Lupinia started out as the Furres' Republic of Lupinia, an independant nation inhabited by anthropomorphic animals (primarily wolves, hence the name) that served as a story/character setting.  In August 2004, while exploring the mountains of northwestern Virginia, I was inspired to write a series of stories based on the concept of Lupinia.  In September 2004, I bought a web hosting account and domain, united my previous websites under one roof, and Lupinia was born.  I also hoped to create a community surrounding the concept, so I incorporated the characters of friends into the stories.

Unfortunately, I had some trouble maintaining creative focus, and aside from a brief out-of-sequence short story in November 2004, the project pretty much stagnated until May 2005.  After releasing the first two chapters of the story, I became too involved in the MMORPG Second Life to put much time into continuing the Lupinia series, and it again stagnated.

After releasing the second Lupinia chapter, I wanted to try something new.  I had always wanted Lupinia to be some degree of a community effort, but it still felt like it was "my" site that others contributed to on occassion.  So, to encourage the contributions of others, I converted the site to a PHP-based content management system (CMS).  I also installed bridging scripts to connect the CMS, forum, and gallery on the site.  For about a week, it was the most enjoyable system I'd ever used.  Then, I realized how overly complex the system was, and how prone to glitches it was.  Between the large amount of work required to get the CMS system working enough for an update, and the lack of interest in the project, I let it fade into irrelevance once more.  In the 10 months or so that the system was installed, there were three new articles posted to the site, two of them mine.

Recently, the Lupinia project has taken on another iteration.  I've come to the realization that Lupinia can be more than one single design.  It will continue to exist as the setting for my characters and the stories I write.  The main site here will display my artistic works, as well as those of anyone else who is truly a member of Lupinia.  And the community aspect will come in the form of web and email hosting.  By January 2008, we'll be moving to a co-located server with the ability to provide web, email, and DNS hosting to selected sites.  More information about our hosting services can be found here.

I'm not a great author, photographer, or graphics designer.  But, I enjoy working creatively, and I hope everyone who reads this can appreciate my work.

Thanks for reading,
  Felix Lockhart

For more information about Lupinia, visit our page on Wikifur, the central furry encyclopedia.