Recognition

One of the truly unique features of Dark Ages is recognition. Players can create works of art, history, literature, lore and philosophy. They are then submitted under one of their Dark Ages character's names for recognition by the Mileth College.

If a work is successfully recognized it will become part of what is known as the 'Library of Loures' and the character who submitted it becomes a member of the in game nobility.

This system of recognition is most commonly known as 'the Contest'.

From 1999 to about 2003 players competed against one another for recognition in scholarly contests personally judged by the Dark Ages Game Director.

Although recognition has not involved competition nor the direct involvement of the Game Director for nearly twenty years, most players will still say "the contest" when talking about recognition.

Most recognized works from the 'contest era' can be found on the official Dark Ages website under the Library of Loures moniker: https://www.darkages.com/community/library.html

Unfortunately Kru stopped hosting works around 2003 and ceased updating the library on the Dark Ages website by 2005.

Fortunately the player run Library of Loures website stepped up and hosts nearly all recognized works, though sometimes the very latest works may not yet added:
http://loureslibrary.aisling-spark.de/

The college website began hosting all known recognized works in late 2023 as well. They can be found here in our library section.

Together with the Library of Loures website it is our hope that these unique player created works stay online and are preserved for posterity.