h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just leapfrogged on your name from the thread you started
about where we're all from.
And once I got here and saw your email handle, I just had
to ask: why Avatar99? I thought, qua Revelations, that there
could only be An Avatar, and I was quite willing to accept
that you were It.

But who are the other 98? Or are they (previous) incarnations?

Lil

Well, Avatar I got from the Ultima saga, which you can learn about from the guide here. (Handy, ain't it?) I put the 99 at the end because I was absolutely certain that somebody at Sinbad.net had chosed the username "Avatar" already. It turned out I was wrong, but by then, it was too late.

--- Avatar

Ah. Well, I better look up Ultima, then.

Are you a British avatar or an American or
Antipodean?

I'm American. I live in Alaska, to be exact.

Speaking of names, where did you come up with the moniker "Lil Asteroid?"

--- Avatar

Asteroid Lilith #1181 looms large in my birth chart.

What the "Avatar" actually means, as I have read in one strange Russian book, is something like "A hand of God" in a strictly religious sense. A person that comes to earth to "save the human kind from the evil of the Dark one" or something along them lines. Cool book that was... about gunfighters and bladeslingers, etc, kind of like "The Highlander".

The Avatar originated as an incarnation of God, according to ancient Hindu religion. It wasn't popularized until Origin's "Ultima" series of computer games, where it was considered the embodiment of virtue. TSR's "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" also uses the term as the physical manifestation of the game's fictional deities.

It's just a really nifty concept that can be applied to fiction in a number of ways.

--- Avatar