SpawnMasons

The SpawnMasons is a group founded by HermeticLock in February, 2017. It lasted until August 6th of 2017, then was brought back and has been active since early September of 2017 to the present day. It is one of the more secretive groups on 2b2t, and does not often interact with the majority of the server's community.

As the name suggests, the SpawnMasons often build close to spawn and embrace the added risk to be closer to the source. The group builds temporary lodges for weekly meetings, participates in long-term group bases and oversees other spawn projects. The group tries to accumulates older, capable or influential players while staying small enough to be a close brotherhood.

Creation
The SpawnMasons were created by HermeticLock and a friend, and the group imitates its real-life counterpart, the Freemasons. The SpawnMasons conduct an initiation ritual and, like the Freemasons, hold meetings to discuss group business. The group expanded quickly, and easily became one of the most notable groups on 2b2t.

First degree
In May of 2017, the group was at its highest member count. In a single night, it had initiated players Sato86, jared2013, and Fit, solidifying its position as the most elite group on 2b2t. At its height, a weekly meeting could have more than thirty-five SpawnMasons in a voice chat at once. The SpawnMasons cemented their reputation as builders and often stayed out of trivialities of conflict between the other groups. During this time, the SpawnMasons constructed a series of bases that include Spacejam, Vulcatavio and a fortified skybase during July's temporary map. The quality of lodges also improved after Negative Entropy decided to create something a bit more unique, leading to the abolition of the SpawnMasons' tendency to destroy every lodge after hosting a meeting there. Some memorable lodges are the first lodge, the Tropical Island and Ain's Airship.

After Fit released his video of the destruction of Summermelon, the SpawnMasons were faced with the issue of whether or not to allow Fit and AlphaComputer to remain within the group. AlphaComputer and Fit had broken the SpawnMasons' code by destroying a base that housed other SpawnMasons, and killing Krobar01, who was a fellow member. AlphaComputer was voted to be kicked from the group, and Fit barely got enough votes to stay in. Shortly after this controversy, HermeticLock decided to take a break from 2b2t and resigned as leader of the SpawnMasons. An official SpawnMason disbandment reddit post was made, and a brief intermission ensued where the SpawnMasons were nonexistent.

Second degree
In August of 2017, members Ain and _Henry_ re-established the SpawnMasons, giving previously Worshipful-ranked players their ranks back, and reconstructing the group in a similar manner as HermeticLock had previously established. _Henry_ came to act as the unofficial leader of the SpawnMasons in HermeticLock's absence. The group continued its course and bases were founded, like Boghdad and the skybase of April's temporary map. Lodges included dr_frankfurt's Flashback, Negative_Entropy's Western Air Temple, Krobar01's Kang and Kodos and l_amp's Greek Temple. Overall there was decreasing interest in 2b2t and lodges started happening only monthly.

Third degree
In the beginning of 2019, HermeticLock created a secret channel in the original mason discord, invited a few friends, and suggested that it was time for great change. As a result, a degree system was implemented by Hermeticlock, Ain and Henry, in order to promote player activity. Since this moment, the group has been consistently active and not a single weekly lodge has been missed. Around this time, the SpawnMasons became the first group to grab the discord.gg/2b2t URL. They were able to do this because they were one of the first servers in the community that had boost capabilities. The Masons capitalized on this and made the discord public for a few weeks in order to grab over 50 boosts. This experiment ended when more servers started getting boost capabilities.

Concluded bases during this era are Club-33, Autistralia, Smibville, Photosynthesis and COVID-2147. The most significant among these was Smibville, which was founded by ufocrossing and had nearly all active players build there. Spawn projects included Cloud Club, The Masonic Eclipse, lead by leijurv and Hermeticlock in late 2019, and the Transmutation Circle, lead by Negative_Entropy in early 2020. The SpawnMasons are also intertwined with the 2b2t Party Committee and helped out for construction of Halloween and Christmas villages. Memorable lodges are BoomerangVillage's Loo lodge, Negative_Entropy's Northern Air Temple, Scribblefox's Courthouse, BottleCapBrony's Cloudsdale PVP arena, Jordanl666's Initiative Testing, the 100th lodge and Breithan's Cat Flushed Angler Fish.

Fourth degree
The fourth degree was started in August 2020 and is still ongoing. In September 2022, the SpawnMasons were involved in a significant community controversy. Two adult members of the group met up with a minor at a bar, later taking her to International House Of Pancakes and then spending time inside her house.

Community members approached members of the Masons asking for an explanation. They were immediately banned from community discords administrated by masons and group members attempted to cover for the two members with alternative versions of the truth.

At about the same time, there were members of the SpawnMasons who were upset about how the group handled the situation. In particular, how members were still able to retain their leadership positions and membership, despite alternate versions of the truth being given and the clear photographic evidence posted to the Mason private discord.

This led to a member of the Masons leaking to coordinates of Skymasons (a large megabase created by the group) to the Fifth Column, resulting in its destruction on October 5th 2022. A video was released by Fifth Column member Bezopasan on October 10th 2022 which included photos of senior members at the minors’ house and audio recordings of Spawn Mason members defending why the behaviour was acceptable.

Meetings
The SpawnMasons gather weekly on Saturday to conduct a meeting. Most meetings are held in-game in a lodge — a space created to host a meeting — but some are held in well-known locations. These lodges are often destroyed after use, but some of the more impressive lodges have remained. The destruction of lodges is symbolic and honours the Builder's Dilemma.

Relations
The SpawnMasons have no official stance on any group; they largely operate independently of other groups.