In a way, the "mod" 'started' around 1990. I had invested 100% of my net salary into a public bulletin board, before there was an internet, with 13 phone lines, a series of PCs interconnected by ethernet and Novell operating system, and source code that I bought using Borland C++. At the time, although limited to 120 characters per second, and sometimes around 4 times that by compression, I wanted to have a A D&D style game with caravans, castles, crafting, and so on. I just could not get there by myself. So I self studied everything I could, and generally was a single minded failure at everything. I failed having a family, I failed marriage, I failed pretty much everything. But I grew from the experiences.

By 1995 I had started looking elsewhere and for example learned Russian, because I thought somewhere in the East were people not so financially hungry and if I left California I could be a hermit and write for a living. I had a number of small health issues so wanted to meet up with a nurse or doctor, and otherwise lived a little bit of a dream while doing boring tech support and very minor engineering in California. Eventually I left the crazy enough California and settled into an apartment in Bulgaria. Rent was 8 times less there; internet was surprisingly powerful as it was all new build. I took my fleet of pcs with me and ... found nobody wanted me.

Eventually, I found a gig with a firm providing sales and service of really expensive medical equipment, and although I was mostly a software guy I knew systems well and could network. I had a lot of spare time and at first could do whatever I wanted between emergency repairs. I chose to play Mount & Blade Warband. That was either the most fortuitous thing or the worst of all possible disasters. Which it was, I guess remains to be seen.

I started playing Brytenwalda, and then since the source was available tried adding in "Wife as a companion". It needed doing. I started playing Gekokujo. It seemed like each time I tried a new mod I felt I was closer to "the dream". I then found "Perisno". At the time, Perisno had an issue where all the dialogs for non human had female gender, as Native defined male as skin 0 and female as skin 1, and all the races were not skin 0 so dialogs assumed they were female. That sounds kind of trite but believe me, there were like 20,000 places that would need to be changed to set dialog correctly. Something that no small band of mainly high schoolers driving Perisno in 2014 could find the time to unravel. I had time - kind of. I paid my work compensation for time I would "waste" modding, since my father had died and left me a smallish sum of funds. He was hmm 91 at the time, and I was by now 53. I put a 1500 hours, at least, and not more than 1800 hours, into modding Perisno. While others had 5-10 hours a week they could contribute, I put in 50. I had to pay it back to my day job. I merged Diplomacy into Perisno. I put my spin on dodge and encumbrance. I re tweaked almost everything I encountered. I did not really ask anyone, I just made changes.

Some people there did not like it; some respected it, and I expect most wished I made cleaner work. I felt like when I left all trace of my ever having been there would be removed, as befell Egyptian Pharaohs who angered the Pharaohs that replaced them. From time to time I received polite letters and cards from the founder Michadr, who I respected and I think respected me. We were both a bit religious about our work and life. But religion - hmm I believe, but I don't believe in Dogma. I think religion is well intentioned but can get confused, so I hold it a little at arms length.

I made submod next called "Phosphor", with Perisno races, crafting from Rigale, and a very primitive magic cobbled together from the dead mod "Curtain of Fire", which was not even a warband mod but from the older Mount & Blade, before Warband. I wanted to explore the deep scripting needed to drive a whole spectrum of mods, where the details of the backstory, what color a skin was, even the items list or troops were all sort of top layer surface detail and what mattered to me was mastering the deep scripting mechanics driving physics, chemistry, and all the hmm kinematics (the study of motion) that go into "reality". You probably would have chosen a smaller target, and actually made something, while I spun my wheels for lack of traction.

Rigale was from Cernunos; he wanted to put Real Insight Gained (from) Life Experience (RIGaLE) into a OSP mod collection, with hidden movement, exploration, a hidden map, crafting from materials foraged from the field, and fatigue, camping, epidemics, and a number of different quests. You could level up without ever once killing ANYTHING. It was fairly difficult for the player; fatigue did not apply to monsters. Fog of war hidden map made it difficult for players to do things, although if the map were changed away from Native remains a very good option someday.
Cernunos managed to get himself perma-banned at Taleworlds forum by denouncing Islamic terror as something linked to Islam itself, which is probably best not said on a forum that is hosted in Turkey, which itself is more nationalistic state religion oriented than the secular state promoted by Attaturk. I spent a month merging diplomacy to his Rigale and then another month putting in races, the dialogs with correct gender that I mentioned doing before, and curtain of fire as a quick mock up. Again, I got to pay my day job, in secret from my family, for time "wasted". My retirement funds were shrinking by the hour, but it felt "right".

Cernunos wrote me to hand Rigale over to me. I felt I left Rigale too raw to promote it, which was a shame as at the time there was a shortage of source for multi-race, magical mods.

By summer of 2017 I started following Guspav's Phantasy Calradia. This had a large series of expansions in 2014 and by summer of 2017 Guspav found himself stuck. It ALMOST worked, and pretty darn well all things considered, but he was stuck. I mentioned I could fix the multi-race dialogs easily, merge diplomacy with some great difficulty, and otherwise fix many errors. That was the end of August, 2017.

I hit the project with 55 hours per week, every moment Monday through Friday, again in secret from my family. Again I paid my day job for office space and lost productivity, always dropping anything for work if a hospital were down and working day and night to solve whatever "fire" was occuring. Otherwise I evolved Phantasy Calradia into something I called Phantasy Calradia 2018, my spin on the mod and what could be considered an authorized "SUBMOD" of a mod. I always sent source back to Guspav, of whatever I was changing. I didn't ask though his opinion; it just showed up changed the next morning. That was wrong of me, but at the time I was too busy trying to hurry up changes, before I ran out of money. I became increasingly confused, and felt something dreadful was happening in my health. By this time I had > 2000 hours honestly invested in modding Phantasy Calradia. For what little that was worth. What's your time worth? Times 2000 hours? Nothing? Something?

Quite a few bugs entered the set of code. Quite a few. I argued with people. People felt I betrayed Guspav; they argued I was a thief that added nothing of value, people hacked my friends accounts at Nexusmods just to use their name as a cut out to attack me. Someone from Russia made it their life;s work to hack me. People took offense when I stated Necromancers hurt my faith. I nevertheless made Necromancers much more powerful, even as they felt it their woke destiny to attack me for not being true to "their" vision of the mod. Reddit users attacked me, and drove me off of supporting the mod.

I was almost out of funds; I felt I was out of time. I could not monetize the mod, or my coding. I chose instead to donate my time to a mod that had a real development team - Warsword Conquest. The people there were top shelf, really skilled, especially Nameless the leader but also every one of the modellers, assistant coders, and so on. I wrote some of the core scripting, but not all of the mod. I merged Diplomacy, needing a month to do it. i supplied the dodge mechanic, which was controversial. I redid bandit spawns. I gave a prejudice that could handle 22 factions and virtual factions, which most people would have thought impossible. I added encumbrance as a "thing" and retweaked whatever I came in contact with. But I did it like every minute was my last. Eventually ... I ran out of money to pay my day job. around 800 hours to Warsword conquest, 1700 to Phantasy Calradia, and a car here and a small vacation for my family there and soon all my retirement savings was wiped. My inheritance from losing both parents wiped. My daughter's college money. Eeek. I dropeed out of modding, and tried to find a day job. Any job. I got stuck doing a call center job where every day i was told I was not good enough, should be fired tomorrow. For 5 years. I worked 70-80 hours a week and was paid for 40. I kept my family alive. I didn't look back. My daughter however, likes games. She wanted to play this with me. Even though she had by now left home, and was beginning a life too much like mine.

She asked me to come back to this and finish it before I die. Not that I expect to keel over hourly; but eventually...

My wife stopped blaming the modding as a curse and decided it helped me think. Once I was old enough to apply for Social security (half pension), I quit the minimum wage call center job. I had heart issues; breathing issues, thinking issues. I needed to stop, and didn't expect to make it to 67 and full retirement. With a pension coming in, we sent our daughter to college this year. She is at a medical school as a technician in a 3 year program. It's the agreement that lets me mod again, minus any control of finances. Everything to my family. Its fair.

I was pretty fuzzy otherwise; I couldn't remember if I took a medicine 5 minutes ago. Once I forgot everyone's name. I wasn't sure what my name was. Stuff like that. To be honest though, right now I feel good. I like to mod! It keeps me sharp. I hope that explains why I was so terrible years ago on the forums. I had pain.

Inspiration: I am listening to something I think is cool. Look up Mdou Moctar on Youtube.
I prefer his Portland Oregon 4/13/2019 show for example. It may not be mod related, but there is a lot of energy there. I like free energy. If you are a TLDR type skip to about the 10th minute to see what I mean by energy.

I was in Tunisia last year; I feel something for the desert, but having once been in a large fire I am sensitive to sunlight. You'd never know I had been baptized in fire once, before finding Faith. I believe I am not just an American abroad, but a citizen of the planet. I hope you can accept that. I give away all that I can, so that someday even one person has a better life than I had. It's justice.