On December 4th 2003, a sexually frustrated, naive fifteen-year-old was killed in the wilderness while collecting chaos runes.
He was furious, and swore revenge against all PKers. And that is how The PK PK's was born.
But that name sucked, so on the 6th of December, it was changed to The Wilderness Guardians (which also sucks).
Nine years in one topic is a difficult task, so please open up only the bits that interest you!
Our nine-year history in a paragraph
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We were founded in 2003 (RS Classic) as a group of antiPKers: PKing only other PKers and protecting the "innocent".
This distinguished us from all other clans, and we found a popular niche; a lot of people hated getting PK'd.
Consequently, we grew to over 200 members in a matter of months, and found many allies, including The Sabres.
It was a whole year before we even had our first war, by which time we had already experienced several mutinies and break-off clans.
2005 was when we started to rise to fame, first defeating The Unbreakables in F2P, and then Dead on Arrival in P2P.
This put us in the top 20, and we slowly climbed the ranks over 2006, when our legendary warlord Kenshln made us the #1 P2P multi clan (DI was still the top clan in P2P single due to their superior organisation at the mage bank).
On 01-December-2006 was what the clan now calls "D-Day", where I had a real life breakdown and closed the clan for three hours - this lone action caused about 120 members to quit over the next few days. We never regained our strength.
2007 was all about rebuilding, and we seemed to be growing, until they removed the wilderness.
With the clan world in decline, we invested in our community - it was in 2008 that we started having real life meetings, and making the clan shirt.
After Runefest 2010, we were able to secure good relations with Jagex, and ever since, we have been featured on the RS front page as well as the official RS YouTube channel and Facebook page, and have come to be known as the clan closest to Jagex.
As we were not able to regain our former power, we spent the last six years or so in what I call "maintenance mode" where we have been biding our time, waiting for the right moment to invest our resources in aggressive recruitment.
I believe our best days are yet to come.
Why we should even matter to you
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Every now and then I get into that fight... you know the one... about WG being dead and/or irrelevant.
You must also know that I am fiercely opposed to that statement, and not just because of my bias toward my own clan.
There are two types of people in the world: sprinters and endurance athletes.
As we know, power does not last. No clan ever keeps the number one rank for more than a few months: These are the sprinter clans.
Wildguard is in this for the long haul. We are witnesses to this clan world's great history, even if we didn't write it.
More importantly, we are strong in another way; we refuse to give up on ourselves.
Our history is littered with moments where disbanding was the easier option: Mutinies, mass leavings, hackings, stupid Jagex updates, crash wars, a 9-month losing streak for crying out loud!
And yet here we are. You test the strength of an object by putting it under pressure to see what it can take. That, my friends, is where I can be a proud Guardian; we have weathered the storm and learned from our hardships.
Finally, we matter because we are the PKing clan that does it differently.
Why do you want a clan world where every clan goes by the same routines and uses the same tactics?
We've never cared what people think, we are a brotherhood that does whatever it takes to create happiness.
Real life meetings, IRL crashwars lol, shirts, pens, rants and speeches, website, quirky flash movies, Jagex affiliation...
We add a little bit of spice to this clan world, even if we're not measurable in terms of our strength.
Accomplishments we can be proud of
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Being an honour clan this whole time. We still don't rag, DDoS, spy, cheat, loot other wars, and our fights are always clean
Enduring for this long, with no prospect of closure. I like to brag (a lot) about how I'm the longest serving clan leader.
Being a casual clan: we have slack activity standards, which weakens us, but our members don't no-life in fights.
Our association with Jagex has made us (arguably) Runescape's most famous clan (to the common non-clanner).
The Wilderness: An Unauthorised Biography secured us all some updates for 2013. Hopefully we can kill the toggle next.
For many years since 2006 (until they stopped holding the poll) we had the best clansite. We're releasing a new one soon.
Through Wildguard, a couple have met and are now happily married (their identities are anonymous)
The real life meetings of course! Eleven so far, over four continents. Thus can clanhood lead to true friendship.
We have an arsenal of supporting materials: pens, shirts, cartoons, theme song, etc.
We do P2P and F2P. We're not pro at either, but decent at both.
We have a Junior clan, DG. It seems unfashionable to have one these days, but actually it seems to be doing very well!
I take pride in the fact we strive to be well behaved. Our members are discouraged from flaming on all fansites.
We are able to accommodate all timezones. Members hail from America, UK/Europe, Australia, Asian, NZ, the Middle East.
One photo from each year of our history, since foundation
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2003
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2004
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2005
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2006
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2007
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2008
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2009
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2010
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2011
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2012
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Three quirky videos that will make you smile
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Of course, I finish with an expression of thanks.
No clan exists in a bubble.
We are the way we are because of you guys.
Thank you for nine wonderful years, and we look forward to many years to come.
