Gavadel's OOC Blog

The Band is Dead... Long live my retainers.

2010-10-27T08:46:00.000-07:00

The Band is dead, it was wiped out by that pesky POEE who sent them all to their doom in Exoma. I could have reconstructed the Band but after spending a weekend building up a nice decent sized group (Was about 10 men all told). I just didn't have the heart and as mentioned in an earlier post I gave up on followers. Just me, Fledge and Ruby. As a Knight however I've decided to take up the minimum once more, a squire Leah has joined our ranks and a yeoman, Uradan who'll hold my banner He has to level first, Bannerman are notoriously hard to level up once they start holding the banner. A couple of pegasi for them and that's it. So just the four of us. It isn't the Band reborn or anything I'm taking my skillset elsewhere these days, and I'm not pouring my heart into trying to make the small group work.

It will be easier to manage though.

Gav

RL Stuff (for a change)

2010-10-17T16:43:00.000-07:00

I'm not around much, I won't be around playing properly except maybe on sundays and the odd hour during the week.

The plan is to get married in 2012, on my current income and the fact the Missus still has a few years to go before she qualifies as a psychologist we can't really afford it. But I'm in my thirties and I think this being the right woman and all I really should start getting a move on. I got an offer from the hostel I used to run a few years back to come back. I explained I was teaching and didn't want or plan to leave that job, so the owner offered me a part-time manager position and a 5 percent share of the company if I manage to stop the occupancy figures going into free-fall and get the rates back to 2005 levels. I spoke to Her Indoors about it and she also wanting to get married in 2012 agreed that we should make the sacrifice. So on an average week my timetable is something like this:

1pm Wake up
2pm Go to school, prepare lessons
3pm-9pm Teach
9.30pm-3am Manage the hostel, mainly web marketing and the like, with some managerial stuff thrown in.
4am Home
5/6am depending on how wired I am, sleep.

Except on a saturday where I have the school off, so I do 3pm-1am at the hostel.

We're still seeing if I'm able to keep up the schedule but I've managed to the last couple of weeks. I'll make up my mind at the end of the month. My regular job is enough to pay the bills, but considering I only get paid 9 months of the year, it isn't enough to save up for a wedding with.

Wedding aside, I will see if I can throw the odd donation LS's way over the course of the year anyway.

The War Ended...

2010-10-17T16:16:00.000-07:00

Pretty much. Though with the odd dig, occasional comment or rudeness it does seem that my declaration of it has made Porph go from neutral/sometimes good to hostile in my direction. There were promises of forcing the end of Gavadel (via yog-sothoth) if I didn't concede defeat, via life eating if I was found idle and various insults to my intelligence. And I do concede I'm not a player of the mechanics of the game. I said the war ended if Porph apologised for destroying the Band, which she actually did, though some more insults were thrown just after too (I think that's where the stupid comment came in). There was an unrelated incident yesterday whilst me and Dyne were idle, though Porph says she didn't sacrifice my stuff, someone did (I believe her actually), though she did sac Dyne's. Which seems to me as just mean.

It has forced me to take Gavadel in a new direction, before I was willing to let power slide by me, now I'm actively searching for it. There'll probably be a leavetaking in Corna (not like that association ever did me any good) and I'll try and rejoin the Wandslingers. There are a few other avenues open to me but I'll keep those to myself.

The Band is officially disbanded, though a smaller Band will probably crop up at some point with the bare minimal. Ruburnel and a Squire. I have a few stored in Fledge but I think even Nerus will be let go at this point, donation or no. Gav's going in a new direction. He needs reinvention every so often, though this time, without losing Fledge.

On a related note: Why don't Knights have access to combat maneuvers?

Round 2

2010-10-02T17:25:00.000-07:00

A different scenario from Round 1, rather than a straight fight I chased Porphyria around Camelot for at least... half an hour maybe more. Definitely got the feeling I was being the mouse in the game rather than the cat. Eventually Porph seemed to get tired of my chasing her and went in for the kill. I didn't last long after that. It's hard to hit someone who's invisible which didn't help. It was fun, but this time Porph went straight to destroying my stuff somehow. So no treasure hunt this time for my stuff and had to use guild equipment to help the Losthaven Guard in their fight against Shub-Niggurath. So... died to Porphyria but /did/ manage to help Venar, Dyne and Morgana at one point fight an Elder God. And defeat him. Venar's gift of Heavensfire during the fight went a long way.

The war continues...

Defeating Ahrikol

2010-09-30T09:41:00.001-07:00

Well, it was mostly Rylar, and I did die during the first phase, but I was back in action for the second, not that it last long. Rylar is probably the finest swordsman in the realm.

Round 1

2010-09-28T15:39:00.001-07:00

I expect other rounds to go much the same way, but... I lasted longer than I expected even if I didn't scratch Porph... still. Here's the log:

Dekan joins Squire Polyalu in battle against Chukka.
Wedge joins Squire Polyalu in battle against Chukka.
You sense that someone has committed violence against Hanoma and the
natural order that it expresses.
The area goes dark.
Someone flies in from the south.
Someone closes its eyes.
Someone opens its eyes.
A massive wave of force bursts outward from someone.
Aglox is smashed violently.
Frudkiss is smashed violently.
Frudkiss's right arm is broken.
Frudkiss's black iron battleaxe is torn from his grasp.
Frudkiss drops his black iron battleaxe.
Frudkiss's left arm is broken.
Frudkiss's right hand is torn off.
Frudkiss's left hand is torn off.
Frudkiss's right leg is broken.
Frudkiss's left leg is broken.
Frudkiss's right foot is torn off.
Frudkiss's left foot is torn off.
Squire Polyalu is blasted devastatingly.
Squire Polyalu has been stunned.
Dekan is smashed violently.
Dekan has been stunned.
Colonel Ruburnel is blasted devastatingly, though he resists the attack
slightly.
Colonel Ruburnel has been stunned.
Wedge is blasted devastatingly.
Wedge has been stunned.
You are smashed violently, though you resist the attack slightly.
You have been stunned by the pain and trauma.
The world goes silent.
Your body goes numb.
You feel sluggish.
You do not see a someone here.
Fledge Shieldbreaker is thumped.
Throglith is pummelled.
Throglith has been stunned.
Druzgorth is smashed violently.
Druzgorth has been stunned.
Hakord is blasted devastatingly.
Hakord has been stunned.
Chukka is smashed violently.
Chukka has been stunned.
Hubad is blasted devastatingly.
Hubad has been stunned.
Fledge Shieldbreaker kicks at Chukka with her right hindhoof, connects
adequately and wallops Chukka's head, chest, and left leg.
Chukka snarls and charges Fledge Shieldbreaker.
Fledge Shieldbreaker kicks at Chukka with her left hindhoof, connects well
and wallops Chukka's head and chest.
Fledge Shieldbreaker connects solidly and gnashes on Chukka's head with
her mouth.
Fledge Shieldbreaker connects adequately and crushes Chukka's head
brutally with her left forehoof.
Chukka dies.
You have gained thirty-two experience.
Someone connects with superb precision and impales Fledge Shieldbreaker's
head with its glowing-blue-haloed hyperium armblade.
Someone connects reasonably well and bashes Fledge Shieldbreaker's head
with its left hand.
Someone connects with superb precision and thumps Fledge Shieldbreaker's
lower right wing with its right hand.
[ Spirit: 1100.2/1260.6 Endurance: 2308.4/2753.1 Speed: 38 ]
Something spasms as if in great pain.
Something's something is torn from its grasp.
Something spasms as if in great pain.
Something spasms as if in great pain.
[ Spirit: 1112.2/1260.6 Endurance: 2341/2753.1 Speed: 38 ]
Your hearing returns.
Someone reverberates, |- N'gai thrkthuu thooomooou Cthugha, ia, n'yah bhee
niebhubh eaw an raihooo, ia, wie eathooo, raishaf feeiebh ooona, ia ia ia! -|
in Ngaathgl.
Something bursts into flame.
Something bursts into flame.
Something bursts[092910120318am1;33m into flame.
Something bursts into flame.
Something bursts into flame.
You hear a massive boom.
You hear a thud.
You hear a thud.
Something's right arm is torn off.
Something's something is torn from it.
Something's left arm is torn off.
Something's something are torn from it.
Something's right leg is torn off.
Something's left leg is torn off.
You hear a thud.
Something's right hand is torn off.
Something's left hand is torn off.
Something's right foot is torn off.
Something's left foot is torn off.
You hear a thud.
Something's right wing is torn off.
Something's left wing is torn off.
You hear a thud.
Something is torn from something's grasp.
Something drops something.
You hear a thud.
Something's right wing is torn off.
Something's left wing is torn off.
You hear a thud.
The world goes silent.
Something's something is torn from its grasp.
Something's right hand is torn off.
Something's left hand is torn off.
Something's right foot is torn off.
Something's left foot is torn off.
Something's something is torn from its grasp.
Something's something is torn from its grasp.
[ Spirit: 1112.2/1260.6 Endurance: 2334.9/2753.1 Speed: 37 ]
Something's right hand is sliced off.
The flames on something continue to burn.
Something's something are torn from it.
Something's left foreleg and left forehoof are blown off.
Something's left forehoof is blown off.
You feel a piece of yourself being torn away as you lose empathic contact
with your familiar.
You have been stunned.
You feel a piece of yourself being torn away as you lose empathic contact
with your familiar.
You have been stunned.
You feel very despondent.
[ Spirit: 803.2/1244.1 Endurance: 2324.1/2742.3 Speed: 37 ]
Something's something is torn from its grasp.
Something's something is torn from its grasp.
Something's something is torn from its grasp.
Something's something is torn from its grasp.
[ Spirit: 800.5/1244.1 Endurance: 2318.7/2742.3 Speed: 33 ]
Something's right hand is sliced off.
Sensation returns to your body.
Something appears in a splash of sizzling liquid.
[ Spirit: 800.5/1244.1 Endurance: 2313.3/2742.3 Speed: 33 Head:
161.6/213.9 Chest: 230.5/470.5 ]
You connect reasonably well and slice something's left arm with your
something.
You don't know how to 'hmhm'.
> [ Spirit: 800.5/1244.1 Endurance: 2307.2/2742.3 Speed: 33 Head:
161.6/213.9 Chest: 230.5/470.5 ]
You connect precisely and cleave something's right arm with your
something, despite its attempt to dodge.
You feel less sluggish.
Your hearing returns.
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
Your wounds heal.
You are free of disease.
> > Something snarls with rage.
[ Spirit: 533.4/1244.1 Endurance: 2301.8/2742.3 Speed: 44 Head: 213.9
Chest: 470.5 ]
You connect with remarkable precision and mutilate something's right leg
with your something, despite its attempt to dodge.
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
You are free of disease and are uninjured.
You believe that the thing has found a weakness in your chest.
Something connects reasonably well and rakes your chest with its left
hand.
> A massive wave of force bursts outward from something.
You hear a thud.
You are pounded, though you resist the attack slightly.
The world goes silent.
You feel sluggish.
Something's right hand is torn off.
Something's left hand is torn off.
Something's right foot is torn off.
Something's left foot is torn off.
Something's right arm is torn off.
Something's something is torn from it.
Something's left hand is torn off.
Something's right foot is torn off.
Something's left foot is torn off.
[ Spirit: 533.4/1244.1 Endurance: 2297.1/2742.3 Speed: 43 Head:
213.6/213.9 Chest: 414.5/470.5 ]
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
Your wounds heal.
You are free of disease.
Something barely connects and claws your left arm with its right hand,
despite your attempt to deflect it with something.
You feel less sluggish.
Your hearing returns.
[ Spirit: 502/1244.1 Endurance: 2296.4/2742.3 Speed: 44 Head: 213.9
Chest: 470.5 ]
You connect precisely and slice something's right foot with your
something, despite its attempt to deflect it with its right hand.
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
Your wounds heal.
You are free of disease.
> > [ Spirit: 497.5/1244.1 Endurance: 2291/2742.3 Speed: 44 Head: 213.9
Chest: 470.5 ]
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
You are free of disease and are uninjured.
Someone reverberates, |- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wagn'nagl
fhtagn! -| in Ngaathgl.
Something's eyes take on a dull, listless look.
You take a couple of somethings with your right hand.
> You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
You are free of disease and are uninjured.
> [ Spirit: 487.5/1244.1 Endurance: 2328.3/2742.3 Speed: 44 Head: 213.9
Chest: 470.5 ]
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
You are free of disease and are uninjured.
> Someone reverberates, |- Apooollooo... Delian... cooome... tooo... my...
succooor... Apooollooo... Pythian... aid... me... against my foooes!
Apooollooo... Phoooebus... I... call... ooon... the... might... ooof the...
shining... sun! -| in lugubriously-accented Graecan.
[ Spirit: 487.5/1244.1 Endurance: 2327.5/2742.3 Speed: 44 Head: 213.9
Chest: 470.5 ]
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
You are free of disease and are uninjured.
> [ Spirit: 487.5/1244.1 Endurance: 2326.8/2742.3 Speed: 44 Head: 213.9
Chest: 470.5 ]
You connect skillfully and mutilate something's chest with your something,
despite its attempt to deflect it with its right hand.
[ Spirit: 487.5/1244.1 Endurance: 2321.4/2742.3 Speed: 44 Head: 213.9
Chest: 470.5 ]
You connect quite skillfully and slash something's chest with your
something, despite its attempt to deflect it with its right hand.
You connect with remarkable precision and cleave something's chest with
your something, despite its attempt to deflect it with its left hand.
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
You are free of disease and are uninjured.
> [ Spirit: 486.5/1244.1 Endurance: 2311.3/2742.3 Speed: 44 Head: 213.9
Chest: 470.5 ]
Someone reverberates, |- war... -| in lugubriously-accented Anglic.
[ Spirit: 483.8/1244.1 Endurance: 2311.3/2742.3 Speed: 44 Head: 213.9
Chest: 470.5 ]
You connect with remarkable precision and mutilate something's right leg
with your something, despite its attempt to deflect it with its right hand.
You connect adequately and cleave something's left leg with your
something, despite its attempt to deflect it with its left hand.
Something leers at you hungrily.
A massive wave of force bursts outward from something.
You hear a thud.
You are pummelled, though you resist the attack slightly.
The world goes silent.
Your body goes numb.
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
You are free of disease.
> [ Spirit: 426.6/1244.1 Endurance: 2302/2742.3 Speed: 44 ]
Your hearing returns.
You hear a thud.
You hear a thud.
You hear a swish.
You hear a thud.
You growl.
> [ Spirit: 426.6/1244.1 Endurance: 2335.4/2742.3 Speed: 44 ]
You hear a swish.
You hear a swish.
Sensation returns to your body.
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
You are free of disease and are uninjured.
> You hear a thud.
You hear a thud.
You hear a swish.
You hear a thud.
You hear a thud.
[ Spirit: 426.6/1244.1 Endurance: 2326.1/2742.3 Speed: 44 Head: 213.9
Chest: 470.5 ]
You feel energy flowing from your something into you.
The setting on your something turns white.
> You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
You are free of disease and are uninjured.
> You hear a thud.
You hear a swish.
You hear a thud.
You hear a thud.
You hear a swish.
[ Spirit: 676.6/1244.1 Endurance: 2326.1/2742.3 Speed: 44 Head: 213.9
Chest: 470.5 ]
You hear a swish.
Something's head is sliced off.
You hear a thud.
You hear a thud.
You hear a swish.
You hear a thud.
[ Spirit: 673.8/1266.7 Endurance: 2325.4/2681.4 Speed: 44 Head: 209.1
Chest: 460.1 ]
You connect with remarkable precision and carve something's right hand up
with your something.
You connect with remarkable precision and mutilate something's left leg
with your something.
Someone reverberates, |- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh... Cthulhu R'lyeh...
wagn'nagl... fhtagn... -| in Ngaathgl.
You are struck by a hideously painful telepathic assault, a wave of
psychic force with a feeling of cold, inhuman remoteness behind it.
You have been stunned by the pain and trauma.
You hear a swish.
You hear a thud.
You hear a swish.
[ Spirit: 673.8/1266.7 Endurance: 2316.1/2676.1 Speed: 44 Head:
189/208.9 Chest: 400/459.5 ]
You connect with remarkable precision and mutilate something's chest with
your something.
You connect reasonably well and cleave something's right leg with your
something.
You have gained forty-seven experience.
Your command has been queued for after you recover from being stunned.
> Something connects with remarkable precision and cleaves your right arm
with its something, despite your attempt to deflect it with something.
[ Spirit: 673.8/1266.7 Endurance: 2303/2676.1 Speed: 44 Head: 189/208.9
Chest: 400/459.5 ]
Someone reverberates, |- Rus... Ibied... hoooa... wuf... humoooa... oooest
fnooord... oooenlige... rus... ooonf... rooos... figoooam... ooor re
toooataet... Wooo... fnooord... tael... -| in Erisian.
> Something warbles incoherently.
Something connects skillfully and slashes your head with its something,
despite your attempt to deflect it with something.
The world goes silent.
[ Spirit: 673.8/1266.7 Endurance: 2294.6/2676.1 Speed: 44 Head:
177.9/208.9 Chest: 400/459.5 ]
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
Your wounds heal.
You are free of disease.
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
You are free of disease and are uninjured.
An obscene black tendril emerges from something's mouth and squirms its
way through the air toward you.
Upon reaching you, the black tendril thrusts deeply into your chest,
performing a disgusting peristaltic sucking motion.
You experience hideous, wracking pain as the black tendril attempts to
suck out both your innards and your lifeforce.
You have been stunned.
You feel sluggish.
You resist the attack slightly.
Something connects with remarkable precision and wallops your head with
its left hand, though you resist the attack slightly.
You have been stunned.
Something connects quite skillfully and slashes your head and chest with
its something.
Something connects with remarkable precision and bashes your head with its
left hand, though you resist the attack slightly.
You feel more sluggish.
[ Spirit: 594.4/1266.7 Endurance: 2290/2658.5 Speed: 26 Head:
183.8/207.7 Chest: 6.3/457 ]
Your wounds are too severe to fight.
You attempt to flee southward, but cannot.
A massive wave of force bursts outward from something.
You believe that the thing has found a weakness in your left hand.
You are pummelled, though you resist the attack slightly.
You have been mortally wounded and will die soon if not aided.
Your body goes numb.
You feel more sluggish.
Your command has been queued for after you recover from being stunned.
> Something connects skillfully and slices your head with its something,
despite your attempt to deflect it with something.
[ Spirit: 591.7/1266.7 Endurance: 2325.5/2658.5 Speed: 24 ]
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
You are free of disease.
> A black haze spreads over the area.
The black haze vanishes.
Something connects well and slashes your chest with its something.
Something connects with remarkable precision and crushes your head
brutally with its right hand, though you resist the attack slightly.
Something connects with remarkable precision and bashes your head with its
left hand, though you resist the attack slightly.
[ Spirit: 410.2/1266.7 Endurance: 2312.9/2658.5 Speed: 26 ]
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
You are free of disease.
Sensation returns to your body.
> > > Something connects well and perforates your head and chest with its
something.
Something connects precisely and bashes your head with its left hand,
though you resist the attack slightly.
Something connects quite skillfully and skewers your head with its
something.
Something connects with remarkable precision and slashes your head and
chest with its something.
Something connects precisely and cleaves your head and chest with its
something.
You feel more sluggish.
[ Spirit: 397.2/1266.7 Endurance: 2312.9/2658.5 Speed: 26 Head:
169.5/207.7 Chest: 368.1/457 ]
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
Your wounds heal.
You are free of disease.
> Something connects adequately and broils your right leg with its atrophied
right upper midleg.
Something connects adequately and burns your right arm with its atrophied
right upper midleg.
Something kicks at you with its huge right upper midfoot, connects
reasonably well and smashes your left leg, though you resist the attack
slightly.
Something connects well and slashes your left leg with its something.
Something connects with superb precision and crushes your left leg
brutally with its left hand, though you resist the attack slightly.
Something connects with superb precision and carves your head up with its
something.
Your body goes numb.
You feel more sluggish.
Something connects with superb precision and pounds your head with its
left hand, though you resist the attack slightly.
[ Spirit: 365.4/1266.7 Endurance: 2312.9/2658.5 Speed: 26 ]
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
You are free of disease.
> Something connects adequately and impales your chest with its rocky right
mid chest.
Something connects precisely and impales your head with its something.
Something connects reasonably well and bashes your head with its left
hand, though you resist the attack slightly.
Something connects precisely and slashes your right arm and right hand
with its something.
Something connects skillfully and slashes your chest with its something.
Something connects precisely and thumps your left leg with its right hand,
though you resist the attack slightly.
[ Spirit: 333.3/1266.7 Endurance: 2312.9/2658.5 Speed: 26 ]
You sense that the thing has been completely drained of energy.
> > Something connects reasonably well and dissolves your left arm with its
hypertrophied scaly left lower mid head.
Something connects adequately and mauls your left leg with its gigantic
chitinous upper hindhand.
Something connects reasonably well and wallops your head with its left
hand, though you resist the attack slightly.
You feel more sluggish.
Something connects with remarkable precision and carves your head up with
its something.
[ Spirit: 330.5/1266.7 Endurance: 2312.9/2658.5 Speed: 26 ]
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
You are free of disease.
Sensation returns to your body.
You are struck by a hideously painful telepathic assault, a wave of
psychic force with a feeling of cold, inhuman remoteness behind it.
You have been stunned by the pain and trauma.
> Something connects skillfully and slashes your right arm with its
something.
Something connects with remarkable precision and cleaves your head with
its something.
You feel more sluggish.
Something connects with superb precision and mutilates your chest with its
something.
[ Spirit: 274.1/1266.7 Endurance: 2312.9/2649.7 Speed: 24 Head:
144.8/207.1 Chest: 285.4/455.6 ]
> Something connects precisely and pokes your head and chest with its
something, despite your attempt to deflect it with something.
Something connects well and wallops your head with its left hand, despite
your attempt to deflect it with something, though you resist the attack
slightly.
Something connects precisely and wallops your left arm with its right
hand, despite your attempt to deflect it with something, though you resist the
attack slightly.
[ Spirit: 274.1/1266.7 Endurance: 2343.8/2649.7 Speed: 23 Head:
124.8/207.1 Chest: 297.7/455.6 ]
> Something connects by the slimmest of margins and slices your head with
its something, despite your attempt to deflect it with something.
Your body goes numb.
You feel your knowledge of rings of stupidity, potions of minor healing,
and the Valathyr square and some of your knowledge of memory and mineral lore
slip away, along with more that even now eludes you.
Something connects skillfully and cleaves your chest with its something,
despite your attempt to deflect it with something.
[ Spirit: 274.1/1266.7 Endurance: 2337.1/2649.7 Speed: 24 ]
Something connects by the slimmest of margins and skewers your head with
its something, despite your attempt to deflect it with something.
Something connects precisely and crushes your head brutally with its left
hand, despite your attempt to deflect it with something, though you resist the
attack slightly.
Sensation returns to your body.
You burst into flame.
> A massive wave of force bursts outward from something.
You believe that the thing has found a weakness in your left hand.
You are pounded, though you resist the attack slightly.
> A globule of acid spurts from out of the air onto your left leg,
connecting well and giving it acid burns, despite your attempt to deflect it
with something.
A blob of acid spurts from out of the air onto your chest, barely
connecting and blackening it, despite your attempt to deflect it with
something.
A jet of vitriol streams from out of the air onto your chest, right arm,
and right hand, connecting adequately and giving them caustic burns, despite
your attempt to deflect it with something.
A blob of alkali spurts from out of the air onto your chest, barely
connecting and deliquescing it, despite your attempt to deflect it with
something.
A torrent of alkali erupts from out of the air over your chest, right arm,
right hand, and right leg, catching you in the heart of the thing and giving
them alkali burns, despite your attempt to dodge.
A jet of alkali streams from out of the air onto your chest, connecting
fairly well and blackening it.
A globule of alkali spurts from out of the air onto your head, connecting
well and deliquescing it.
A blast of acid explodes from out of the air into your chest and right
arm, catching you in a quite sizable part of the thing and giving them acid
burns.
A blob of vitriol spurts from out of the air onto your right arm,
connecting with remarkable precision and blackening it.
A blast of alkali explodes from out of the air into your chest, legs, and
right foot, catching you in a quite sizable part of the thing and giving them
alkali burns.
You believe that the thing has found a weakness in your left hand.
A geyser of alkali shoots from out of the air into your left arm and left
hand, connecting quite skillfully and blackening them.
A jet of alkali streams from out of the air onto your chest, connecting
precisely and deliquescing it.
A jet of acid streams from out of the air onto your chest, connecting
precisely and deliquescing it.
A globule of vitriol spurts from out of the air onto your left foot,
connecting reasonably well and giving it cau[092910120430ammstic burns.
A jet of alkali streams from out of the air onto your right arm and right
hand, connecting skillfully and deliquescing them.
You believe that the thing has found a weakness in your left hand.
A blob of acid spurts from out of the air onto your left arm and left
hand, connecting well and giving them acid burns.
> [ Spirit: 274.1/1266.7 Endurance: 2324.4/2649.7 Speed: 18 Head:
55/207.1 Chest: 146.4/455.6 ]
The flames on you continue to burn.
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
Your wounds heal.
You are free of disease.
Something connects adequately and tears into your chest with its huge
upper hind mid head.
Something throws an uppercut at you with its gigantic chitinous upper
hindhand, connects indifferently and wallops your head, though you resist the
attack slightly.
Something barely connects and blackens your chest with its hypertrophied
rocky right fore lower wing.
Something connects reasonably well and scorche[092910120431amms your chest with its
gigantic right fore lower midtail.
> A bolt of lightning leaps from something's left hand toward you, connects
well and electrocutes your chest.
You have been stunned by the pain and trauma.
[ Spirit: 3.1/1266.7 Endurance: 2324.4/2649.7 Speed: 26 Head:
191.2/207.1 Chest: 339.5/455.6 ]
The flames on you continue to burn.
You believe that the thing has found a weakness in your left hand.
Something connects well and wallops your head with its left hand, despite
your attempt to deflect it with something, though you resist the attack
slightly.
Something connects precisely and cleaves your right arm with its
something, despite your attempt to deflect it with something.
> [ Spirit: 3.1/1270.1 Endurance: 2318.4/2651.4 Speed: 26 Head:
173.8/207.2 Chest: 328.1/455.8 ]
The flames on you continue to burn.
You believe that the thing has found a weakness in your left hand.
You sense that the thing has been completely drained of energy.
Something connects well and thumps your head with its left hand, despite
your attempt to deflect it with something, though you resist the attack
slightly.
Something connects with remarkable precision and wallops your head with
its left hand, despite your attempt to deflect it with something, though you
resist the attack slightly.
[ Spirit: 3.1/1270.1 Endurance: 2313.2/2651.4 Speed: 26 Head:
154.3/207.2 Chest: 317/455.8 ]
The flames on you continue to burn.
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
You are free of disease and do not have enough spiritual energy to heal
yourself.
Something punches at you with its gigantic chitinous upper hindhand,
connects indifferently and crushes your chest brutally, though you resist the
attack slightly.
Something connects reasonably well and deliquesces your left leg with its
hypertrophied rocky right fore lower wing.
Something connects adequately and blackens your chest with its
hypertrophied scaly left lower mid head.
Something connects well and slices your head and chest with its something.
Something connects quite skillfully and thumps your head with its left
hand, though you resist the attack slightly.
You feel more sluggish.
Something connects with superb precision and wallops your chest with its
left hand, though you resist the attack slightly.
Something connects fairly well and nicks your head with its something.
[ Spirit: 3.1/1270.1 Endurance: 2308.5/2651.4 Speed: 26 Head:
143.2/207.2 Chest: 258.4/455.8 ]
You believe that the thing has found a weakness in your left hand.
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
You are free of disease and do not have enough spiritual energy to heal
yourself.
Something barely connects and rakes your left arm with its gigantic
chitinous upper hindhand.
Something barely connects and gnashes on your right arm with its huge
upper hind mid head.
Something connects with remarkable precision and cleaves your head with
its something.
You have been stunned by the pain and trauma.
Something connects fairly well and wallops your head with its right hand,
though you resist the attack slightly.
Something connects quite skillfully and crushes your head brutally with
its left hand, though you resist the attack slightly.
Something connects with remarkable precision and slices your head with its
something.
> > [ Spirit: 3.1/1270.1 Endurance: 2308.5/2651.4 Speed: 24 Head:
72.5/207.2 Chest: 248.3/455.8 ]
The flames on you continue to burn.
You believe that the thing has found a weakness in your left hand.
Something connects with remarkable precision and skewers your head with
its something, despite your attempt to deflect it with something.
You feel more sluggish.
Something connects with remarkable precision and cleaves your chest with
its something, despite your attempt to deflect it with something.
Something connects indifferently and impales your head with its something,
despite your attempt to deflect it with something.
Something stares at you in concentration.
Something stares at you in concentration.
Something stares at you in concentration.
Something stares at you in concentration.
[ Endurance: 2181.8/2649.7 Speed: 23 Head: 26.8/207.1 Chest:
220.1/455.6 ]
You believe that the thing has found a weakness in your left hand.
You sense that the thing has been completely drained of energy.
Something connects indifferently and perforates your right arm and right
hand with its rocky right mid chest.
Something kicks at you with its huge right upper midfoot, connects
reasonably well and wallops your right leg, though you resist the attack
slightly.
Something stares at you in concentration.
> Something stares at you in concentration.
[ Endurance: 2120.3/2649.7 Speed: 21 Head: 23.8/207.1 Chest: 211/455.6
]
You believe that the thing has found a weakness in your left hand.
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
You are free of disease and do not have enough spiritual energy to heal
yourself.
Something ejaculates a gout of fire on you, singing you.
Something throws an uppercut at you with its gigantic chitinous upper
hindhand, barely connects and bashes your chest, though you resist the attack
slightly.
You believe that the thing has found a weakness in your left hand.
Something connects well and pokes your left arm and left hand with its
something.
Something stares at you in concentration.
> [ Endurance: 2123.2/2649.7 Speed: 20 Head: 23.4/207.1 Chest:
206.3/455.6 ]
The flames on you continue to burn.
You believe that the thing has found a weakness in your left hand.
You call out to Yehovah, who envelops your body with healing waves of
energy.
You are free of disease and do not have enough spiritual energy to heal
yourself.
Something throws an uppercut at you with its gigantic chitinous upper
hindhand, connects reasonably well and bashes your chest, though you resist
the attack slightly.
Something connects adequately and gnashes on your left leg with its huge
upper hind mid head.
Something connects indifferently and gnashes on your right leg with its
huge upper hind mid head.
Something connects skillfully and perforates your head and chest with its
something.
Something connects well and cleaves your head with its something.
Something connects well and wallops your chest with its left hand, though
you resist the attack slightly.
Your body fails to obey you.
> The thing falls to the ground.
You sense a blatant hostile telepathic contact which something had
established with you closing down.
The internal energies maintaining your enhanced physique fade away.
A slight tingling sensation that had spread throughout your body fades.
Your mind feels dull and slow.
This something is your sacred trust, and may only be relinquished to
another Knight or returned to the armoury.
This something is your sacred trust, and may only be relinquished to
another Knight or returned to the armoury.
This something is your sacred trust, and may only be relinquished to
another Knight or returned to the armoury.
This something is your sacred trust, and may only be relinquished to
another Knight or returned to the armoury.
This something is your sacred trust, and may only be relinquished to
another Knight or returned to the armoury.
This something is your sacred trust, and may only be relinquished to
another Knight or returned to the armoury.
This something is your sacred trust, and may only be relinquished to
another Knight or returned to the armoury.
This something is your sacred trust, and may only be relinquished to
another Knight or returned to the armoury.
This something is your sacred trust, and may only be relinquished to
another Knight or returned to the armoury.
This something is your sacred trust, and may only be relinquished to
another Knight or returned to the armoury.
This something is your sacred trust, and may only be relinquished to
another Knight or returned to the armoury.
This something is your sacred trust, and may only be relinquished to
another Knight or returned to the armoury.
This something is your sacred trust, and may only be relinquished to
another Knight or returned to the armoury.
This something is your sacred trust, and may only be relinquished to
another Knight or returned to the armoury.
This something is your sacred trust, and may only be relinquished to
another Knight or returned to the armoury.
This something is your sacred trust, and may only be relinquished to
another Knight or returned to the armoury.
This something is your sacred trust, and may only be relinquished to
another Knight or returned to the armoury.
This something is your sacred trust, and may only be relinquished to
another Knight or returned to the armoury.
This something is your sacred trust, and may only be relinquished to
another Knight or returned to the armoury.
This something is your sacred trust, and may only be relinquished to
another Knight or returned to the armoury.
This something is your sacred trust, and may only be relinquished to
another Knight or returned to the armoury.
Your something is of great sentimental value to you. You think twice
about parting with it.
Your something is of great sentimental value to you. You think twice
about parting with it.
Your something is of great sentimental value to you. You think twice
about parting with it.
You die.
The flames on you flicker out.
You feel yourself floating away from your body.
You cannot see anything.
You begin to float in the air.
You declare, (%\ WAR! /%)

Sir Ruburnel

2010-09-28T13:53:00.000-07:00

He wasn't happy with my plans for him to be an angel. He's a bit too down to earth for that, so Criss went. Instead he wants to focus on being the best swordsman the Knights Templar have ever seen. As an almost unheard of eleventh level swordsman he decided he wanted to take that to the next level. Hearing legends of those bonded with the heron being the best blades he's pursued that further with bonding one. Let's see if his prowess with the blade increases...

Some Day...

2010-09-27T13:59:00.000-07:00

It's my own fault really. Started watching some Terry Pratchett on one screen whilst I had LS on the other. And I fell asleep. Outside LH. Then the POEE Amygala (better known as Porph) comes along, twists her fingers and does some jiggledypicklety and the reformed full size Band is sent to Exoma. Only me, my squire and a pegasus survive. Fledge and Ruby of course rejoined us and I have some of the others under the charm. But I'm not summoning them back or reforming the Band. Cos I've sworn revenge on Porph. I don't know how, where or when. But she's got it coming.

Takes ages to get the friggin Band to full strength. And I hate stuff that screws over the Band without any chance of doing something about it.

Developer

2010-08-02T21:04:00.000-07:00

They made me a Dev... fools!!! hahahahahahahaha

Fall of the Altrian Empire

2010-07-19T18:36:00.000-07:00

I wrote this a while back when I went through a phase of wanting to write something for the history of Lost Souls. It would need to be majorly reworked to fit in with the current maps and some fo the latest updates and it's completely unofficial. Also it was written and typed up over the space of three days and I haven't gotten around to copy-editing it since then. But... enjoy.

The Fall of the Altrian Empire – A Summary.

Sire, I do wish you would find the time to read all twelve volumes, however at your command I have had one of my students, Gavadel of Amber write up a summary of the most important events and some interpretations as you commanded. – Your obedient servant Hardrad of Jhan

Summaries

Volume 1 Foundation and Growth

The Altrian Empire was the last and greatest of the civilisations Aedaris has ever seen. The Istax Empire and the Bubasti Kingdom were centuries dead when Prince Aleksandr of Altri dreamed his dream of One Hand guiding the destiny of the peoples of Almeria. One Emperor, One Justice, serving the highest to the lowest. On the Field of Dorian he took that first step towards that dream and the Altrian Empire was born.

For six and a half centuries the Empire grew, until it enfolded all the Northlands, Almeria and Avalon. Elves, dwarves, phaethon, humans, yeti, deryni and others were included in it’s populace. Her two military forces, the Knights of the Emperor’s Hand and the Knights of the Emperor’s Fist were welcomed everywhere as keepers of the peace and the heralds of justice. The Knight’s of the Palm were charged with the protection of every citizen and traveller within the Golden Land and for the first two centuries fought long and hard in keeping the goblin and orc hordes in check. The Knight’s of the Emperor’s Fist were his shock troops, used for policing the borders and along with the Imperial Guard in taking the battle to Altria’s enemies. Banditry steadily decreased and eventually kept to almost zero, first because of the risk in confronting the Knight’s of the Palm and secondly because conditions within the Empire improved to the point that few had need to take up that risky trade.

The first three centuries of the Empire are now seen as the period of real vitality. The dream was still fresh, the people believed in Aleksandr’s vision and even those who were conquered found their lives were better under the protection of the Golden Throne and the first Emperor’s dream of Justice were more than just hollow words. This time was the finest hour of the Knights of the Fist and saw their Grand Master as one of the Emperor’s closest advisors. However even during the Empire’s birth, the seeds were sown that eventually would lead to her destruction.

Volume 2 Discordianism and the Deryni

Although no direct connection has ever been made, it is curious that two of the most direct reasons that led to the Empire’s destruction were both first recorded during the third century of the Empire’s growth and both within twenty years of one another. Worship of Eris by humanity can be traced back millennia however it is around AA 230 that there is confirmed evidence of an ‘organised’ discordianism, with a High Priestess and followers from all ranks of the Empire. It is important at this point to note that it can be dangerous to overstate the influence of Eris. Although widespread, the overall percentage of discordianism must be kept low, even if we double our suspected figures, it would still leave the vast majority of the Empire worshiping Tyr and Yehovah. Some other minor gods were also worshiped and during this period the Emperor Edwurd II encouraged religious tolerance. Fifty years after the first records of discordianism there is a court census which lists Berefin of House Mergriffon as a member of the Legion of Dynamic Discord shows that the Legion had already began to form by around AA 280 and included some nobility in it’s ranks.

The first confirmed existence of the deryni is from around AA 250 although it’s possible that they had been in existence for sometime beforehand and indeed it has long been suspected that Zoltar the Invincible was deryni rather than human and he had led Sanctuary in it’s battle against Aleksandr more than two centuries earlier. Some would go as far as to suggest that Zoltar was the first true deryni and point to evidence that the deryni first appear in region of Sanctuary two and a half centuries later although they soon spread throughout the Empire.

The biggest problem facing the deryni was their powerful gifts, fortunately perhaps for the human parents they are also a peaceloving people, yet their tremendous abilities would eventually instil fear and jealousy in their human kin. First and most noted in history of the age the deryni far outstripped their human kin in the magickal arts. Although some talented pure-strain humans could rival some of the deryni the greatest wielder of magicks were always the deryni themselves and they in time came to rival even the elves.

However the greatest gift of that race was (and is) their psychic abilities. Humanity have developed some psychic talents since time began it seems, however these gifts were sporadic at best and only a small percentage ever developed any of the these talents and fewer still developed them to any real strength. It seemed to be with the opposite with the deryni; it was a rare deryni indeed who didn’t develop at least one talent in his life time and most were far stronger than their human counterparts, some would even go on to develop two or even three talents, unheard of for humanity at large.

Fortunately in the first centuries of their existence their numbers were extremely low and they were little noticed within the Empire as a whole and when they were they were more than often only too happy to serve and train for the Emperor’s service for any of the roles for which they were suited, especially as Imperial Magicians.

Volume 3 Empire and Magicks.

Due to records kept by the elves we know that however skilled they would eventually become in the arts, it was a human, Hermes Trismegistos almost 47,000 years ago who first laid down the basic principles of magick, drawing upon energies inherent in the planar structure of our universe to produce wondrous effects. It is perhaps in the Order of the Winged Serpent that human magicians reached their peak in that art if the fractured stories and legends that have survived from the Graecan era are to be believed. Magick has been with humanity since before the beginnings of their own civilisations or records began.

However it is from the time of the late third and early fourth centuries of the Altrian Empire that ‘modern’ magick was born. Over the centuries some of the Hermetic Tradition had been taken and specialised from it’s original haphazard concepts into something more focussed and powerful which gave rise to the modern orders (modern in the sense of recent historically even if some of these ‘modern’ orders are no longer in existence).

In AA 310 these recently formed Orders of the various magick arts came together after four years of intensive negotiations at the behest of the Emperor Danyel I and his Court Enchanter Magius the Red to form the Conclave. The Conclave was created for the purpose of furthering magickal knowledge and presenting a common respectable front to non-mages. It was also charged with policing the magickal community, both those within the Order and without.

After the first century of their existence their influence stretched into all areas of the Empire and some of the greatest wonders of that Age (or any other) were created not by any one Order but by spells and artefacts that had these different magicks working together in unison. It should be noted that even during the founding era of the Conclave the deryni made up a higher than proportional numbers of the various magickal orders.

Volume 4 The Golden Age

Although the real vitality of the Empire were it’s first three centuries, the Golden Age of the Golden Throne was to be the next four. The empire continued to grow, albeit slowly, wars were rare and civil unrest even moreso. The Empire was undeniably a force for Good and Justice, embodied in it’s two military forces, the Knights of the Emperor’s Palm who worshipped Yehovah and the Knights of the Emperor’s First, followers of Tyr. Both proved a check on the other and together with the Conclave represented the most obvious manifestations of the Emperor’s will. This Golden Age was punctured only by the Thirteen Years of the Dragon and considering the sheer force of the threat it is a testament to the Conclave that their combined magicks were able to defeat her binding her under Centaur Isle. For the Conclave, after thirteen years of battle, failure, research, loss and experimentation it was their Golden Hour of this Golden Age.

The quality of life for the average citizen was also very high. The justice system put in place by Aleksandr I and refined by his successors was the wonder of any age where a farmer could hold a duke accountable to the law and win without any repercussions. Even Danyel III abdicated when charged and found guilty of a crime the records do no make clear. Magicks and Magickal devices, although still expensive were within the reach of even the commonest of men and if a citizen could read then cheaper still scrolls of power were available at low cost. Spells that would help with livestock, crops and illness. Their were scrolls to deal with any known disease or hurt save death and rumours were constant the Black magi were always close to discovering the secret of immortality.

Volume 5 The Rise of Discordianism

In AA 480 a petition was presented to the Emperor Elrik I for permission for the construction of a temple to Eris on the north east shores of the continent. Discordianism by now had friends in the highest ranks of the Emperor’s government and with minor political maneuvering the permission was given. In 500 the temple was constructed, giving the High Priestess a permanent home. The Legion of Dynamic Discord and later in 561 when the Paratheo-Anametamystikhood of Eris Esoteric were formed, made their bases of operations at the Temple. Throughout the sixth and seventh centuries the religion continues to spread throughout the empire and in the upper echelons of the nobility begins to rival that of Yehovah and Tyr. The Knights of the Emperor’s Palm manage to stay aloof from this inner corruption of their values, the Knights of the Emperor’s Fist slowly begins to succumb.

A this point in the seventh century the Empire ceases to expand although most of their major rivals have long since long since been subjugated there are still minor threats mainly from the raiders of Gardagh and under the will of Ahrikol the orcs and goblins began to multiply once more. The leadership of the Empire is more interested in sacrificing artefacts and animals in the name of Eris than governing the Empire and setting policy. Even when the region of Illefarn is over-run by orcs in AA 688 the response from the Empire is slow in coming and even with the mighty Battleragers part of the mighty city of Kolond is still taken and fortified by the orcs.

The machinery of the Empire is still strong and the foundations of the government well laid that it takes a few centuries before the decay becomes apparent to those both within the Empire and the enemies without.

Volume 6 The Knights of Purity

A pubescent boy unknowingly and unwittingly hastened the demise of the Empire by centuries if not a millennia or two. In AA 966 Aldan, a deryni youth at the onset of puberty visiting Altri to watch the wedding of the Heir Apparent had his talent awake as he was being violently jostled by a crowd that numbered in the hundreds of thousands. In the panic and in the fear of being crushed his latent talent awoke and subconsciously the youth tried to defend himself from the terror he saw closing in around him. Unfortunately for Aldan and all his kin, his latent talent was that of a firestarter and he was perhaps the most powerful in a generation, by the time the smoke cleared, over 3000 civilians were dead including the Heir Apparent to the Imperial Throne. The public backlash caught everyone by surprise and the riots in Altri especially left the Deryni Quarter of the city in flames, hundreds dead and a lingering desire to drive the deryni from their midst.

The most long-lasting effect of this massacre was the founding of the Knights of Purity, initially formed by Knights of the Palm and Knights of the Fist who had lost family and loved ones in the Aldan’s unwitting attack or during the riots that immediately followed that although saw mainly deryni die, many humans were also killed. Originally their mandate was to purge the deryni from the empire in recompense for this attack on Altri itself, but others were attracted to the Knights, including many nobles who felt that other non-human races had too much influence on the Emperor.

Even at the time of the backlash, one voice cried for public calm and time to understand what had truly happened before setting the Empire on such course, in order to learn from the mistake and make sure it would never happen again. That voice was Lord Aurelius Paendragon, Grand Master of the Knights of the Emperor’s Palm.

Volume 7 The Rings of Power

Almost five thousand years after the forging of the first three rings of power (now in control of the elves), Ahrikol made his second attempt in AA 972, and this time these new rings would answer to the Master Ring he himself wore. Emissaries were sent to all the major powers, except the elven nations and he offered the might inherent in these devices in exchange for servitude. His envoy dispatched to Altri approached Lord Aurelius Paendragon and Lord Morwin Melgriffon, Grand Master of the Knights of Purity. Morwin accepts the ring, originally hoping to cheat Ahrikol and use the ring to his own ends. Aurelius has the envoy arrested and executed.

Morwin subverts the other high-ranking officials within the Knights of Purity until the upper echelons are people only by Morwin and his Ringwielder Captains. With the aid of the ring he gains a wisdom and guile not inherent in his character which he uses to stand ever closer to the Emperor. Other wielders throughout the empire gain the power of the ring, but within a few decades even the strongest willed and purest of heart who accepted these devices have succumbed to the power of the Master Ring. Whole provinces of the Altrian Empire are now effectively under Ahrikol’s dominion. The rest of the Empire, with the possible exception of House Paendragon are blind to the subversion, their leadership distracted by the hedonistic rights in the name of Eris.

In AA 1000, during the celebrations for a millennium of Empire an elderly and ailing Aurelius Paendragon confronts Morwin in front of the Emperor on charges of sedition and treachery against the Golden Throne. Unable to prove these charges, he challenges a surprisingly youthful Morwin to single combat as two Knights should. The challenge is accepted and Aurelius even at his age and in his bad health put up a surprising fight. Even with the power of the Ring, Morwin found it difficult to defeat Yehovah’s Champion in single combat. However his immortality and the power of the ring eventually broke Aurelius’ sword and the old knight fell before Morwin’s blade. The Emperor intervened on behalf of Aurelius’ family which Morwin demanded should be executed, the Emperor instead exiled them to the small insignificant trading post of Losthaven. Several of the Knights of the Palm follow Aurelius’ son into exile.

Volume 8 Fall of the Conclave and the Witch-hunts.

For seven centuries the Conclave held together the different Orders of Magick, at least to the outside, as one Brotherhood. And indeed during the early centuries the greatest accomplishments from various artefacts of power to the binding of Tiamat were achieved by the Conclave working as a whole.

Even in the beginning though petty rivalries between individual mages and between the various orders saw the halls of the Tower as rife with politics as the Golden Palace itself, from various positions such as Court Enchanter or Emperor’s Advisor or Court Ambassador to heads of small specific research positions within the tower fought over bitterly. It is even said the position of Tower Librarian was an envied post, though mainly because of it allowed it’s holder a seat on the Tower Council.

By the 1100s the Tower was rife with corruption and scandal as any noble house, however because of the greater power they wielded, the were held to a higher standard. Every minor scandal was elevated in the eyes of the populace, particulary by the Knights of Purity who eyed the Tower jealously, aware of the deryni who lurked within it’s walls.

Of particular note is the corruption of the White Magus deryni Lucius Cantor by the Black. The Black Order gifted Lucius with a Ring of Power, something they themselves had avoided along with most other magi, they themselves although not master of ring lore, could detect the dark vibrations emanating from it and guessed at it’s purpose. It is thought that this was a research project within the Black to record the progress of the domination of the ring, ostensibly in order to combat it’s effects. Perhaps the experiment was a success but the public outcries at the depravities of the once pure Lucius focussed the long-held rage against the deryni in the direction of the Tower.

With the Knights of Purity and the will of the people of Altri arrayed against them, the Conclave falls apart. The Orders retreat to their respective towers outside of Altri, with the exception of the White Magi, firm in their belief that remaining public and open in their attempts to heal the damage done by Lucius Cantor and other scandals they can reclaim their image and the public trust.

The dangerous gambit fails, as the now immortal Morwin gains the permission of the Emperor to wipe the Magi from Gaia, also the will of Ahrikol as other than Lucius, only very few of the magi had accepted his rings of power. As a group, they could be one of his few real adversaries in his quest to dominate the Empire. With the White Magi remaining in the open, they are the main and the easiest targets. The witch-hunts take the better part of a year before the Knights can claim victory against the Magi, though truth be told it was the Ringwielder Captains who alone of Morwin’s followers who had the strength to hunt-down and kill the most powerful members of the White Order. The Knights of Purity gain considerable prestige with the final destruction of the White Order.

With the removal of Aurelius Paendragon a century earlier and the destruction of the of the Council of the Conclave, Morwin now stood as the most prestigious of the Emperor’s Council, With the last two voices of reason silenced Morwin continues the witch-hunts, mainly targeting deryni and elves also known as wielders of magicks. With the effective leadership of the Empire in disarray the non-human regions of the Empire begin closing themselves off, mainly restricting movement out of their realms for fear of making their own races a target to the Knights of Purity. The dwarves are particularly distrustful of this new direction the Empire is taking and Minister Thuran from Illefarn is eventually arrested for attempting to defend deryni rights. By the 1120s the Empire is fractured and strained and with the rise of Morwin to almost executive power, it seems nothing can be done to stop the demise of the Empire.

Volume 9 The Last Hope

In 1128 the old Emperor Verrus III died. His son Octavian had spent his youth in a foster home on estates near Camille. Morwin encouraged Verrus to keep his son away from the court intrigues, in the hope to take advantage of the new emperor’s youth and inexperience. It seems that later reports changed his mind and three attempts were made on the young man’s life and his foster parents made it clear to Octavian what their suspicions were. Even from his remote foster home, he began paying attention to the situation on Altri and made contact with House Paendragon. During his coming of age he was approached by a pair of magi, of the red and the black who gave him some teaching in magick. They explained what they’d learned of the lore of the Rings of Power and the corrupting influence it had on many in his father’s court including his father’s chief advisor: Morwin the Immortal. The Black Magi after fleeing concluded their research that had began with the poor white mage Lucius Cantor and working in secret with the Red had manged to subvert on of Ahrikol’s rings. Ironic perhaps that these mages of the Dark and the Fire had created a new creed. On gifting the Ring to Octavius he takes the oath. In darkest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight, let those who worship evil’s might, beware the power of the Emperor’s light. It should be noted this first ring was perfect and without the weakness of the later rings or the need to be recharged with a lantern, working in perfect harmony with the body of the heir apparent.

When Octavius returned to Altri on the death of his father, with the aid of the ring and the magi he defeated two assassination attempts enroute, on entering the court awaited to receive him he shocked all present being flanked by two magi and the Knights of the Emperor’s Palm under Utha Paendragon retrieved from exile in the north by ordering the arrest of Morwin and his closest advisors. Using their ringwielder magicks, they managed to escape to Yevath.

It was already perhaps too late, even as Octavius took the throne in the name of Aleksandr II, news came in that Illefarn formally seceded from the Empire for the treatment of Minister Thuran. His first act as emperor was to send envoys under Utha to the realm, in an attempt to explain the new leadership and direction of his rule. The envoys managed to prevent Illefarn demanding any retribution but little else. Aleksandr takes a tour of his realm, the first Emperor in generations to do so, and stopping at every province and province capital and by his own example, persuasion and natural charm manages to avoid any further secessions.

Aleksandr outlaws the Knights of Purity and tries to reverse the damage done by the witch-hunts. Altri again has not one, but two Court Enchanters, the Black and Red Magi who gifted Aleksandr with his ring. Discordiansim isn’t outlawed but discouraged and at least on the surface the people of Altri return to the worship of Yehovah and Tyr.

For fifty years Aleksandr works at repairing the damage done by his predessors and perhaps during the first decades of his rule this damage was only superficially healed. It is undisputed that over the last two decades much was truly healed and even if many of the grudges lay closer to the surface than appeared none would dare break the peace, not so much out of fear of retribution, but out of love for their last Great Emperor, Aleksandr II.

Volume 10 The Witch-Hunts Renewed

In 1177 at the age of 84, Aleksandr II passed away in his sleep. His chosen heir, his grandson Aleksandr III is found dead within the hour. A systematic assassination of the imperial household. It is in this turmoil that Morwin returns from exile in Yevath. With the Empire leadership in disarray there is little to stop the now Necromancer and his Immortal Captains seizing the reigns and Morwin ascends the Golden Throne as Morwin I.

The Knights of Purity are returned to their place as the single most powerful group in the Empire, many of the Knights of the Fist join. The Knights of the Emperor’s Palm are disbanded. The new Immortal Emperor has no intention of sheltering anyone with his own hand. Any noble who raises their voices in disagreement with the new turn of events is executed. The remnants of House Paendragon flee to protect the newborn infant heir to the seat of the House, again several now disinherited Knights of the Palm flee to protect them.

The witch-hunts begin once again, this time in force with nothing held back. The deryni are treated as pariahs wherever the try to settle and there are none in the great city of Altri itself. Even humans who develop Wild Talents flee for fear they will be executed as deryni. Pogroms tears through their neighbourhoods in other town with alarming frequency. The treatment of other non-humans begins to follow that of the deryni, eventually all non-humans in the central provinces are declared as slaves. The work of Aleksandr II now lay in ruins and after a delay of fifty years, the Empire finally began to fragment. The non-human regions of the empire formally secede and the deryni flee in droves to refugee camps, many of which become deryni towns, villages and these quickly become forts.

Volume 11 The Cleansing Wars

Five years after taking the throne, Morwin had consolidated all in his hands. The central provinces were now firmly under his control and he allowed the outer regions of the empire to secede whilst he build his own forces. In 1182 with all his pieces in place, Morwin launches a campaign against the seceded nations, apparently to keep the empire whole and to punish the deryni for damages done to the empire. In truth it was merely to bring these regions back into Imperial control and to reduce all non-human populations to slave status. The long since forgotten incident of 966 was no longer enough to galvanise the people against the deryni, however by this point hatred was almost inbred to the human population, and the propaganda machine of the Empire found it easy to blame the ‘deryni conspiracy’ for every difficulty facing the Imperial Citizens, from crop failings (deryni magicks) to the secession of one region after another (deryni machinations). With the lack of any real motivation gone, the humans fell back on fanaticism rather than reason There were still those who couldn’t be convinced, it was still too soon after Aleksandr’s reign, but those nobles who’d survived the purges and yet disagreed with the Morwin’s campaign preferred to retire to their secure country estates.

It would be difficult to call it ‘A Cleansing War’ if only because Morwin chose to fight his eccentric and erratic campaign on many fronts at once, against ht elves here, the dwarves there, this deryni fortress there. Indeed any military tactician looking back on these campaigns makes it clear that in the in the ten years the wars lasted, it would have been almost impossible to make victory more difficult than he had. If Morwin had employed even basic strategy he could have conquered the seced regions in a campaign probably lasting even half that time, although he lacked the traditional magicks, he had enough Ringwielders in the ranks of the Knights of Purity to deal with even the most powerful deryni mages. And even in her final years, the Legions of the Imperial Throne were still by far the largest and most powerful military force at that time.

However fighting the campaign the way he did, Morwin squandered much of the Empire’s strength. Evenso victory was almost his by 1192. By the spring of that year the deryni fortress of Lealta, the last to hold out finally fell. Most of the non-human realms, even Illefarn were by now at least under the Empire’s martial control, their armies broken and reduced to fighting guerrilla-style wars against the Empire. With the fall of Lealta, the family of the tremendously powerful deryni mage Canthus Ephairi was captured and brought to the capital for execution. An attempt at rescue failed and the execution was moved forward to the day after the attempted rescue instead of the High Summer Games Morwin had planned to celebrate the Empire’s final victory.

With the execution of his family Canthus lost all reason and decided upon a revenge to punish the city that for two centuries had no only been arrogant enough to exclude his people, but had hunted them to the point of extinction. Powerful even by deryni’s highest standards, on the High Holiday to open the Summer Games Morwin during which had originally planned on executing Canthus’ family as the Morwin was addressing the people from the Golden Palace overlooking the Emperor’s Square, Canthus, a skill psychic levitated up from within the crowd. Behind him the closed up Tower of High Sorcery disappeared, his last gift to his people. It reappeared far to the east. Having captured his enemy’s attention, Canthus declared his doom on Altri. As he began to glow brighter and brighter, the Imperial Guard’s arrows and the magicks of the Ring-wielder Captains, including Morwin’s own powerful attacks fail to harm the red magus. Canthus’ spell summons all his most powerful magicks and to maximise his effect he pours all of his life-force into it. When the smoke cleared, the City of Altris, pride of the Empire, the Home of the Halls of Justice, the Golden Palace and until minutes before, the Tower of High Sorcery was erased from existence.

Volume 12 The Aftermath

With Altri gone, Morwin and the leadership of the Empire dead, the remants flailed in the death-throes, causing much damage but ultimately coming to nothing. The Knights of Purity quickly disintegrated into individual groups, their Ring-wielding Captains all being with Morwin for the celebrations. Many smaller town and villages near altri were caught in the blast that seared the previously beautiful countryside and turned to ash. The region immediately surrounding Altri soon became desert. Other major towns and villages were abandoned in the plagues and famines that followed the collapse of the empire.

It is doubtful that any one leader could have rallied the Empire, perhaps the heir of House Paendragon, but at the time the youth was not yet 16 years old and by the time he was old enough the Empire was already past any rallying point. The human population dropped considerably during this time and considering the number of forming townships and villages that took refuge in Thessalae, we can estimage that in the two decades following the Fall of Altri the human population of Almeria was around a quarter of it’s level in AA 1177 when Aleksandr II died.

It is easy to say in hindsight that the Fall could have been averted if certain steps had been taken earlier, if Aleksandr’s heir had survived, if discordiansim had been banned rather than discouraged or even if Morwin had planned his military campaign better and he could have pulled all of the Empire under his control. However for all the threats our world faces now, perhaps it is for the best that almost eight centuries ago Morwin didn’t realise his ambition of ruling over a new Empire, a dark corruption of all both Aleksandr’s had stood for and dragging humanity and all Almeria into a longer and darker age than the one we face now.

The Band

2010-02-27T07:04:00.000-08:00

The Band needs a name, it has always been the Band of the White Cross, but with the Order of the White Cross having disappeared seems like a bit of a relic, maybe when we rename the Rune Guard and give that company some meaning I'll ally the War Band with them. We'll see. Or we can just keep them as the Band of the White Cross.

It's about time we had a War Band update and I've been reluctant because an update tends to be followed by the Band being wiped. But the current incarnation has survived over a week so... let me present them to you, a few old favorites but most of them are relatively new.

Prince Gavadel of Amber (level 77 Attuned Knight of the Round Table, Prince of Amber, Losthaven Guard, Steel Serpent, Neophyte Warden, Summachos of the Pantarchic Church of Yehovah). Gavadel first and foremost is a Prince of Amber, everything else is second. But he takes his obligations seriously to the cities he's allied with. He's also recently been asked to lead the Rune Guard but he isn't happy with the setup and is considering a reform.

Colonel Ruburnel (level 48 Knight Templar and Verynvelrae): Actually unbonded now from his eagle, Ruburnel is currently suffering from a speech defect which makes his duties as Gavadel's right hand man a little difficult. But what he lacks in words he makes up for in fighting prowess with his vorpal blade. Besides Gavadel himself he's the best warrior in the group and the single best champion of the Knights Templar. Ruburnel's mellowed considerably since he was first assigned to Gavadel as his liason with the Pantarchic Church. Experience outside the life of the Cathedral of Camille has opened his eyes to the ways of the world.

Fledge (level 39 pegasus): Gavadel's trusted mount and gives him access to various charms in maintaining and protecting the war band.

Squire Kernele (level 15 Squire): Gavadel's current squire, following in the footsteps of Dame Yennarin. She isn't looking forward to being a Knight to be honest after seeing that all her predecessors including Yennarin have fallen in the defense of Camelot.

Captain Nerus (level 29 Knight of the Round Table): Gavadel's aide from Camelot and he leads the yeomen. The Knight takes his role seriously and is as righteous and full of pride as Ruburnel once was when he joined Gavadel's side. Ruburnel can't help but smile knowingly at Nerus's blustering sometimes.

Sergeant Galidan (level 16 yeoman): Deals with the practical day to day running of the Band, acting as quartermaster and takes care of the pegasi. Surprisingly he's also an ace hand-to-hand fighter and picked up a mithril claw following Gavadel. He's put it to good use in the defense of the Prince. Rumour has it he wouldn't mind joining the Knights of the Round Table himself, but his choice of weapon will make that difficult.

Corporal Demmill (level 15 yeoman): He was once a lacklustre swordsman, but gave it up when Gavadel presented him with a hyperium two-handed axe. And he's proven himself to be a master of the weapon. He's still sometimes prone to stealing but Gavadel's influence seems to be putting a stop to it. A fault he shares with the last member of the Band.

Bannerman Aradis (level 15 Bannerman): Gavadel's bannerman, though once a spearman. The youngest member of the group, but he's proven himself a solid defender of the Prince's honor, despite once being prone to the occasional theft of items left around him.

Poseiden (level 29 drake): The heavy artillery of the group and currently Gavadel's mount. She's protected by a stone of perpetuation and is prone to protecting the Prince when he doesn't mount her. It has seen her fall in combat more than once, if not for the gem she'd be dead by now.

The Mounts: Sorrel, Gray, Snowmane, Snowdrop and Augustus, all around level 16 other than Snowdrop. Augustus was a veteran of Kentaur Isle as we found out when the dragon chasing him met with the Band and almost led to the death of Gray and then Squire Yennarin. Pegasi are useful mounts but because of their wings being a weakspot have almost led to the demise of members of the Band on more than one occasion.

Steel Serpents

2010-02-13T06:58:00.000-08:00

I said I'd write about this in my next post, but since there was the disaster on Ry'leh I wrote about that instead.

The Steel Serpents have, as long as I have played this MUD been an NPC organisation that always looked kinda cool. A bunch of battle-hardened soldiers protecting a small city in fairly abandoned lands, protecting themselves from raptorak raiders who hit the town pretty often. Corna itself is one of the best little adventuring towns out there. I'm aware I haven't done all the quests or even come close, but that place has ATMOSPHERE. I was always sad I couldn't ally myself to it or the Steel Serpents.

Twilight just off-the-cuff changed that. The Steel Serpents are now a joinable affiliation with their elite Equites, a cavalry guild which are ALL ABOUT WARBANDS!

You can see the dilemma.

For the first time since I joined the Knights I was actually tempted to find a way to leave them and switch over to Twi's guild. The problem was theme, although a lot of what I heard about the guild made it sound a lot like at least one of the factions I'd envisaged for the long awaited KOTR rewrite, there were a few problems, not the least of which they weren't the Knights of Avalon. Gav although he went through a few guilds in his youth has been a Knight of the Round Table for most of his career. And although I might have wanted him to switch that allegiance to Corna, he wouldn't have it. Besides, Twi pointed out I'd have yet another Bond, and this time to a horse which wouldn't really fit my aerial cavalry theme. So... we'll get by with the Knights. I have compromised and at least joined the Steel Serpents, Avalon's representative and ally with Corna when they need it.

I do hope other people DO join the Equites and we see more War Bands around, they are fun to manage and there is a definite satisfaction in exercises like yesterday's retaking of the gogtzulu city. And please, please can someone work on that knight rewrite I was promised about two years ago now?

Disaster on Ry'leh

2010-02-12T03:25:00.000-08:00

The Band was coming along quite nicely for once. Five yeomen, a drake, nine pegasi, a knight and of course Ruburnel. And we've done the raid on Ry'leh more than a few times. We know the drill. I defend the Band, they whittle down the gogtzul. I have to defend the Band because them gogtzul will tear them apart in a round or two. But it's hard to take me down when I'm on full defensive and with Yrenasand, man I'm tough.

Fledge isn't.

She wimpied on me and fled. And without me defending the Band in the round or two it took me to get things under control again, the Band was scattered and/or dead. Me and Ruburnel fought on as long as we could over the bodies of our compatriots, but the gogtzul not only swarmed but were regenerating. Ruburnel covered my escape, knowing that I held the stones and the charms to bring back as many of our followers as we could. I retreated back to the beach where I caught my breath. I realised as well that through some error I'd left my drake's stone actually on the drake. I'd misnamed Trije's stone as the drakestone and on activating it I prematurely activated my squire. I summoned my other charms and waited for Fledge and Ruburnel to rejoin me. We considered retreating and licking our wounds but there was one major problem. The gogtzul held the Battle Standard of Prince Gavadel of Amber. And that was just not acceptable. Our small rag tag band once again reclimbed the slopes to the city. Two pegasi, ruburnel, nerus (now one-armed), my squire (now without protection), and two yeomen. We charged the city and were soon outnumbered once more as the gogtzuli swarmed our small band. But despite the tiredness and fatigue the Band fought on, Squire Trije whom we all thought would make it to Knight fell on the field.

As the battle raged on, my eye fell on a peridot, knowing this to be my missing stone I reached for it, claimed it and recalled my drake back into the fight. The battle last well over half an hour, but eventually the city was ours. And there, lying in the blood, was our Standard. Ruburnel claimed it and insisted on carry it back to Avalon.

When I have the time, I need to once again recruit a squire, though I fear they'll be more reluctant. And of course, comb the skies above Kentaur Isle to mount the Band once more.

Ch ch changes...

2010-02-10T05:34:00.000-08:00

I kept meaning to update this, but the changes kept coming and I was waiting on the next one before posting and then the next, then the next and it's been a week now that I should have updated something here.

Donation items came through, though hopefully two of those will soon be available to Knights in general. The first though was a bond to Ruby, who I think earned it the poor sap. Like my bond to Fledge, the original idea is a permanent follower I can breathe easier about, but like Fledge he's come with some nice bonuses. We have some kinda mad skill-synergy thing going and that Templar probably rivals some low level amberites in his skills and attributes these days. He's gone from level 34 to 43 and he seems to gain a new level every other run session. Amberiteish skills with a human assim is scary. The other two items were a knight follower (welcome Captain Nerus) and a Battle Standard which a yeoman can wield and gives bonuses to your group, courage, tenacity, tactics, etc. It's more about theme than actual power, but every little bonus helps. They should be released soonish I think for the general knight population. The other idea I mentioned to Chaos was the option of keeping your knighted squire in your group. As I outlined it, the tradeoff would be you don't get that bonus xp on his reaching knighthood, but you get to keep a level 25 knight follower you've trained his whole career. Be nice if this was implemented, but no timeframe on it other than Chaos thought it was a nice idea. (Could be tomorrow, could be never, but more likely somewhere inbetween).

With the new bond setup I was able to leave the VV, the whole idea of being a ranger was to have Fledge. Now, we've left the guild but we can maintain the bond. There is a loss of some stuff there and future changes to the VV won't affect Fledge. So whatever skinning, crafting or other abilities, specs, or whatever you get won't be applied to us.

I've also left the Wandslingers to join the Steel Serpents. I'll talk more about this in my next post.

Lumps

2010-01-30T13:17:00.000-08:00

Today was the day of the lumps. It only lasted a little while, but it was briefly amusing:

You take off your large amethyst-set silver anklet.
You take off your lump of white plate helm.
You take off your lump of white plate left boot.
You take off your lump of white plate right boot.

This is a spartan cell with bare walls and nothing in the way of
amenities. The light cast through the bars of the cell door throws shifting
shadows across the walls. The area is brightly lit. A lump of reddish brown
male eagle thing is here.

and...

The lump of Dark Young thing has been mortally wounded and will die soon
if not aided.

It made me chuckle.

Bonds and Bands

2010-01-30T05:26:00.000-08:00

Finally! The new bonding code and the Ranger/verynvelyrae rewrite was released. It came during the week so I was at work, trying to get what I could and teach a class of elementary level adult students who noticed I was a bit preoccupied. 'Prof, what is the meaning of...' SSSSSSSSSH! I'm reading here...

The FIRST thing I noticed was my nice fieldcraft skills were gone. Which was a bit disheartening. They're passive, but they're oh so nice. They're almost like a tactical advantage in most situations. Now my sky fieldcraft has gone up, as suits a pegasus but the fieldcraft skills were for me the embodiment of all that was left of the old Rangers in easy little passive skills. C'est la vie. Ranger skinning has also gone and as far as I'm aware there's no real bonus to the basic ranger. Now don't take this as fact and I'd welcome some new rangers or Twi setting me straight on this. But it seems the current incarnation there are only benefits from your familiar.

Only from your familiar I say. Now I can't actually compare the new rangers with the old. As it seems to me that would be unfair, I need to compare the new rangers with the rangers post the original rewrite which led to familiars in the first place. Since last year Twi has been tweaking and fiddling with how the bond works and what we get from it. The addition of tame and dominion seems to have spiralled off into this new rewrite and I think this is the culmination of what he was trying to do since then. The first thing is the bond now scales your benefits, something previously only seen in the attribute bonus but now applies to ALL your powers and skill bonuses. Now I know some of the older rangers will be a little miffed by this, but this is how it should work. Slowly unlocking your powers and abilities as the bond increases gives great motivation to work on that bond. There are hints that you're getting more from the bond too. I've already seen some of this in the new spy power. We can now see through our familiar's eyes. The other abilities I automagically have from having an older familiar would have been slowly unlocked over time with the new system. Which would have led to some pleasant surprises. Wow! I can now inspire! Wow I can now tame other pegasi etc. Which is very cool.

On to the War Band. Since my return I've been working on recruiting a new War Band. It's where my heart is really. There's been some triumphs and disasters. I was messing with that fool deck again and got another Templar, but... he fell shortly after in Ryleh when I ran into Yog by accident. Damned Elder was already summoned when we moosied on in. The rest of the band was wiped out last night except for Ruby of course, my squire who I'd already gotten a stone for and Auremius one of the yeomen. He had to die this morning though to a Dark Young. Shortly after I went and got another stone for Trije, headed to Kentaur Isle, found myself three pegasi and recruited three more yeomen. Leek, Animus and Rylamon. Here's a hint for recruiting yeomen, choose those whose names are easy to use. "kunontitil, mount pegasus gets cumbersome, I know I know about nicknames but they feel odd on yeomen for some reason.

Now I did donate again (first time since LAST christmas) and I've used that to improve the Band. Ruby is taking advantage of the new Bond code, and there's a couple of followers on the way... What's that Mordred, someone's looking for me?

Update

2009-11-24T04:19:00.000-08:00

Well in the four or five months since I played regularly there's been quite a few changes. Too many to go into detail over though most of them are 'small' they do add up. The change to Vanishing Tower so far was the only one that gave me pause, and I still haven't decided whether it's a good thing or a bad thing in the current enviroment to cut back on 'farming'. I don't farm, heck I rarely even do 'The Run', when I'm an active player I tend to work on my own goals that aren't exactly xp-friendly. The War Band being an example of that.

Speaking of which during my absence and with hasty logins and bad logouts the War Band is down again to just Ruby. Keeping those little buggers alive would require LOTs of those gems I like so much and I might go on a drive to gather more than I should, say... 10? That'd give me 5 permanent followers and 5 permanent mounts and it would stop the xp that gets invested in them being wasted.

Might be nice if there was a way for higher level knights to recruit higher level yeomen/followers though.

My absence has been and will continue to be because of work, out at 7am usually back at 9.30pm and sometimes I have to fit a girlfriend around my free time though she's pretty busy too so I should be able to with a little effort make some time for my favorite MUD. We'll see.

BTW: Changing race names: Very cool but I wish we had some artwork on the wiki or main site.

Quest of this Day

2009-07-21T20:10:00.000-07:00

I apologise, but our sweet Prince couldn't make the entry tonight. He claims to be too tired after todays feat and asked me to write it for him instead. He forgets that although he has the constitution of an amberite I merely human am also somewhat the worse for wear.

Our troubles began last night when the Lord Chaos inquired of the Prince as to whether or not he had attempted the challenge set forth by Feanor, to which my master claimed tiredness and distraction by some unearthly incantation about Deadly Arm. He did however promise to take up the Quest the next morn.

Upon rising we set forth to Liathyr to meet Feanor, an enchanter of the Noble House of that city. He bade my lord to find gems for his research, general types as well as a few specific. Upon making some inquiries we discovered we could find many such gems in Serpentina's Tower in the town of Corna. Of course, m'lord did feel the urge to battle his way through all the golems including the one encrusted with gems. Upon his destruction we relieved Galvanor of the stones, since he no longer needed them. We also found a stone saber. The Prince had heard rumors of this saber long before but as he is wont to do never paid much heed until the blade was in his hand. He inquired with the local guild who informed him of it's importance. When he raised the saber we were informed by a heavenly voice he was a champion of the town. Lord Gavadel took this as his cue to leave.

Still short of precious stones for Feanor, we learned more could be found in Banor Lok. Which is as far from this side of the world as it's possible to be. Fortunately the master has seen fit to tame Pegasi for myself and his squire some time ago. The trip was long (and the prince forgets often cold), but finally we reached the dwarven mines. It didn't take us long to find enough stones, but no malachite as requested by Feanor. Taking the idea from the miners we flew off again into the mountains where we spent MANY hours mining. Now M'Lord Gavadel is a brave and capable man, stronger than any I know but a miner he isn't. And neither am I. Squire Bardle who hails from Moria fared better than we did, and eventually he told the master we were wasting our time. Malachite tends to form around copper deposits he informed us and there were none there. There was however a shop, that might sell the stone. Back in Corna. Another long journey ensued.

We waited many hours for the shopkeep to return from 'Lunch' and fortunately when she arrrived there was the precious stone in question. Dirty and tired we hauled our load back to Liathyr and Feanor. Pleased with himself Prince Gavadel handed the stones over to the elven master smith. We were promptly informed to complete his work Feanor required 6 ioun stones. And one of amethyst if we will.

Now my Prince does keep ioun stones and I wear one myself, but he was reluctant to give up any of his own and even if he willed, there were none of amethyst. The Lord used his enchantments to summon advice from his fellows and Protax told us of a horde of iouns. Back in Shadow Tower. Which is all the way on the other side of the continent, over two oceans and south through Quetatl. Octavian was tired when we set alight on the Tower and explored. Our information was correct and ioun stones were collected. But again none of Amethyst. The Prince remembered the Green Lantern in Avalon had an ioun stone and he couldn't remember what type it was, we were on our way there when we recieved word from the ELF Porphyria to meet with her at Feanor's. Expecting a trap we travelled once more to Liathyr.

The mazikah dropped the amethyst and left leaving my lord dubious, but keen to complete his quest he took the stone and along with five others handed it to Feanor. The Quest was complete and along with wealth handed my master a stone. Smiling, Prince Gavadel took the citrine and rubbed it and handed it to me. It glowed red and he took it back. Patting me on the shoulder he grinned and said, "Ruby ol'son. The enchantments in this gem will keep you alive and if you die it will return you to life once more." His grin is infectious so I smiled back. "Who's going to keep Fledge in shape if you're gone?" I looked at the squire, but he was busy with his own pegasus. "Be a good lad and fill in my journal for me tonight will you. I'm off to sleep. Totally exhausted."

Finally!

2009-07-17T15:01:00.000-07:00

Chaos bit the bullet and rewrote the turn undead. You can read about it in the changelog in the sidebar. Few teething problems (where for a while I was crushing heads) but they've been sorted. Apparently it was VERY old code and had to be done from scratch, but it works. It's still a super-power, but now if you can resist it somewhat you should fare a bit better. Which I think is fair.

Band is down to just Rubernel, there was a squire, but gem of pres didn't work there. So many of the little buggers I've gotten up to a half-decent level and then die. Usually during LH Raids I've realised.

Knight Wish List

2009-07-09T10:03:00.000-07:00

Been a while since I done one of these, and I'm just looking at the Knights as they exist, not the long awaited rewrite.

Let's see...

Turn Undead
The bane of my enemies, and I'm sure my fellow Knights will hate me for this, but... it's too powerful. I have NO problem with the power it has over undead. That's what it's for. It's a VERY limited power as it's target 'audience' is a very small part of the overall game. However I think 5turn undead is a little silly. I'd love to see it completely reworked, but in the meantime a cooldown timer would go a long way, doesn't have to be long, 10 or 20 seconds should suffice from it being used more than once in a combat.

Yeomen
Very limited now since their ability to join affiliations has been reworked due to the spec system they now follow. But still useful for filling out the Band. Be nice if there was a way to see groups being able to assign them different roles. Scouts, Rearguard, Bannerman. The Bannerman would be a non-combat role. Something similiar to a permanent inspiration aura (it doesn't have to be a large bonus), combat mode always defensive and when he rides in it would say something like 'Bannerman Coricus rides in holding the Banner of the Band of the White Cross'. For me it's just one of those cool things.

Squires
No issues with squires at all. Hard to get them to Knight now, but I think that's a good thing.

Mounts
Still waiting for the day more exotic mounts are available to Knights. War-pegasi, drakes, lions I don't know. Something. And I feel like their should be something akin to the ranger bond. In legends, the Knight's mount is often a part of that legend. But when we go through a horse once a reboot, kinda difficult.

Knights themselves
Getting charge up and running again would be nice and I think there's something to be said for them being members of the Pantarchic Church. There's something there that could be exploited more though I'm not entirely sure what.

Camelot
I was thinking long and hard about the defense of Camelot and... I had a nice idea. Prior to Merlin buggering off to parts unknown he set up an anti-magick field around Camelot. (He has the key and can turn it off on his return). This wouldn't stop ALL wierd attacks, like psychic stuff wouldn't be affected, holy and unholy abilities wouldn't be affected either.

Disclaimer: As usual, these are just ideas, don't expect any of them to be taken up, nor will I be miffed if they're ignored.

Boo hiss

2009-07-07T10:03:00.000-07:00

Well, first the good news. Lysator has a interesting post of the shape of things to come for the overland maps. Some of which I think will REALLY help. Overland maps, some better indication of cliffs and whatnot. You can read it here.

Last night I hatched a dragon (Ptolema) and was told I needed one more keep point to keep her. I'd just raised charisma having hit 70 finally and had a spec point. Specced in leadership and got that point and kept Ptolema. So I logged in this morning, Ptolema wasn't there and when queried it turns out my keep capacity is fluctuating. So despite being able to keep Ptolema when I logged out (something I'd just done when I logged out) I'd lost her by the time I logged back in. This is the third time I've noticed anyway that I've lost something in the last week. Following my rainbow pibrit and a SQUIRE. I just wish the keep system was a little more stable and if you've got something actually kept (I actually checked on logout that 'Ptolema disappears with you') it should be there on return. Keeps are a pain at the best of times and I'm not asking for it to be reworked, just... a little more stable. And yes, my keep capacity on checking is again maxed out. I don't know what's going on really.

The Band other than the loss of Ptolema is doing quite well, no losses to report despite some action last night. Fledge is nearing level 37 finally. Man she levels slow. And Squire Crissa is level 15. 10 more levels until she's Dame Crissa. She'd only be my 2nd squire to be knighted since the level changeover. I ain't holding my breath just yet, had a few reach the 20s before loss.

Updates, Recommendations and Commendations

2009-07-06T15:57:00.000-07:00

The Band of the White Cross

Well the Band has had an eventful week. Remembering we had to leave the field after myself and Fasius died during the First Battle, myself and Rubernel decided to try again. Losses were high, the saddest of which was Lt. Butler who fled the field. He'd survived the first Battle and numerous other adventures since then. At first I was angry he'd fled (and died later), but Rubernel calmed me down. With Butler of course went Parmenion his drake.

What was left of the Band headed to Losthaven, where (whilst I was afk) there was an unfortunate accident involving Bill. Rago attacked Bill the Town Fool and soft-hearted Fledge defended him. This brought about half of the Band into the fight, including Seleus the last of drakes. Rago aquitted himself admirably and I returned to find the Band in tatters. Only Rubernel, myself and Fledge had survived. It took a few days to find enough pegasi to mount a new Band. Current membership is my Squire Crissa, Captain Rubernel of course and his eagle. The three yeomen are Coricus, Gelumin and Altenius. A new group of pegasi have been found to keep the cavalry in the air. Seleus and Parmenion are missed especially as the new group lacks any heavy artillery.

The new group is also alert to a new threat to Losthaven, Zaruzahad the Undead Black dragon. Fortunately we've managed to drive him back during all recent engagements.

Recommendations

A few of the blogs are really shaping up to be something special. Arc's tale of corruption continues here, Elronuan keeps an interesting blog with some nice articles, Lysator keeps us posted on his developments here and my favorite and shaping up to be a real treat Esmene is writing an IC Story that is of a very high quality. Definite kudos.

Commendations

Just like to welcome our new players, I've had the pleasure to know Tuinia, the very chipper Boreality and Aalina (Fasius's wife, both RL and IC) this past few days. I hope the new kids stick around on this block. And a BIG thankyou to Chaos for making Knight guild equipment keepable. It just seemed VERY necessary after the size of the maps got MUCH bigger. Now if only my yeomen could join guilds again...

Back...

2009-06-09T01:18:00.001-07:00

Atman deleting and then creating a new atman (I never said I was gone gone) is sort of like being able to attend your own funeral, which is part of the reason I decided to return, more people liked me than I thought, funny how you tend to focus on the negative. It's no secret (though I'm not going to be explicit either) as to why I left, in particular some harsh and constant criticisms from someone I respect. When I was considering returning I was thinking about asking for modifiers to Gavadel to keep him happy. (Getting rid of the dual guild, losing the donation items etc). Because, really, they are for me, just ways of fleshing out my character, not about the additional power. However, in the end I thought: Why the hell should I play in a certain way to keep HIM happy. (His rebuttal will be: 'You just took Gav back cos you missed the old power and you're just saying this to justify yourself.' But screw him, I play to have fun, I play for escapism, I play Gavadel because I love this character).

So... Travellers of Ganesha have finally been released. I love the challenges aspect and the versatility and yet ANOTHER way of gaining experience and advancement whilst avoiding the hack'n'slash. Another step in the right direction I think. My current exploration challenge has me being given an anti-magickal field. Which I think rocks, but I try to be sad about it for Ganesha. Thinking the field would work against the Bez, I took the Band into battle against him. Eventually we were forced to retreat and one of the pegasi, Yeoman Juxinner and squire Agla died and the band was badly beaten up.

To replace the yeoman, we've recruited... Yeoman Agla, to say I was surprised when I found a yeoman with the same name as my departed squire is a bit of an understatement.

Retirement

2009-05-22T19:27:00.000-07:00

Just to quote my removal of atman:

Hmmm... I'll be back with a new atman (shortly). I've realised over the last few months that I've despite being here for... 15 years I've kept my head down. Over the last year I've raised my head above ground level and really honestly tried to accomplish some LONG term goals (Prince of Amber being among them) as well as give my POV for the community as a PLAYER. Sticking that head above has meant some potshots came my way, and I've realised I'm not so insensitive as to be able to dismiss them. Because I'm the sensitive sort really and the insults that came my way from Players and Devs really got to me in the end though I preferrred they didn't. I'm exempting Chaos, Twilight and Elronuan from any dev interference as any criticism (and there's been some) I've only ever taken as constructive. There's a lot of good players and good Devs and even if I don't see eye to eye with all of them, this is my fault for being the way I am, not theirs. I am NOT gone. Just restarting.

Or basically: I seem to have set myself up to be a community leader. And I'm really not cut out to be. (I'm just way too soft).

This is also the end of this blog.

Thanks to all who supported and took up the banner.

What the deuce?

2009-05-16T16:31:00.001-07:00

Gav! One minute you're all over the place, wiki, blogs, game and now you've disappeared. You bored with us?

Nah, I do try to check-in, but just after Dyne visited me in March (no connection I'm sure) RL sort of exploded on me, I'm not going to go into it here. But between RL exploding and a couple of (actually minor in real terms) incidents on the game I found my temper frayed and playing the game became less fun for a while.

So you're quitting on us?

Nope. I've played Lost Souls since 94 and I come and go, the incidents in question are things I can usually handle, but on top of the RL stuff (which is serious) I thought it'd be better if I made myself scarce for a bit. I don't blame the people involved (you know who you are) at all. Disagreements are part of human nature and normally I'd be cool with it all, but not right now.

So when you coming back?

I doubt I'll really be away to be honest, but I'll definitely have less input for now. I'm having to move out of my apartment this coming week and at the end of June I'm heading back to Scotland for the summer, depending on the situation there.... Could be around non-stop over the summer or you won't see me until September.

Disclaimer: Imaginary conversation with some little goblin who lives in my head just to put the points across easier like.

Lost Souls Video

2009-05-01T13:30:00.000-07:00

It's been in my head for a while so thought I'd give it a whirl.

Made using VideoSpin (it's actually only my third video ever) and it took a LOT longer than the video I made for my sister. You try telling a story in 4 minutes based on a few hundred lines of combat which took about 50 seconds and getting those 160 lines down to around 20 cards and try and make the story interesting....

I'm not sure I succeeded, but here's the result:

Reply to Lysator

2009-04-29T14:19:00.000-07:00

On Lysator's Blog. He says: The knight came armed with full armour, steel shield, broadsword, halberd, crossbow, and morning star. Much better equipped than most of the player knights, though the show didn't have the gratuitous drake mount, pegasus mount, donation weapons, iouns, and lay on hands. The morning star did some heavy damage, as did the halberd, yet neither of these weapons are used to any extent on the mud. I guess players are either narrow-minded about how they have to use the sword, or they are greedy and want all of the special attacks built into the artifact swords. Though there are plenty of crossbows available, they are severely underused, and apparently beneath a knight on the mud to wield one.

Just to clear up some confusion, Lysator is totally right on the historical issue (and it's one I'm interested in and know a little about). In fact he ends the post with: Just as I had predicted last week, and validating that the knights are failing to live up to the legend. However I should point out that most people come to any MUD or roleplaying game, not to study the historical accuracies, but to live up to that legend. I mean if Knights were as amazing as legend and myth (and a lot of fantasy books) they'd never have died out during the gunpowder age. And they did. I don't think dissing peoples choices or poo-pooing on their gaming style or way to pass time is necessarily helpful or productive. I mean, any student of historical warfare knows that the spear was A LOT more useful than the sword in large scale combat, but we all grew up watching Robin Hood and Errol Flynn movies and think that sword-play is a much cooler image in our heads, even if it wouldn't really be that practical in large-scale medieval combat. (Reach being the biggest issue with the sword).

In defense of exotic mounts, fantasy literature is FULL of Dragon Knights and as Lysator's pointed out, Gav's own 'artwork' is really just stolen and photoshopped Warhammer image. So I'm not the first to think Pegasus Knights are a cool idea ;)

Developer Thoughts...

2009-04-27T03:44:00.001-07:00

Between my wish lists and criticisms, it might seem as though I'm not that happy with the game. Au contrair! (Is that how you spell it?) I've been happy with the current dev team since I returned last year and I think I have a good relationship with most of them. They seem to be good people. However that's not particularly why I'm happy with them. Ironically one of the ones I'm happiest with is one that I actually don't seem to get on with (:(). However I like them because for the first time in a long time I'm seeing a LOT of results. And no, not because my ideas are taken onboard. A lot of my ideas are ignored, or what might seem like my idea is actually a long term goal they've had for friggin ages and it's just coincidence. (Tactical combat is one thing I've wanted but once when I laid out a plan to Twi or someone they went: Oh Chaos has been working on a system like that).

A lot of the stuff that's come in lately has little to do with ideas of /mine/, but very much their own. The exploration xp is one for example. There's a lot of backroom stuff we don't see too.

My ideas are just my ideas, my thoughts and my wishlists. And they don't really need that. They have ideas and goals aplenty to keep them busy probably until we all retire in 30/40 years time :p. What is nice is when my stuff and their stuff overlaps and fortunately that seems to happy a fair bit.

Newbie thoughts.

2009-04-27T02:50:00.000-07:00

Well, sorry. I've been dealing with some RL issues lately that have distracted me from the game. (QQ!) But I've been lurking, posting and doing my own research. Ironically I'd been doing something similiar to what Lysator has been doing. Independently. I took a day on Iron Realms' world of Achea to have a look at what they do that's different.

Website

I have to say, their website is a lot prettier than ours. But I think our wiki does a very similiar job, though it could be organised a bit better. Every once in a while I do actually go through phases of blazing through our wiki, in fact, the current setup of the main page a good deal of the stripping away the pages on 'races' and 'guilds' and the like and organising those pages into categories has been my doing. But I'm not really a wiki-fiend. My talent is for seeing stuff I like elsewhere, grabbing the code and then trying to make that code fit our website. One thing I'd like to understand better is templates. We used them on otherverse.wikia.com for characters, worlds, races and the like and applying them to our own wiki would actually make things a lot neater. Another problem we have is character art. Yes, Gav's /is/ a stolen image (from Warhammer), paintshopped and edited. I'd like to see character art at least for our race pages, and preferably original and not stolen from elsewhere.

However... here's the difference between the Iron Realms stuff and ours. Ours is a 'hobbyist' mud as they'd refer to us. They're professional, a business, they make a lot of money and actually seem to have money to spend for development and the like. We don't, so we shouldn't be too hard on ourselves.

Getting New Players

My own thoughts on the actually game-play of Iron Realms? I actually stuck around for the tutorial, the basics aren't that different though their interface is rather similiar to something I've thought would be a good idea for us for a while. An in-browser interface and it's very pretty. The casual passerby isn't going to want to download client software and figure out how to install it and input our game data. If (as the mudding community in general agrees) we want to grab new players we have to reach beyond the current mud-community. And grabbing /that/ lot means not assuming they know squat about telnet interfaces and port numbers. To get some of those guys we need a clicky click interface. Personally I can't think of anything better than 'Play Now!' *click* 'Welcome to Lost Souls'.

And beyond that we need a tutorial, Wardens do their best, but I think a nice little tutorial script (and no, not a 3 hour introduction to all the nuances of the game) to introduce the basics before letting them loose on Gaia. (And I'm starting to have problems with Gaia being the name of the world, goes against our whole new original theme approach).

And I think plague really needs to be reworked. Nothing worse than a n00b catching the plague in their first five minutes, Chaos knows about my dislike of that particular mechanic and I'm not going to go on about it again here.

I think that's enough for now.

Quiet?

2009-04-18T16:09:00.001-07:00

No things aren't quiet, but I have so many thoughts churning around in my head right now that I think it'll take some time to sort out.

However, briefly let me say this: Donators. Definitely not entitled to anything on Lost Souls other than their benefits. You have no more or less say in the development of the game because you chose to donate. However. We're not entitled to less. Donators are NOT cheaters. A character with donation items is not worth less than someone who doesn't. Most importantly, donators shouldn't have to put up with derision from fellow players or developers.

I find myself on the defense too often lately. Defending myself, my character, my choices and I'm not entirely comfortable with that.

Adventures of the Band of the White Cross

2009-04-13T08:35:00.000-07:00

So, whilst reworking my navigation aliases (yes, even I use navigation aliases, I don't do the xp-per-minute loop, but you know sometimes I have to do the circuit) I decided to add Ry'leh to the loop. I used to do it about 10 odd years ago, but I just never got into the habit of going there when I went back. So I led the band through the usual abominations and ranting orcs and cold-eyed giths, what I remembered and came to the Strange City that used to scare the crap out of me years ago. And I came across a couple of gogtzul. I've fought these guys a few times since sometimes they lead the odd raid to Losthaven. I didn't expect a gogtzul horde swarm. I rallied the Band to me and with a few choice words inspired the lot of them to a heroic defense around my banner. (My imaginary banner, bannermen are on my wish list). About half-way through the epic defense I had to go full defensive and did my best to keep my men alive whilst they did their best to bring the gogtzul down. And they did. And we suffered no losses.

After this little fight which ended /just/ in the nick of time I decided to retreat, but not knowing the layout of Ry'leh so well and after a small rest I fought my way down. Until I came across a deryni, thinking he was no more or less than any other wierd creature I'd faced in Ry'leh we attacked. And Yog-Sothoth was summoned. Even I... Prince Gavadel of Amber had to retreat before the Elder God. But I didn't get the chance, it didn't take me long before my spirit found itself with Father Michael. I pray to Yehovah to show some mercy and summoning Fledge we flew back to Ry'leh like the wind. And promptly died because I had nothing. Finding myself back at Michael /again/ and sure the War Band was now dead I first headed to Camelot to re-arm myself from our armoury (something I rarely do these days). I then headed back to Ry'leh. The Band had scattered to the four winds, and it took me some time to find them all again, but losses were a lot lower than expected and only Yeoman Gelamio had perished. 'Only' I'm sad to lose Gelamio, he's the longest surviving yeoman from the new band who wasn't part of the 'Dream Team'. I also have to report the loss of Dame Alirizel, when I rearmed at Camelot I found a hauberk and cloak I'd made myself and gifted to her. She died defending Lancelot so that's something. She's the first member of the Dream Team to die.

We also lost three pegasi, so Juxinner is currently flying around on Seleus. Instead of concentrating on rebuilding the Band, Captain Rubernel informed me it'd be better if we continued plotting out our routes. We'd just finished a raid on Bloodmoon Temple when the Vigil informed me there was a huge raid on Losthaven with multiple parties. The Band formed around the rune of the keeper and we launched to Losthaven's Defense. As did a lot of other Guard members. Our first mission was to dispatch the horde of zombies, which we did easily, but to the east there was a massive army of orcs, probably in reprisal for my assault on Yevath earlier in the week. The main problem was the orc berserker. I fell twice (as did a few other PC Guard) but kept launching myself back into the defense of the City.

Finally when the Battle of Losthaven drew to a close I counted casualties amongst the Band. None.

Three Battles in one day and only Yeoman Gelamio fell. I consider myself most fortunate. We'll finish mapping out our route and then I'll rebuild the Band and hunt some more pegasi.

War Band No: 15

Awe, crystal cubes and the Band.

2009-04-12T08:48:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday evening and after having a few days to wander the map, it sunk in last night just how huge and amazing the new map is. And everyone's excited, from Dev Corps' new plans as to what's now doable to the players' exploring and discovering their old favorite haunts or just taking in the view.

What astonishes me is how Lysator did ALL of the building himself. When you wander the new map and realise how big everything is, how the scope of Gaia has just expanded. What was once Almeria is now at least 11 maps (9 main regions and Tetlacana and Quetatl). Not to mention Mordo, the first region of Esartur released. A 'dark' continent is more than welcome. And if you've tried going to Mordo you'll realise the ocean after Avalon is HUGE. Whether you love the new map or hate it (I think most of you are in the former category along with myself) you have to be in awe of the man behind the work. I praised him on release, but that praise is all the more heartfelt after wandering the new maps. I gave him Kudos before. Now I can only say: Lysator I salute you.

Twilight released Crystal Cubes to allow people a small map readout of the region they're in. It has been /vital/ to me in imagining my explorations as well as finding my way around. Thanks for releasing them.

The War Band has shrunk. We lost Suzasti during my original explorations and we got stuck in a region of what I think now is Korindim. I ended up disbanded the Band temporarily, left the horses and packs and spent two days rounding up pegasi to remount the Band as a small aerial band. We added a firelizard and an elicat to the mix, and Captain Rubernel dismissed Truct and bonded an owl, so he could stay with the Band. He's becoming a fearsome warrior in his own right now. So the War Band size is now Six Humans, Eight Pegasi, 2 drakes, an elicat, an owl and a firelizard and myself. So from 26 to 19. There's a free pegasi I use for when I'm helping newbies. We've raided Mordo and hit some other places. S'been a lot of fun and I don't regret using Gavadel to test the new map, even with the loss of Suzasti, makes me prouder of my little Band.

Kudos to my fellow players...

2009-04-09T22:08:00.000-07:00

Honestly... I was expecting a lot more whining and bitching after I figured out about the rollout. Issues, bugs, things not working how you expect (my own experience with the trees and the STEEP mountain that led to the death of Suzasti) aren't what I'm talking about. They're valid issues. I know some people are worried, even good sorts, but just about everyone has attacked the new map with gusto and enthusiasm.

Sorry, my negative expectations were based on the last MAJOR rollout with the new spec system or before that when HPs were detached from levels, both of which led to a lot of whining and big name players leaving the game. So I'll have to say I've been pleasantly surprised. Really, thanks for being great and supporting Lysator and the rest of the staff.

Navigation

2009-04-09T15:14:00.000-07:00

Quick post... you know what'd make navigation a LOT easier... a global co-ordinate system... from -200 to 200 or however it'd work out. Personally I don't find it too much of an issue, but I know some people are finding it difficult to get their head around every map being on a different system. Not sure how feasible the idea is.

Almerian 3D Map Launch....

2009-04-09T05:28:00.000-07:00

THIS SUCKS! HOW THE F*CK AM I GOING TO DO MY XP CIRCUIT NOW?!!! My xp circuit composes of alternating between Bill the Town Fool and Trixie, so I'm actually all good.

Me and Lys don't seem to really get on that well, though I wish we did as we have a lot of the same interests. Not a loathing or anything, but we're not buddies, we have a... 'professional' relationship. I'm only saying this to make one thing clear. My support of his work isn't personal.

I LOVE the new map. Despite our differences I've been a big fan of Lysator's /work/ since I first stepped into the Northlands. I love NL, Avalon, Gardagh and what I've seen of Mordo. And the new Almerian map is ambitious and long overdue. And I think only Lysator could ever have had the patience to do something like this. I'll probably be more full of praise when I figure out where stuff is.

For the record I'm exploring with the War Band (bad idea) so me and Fledge are being forced to explore on foot. So far we've found... Togrek, the eastern entry point and a wild dog pack (don't let those beeatches catch your low level adventurer btw).

The common complaint about a Lys-map is IT'S BIG AND EMPTY. Only if you're a numbnut I think. His maps have flavor, they're thought out, the descs are gorgeous and there's attention to detail (you can examine the flowers and the like). Lys puts a lot of work into his wandering monsters even if he won't let me keep 'em. And space... all that space.... is asking for expansion of content, new towns, new villages, new areas. For the first time in 15 years, there's room to expand in a way that makes sense.

Kudos Lysator.

And to all 'em Devs who helped him finish it up and put hours and hours last night into loading it up. Thanks.

Affinities and Resistance Skills...

2009-04-08T06:06:00.000-07:00

Here's something I've thought was wrong for quite a while... the affinity and resistance skills. Problem is they're so inherent in our system now that reworking them would be a MAJOR project (well I think so, for all I know Chaos goes 'hold on' tappety tappety tap 'Done!').

Here's what I think is wrong from a purely philosophical standpoint. Aligning yourself with any major power means that you gain affinity with that power (fair enough). So Gav doesn't suffer from holy or ordered attacks and can actually benefit from them if his skills are high enough. However. There's a price. He's wide open to attacks from Unholy and Chaos, moreso than someone who hadn't aligned with Holy or Order powers. He can offset that by buying Chaos Resistance to help /offset/ his order affinity and holy fortitude to offset his holy purity (holy affinity).

Now gamewise that means that I tend to fight unholy and chaotic beings more than I fight holy or ordered. Fighting those guys would actually give me some benefit. The main reason to buy these up is to benefit from artifacts, but I'm really not sure it's worth it, especially with being so open to attacks from my enemies, even with some resistance skills bought up. In fact Gav's got his holy fortitude a lot higher than his holy purity to try and have some benefit when he's fighting the unholy powers. He has no access to chaos resistance and tends to get the lowest of his orifices violated when he goes up against chaotic powers.

Now if you've read the chronicles of amber, remember when Corwin comes across the Black Road (a Chaos Construct) as he's fleeing from his currently enraged brother Benedict. You don't want Benedict mad at you. EVER. Even for an amberite he's pretty damned powerful, best warrior ever and the reason the Courts lost the Patternfall War. So when he's pissed at you. Run. In desperation Corwin decides to cut through the Black Road. Not having much effect he summons the Pattern to mind (effectively this would in game mechanics, give a boost to his Order Affinity), it's with this power that he manages to cut his way through the road. Temporarily losing his pissed off brother.

I'd like to see the Affinities and Resistances merged. It makes sense if you fill your body with Holy Spirit that spirit reinforces you against the effects of the Unholy. And vice-versa. Same goes for Order Affinity, it aligns you with the forces of Order and protects you against the forces of Chaos. It'd also mean that two opposite-aligned characters or NPCs meeting on the field of battle actually have a half-decent chance of being able to be roughly of equal strength. Also in a game where skills are so many and spec points are so few, freeing up some will stuff to allow you either a) to focus your strength on that power alone or b) Throw some will stuff elsewhere would be much appreciated.

Addendum: After talking with Twilight and Beasty some more, it's helped me refine my argument. So... let's look at it this way. FireBoy has fire affinity. To a high level. He's attacked by a bucket of water. Under the current system, with no water resistance, he's be staggered by the bucket of water. Now if his fire affinity is 240 and the bucket of water attack is water affinity 60 attack, under the new system, he'd just laugh it off as it's turned to steam. No problem against the bucket of water. Let's say he runs into WaterGirl. WaterGirl tries a few bucket of water attacks to no affect. FireBoy launches his fireball attacks, also to no effect under the new system. But WaterGirl is much higher level and Bucket of Water attack is her lowest power. She now launches LAKEOFDOOM area attack, her most powerful spell. LAKEOFDOOM is a strength 300 attack. Now because this power is 60 higher than his affinity, he doesn't actually take 60 damage. His pool of resistance from his affinity is overloaded and he takes a double-effect, not the full 300 doubled, but the 60 doubled, so he takes a 120 attack strength LAKEOFDOOM. Who's laughing now FireBoy?

My two cents.

At Full Strength

2009-04-07T15:14:00.000-07:00

Well, since the Dream Team came back and after ironing out a few kinks (pesky gems of preservation, though they seem to be working better now). The Band is now at full strength. Probably subject to the occassional change, losses still happen (Kotanan, was tragically lost at sea earlier today) and only the higher levelled types are currently under the gem of protection.

Band of The White Cross (War Band)
Prince Gavadel's Warband, primarily attached to the Pantarchic Church, worth noting is all the human members are mounted on horses. Despite Gavadel experimenting with elven steeds, warhorses and hanoman horses, he's settled on good ol' Losthaven horses from Emor. So each of the yeomen, the squire and his Captain are mounted on steeds. Gavadel himself rides his pegasus, Fledge, a level 36 familiar.

Captain Rubernel
My right-hand man, originally assigned to us by the Pantarchic Church, but he went native, joined the Rangers and his warg Truct has tentatively taken command of The Pack. Level 25 Ranger-Templar.

Squire Agla
Another one of those squires who refuses to specialise in invocation, but she's held her own somewhat. Currently a level 6 squire and she's hopeful of succeeding as her predeccesor Dame Alirizel did.

Yeomen
Lieutenant Butler - Level 15 Yeoman Along with Rubernel and Dame Alirizel, survivor of the Battle of Shadow Tower. Beware his mithril spear, he ain't half bad with it. His familiar is Parmenion.
Sergeant Gelamio - Level 14 Yeoman, one of the first recruited since the Band's reformation and has now survived plenty of battles in his own right.
Yeoman Hasadan - Level 6 Yeoman, latest recruit and a half-decent swordsman.
Yeoman Juxinner Barber - Level 6 Yeoman, saved from the plague in Camelot by Gavadel.
Yeoman Sazusti - Level 12 Yeoman, another of Camelot's fierce valkyrie warriors.

Pack
Truct - Captain Rubernel's pit warg he adopted. Surprisingly taken to the rest of the hounds, and she's quite protective of them. Anyone with the ability to sense of the heart of others will see Truct's is as pure as any Knight's. Definitely unique for her race. No idea as to his level as he's Rubernel's familiar, not mine.
Trix - Level 6 Newcomer to the Band, replacing Nenia who decided to leave last night of her own accord, lord knows why.
Lucky - level 12 hound. Like her yeoman counterparts, been through a number of battles by now. And survived the plague a couple of times too.
Bruno - Level 11 hound.
Tiger - Level 11 hound.
Gwynn - Level 11 hound, named after Gwynned.
Walker - Level 11 hound.

Heavy Artillery
Parmenion - The Lieutenant's familiar, so like Truct, no idea as to her level. She is however an Ice Drake.
Seleus - Level 24 Red Drake and Parmenion's mate.

Including mounts, Gavadel and Fledge Warband Strength: 25

Other news: Check out Esmene's Blog. There's already 3 posts including two VERY nice articles on Witches.

Blogging

2009-04-06T07:56:00.001-07:00

So...

Been an interesting couple of days and I almost lost my temper a couple of times. The posts from yesterday are deleted, written by me and other people in the heat of the moment and keeping those there words up for posterity is probably counter-productive. So let's look at todays little issue. The blog itself.

Why should I blog?
Pain in the butt innit. Having to drag yourself to a site login and then maintain the damned thing so that you're not posting once a month and nobody is reading it. Why I try to post fairly often, even if there's not much to say, so that when I do have something to say I already have a reader or two. It's true, Developers like the blog. That's not to say my blog is the best blog ever, or am I so damned interesting. The point right now is it's the only one out there. Developers like the format because it can be read at their leisure, not having to deal with a tell in the middle of their coding, idle or whatnot. It's a permanent record, so it can be referred to later too.

But Everyone Loves Gav, How Can I Compete?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm just fortunate because I'm the first who tried this approach and it's been discovered to work. That's not to say your blog should be a wish-list. Mine isn't, though problems and whatnot are pointed out in it, specifically to do with problems in my guilds or my specific goals. Also, realise Developers have plans and projects of their own and your idea might not fit in there. Not all of mine do, and it's sort of implicit, especially with requests for guild benefits or whatnot. I've had a few tells like 'Nice idea about the keep Gav, but it can't be a Knight power because it goes against something we're working on' ORLY?

Basically the blog has been proven to be a useful format for charting your progress, problems and triumphs with the game. It's passive, not intrusive and that's why it's taken off. A forum would maybe work as well, but as we don't have one.... I heartily recommend you to make your own. Honestly? I don't like this distinction that's fallen on my shoulders and I've been uncomfortable with it for a while now. Help me out? Make your own blog or whatever charting your own journey through the game. Much obliged.

Gav

Return of the Dream Team

2009-04-02T17:50:00.000-07:00

So Chaos kindly decided the other night that because the Dream Team hadn't been lost to battle, but due to the disconnection problem he'd reinstate them for me. After wrestling with the matter somewhat we decided to fully reinstall Gavadel from a backup. There were plusses and minuses to this idea, the main minus being losing the Captaincy of the Guard and all my xp since January. The plus side of this the Dream Team returning and... FLEDGE. Seems Chaos was kind enough to overlook my err... Emo-phase a few weeks ago. About the downside, I /think/ if I pushed it, Snr Chaos would probably have let it go, maybe. But I'm inclined to think there should be a price for the bad decisions and bad luck, so I'm more than happy with the reinstall. To celebrate, using the knowledge I've gleamed over the last few months I've rebuilt a warband. And lets see if I can build it into something... great. I'll give the rundown, note the 'special' characters. Those guys are the famed Dream Team, so-called because before I learned anything about running an NPC squad they actually survived with no real help from me and even my ill-advised assault on Shadow Tower. Here's the run-down of the new-found....

Band of the White Cross
Captain Rubernel - Level 23 Templar-Ranger, my right-hand man and he comes with his rather strange choice of familiar, his warg Truct.
Squire Alirizel - Level 14 Squire, riding her horse Swan a level 12 warhorse.
Lieutenant Butler - Level 12 Yeoman-Ranger, a force in his own right, what makes him more than dangerous is his ice-drake Parmenion.
Yeoman Pisius - Level 5 yeoman, riding his level 13 warhorse Achilles.
Yeoman Dellalis - Level 5 yeoman, mounted on his level 11 warhorse Guyan.
Yeoman Gelamio - Level 5 yeoman, mounted on his level 13 warhorse Galin.

Hounds
Lucky - Level 5 hound
Nenia - Level 5 hound

Hopefully I can add another few hounds to the pack. And yes, this does now mean the Band of the White Cross is now a cavalary force.

Not happy....

2009-04-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

As happens from time to time, fell asleep without logging off, this morning I had to run to the bank and didn't check the computer. Logged in now to find the band wiped out by the plague. Selius, the Templar and the Squire survived. Yeomen and hounds gone... Pretty pissed about it and my loathing of the plague ups another notch.

Motivation to start a new warband: LOW.

War Band Update....

2009-03-31T16:28:00.000-07:00

All was going well until I decided to pit the Band against the demons of St. Paedrics. I simply defended for the first half of the battle and it shows the band still needs more training. Lieutenant Virultis ended up having his eyes gouged out by one of the demons and Uxonius had his foot torn off. Uxonius survived, Virultis didn't. I think... I think they need better training before we attempt that again. Nymardart has been promoted to the Lieutenant of the Band and we recruited Yeoman Heran to take his place. The Band took a bit of a beating, but the rest escaped. Parmenion has been replaced by Selius as my warhorse though and I picked up a new hound, Tim. He joined us at level 3, but quickly made it up to 8. The rest of the hound pack is still around thankfully and benefiting from my ability to command them better. A pack of 6 well-trained hounds, you want them aggressive at you?

Rest of the Band has gained a level or two. And I actually discovered who the toughest member of the group is, only yeoman working on his hardiness is the ol'Sergeant, our albino. Well the new recruit is working on his and Egonis has hers at 1st degree but is yet to improve it much. So Heran's the one to look out for, he's also the only one I still need to get baptised, but the Church only insists on that after they reach 10th level.

Two ideas...

2009-03-31T12:41:00.000-07:00

High level knight ability, at least hero. Build Keep.

Standard simple desced keep. It can be build in any 'friendly' terrain, such as Avalon, mountains or neutral parts of Losthaven. It doubles your 'keep' ability, but only for items dropped there. ie. I could train the War Band for example, leave them in the keep and go and recruit another (as an example). The keep itself is of a standard desc (so yes, all knights keeps look the same built on the same design, personalised by a 'banner of Prince Gavadel' for example). It consists of an open hall for everyone and armoury. The armoury is locked to the PC and where items/whatever can be dropped.

For everyone who can ride. Saddles.

Lost of possibilites there from standard leather to artifact and ranger skinned.

Band of the White Cross

2009-03-30T15:28:00.001-07:00

So, the warband I started on... Thursday has survived the weekend. I didn't blog it since naming things tends to seem to have 'em wiped out soon after. Still here's the current setup.

Band of the White Cross

Squire Merimeth Sorcalisson - Level 18 squire, but a bit of an idiot. Specs in all the wrong stuff like leadership and ownership instead of invocation and has a low sword skill. Makes me wonder why he's my best squire to date since the change. Maybe has something to do with his shield skill.

Parmenion - Level 15 warhorse and honestly most likely to die, she's survived a day, but her predecessor was a level 20 warhorse and he got toasted. Warhorses, go through them pretty damned fast.

Sir Jousla Poeta - New comer, level 20 He joined us today, but a welcome addition. I like Templars. He's the liason to the Pantarchic church.

Yeomen
Lieutenant Virultis - Level 12 yeoman, ostensabily my right hand man.
Sergeant Gefmartiath - Level 11 yeoman, Virultis' second and an albino. He's kinda bitter about that.
Yeoman Uxonius Fisher - Level 11 yeoman
Yeoman Egonis Hunter - Level 11 yeoman
Yeoman Nymardat Knight - Level 12 yeoman, also the group's best swordsman amongst the yeomen. If he keeps up the good work, might promote him to captain of the warband. I'd make him the Lt's right hand man, but that'd really piss off Gefmartiath.

The Pack
Gwynned - Level 27 war hound and pack leader (also my familiar). She leads the hunt and honestly, not even her sister comes close to her in a fight.
Gelert - Level 24 war hound Gwynned's sister
Sheba - Level 13 hound, apart from Gwynned one of the first to join the new band, quite fond of her.
Victor - Level 12 hound
Bruno - Level 12 hound He and Victor joined the pack the day after Sheba.

Caim's the only one missing, one of the original hounds, I might add another hound or yeoman, but the War Band seems big enough.

Alternate Systems....

2009-03-29T06:47:00.000-07:00

This post is based on a conversation I had with Lysator a couple of weeks ago, discussing 'alternates'. Erebus and Twilight (as far as I'm aware) have paved the way to 'Grinding' alternatives. And alternate advancements systems to xp with 'honor' and 'ka'. Which in the Guards case more honor gives different abilities, priviliges and spec access, the Wandslingers (which I believe were first) give access to new abilities, bonus specs and spec access with higher 'ka'.

They're both similiar in that both systems still rely on kills, Wandslingers with their Vigils, Guards in their defense of Losthaven. So in that sense they're still both tied into the old system, but in a much more different and more dynamic way. When will the next attack on LH happen? Who will it be? And in both cases it's reaction rather than action. You react to happenings in your vigil or watch. This is important actually, because it prevents 'grinding' honor or ka.

I'd like to see more alternate systems, with alternate ways to gain power or ability, and perhaps not based on kills but some other mechanism. Healing for example or crafting. It's important there be mechanisms in place to prevent grinding it too and LONG development times such as the guard has.

They offer nice alternatives to grinding, which me and a few others bore of, but we do, because it's the only way to get those levels up and levels translate into attribute points and specs.

Not everyone will like every system and that's as it should be. Variety is indeed the spice of life.

Tame!

2009-03-28T14:34:00.000-07:00

Nice change from Twilight, it's actually something I've thought about before, Rangers, being the wild-life guys that they are, should I felt have some extra ability for taming wild creatures. I mentioned it today on the channel and an hour or so later....

System Change 4276
Summary ranger power: tame |
Number 4276
Type content expansion
By Twilight
When Mar 28 2009 1:44 PM
the ability to attempt to acquire ownership (though not an
empathic bond) of other creatures of your familiar type.
lot of familiar types get this (all except the solitary types)
Result more stuff to do with rangers
Reason gavadel asked for it
Projects Rangers
Ratings Not yet rated; use 'perform change rating' or
http://lostsouls.org/changelog to rate
Version not updated

It's limited to animals of your familiar type (so I can tame wild dogs etc) and there's an auto-limiting feature in the keep system. I'd hate to see it abused and having rangers with 100 DRAKES or 200 RATS going around, abusing it, having it taken down again. I'm also aware lately that when I talk people listen. I just hope I'm saying the right things and people realise I say what I say for the good of everyone and the game, not out of any sense of... what's the word... powergaming. It is true most of my opinions surround my own guilds, but that simply because they're the ones I know best. Knowing that I'm listened to does make me feel... responsible in a certain way, not a bad thing.

Btw, a classic example of how something I say or do could be judged as looking for personal power is my write-up of a Prince of Amber Faculty, not that I ever expect my version to ever be coded up. I wrote them as POWERFUL, not because I wanted that power for myself (though being a Prince I would get that power) it was because I felt that's how the Princes SHOULD be. And it's power I wouldn't like to see handed out willy nilly either. I don't know if I'm making myself clear on this...

An NPC Group question...

2009-03-28T01:35:00.000-07:00

NPC Groups are the topic of the week seems like... Here's something I'm wondering. Do NPC groups get xp in a similiar way to PC groups. ie... if I make a kill does it get shared between them all or just me? If yeoman blog makes a kill how does that get shared between the group? Just seems like it's pretty unbalanced for NPC groups OR that might just be the group's so unbalanced I'm not sure what's going on.

Tactics...

2009-03-27T15:09:00.000-07:00

Twilight and Chaos have mentioned in the past their being a bonus for groups... what I'd like to see....

A group bonus calculated from the leader's leadership and tactics skills and added as a bonus to attack and defense of every member of the party. The bonus has a multiplier depending on the number in the party. How that'd translate to guard I don't know... These things are always more complicated than you first think, but I'd really like to see this added, you get swarmed, you're REALLY in trouble.

Group Issues....

2009-03-27T02:11:00.001-07:00

Okay, I've been trying for months now to keep groups of NPCs together. Sometimes better than others, always ending in failure. Here's some issues and where possible... solutions.

1) I keep losing them as I run/fly around the world.
Actually the reason I stopped creating NPC groups for a while. The solution here is actually simple. Trust 'em. trust yeoman, trust slave whatever. I assumed I was automatically trusting them because /they/ were trusting me. Trust them, you move slower, but you keep your group together.

2) Keeping them alive.
I ultimately have the most difficulty with this one. Main thing is an auto-succor or 'followers, go west' or 'hounds, stay here' if you're in for a big fight. Equipping the talking kind with shields and "followers, set combat mode to cautious" can go a long way too.

3) Plague.
Followers catch the plague and ultimately it's one of the biggest off-puts. There are solutions open to me for small groups, especially with lay hands. I've even given them masks, but still lost them. For larger groups laying on hands isn't that effective as the plague jumps from a sick one you've not healed yet to a healthy one you just have healed. Lysator has proposed breaking the group up into smaller units by sending them in different directions, but I haven't gotten around to trying this yet.

4) Link-death.
Reason for the loss of the Dream Team. I understand there's a mechanism for link-death (followed by disconnection) that means you lose your followers. For someone with a tricky internet connection like mine, a real pain in the butt reason to lose your level 10+ group of battle-hardened followers.

5) One life.
A solution I neglect too often to this are gems of preservation. Problem here is your level 12 yeoman is gonna come back as he was at the time you activated the gem on him. So best to update when possible. Also if you die and lose your stuff the gem isn't going to be helpful. It's nice they have one life as it maintains balance, but it can be frustrating when you've lost your level 30 drake you're not going to see anytime soon.

Sigh... And nice stuff...

2009-03-25T14:18:00.000-07:00

Gwynned nears 26, but the group of yeomen and hounds have gone... damned plague.

In other news, this blog has inspired a change to list your blog on your 'whois' (actually still finger to me, I'm a creature of habit). A couple of blogs have materialised and Wilson wrote a very nice backstory. I like having things to read, so hopefully there'll be more stuff produced soon. I think Chaos doesn't agree with me on the former point, but is in complete agreement on the latter.

Yes well...

2009-03-23T19:39:00.000-07:00

Interesting thing about keeping a blog is it's also a record of... mess ups for a polite way of putting it. Yeah, the 'Dark Captain' thing didn't last very long since it's not really me. I don't actually really regret the loss of Fledge, though I do miss her a bit, but I'd been playing the same setup since... July so I did feel the need for a change. Gwynned fits that nicely. I'm also /trying/ to keep a couple of yeomen together, a squire and a pack of hounds (just the normal variety). It's one of those things where I waste a lot of xp, there's no real 'benefit' from keeping these small groups together other than the fun of it. I've had a lot of groups and followers over the last seven months. My favorite of course being 'The Dream Team', a mixed bunch of yeomen rangers and a templar-ranger I had before the specialties thing. They were part of the group of the infamous 'Battle of Shadow Tower' and I didn't actually lose them to battle. They fell during my month long fight with my internet connection back in january. See... if you manage to login for a sec but can't quit, eventually with a linkdead disconnection you lose your followers :( That's how I lost the dream team.

So, building a new team, only yeomen and hounds, but a few are getting up into 8/9th level. This does mean avoiding PvP since that's where I tend to lose followers more than The XP Run. And Gwynned's on 25th, but nearing 26th... Templar's... the guys that tempt me to play with the Deck of Changes... MUST NOT LISTEN TO THE VOICES!!!!!!

Advancement automatic

2009-03-23T06:39:00.000-07:00

One of those nice changes you just don't see coming. Be nice to see in operation (could take a week at my rate) and of course now perform elevate is irrelevant. Going to the guildmaster to advance is just something we've always done and keep doing for no other reason than we always have.

Random complaint: And this isn't for me, it's for the younger race knights. I really hate we're forced to spec in 3 weapons. Let's take an average human of 70 dex. Force specced in spear, pole arm and sword he'll pick only one of those (usually sword) and be left with maximum 5 spec in his weapon of choice. And no spec points for the other nice dex skills. Even raising that to 100 still leaves him with only 8 specs really to have in the dex category. I'm not against being made to spec in skills for your guild or association but I wish they'd be more useful. Splitting weapons specs over 3 skills seems like such a waste.

Captain of the Guard

2009-03-21T19:19:00.001-07:00

FINALLY!

Actually hit the honor requirements a few days ago, but messing with law skill, warp effects and a few other things delayed that until tonight. Actually been a consuming passion for months now to the point I've done little but sit in Losthaven rather than adventure. So first there was the elation of completing the task and now there's a sense of 'now what?'

In other news, Fledge is gone :( Due to the warp stuff and the general run of bad luck I felt that need to reinvent Gav. I went through a dark phase and switched to raven ranger, but that didn't last long. Still sad over Fledge I couldn't just pick up a random pegasus and a horse would have been too close. So I've went with warhound. Actually wanted one of those for a while and discussed dual-ranger guilding (impossible I hear even with donations) to bond one. With Fledge gone for other reasons, seemed like an opportunity. So I found this monster of a hound by accident and named her Gwynned. Level 25 right off the bat, nice dog.

End of an Era?

2009-03-19T08:24:00.000-07:00

So three days ago whilst raiding Shadow Tower I picked up a warpstone. And didn't notice. It warped Gav and messed with his stats in a way I didn't like. So to fix it? Warp again. Didn't like that either. Change sex with Kurd. Nope, even worse. So... well warp can improve stats right? So I began a warp campaign that finished last night and has SERIOUSLY messed over Gav.

At this point I thought of maybe ditching my favorite character, but seriously? That's not my style of play. This run of bad luck began almost a week ago the night Dyne arrived and it's gotten worse since to the point that Gav is seriously messed over, so I thought a dark re-imagining of everyone's favorite Prince was in order. And that's what I'm doing. He's still a knight, he's still a guard, he's still 'good'. But he's a whole lot darker, moodier and not as friendly as before. As well as the cosmetic changes, there's a few others too.

BUT IT'S GAV! I know, but I'm a character player and in stories characters suffer, change and grow. This is definitely a suffer and change period for my character and okay, he isn't the same anymore, but that's what makes stories interesting I think. I'm actually happy on a level with this makeover and I don't think I'm betraying the fundamental character which is great.

Developers...

2009-03-16T19:14:00.000-07:00

I might complain about something, I might even not like a change and sayso. I might have a problem with a specific issue or I might notice lag is worse than usual...

However.

Developers as the name implies 'Develop' this game and we play it free of charge (remember donations are voluntary and we get something out of it anyway). So please please please treat Developers with respect and thank them occasionally for their work, new guild, association or area or whatever. It's not 'ass-kissing' either, these people have no power over you other than in a very limited part of your life, so a simple thank you isn't like sitting on your boss' lap and feeding him Tiramisu (happened to me once, Manuela wanted a day off or something and tried manipulating me).

And if you have a problem, try raising it in an intelligent and respectful way rather than bitching, whining or going emo.

My two cents on this issue.

Oh and Developers (ALL of you - 'cept Smizz). Thanks ;)

Knights and Dyne (Knight Wishlist)

2009-03-16T10:17:00.000-07:00

Dyne's gone. Which means I can put those two single beds back to my usual double bed setup and I can smoke in my room without feeling guilty about it. AND I can get to spend some quality time with Chiara. She's getting dinner tonight in a restaurant for the favor of chaufeuring us around over the weekend.

Still, gonna miss having a fellow geek around, and it's nice to have finally met one of you crazy bastits. :).

OK, with Lysator tentatively off the Knight Project (or if he does get to work on it, with the rest of his plans, might be a while before he gets around to it, already been a year since I first heard of the rewrite). OK, so here's my wishlist based on the current Knight setup. ie. Not a rewrite, just additions and mods. For the record I loved Lysator's plan and still do.

OK.

1. Similiar to Rangers and mixed with Aligned/Guard I'd like to see three /consistent/ followers.
a) Warhorse. Similiar to ranger followers, all of these 'named' followers can regen after death, no other ranger-like benefits though. Unlike presently I'd like to see some 'requirements' before you're allowed access to followers. Level, rank and skills. So the warhorse is tied into having a certain skill in riding and mounted combat. Once you have him, he, like you can come back from death.
b) Captain. For leader types, he commands your yeomen and like the other named follower types he's consistent. Requirements would be leadership and tactics combinations. For the record other yeomen can die as per the current setup (though can still be kept).
c) Warhound. Leader of your pack. Not sure about what pre-reqs would be involved here. Hounds can be recruited from a kennel similiar to yeomen, your warhound is your pack leader and tied to your legend.

Leadership
Knights can only have as many hounds/yeomen ie. army as their leadership/tactics/logistics can limit them too, it currently has that system, but it should be expanded to hounds. It would give some real value to those skills. I like the idea of larger groups being given an attack and defense bonus. It would make town-killing solo almost impossible and encourage the recruitment of small armies and give Knights something at which they're actually particularly good at.

Turn Undead
Completely agree with Lysator this needs reworked. I don't like my ability to one-shot and would like to see it tied to a timer and lowered in power, but also see defenses weakened against it. With the current setup it's oneshot or useless, I'd like to see more variation.

That's all I can think of right now, whatcha think?

Dyne Weekend (and stuff)...

2009-03-15T16:59:00.000-07:00

Well Dyne made it for the weekend as per my last post. We took him down to Siracusa (Syracuse in english) on Saturday, which he enjoyed. We showed him a 2500 year old greek theatre (and we sat in it) and a roman amphitheatre, I had to explain a lot of the history of the place to him, and because Chiara is a geologist she pointed out some of the seaweed and shellfish fossils from the miocene era in a lot of the stonework. He commented 'Now I can tell the guys why you're such a lore buff'.' Only downside to this trip was the tickets for the temple area had shot up and my pocket money for that particular day disappeared in one swell swoop. (Last time I was there was 3 EUR a head, this time 10 EUR or 30 for the three of us, so my 50 EUR spending money minus the gas and breakfast went to 3 bucks 50!) and it meant bumming gas money from Dyne to get home...

Today was a more relaxed day, we slept in (actually he's slept in every day, but today I managed to too) but we did go up the volcano in the afternoon. I kept Chiara amused by snowballing fights and dam-building across a little stream, whilst Dyne mugged some kid of their sled for a sleigh-ride down the volcano himself (this is becoming a common theme). If you imagine a high speed sleigh ride down a burning volcano, dodging lava and avalanche... death waiting for you on either side, either fire or ice... it'd be really really cool, but not that accurate. I'll stick to the inaccurate action-image myself.

I think he's impressed with the food too. As for my own impressions of Dyne? Nice guy, quiet, yes but nice to talk to, nice to have someone around here I can make mud-jokes with and he gets on with my animals and Chiara which is cool.

Game news:

I've not been around much this weekend but when I have... boy has it sucked. Lost my first group to Coma on Thursday, another group to Brak last night whilst trying to recover from the plague and a third group tonight whilst Dyne was calling home my hounds and Templar were decimated by the plague whilst idling in the forest. And I lost Ironman to the deck of changes... So that's both my nice talents gone to that particular game after losing Planeswalker months ago.

You pays your money you takes your chances. But I really really hate the plague, the game lately seems to be about plague and plague avoidance more than anything else which I find frustrating and that's from a player who himself doesn't worry about it for himself to much and has the ability to cure himself and his followers. I wonder what other people think of the plague? I have no problem with it being there, but should it be the dominating factor of the game? I think not.

And Dyne arrives safe and sound...

2009-03-12T16:37:00.000-07:00

After getting lost...

I actually missed half an hour of class (which is not so good when you're the teacher, people tend to notice) trying to find him before giving up. (I still don't know where he ended up). But he ambushed a passing italian, stole her cell phone (after his own money ran out) and we managed to arrange a rendesvouz. 2 and a half hours after he hit Catania, my girlfriend and I showed up in the car, took him for a sandwich and then home.

Nice chat, and he's sleeping with my cat, now we know the origins of the Sekh.

And he's gonna kill me for this in the morning.

Camelot Defense

2009-03-12T02:06:00.001-07:00

Most of my group were wiped out last night.

I defended Camelot from Coma I think, not something I usually do. I was just there and couldn't turn my back on Arthur. I drove Coma back, but I was afk for a bit after. Looked back at the screen to see a nasty arrow attack in it's final stages. Every member of my group but for me and Fledge were dead. Thankfully there were two clerics on hand to raise some of my followers back, including my squire, yeoman, templar and a couple of my hounds. The drake and two of my better dogs (Tess and Randy) were amongst the casualties though :( My latest knight wish... knight war hounds. I don't know why, I just get these strange desires from time to time.

That'll teach me.

Perform Elevate

2009-03-12T02:02:00.000-07:00

A new ability for my favorite guild the knights. In few words it allows higher level knights to promote lower level knights in the field (including their NPC squires). The first thing that sprung into my head was the image of some poor battle weary lad being knighted after the field of battle. Very cool.

Thanks Chaos

Deck of Changes

2009-03-11T14:44:00.001-07:00

Oops.

Logged in from the gf's last night for an hour or so, decided to draw some cards, so of course the first I drew was the one that sent me to the stone cell. No escape...

Slow

2009-03-09T18:57:00.000-07:00

I'll be pretty slow over the next week or so. Flatmate's back, so some quality time with the girlfriend before Dyne arrives. Then five days of showing Dyne around Catania though I'm sure we'll check in from time to time. Try to keep the blog updated though.

If you can't take the heat stay out of the kitchen...

2009-03-09T05:42:00.001-07:00

Came up again last night. It's an attitude I find... almost insulting.

We're a rude bunch, if you can't handle it, don't play our game...

Being newbie friendly in my opinion isn't a bad thing. At the very basic: courtesy and helpfulness to new players goes a long way. Jumping into the game to find some insults and bad language can be off-putting, even if you do roll that way yourself, you might not grasp it's humor right off the bat.

I suggested last night that OOC became an optional channel rather than a default. The newbie channel serves for a new player and despite what I said earlier, players on that channel tend to know the rules and ARE helpful and courteous on the new player's channel. Maybe after level 5 or something a new player gets a 'You can now add OOC, a general channel which is non-PG, you might find foul language etc' or whatever.

On another newbie friendly note outside the realm of courtesy, a newbie tutorial is badly needed to ease new players into the game. It should be optional of course, but a lot of people like to have their hands held through those first steps.

In other news, Gav's original hound group is down to 2. I've added a Knight Templar to the mix too.

The Dev Team and the Playerbase

2009-03-08T10:46:00.001-07:00

Honestly...

I think the community on Lostsouls is a little more 'rough and tumble' than a lot of places I've hung out. But that's good :) I enjoy the atmosphere and conversations I have, whether it's theme stuff with Chaos, content stuff with Elronuan or Erebus, talking with Brak about anything, or insulting 'Smizzmar's Mom' or any of the other players I come into regular contact with.

Our playerbase is small and we tend to know each other pretty well, in a 'sitting at the bar having a beer' sort of knowing, tending to be not too deep, more shooting the breeze. I miss the days where we had 40+ players online regularly a little, but I enjoy the small community scene too, though I can understand why it can be off-putting to new players. However I've seen more than a few of these new guys fit right in.

It's a nice group and pretty close knit. And if you're a new player, it won't take long to get in on that community spirit too, they're a pretty accepting bunch.

Idle-following Tredwel

2009-03-08T10:31:00.000-07:00

Hmm.... Seems I've angered other guards, which probably means Killingsworth since he's the only other one on I ever see.

Something I was guilty of from time to time, mainly through not logging out or falling asleep. It tends not to happen so much these days due to the extreme danger of doing so. I do however spend a lot of time in LH, to the point where I'm not levelling much. Because I spend so much time in Losthaven just sitting waiting for the attack it doesn't mean I'm idle. I might be watching a movie or reading something or blogging, but the screen is active in front of me. But I tend not to idle-follow. As for following Tredwel? Makes sense, too often by the time I arrive at a scene, Tredwel and the guards have either taken care of it or been smooshed.

As for why I spend so much time in LH? I want to make Captain and I've defended LH since even before there was a ranking system or rewards for doing so, ask Erebus.

In other news, the followers I picked up last night are coming along nicely. A pack of hounds (not the warhounds I was told I could pick up from Camelot, but I can't find those :( ...) and a yeoman. I've decided to forego the squire. a) Having to run back to Camelot every half an area to get him to level is a pain in the butt and b) I tend to lose them a lot anyway. Hounds range from levels 6-8 and the yeoman is at 9 (when he levels).

The Guards

2009-03-08T09:29:00.000-07:00

The Guards are an association set up by Erebus to be a group of PCs and NPCs who defend the 'newbie' town of Losthaven. It has a bad habit of being attacked by NPCs and higher level PCs. I love the Guards. It's single-handedly done more to attract a form of RP and rivalry than any other guild or association I've seen. Some of Losthaven's defenders (including myself) take the role pretty seriously. And some of those who attack the city take it pretty seriously too.

I've been a little annoyed lately that the attackers all tend to be MUCH higher level than the defenders, so there's little we can do to stop them. And no, not just talking about you Brak ;). Another tactic is the deployment of discord, a chaotic magick used to make everyone in the room fight. It's annoying because there's nothing we can do to stop it and it means the PCs (well usually me) are then banned from the city until the next reboot, and worse still lose 'honor' for the inevitable slaying of guardsmen that occurs.

Yes it's annoying but I won't move for discord being removed or anything. And I think for those of chaotic alignment it's probably one of the few occasions they can use such a spell effectively and probably a lot of fun for people on that side of the fence. Just wish that something could be done that would mean we're not sitting outside the city for two days.

First Thoughts....

2009-03-08T09:06:00.000-07:00

OK, this blog is about my OOC thoughts on the development of the mud Lost Souls. Lately there's been a lot of changes, some disagreements and agreements. Please note before we go any further that on the whole I agree with 99 percent of the content and changes and appreciate the hard work and dedication the development team show.

The blog will keep you informed about the progress and thoughts about my main character Gavadel. It should be noted I love this guy, but as I get bored easily by 'The Run' which is running around killing stuff for XP, my progress in his levels are extremely slow for his age. Not something I worry about too much.

Lost Souls is a fantasy based mud, originally a mish-mash of various themes from Tolkien to the DC Universe, though the lead developer Chaos has shown a desire to move away from that and despite being inspired by various themes he's moving towards an original themed MUD. It has a complex skills system and currently experience, levels and whatnot are based on killing NPCs mainly though there is a desire amongst the development team to move away from that. You can get more about Lost Souls from the wiki at http://www.lostsouls.org/wiki or the main website at: http://lostsouls.org. Or you can drop by at lostsouls.org 23.

This isn't a bitch blog either though I'm sure there'll be times I disagree with some of the changes, implementations or content. It's an honest commentary, so if I love something I'll yell about it, if I don't. I won't.