Only recently scholars have discovered interesting characteristics during the observations of certain internet users, which only occur in two known species of this planet, namely Santharian developers and Santharian role players. Should you be so unfortunate to belong to both species at the same time, it is even more likely that these characteristics may be discovered at yourself with a high probability. Scholars have named these strange characteristics therefore the Santharian Addiction Syndrome (SAS). These symptoms lead to an extraordinary state of conciousness where Santharian issues start to dominate real life. Whether this is good or bad, dangerous or completely harmless is not clear yet, at least scholars still debate vehemently on this issue. But it seems that SAS spreads over the whole globe, whereever there's an internet connection capable of opening the URL www.santharia.com. The currently known symptoms of SAS are recorded below, and more are probable to follow. So read in detail to see if you're already affected seriously or if there's still hope. You know that you're addicted to Santharia or role playing in Santharia, if...

A Santharian role player at work. Image drawn by Faugar.

1. You begin answering to your characters name even when not on the computer.
2. When you see a picture of Aragorn from "Lord of the Rings" and say, "Hey it's Atrii!"
3. When you play an elf and plan on saving up to have your ears cropped to make them pointed
4. You begin to notice who you think would make a good wind, fire, earth or water mage...
5. You begin to think how you can memorize the runes of dwarven and elven writing.
6. When drinking from a wine-like glass you constantly call it a goblet.
7. When playing "Age of Empires" you curse at the game for not having elves!
8. You wan't to learn to sew and leatherwork along with blacksmithing just to make swords and your characters clothing.
9. For Halloween you're planning on dressing up as your character, and maybe a couple more times after that.
10. You yell dwarven battle cries when you're in a battle on the computer.
11. You chant necromatic sayings when facing bullies and expect undead to pop up and protect you.
12. Someone helps you with your homework and you 'knight' them with your holy pencil.
13. You constantly refer to your girlfriend as "Mine own fair lady"
14. When you are served a slab of meat you ask wich king's forest it came from.
15. You carve ancient elven runes into your pencil to make it write faster and get all the answers from the great tomb of Knowledge written by ??? the Great.
16. When your excuse for not doing is your homework is "But we were being attacked by Brownies!"
17. When you try to remember how long you've been RPing here and can't.
18. When you start telling people some of your best friends are elves.
19. When you start wearing a stick in your beltloop and insist it's a sword.
20. You read the description of a female character (or male), raise your eyebrows and whistle whoot-whoo!
21. You write songs and put your characters name as the pen name.
22. You learn to speak Styrásh fluently in real life.
23.  You know the names of all the Tristins of Strata by heart.
24. You often describe people as being elven, dwarven, etc. by their attitudes, stature, etc.
25. A pastor at your church knows your character's name...
26. You insult people with things like "Your character is majorly undeveloped" or " This isn't aol, you have to adapt to this world now!"
27. You find yourself asking "Isn't this out of character?" or "Shouldnt this be on the polls section?"
28. You wonder why you can't edit your maths-test after "sending" it.
29. You search the phone-book for the number of a Brownie-Exterminator.
30. You burn the local forest because there may have been trolls and ogres living in there...
31. You accuse your chemistry teacher of the usage of the dark and evil arts.
32. When someone talks about Santa's elves, you say "Those aren't elves, they're brownies!!! Are you blind, man?"
33. You find yourself asking people out to the Thirsty Herald.
34. Whenever you see someone over 6' you mutter about halfgiants.
35. Whenever you see someone under 5' you mutter about dwarves.
36. When someone snarls at you, you say "Watch your tongue!"
37. While hiking, you sing songs from Santharia to keep yourself motivated.
38. Your post amount is over 500,000.
39. On St. Patricks day, you talk about Brownies instead of Lepreachauns.
40. When someone holds an S you look them over point and accuse them of being a psyrpent.
41. You have nothing but Santharian MP3's on your portable MP3 player.
42. When asked what you are going to hunt for with your freshly made bow (wich consists of a large piece of wood and a tight string) you tell the person to shush as the damned Orcs might hear you...
43. When being bullied your threat is "Don't make me find Radaroc - he'll bash your face in!"
44. When measuring you refer to measurements in peds and nailsbreadths.
45. When someone asks what your statistics are you begin naming off your character's.
46. When Santharia has 19,000 hits a day and you know you're responsable for at least 35%.
47. You learn an intrument just to listen to Santharian music in case your computer and portable MP3 player malfunctions.
48. When someone shows you a chart of the state's politicians you grab a pen and shake your head disappointedly at how wrong the information is, while correcting the names to King along with adding Facial hair, ear alterations, along with countless earring's and scars.
49. You get mad at your "staff" and start banging it against the wall, only to see one of your friends come out of your house and ask "Dude, what the heck are you doing beating that branch against the wall?"
50. Wearing my hair long, like a half-elf should...
51. Thinking of buying a pipe (cigarettes aren't proper for a true fantasy addict, doh!).
52. Saying "Ava bless you" and using expressions like "What in the name of the twelve gods?"
53. Thinking more in English than in my native language.
54. Thinking of the santharian magic system as real... - or at least to spot  possible spell ideas everywhere.
55. You write your EZ signature whenever you send a letter.
56. You start poking people and saying "Have at ye, servant of Coór!"
57. You start muttering fire spells whenever someone gets in your way.
58. You instinctively reach for your longsword whenever you enter an alley.
59. You use emoticons in letters.
60. You say "Terra's gonna get you for forgetting your clan!" any time you see a name without a race.
61. You yell out "If one more of you messes around back there, so help me Avá, I'm gonna start casting spells!" while driving.
62. You repeatedly go in-search of elves to lop off their fingers so you have extra for your spell wich you know you will fail many times before mastering.
63. You keep on checking this syndrome page regularly just to add to your list of just how much of a Santharian addiction you have.
64. When you actually know the words of all the songs in Santharia by heart... and sing them aloud.
65. When you refer to someone as "nightbird" when you are annoyed with them.
66. When you use the Santharian lullabies to make your child sleep.
67. When you just can't wait to go to your first LARP and you are going to play your Santh char!

Still reading? Geeeez, you have patience! If you made it that far and still plan to check this page for further future updates according to No. 63 you really seem to have a SAS problem! Hey, seriously! Cure for SAS however is not guaranteed at the moment, but as a first step you could join the self-therapist group at the RPG Forum for example, where people try to find out what other syndromes they already show and how Santharian-mad one can get... Or - if you're only a role player - you might consider joining the development team, because for the developers all these strange things are perfectly normal, at least they sprang from their minds, no? - And every now and then we also have interesting visitors at the dev board like these funny fellows in white coats, who give us candy all the time and enjoy locking us up somewhere for experimental purposes. But I shouldn't write too much, as sometimes they are really, really mean and take away our keyboarfdfsdsdfjlskdfsd...