created the Grimstari Newsgroup. As time passed many young geeks joined the folds of the Grimstari. In an attempt to strengthen the young, the true born made a great sacrifice and became martyrs to the cause. Their actions of sacrifice live as models for the new comers to emulate. In time all will learn the lessons of self sacrifice.