5 years ago: Region founded by The Wintermootery of the Winter Nomad.
122 days ago 5 years ago, I made the most emotional and gut-wrenching decision I had ever made on NationStates. I left the only region I had ever been a part of for an uncertain future in a new region named Wintreath. I was just storing my puppets here while I pondered my future in NationStates, and 122 days five years ago I had no clue what I was even going to be doing 7 days later. I didn't know if I was going to some other region, or if I would be here at all one week later. I certainly didn't initially plan on creating a serious region. It just kind of happened one bit at a time. I made the region and some of my friends put nations in here. I created an IRC chat and people joined up. Finally, Charax convinced me to just go for it and do a region, and we're now here, four months five years later, an active, vibrant, top 20 30ish, growing, incredible region. 
A lot has changed since we
celebrated that four month anniversary. Most of the people who were instrumental in building Wintreath in those early days are long-gone, and while those we've lost can never be replaced, we've been fortunate to make new friends that have carried on the community that we started here five years ago. Some who celebrated that milestone are still around, having grown with the region, while others drop by and visit, proving that there is still some part of our community that occasionally draws them back. In the last five years, we've celebrated good times and weathered bad times, overcome adversity (almost all of it from outside Wintreath), and had many, many games, discussions, debates, and events, not to mention an entire chat platform change.
But through it all, the tapestry of ideals and principles that our community was built on has not changed, and I believe that is why we're still here to celebrate a five year anniversary. We're a community that has stayed true to the vision I hoped we would be in
A Community Vision: a community that strives to put friendship before politics, compassion before optics, and fun before drama. We're still a community that sees its members as people and not just as players in a game, and because of that remains as warm and welcoming a place as we have always been. We're still a laid-back community that has fun, but isn't afraid to stand up for our principles when things get serious. We're still a region that's true to ourselves, and as long as that remains true, I believe we will always be able to say we're an active, vibrant, growing, and incredible region.
I'm afraid if I were to individually list the people who have contributed to the region at this point as I did back then, I would need many days to write this up. However, I am eternally grateful to each and every person who has put time and effort into making this community what it is, who has donated or been a Patron to support my work here financially, and who has been a good member of the community and friend especially. At the end of the day, a good community cannot exist for long if it doesn't have good members and friends in it. Now as then we are lucky to have always had wonderful people in our community, and I am glad to know, work, and play with all of you. I hope and expect that we will still be doing exactly those same things when I look back on this post on our ten year anniversary.
With much love,
-Wintermoot
-Monarch and Founder of Wintreath
