Guild:The Claw (Deathwing EU)

The Claw is inherently "softcore", mainly inviting RL friends of current members, but has been known to raid, and be good at it. Mature, and with high standards on invites, even when in need of new blood for raids. The guild primarily work as a band of likeminded people, in fact most members are real life friends of other members. Originally a Norwegian/Swedish guild only, but have long since been internationalized. The main motto of The Claw is to have a good time, and often that means raiding.

To fill out an application, you will have to answer several questions in the guild forum. ALL applicants must do this, even real life brothers of officers. NO EXCEPTIONS. Max level characters or specific classes less important than your written application, The Claw want mature members. Still, the guild do invite people based on class/skill too, in many cases. If the applicant is under 18 years old, or are hesitant about writing a good application, they shouldn't bother.

For more information, contact Leord or any officer online on Claw forums or in WoW.

Guild progress
Claw PVE progress can be found at the Clawguild Wiki.

History
The Claw is one of the oldest European guilds in WoW. It was originally founded in the closed beta, but officially start its history 13th February 2005, the name is inspired by a book series, as is its Guild Master's name, Cotillion. The Claw choose Deathwing as its starting server partly by chance, but has stayed on the server even when many other guilds have moved in free server transfers over the years. The Charter Members were: Cotillion, Acc, Lithrilas, Valarauco, Iskaral and Leord among others.

The first year was mainly a slow leveling of all friends, helping each other through the game. By the mid of the year, people started to yearn for raiding, and joined together with other guilds in cooperation, eventually creating the "Molten Core Alliance" (also called "Mithrilguard, Claw, Anvil of Crom" in some cases). The alliance was made up of 5 guilds originally: The Claw, Anvil of Crom, Mithrilguard, Guardians of Deathwing and Xenogenesis. The MCA stumbled onwards in Molten Core with good speed, lost one of the member guilds for wanting to raid themselves, but picked up and cleared MC in a few weeks time, aquiring its first legendary item: Thunderfury. Some months later they also aquired Sulfuras, that went to the co-Guildmaster Leord, of The Claw.

The alliance started raiding Blackwing Lair, but found a brick wall at Vaelastrasz, even if Razorgore was an easy kill. With problems of too many raiders, and not enough spots in the "good" MC raid group, the Alliance was shattered after the second successful Vaelastrasz kill. Short after this, they had their official first Real World Meet in Gothenburg, Sweden. 18 people attended, including the whole officer stab of The Claw and three members from Anvil of Crom, including one of their co-GMs, LordBhorak. The Claw has had numerous unofficial meets between members before and after.

Slowly, The Claw picked up its pieces and started a new alliance with some of the smaller guilds they originally raided with, ending up absorbing most of the good players of those guilds, to their Guildmaster's annoyance. They kept friends with most of the core members of the other big guilds, and ended up close friends with the whole of Anvil of Crom guild, who also is one of the oldest guilds in Europe. After a few additional months, The Claw was once again clearing MC, but alone, and started at Blackwing's Lair. They cleared the 20-man raids of Zul'Gurub and Ahn'Qiraj (save the last boss of AQ), and came as far as Chromaggus in BWL before the Burning Crusade was released. By the release of BC the guild had gathered 2 Thunderfury and 2 Sulfuras in total.

With BC, all raiding died out, except a friendly Naxxramas raid with Anvil of Crom, who had become a "server first" guild after the splintering.

After several months of guild members playing BC, new joining, some quitting, raiding took up again in Karazhan, and the guild felt problems to cover two simultaneous raids. After much work by primarily Slicedice, one of the three co-GMs, the guild turned around and started raiding in ernest, as well as doing Gruul's Lair and onwards. In February 2008 they have only 2 bosses left in Serpentshrine Cavern (Hydoss and Vasj). Slicedice remains the most potent driving force for the raiding, together with Malva, a Fist. The Claw remains good friends with the GM's of AoC as well as the guild as a whole.

Raid schedule

 * The guild has no specific raiding schedule.
 * Members sign up on their forum.

Guild rules
Guild rules are available in the Clawguild Wiki.

Officers

 * Cotillion, Clawmaster, Founder, co-Guildmaster : Original Guild leader. Loved leader of the guild as well as of raids. Mainly inactive since the summer of 2006, but still hold sway over the guild. Owner of Clawguild.com.


 * Leord, High Fist, co-Guildmaster, Charter Member : Has been main "social officer" in the guild, Raid Leader and organizer. Designer of the Claw Logo, and active on the "administrative" side of things, such as promotions, guild banks etc. Off and on inactive since late 2006 when his WoW-account was hacked. For information on the guild, he is the man to ask as he still tries to be the guild's outward face.


 * Slicedice, High Fist, co-Guildmaster, Raid Master : Was the first non-Nordic member to be invited. Raid Leader and manager for raids. Has mostly never been very inactive since he joined, and the current main force that drives the guild. He is a KISS-person - Keep It Simple, Stupid!


 * Malva, Fist, Raid Leader, Main Tank : Was invited shortly after guild creation. Has been a constant helpful person for all members, often helping others before herself. She excells at whatever role she tries with her many characters, mainly tanking for the last year or so. Has also helped with Raid Leading and organizing.