Introduced in November 2015, Moa is an "Adventuring Merchant" who provides luxury and pet items to users.She is not always available, and most of the time her comings and goings are random. The only exception is during Epic Week, when she is reliably "in town" to provide repair services and to compete with her rival merchant Aalto. On average, she's available about 5 days out of every 30.
Moa claims to travel the world (and perhaps beyond?) in search of items of rare beauty, value, and power, sometimes risking life and limb to secure items that will satisfy her luxury-minded clientele.
In 2023, we learned that she is one the the Struth people.
Appearance
Moa has brown skin, age-lines on her face, a green dress and orange sash, both with geometric patterns on them. There are wing-feathers lining her arms, her nose has a "beaky" hook to it, her hair is actually a crown of reddish-brown feathers, and she has skinny bird legs. She is almost always pictured with a massive amount of inventory slung over her back, demonstrating that despite her apparent age and the skinniness of her legs, she has enormous strength.Pre-release teasers
In the week leading up to her first appearance, notices would randomly appear at the top of some pages as users browsed the site, showing Moa in silhouette.
Introduction
Moa's first appearance was on November 29th, 2015, when Moa's camp-site first opened. She was also announced in a news post.Moa was introduced with two new items, the Orbs of Order:
Orbs of Order allow a user to arrange items and accolades in their profile display cases in whatever order they wish.
These were the only two items that Moa offered on her first appearance. They were priced to be very expensive to encourage obtaining them by trading welcomer accolades with Moa instead. Again, offering an alternate method of obtaining store items was a first for the site with this release.
Backstory
Epic Week 2023 took Moa as its main character, revealing a great deal that was previously unknown about her. In the prologue to Epic Week 2023, we were introduced to the "Struth," a migratory race of bird-people who hailed from the Struthian Isle, but had been forced out by invasive lizards. It was then revealed that not only was Moa one of the Struth, she had trained and outfitted an army of walruses to take back the Struthian Isle using funds from her Adventuring Merchant business.
Vision impaired? Click here for a description of the above comic
Panel 1
A struthian man with the typical feathers in place of hair, and wing feathers coming from his arms. He is walking down a cobblestone alley, carrying a bindle over his shoulder, looking a little dejected.
Unseen narrator: You’ve seen them, here and there… the Struth.
Panel 2
A family of Struth people walking over the water on the rainbow bridge. There are two mothers, and one child. One of the mothers holds the hand of the chick, while the other waves at someone not visible in the panel as if glad to see them.
Unseen narrator: Once there were many more Struth. You’d see us start to arrive as the spring thaw set in, leading our new hatchlings over the rainbow bridge to the mainland.
Panel 3
View of a tropical island with sandy white beaches and lots of reddish cliffs.
Unseen narrator: Back then, we were migrating from paradise, the Struthian isle. That was our true home. It was the place our eggs were laid and hatched.
Panel 4
A nest of eggs with a very scary looking lizard looming over it, mouth open, teeth glistening. A lightning strike in the background emphasizes the scary atmosphere.
Unseen narrator: Then the lizards came.
Panel 5
Bird feet walking on a dusty plain.
Unseen narrator: It’s been a century since a Struthian has set foot on the isle. A century since our hatchlings could thrive. We migrate endlessly, with nowhere to go.
Panel 6
We see Moa with a grim smile in the foreground, gesturing back to her army of walruses. Some wear chainmail or helmets. Some are in their mech suits. One is being ridden by Sylviornis the Struth warrior, and another by Apteribis, the Struth sage.
Narrator, now revealed to be Moa, top left corner: But this is the year that will end.
Moa, bottom right corner: This is the year I have finally raised the funds to equip an army.
Panel 1
A struthian man with the typical feathers in place of hair, and wing feathers coming from his arms. He is walking down a cobblestone alley, carrying a bindle over his shoulder, looking a little dejected.
Unseen narrator: You’ve seen them, here and there… the Struth.
Panel 2
A family of Struth people walking over the water on the rainbow bridge. There are two mothers, and one child. One of the mothers holds the hand of the chick, while the other waves at someone not visible in the panel as if glad to see them.
Unseen narrator: Once there were many more Struth. You’d see us start to arrive as the spring thaw set in, leading our new hatchlings over the rainbow bridge to the mainland.
Panel 3
View of a tropical island with sandy white beaches and lots of reddish cliffs.
Unseen narrator: Back then, we were migrating from paradise, the Struthian isle. That was our true home. It was the place our eggs were laid and hatched.
Panel 4
A nest of eggs with a very scary looking lizard looming over it, mouth open, teeth glistening. A lightning strike in the background emphasizes the scary atmosphere.
Unseen narrator: Then the lizards came.
Panel 5
Bird feet walking on a dusty plain.
Unseen narrator: It’s been a century since a Struthian has set foot on the isle. A century since our hatchlings could thrive. We migrate endlessly, with nowhere to go.
Panel 6
We see Moa with a grim smile in the foreground, gesturing back to her army of walruses. Some wear chainmail or helmets. Some are in their mech suits. One is being ridden by Sylviornis the Struth warrior, and another by Apteribis, the Struth sage.
Narrator, now revealed to be Moa, top left corner: But this is the year that will end.
Moa, bottom right corner: This is the year I have finally raised the funds to equip an army.
The Epic Week 2023 lore library revealed much more about Moa's life. She had a marriage of roughly 8 years to another Struth named Viti. They had four - possibly five? - clutches of eggs together before Viti's death in 1931. Unfortunately, none of the clutches hatched, almost certainly because Struthian eggs almost never hatch unless laid on the Struthian Isle and during this period of history the Struth were in exile. Moa and Viti were apparently quite distressed, but not surprised, that their eggs did not hatch.
After Viti's death, Moa decided she would no longer resist her instinct to migrate, and began going on quests to retrieve magical items as a way to distract herself from the troubles of her life.
In 1936, after reports of a clutch of Struth eggs successfully hatching in exile, Moa appeared to regain some optimism and declared that she would find a solution for the Struth so that they could return to their homeland. Apparently, for awhile, this took the form of questing for magical items she thought might help the Struth in some way, but she couldn't find a combination of magical items that seemed appropriate for retaking the entire isle.
In 1944, Moa formulated a new plan -- she would sell all of the magical items she had found in her quests, and instead use the gold to hire mercenaries to retake the Struthian Isle for her. She spent the next few decades earning and saving, until she contracted a mercenary group called "The Chapter of Brass" in 1961. Unfortunately, this plan went badly wrong. The Chapter of Brass betrayed her, forced her to tell them where she had hid the rest of her savings, and left her for dead on a small island "30 miles from the Bay of Good Humor." Somehow, Moa escaped this fate and managed to return to the mainland.
Although this episode did not deter Moa from wanting to retake the Struthian Isle, it destroyed her ability to trust others, to the point that when other Struthian survivors attempted to convince her that the navy and citizens of the RPR would need to be involved in her plan to retake the isle for it to be successful, she resisted asking for help bitterly.
In 2016, Moa decided to cash-in on the craze for keeping Walruses as pets, and started catching, training and importing them to Repository City. In 2020, she revealed a new plan to her confidant Apteribis, saying:
Moa's letter to Apteribis wrote:
"You are about to be very glad that I stayed in the walrus trade despite my perfect adventuring constitution, because I’ve done it. I’ve found the solutions to all our problems.
You know what is also up to 12 feet long? And 1500 kg, tough as nails, and violently stubborn to boot?
And you know who you can trust, absolutely? A walrus that you’ve trained.
I’ve been thinking too small with pets. They can do more than balance a ball on their nose and clap for fish. They can help us go home."
You know what is also up to 12 feet long? And 1500 kg, tough as nails, and violently stubborn to boot?
And you know who you can trust, absolutely? A walrus that you’ve trained.
I’ve been thinking too small with pets. They can do more than balance a ball on their nose and clap for fish. They can help us go home."
This plan, combined with the help of other Struthian exiles, the RPR navy and RPR citizens, would ultimately prove successful.
Trivia
- Moa's name comes from a species of extinct flightless birds from New Zealand.
Gallery
Lore Wiki » Recurring Characters » Moa