The History of Asheron's Call
Reprisals - January 2006
Teaser Queen Elysa entered the royal Map Room to find a man in well-worn chain and leather armor standing by the table. He was old enough to be Elysa's own father, but he had the spare, leanly muscled build of a veteran who has survived innumerable battles. With his fearsome scars and an intense yet distant gaze, the soldier was a discomfiting presence. As soon as she entered the room, the old man snapped to attention and bowed at a precisely correct angle. She nodded in response and sat at the head of the table. He took his signal to sit, and waited politely for her to speak first. "Forgive my late arrival, Captain Tharnoch. I was delayed by another argument with the young Prince." She smiled as graciously as she could. "That is frankly none of my business, Your Majesty," Tharnoch said, after a slight pause. Elysa blinked, momentarily confused at the captain's stiffly correct rebuke. Then she recovered her composure and decided to get to business. "Captain, I have read a very brief report on the circumstances that led you from the Bellenesse lands on Ispar to the wilds outside of Silyun here, but I would like to speak in further detail about your experiences." "As you wish, Your Majesty," he said. "So let us start from the beginning. Please tell me what you and your soldiers were doing so deep in Viamontian territory." "We had received information hinting at the rift between the House of Bellenesse and the royal house. I was given broad freedom in my command, and I figured that properly planned and targeted attacks on the borders between Bellenesse lands and loyalist houses would create the appearance of rebellion, forcing the Viamontians to bring at least some of their army home to deal with the problem." "So you were, essentially, creating an appearance of civil war in order to start a civil war." For the first time since she had met him, Captain Tharnoch smiled. "Yes, Your Majesty. I thought it was very poetic that we were killing Viamontians to make Viamontians kill each other." Elysa nodded. "I see. And then& Prince Renlen's murder... We heard reports of all that from new arrivals&" "Yes, Your Majesty. Bellenesse was already planning his own insurrection, and his daughter's murder of the younger Prince at that tournament provoked a true civil war. In a sense, Duke Bellenesse unknowingly accomplished our goals." "So how did you come to Dereth?" "The royal armies were recalled from Aluvia and Gharu'n, and swept through the Bellenesse lands. We did our part to bleed them as they went, but we were slowly driven toward the Duke's castle, hiding from both sides. We finally went to ground in an abandoned farmhouse near the castle, with the royal armies closing the circle around Bellenesse. We were preparing to, ah, sell our lives dearly in a last stand, Your Majesty, when a portal appeared in the barn." "A portal that led you to the Halaetan Islands, along with all the Viamontians." "That is correct, Your Majesty." "So how did you survive all those years in isolation, without a way off the islands?" "My soldiers were all highly trained for just that sort of situation, Your Majesty. I will not pretend that it was easy. Prince – er, excuse me, King Varicci's forces infested the islands. I had seen many terrible things in war before, but what we encountered in those long years in the wilderness..." He paused and met the Queen's eyes for just a second. In that moment of contact, Elysa somehow got a keen understanding of the kind of horrors that Tharnoch had been through, isolated in an unknown world, hounded across wild and desolate islands by Varicci's monstrous forces. "Captain, I must tell you that all of the veterans of Isparian wars who served with you have only the highest praise for your dedication, courage, and skill. You bring with you a formidable reputation. And still I find myself amazed that you managed to survive that long, especially without lifestone protection..." "As I said, Your Majesty, it was... very difficult. I lost half of the soldiers under my command. Brave and loyal Aluvians, every man and woman of them. All of us still alive were& changed by what we went through. But we did manage to survive, get off those islands, and finally make contact with your people. As for the lifestones..." The captain's gaze wandered, and he shivered. "I still have trouble accepting that such things could be possible." Elysa nodded knowingly. "In a just world, Captain, I would be able to offer you honors, titles, a grant of rich land, and a comfortable retirement to reward you for your service. But in this strange world, I am afraid I can only offer you more of the same: war against Varicci. You and your soldiers have so much knowledge and expertise, I am afraid we are going to have to press you into service with little rest. We have another unorthodox war to fight." Tharnoch's eyes gleamed. "Your Majesty, I was born in Morain Province, right on the border with Viamont. I have lived almost my entire life fighting Viamontians, in the open or from the shadows, whether the local lord held allegiance to their crown or to ours. All I ask is to be able help carry the fight to this rabid dog who calls himself a King, and the opportunity to meet the end of my days with Viamontian blood on my blade." "Your end of days may not come for a long, long time here because of the lifestones, Captain. Though there are exceptions..." Tharnoch nodded solemnly. "I have heard tell of the death of one named Antius Blackmoor, Your Majesty. From what I have heard, it was a noble sacrifice. It was a good death." She took some time to contain her emotions and said, "Antius was a great man, and he will be sorely missed. He provided good counsel, he was a courageous leader, and not least, he was instructing my son, the Prince Borelean, in the arts of war and diplomacy." "I am no diplomat, Your Majesty, but there are several soldiers from my command who can educate the Prince in the ways of combat. And in subtler ways of fighting, as well. Ways that he might not have been able learn from a gentleman." The captain allowed himself another smile. "Yes, given what I have learned about the nature of the war you have on your hands, I think we can help you. I pledge myself and my soldiers to your service, my Queen." "We have much to discuss then, Captain." Elysa looked for a long time across the table at the captain. This conversation had given her a clear sense of the rage that roiled beneath his courtesy and discipline. Not too long ago, the edge of madness that she sensed in him would have worried her. Now, she felt more hopeful than she had felt in a long time, just to have this proud, half-crazed old warrior on her side.
Welcome to the January Letter to the Players! Last month we saw many changes to Dereth. With the passing of Antius Blackmoor, the people of Dereth quickly came to see that war was coming and that the time for action was upon them. This led to the people of Yanshi finishing their rebuilding process to once again become a vibrant town. But the question still remains& what action will the Queen take against King Varicci? Last month we also unveiled the new timers for the Temples of Forgetfulness and Enlightenment. Although we were very pleased with the design, it appears there may have been some confusion on how the timers work. So in this letter we have decided to clarify how the timers work for those you who were unclear. Untraining Skills The first through fourth gems you can pick up instantly. That means you won't have to wait to pick up your first 4 untrain gems. To pick up your fifth through eighth gem you will have to wait one week per gem. On the ninth through the sixteenth gem, you will need to wait 2 weeks per gem. And everything after the 17th gem will require you to wait for 3 weeks per gem. 1st-4th gems: Instant 5th-8th gems: 1 week timer 9th-16th gems: 2 week timer 17th and above: 3 week timer Specializing Skills When specializing a skill, the timers differ from the untraining timers. The first and second gems you can pick up with no timer. The third and fourth gems you must wait one week each to pick up. The fifth through eighth gems are on a two week timer, which means once you are trying to pick one up you must wait 2 weeks to pick up each gem. For the ninth gem and above you will have to wait 3 weeks per gem. 1st-2nd gems: Instant 3rd-4th gems: 1 week timer 5th-8th gems: 2 week timer 9th and above: 3 week timer Attribute Gems The Attribute gems seem to be the part of the interaction that causes the most confusion. You can pick up your first eighteen gems, either raising or lowering right away. Not eighteen of each but eighteen in total. Then you must wait one week to pick up your nineteenth through thirty-sixth gem. That means for each gem in this span you must wait a week per gem, not pick up another eighteen gems. For the thirty-seventh gem and above, you will need to wait two weeks per gem. 1st-18th: Instant 19th-36th gems: 1 week timer 37th and above: 2 week timer I hope this helps to clear things up for those confused about how this system works. Now, onto what is happening in the month of January in Dereth! Please keep in mind that this list does not include new quests, or all of the new content going in to the game in January. New for January Higher Resolution Textures These textures will be available for use when the event goes live. You will be able to activate them in the same way you would change your graphic settings normally. Simply go to your options tab and scroll down till you see the Texture Detail dropdown. In the dropdown, there is now a Very High setting. If you have ToD, you can enable these textures. Please note that in order for the textures to be seen, you must restart your client after making the changes. Everyone who meets the recommended hardware requirements listed on the box should be able to run these textures with a minimal difference to performance. Friends Panel New to Asheron's Call this month is an interactive Friends Panel. With this panel it will be easier to add and remove friends. You will also have the ability to hide your online status. We were unable to transfer your old friends list over to the new Friends Panel. You can however, enter the command @friends old and you will get a listing of your old friends list in your main chat window. In addition, your friends list can now hold up to 50 people. PK Arenas After getting some feedback from players, we have decided to add in PK and PK Lite Arenas. These arenas will be easily recalled to by either typing in @pkarena if you are a normal player-killer or @pklarena if you are player-killer lite. You will need to be in the state of being PK or PKL, respectively, in order to enter these arenas. For example, if you want to recall to the PK arena, you will need to be PK to do so. These recalls cost the player no mana. In future months, we will solicit feedback from our playerbase on how the arenas can be made better. The goals of these arenas are to not only give player-killers a place of their own to fight in and to also help get the combat out of the marketplace. Billing Improvements As most of you already know there was an extended downtime earlier this week. Part of what was being updated was the billing system. As a result of this update, you will now no longer need to contact our billing department in order to re-subscribe your account. Darktide Server Crashes Over the past several months there have been multiple instances where sub-servers on Darktide have crashed. We have tracked down the cause of this issue and resolved it. We will have more details on this in the coming weeks. These are just some of the changes that will be taking place in the January Event, Reprisals. In-Concept These are some of the game changes we are thinking about for the upcoming months in Asheron's Call. We cannot guarantee when- or even if - any of these changes will be added to the game, as scheduling and priorities can change. These changes are in addition to the new quests, dungeons, and items we'll be introducing in each monthly event. Your feedback on these topics is particularly valuable. -Additional Allegiance Improvements -Player-vs-Player improvements -Additional High Level Hunting Areas -Story Driven Loyalty Decisions -Rares system changes/Login Rares -Title Management Tools -Chat Filters for Global Channels The items that are included in this section are just some of the things we are looking at for future changes. As time goes on this list will continue to change and expand. As always, all in-concept ideas are subject to change with scheduling and priority changes.