Topics

As the headline says: Give Rapid Reload feat when you've selected a Weapon Focus for either crossbow type.

Not much one to take screenshots. I always forget to, really!

A timid, guarded wizard that I had meant to play as just going with the flow of things, to properly get into knowing the rest of the server's aspects and a proper attempt at my old love, alchemy.
I tried to get into the whole Tarot and divination aspect, but it sort of faded. Mostly I forgot it.
Never quite got to further explore my ideas on the Astral beings and the Anything. (The curse of having little free time)

He was true to his ideals and oaths.
He never lied (maybe omitted to speak and deflected..) and I took the opposing school very seriously. Not once used blur, invis or other illusions. At least intentionally. (Maybe twice or so, someone used a trinket on him that I didn't get to remove instantly)
He only had 3 deaths over the 5 months he lived, surprisingly. One of them being a stupid misclick mistake during an event.

All in all, it was a thoroughly enjoyable ride, but a bit of an unluckily mishandled 'bomb' ended things a tad abruptly. But that's just the way things go!

A thanks to many many players. I'd do a list, but I'll end up forgetting some. You know who you are, so thank you! :)
Also a thanks to the DMs (also players, I guess ^^) that bear with my slow and calculated typing when I try to portray a sophisticated Wizard (and somewhat in general) and for all the events I got to participate in!

Entered a comment in EFUSL2 that was less than 1024 characters- counter said 1016 or so.
I had previously hit the max and removed some text to go below.

When clicking Submit it gave a "Comment is too long ..." error and erased the text.

Would be nice if the text remained if it throws an error (if possible).
Was using Firefox.

Just a self-serving suggestion of having the creature Astral Hound cast its spell even if it's in close range of hostiles. (If possible)
Its GSF bonus rarely does much, as they're cast too far away.

Somewhat self-serving, but I feel the usefulness of this perk is rather defeated by the lack texts that offer reward.

So far, in my character's lifespan and as far as I can recall, I've only gotten bonus XP from translating ancient texts in the Distant Shores quest, totaling maybe between 100-150 xp gained.
It'd be nice if more texts were tagged to give xp, or if the perk was completely reworked.

If a rework is warranted, then perhaps a buff to lore per day?

So! Ma died in glorious, if rather short, combat.
I'd meant for Ma to become a kind of innkeeper or working for an inn, and it was my first real attempt at the cooking system.
She was a bit of a mess, gullible and protective of her friends, supposed or not.

I never quite got around to being the crazed cook I was aiming for - mostly due to folks on the most part wanting/buying her meals. I'd meant for her to eventually turn hostile to those repeatedly refusing, however, most of those that did I only met very few times (Szul was on her naughty list, and then he died..). She had a need to feed folk and return a sort of imagery of a regular daily life with regular customers, and being called Ma was a big part of that, because:

[Hide=Background]
Ma Lillery. That was what she was known as before the Dread came to Lantan. She was a lone mother of thirteen, as she lost her husband to a kobold attack whilst she was pregnant with the thirteenth. Thankfully she had her vast family and her business to keep her mind busy and off the loss.
Her family was in charge of a line of cookeries on the isle, with each of her 13 sons being part of the industry. The cookery is so ingrained in her being, she now continues it and even wields her precious ladle, the only memento of her past, as a club when she fights. Made of sturdy iron-wood, it just keeps on swinging and stirring.[/Hide]

[Hide=AMB Seasons story, with some pictures (Not super great.. I was short on time when I began-- just couldn't get my head around anything seasony)]
Seasons

Life was good. Life was good. Ma Lillery Gobblestick, family head, business owner, blessed with thirteen children before her husband died.
Days came, were, and passed, each ticking away the ever ticking clock of time. Each day brought happiness.

'Hello Ma!', a voice called from the doorway to her inn, barely audible over a bout of raucous laughter from a table to the back. A waving, smiling gnome was entering, another regular sauntering in to enjoy a day off their own wife's cooking. Lillery motioned for one of her serving girls, Ferini, to go receive the new guest and take his order. Lillery peered outside the doorway, the lengthening shadows telling her the sun was about to set. She made a mental note begin changing the menu to a more autumnal theme, as summer was still over them, but it would soon be over.
Lillery turned about and moved back into her kitchen. It did not take long for Ferini to follow her into the kitchen. 'He'd like your special, Ma,' she meekly uttered. She was a young thing. Quite shy, but beautiful. She almost attracted as many looks as Lillery.
Lillery gave her a quick smile and ushered her back out, 'Then go get him a glass of milk, dear, and tell him it'll be a little while. I have to prepare a new batch.'
With practiced ease, Lillery began pulling away the necessary ingredients from her cupboards and larder; sage, garlic, salt, pepper, butter, wine, flours, eggs and a large cut of tenderloin. Her special, the Lillery's Legendary Salt-Baked Tenderloin, was a recipe she discovered during her many and regular experimentations, where she accidentally dropped a prime cut of tenderloin in her salt barrel. The result was staggering to all newcomers; meat so juicy and tender it was near like eating meat-flavoured butter. Each of her sons had been taught the recipe and it was the main attraction to each of the inns her family owned.
Happiness flowed through her mind as her hands worked the meat, her trusty ladle stirring the pot of roasted and spiced potatoes. She felt him watch over her.
Life was good.
Yet fate would not have it go on forever. The season of happiness would soon pass.

BOOM! Fire! She woke with a start, the smell of fire filling her nostrils, the roar of an explosion below her rattling her mind. Thoughts raced through her mind as she slipped into a pair of fur slippers and ran to investigate. Opening the door to the hallway, a billowing cloud of black acrid smoke rushed in to meet her. A season of pain was beginning.

Hurrying down the stairs to the main hall of her inn the heat of the fire slammed into her with a force that almost sent her reeling back. Her entire inn was aflame! Looking around, she started noticing small shapes among the flames. She noticed the dress of Ferini. She had been working the late shift, taking care of the customers wanting to stay for a late ale.
Screams started becoming audible as her ears began adjusting to the sudden roar of the fire. Well used to heat, Lillery pushed through the main hall, deciding to survive first and then give a thought to the dead when she had time. She worked her way into her kitchen. Of all the rooms in her inn, it was the safest against a fire, for it had a back entrance for deliveries and was mostly furnished with stone interior to keep fires from spreading. The heat was quickly intensifying, the fire burning away her livelihood, the memories of a life time. Smoke billowed about her head and the stark smell of soot snapped her from a brief moment of stunned sorrow.
She looked up at a hook on the wall where her ladle usually hang. 'Where is it?!', she thought, half-panicked, 'The explosion must have knocked it down'. She ran to grab a pot off the stove - not her best, but it'd do - and then she saw it. Her precious ironwood ladle, gifted to her by her husband at their wedding, was laying at the edge of the flames. She ran for it, pushing through the pulsing heat waves as the flames beyond roared, almost as if they were trying to repel her from her prize. With an scream of defiance, rage and sorrow, she fought through it, grabbed the ladle and ran for the exit.

Crisp, cold air filled her lungs and she coughed as if her lungs would explode. Looking around the village, she quickly realized that something more was going on. Every house she could see was burned or burning. Over the cacophony of screams and roaring fires, her coughing had not been heard. She praised Garl's for that one bout of luck in all this, for she suddenly noticed several groups of shadows moving between the flaming buildings. For several moments she stood breathless as she stared at the chaos and destruction and suddenly one of the shadows came into view. Dressed in strange gooey armor, the dark elf barely registered anything around itself. It lumbered on, staring into the distance with dead eyes as if focused on something in the far distance.
Horrified at it all, she turned on her heels and ran. Ran with all that she had in her towards the nearby forest, zipping through trees, over stumps and streams. She ran until she could no more. Exhausted, she sat down on the ground in a small clearing... and she wept. Slowly, snow began falling from the sky, gently pooling around the shaking gnome.

Each day was despair.
After the burning of her inn, Lillery had hurried to seek out her sons. Barely noticing that the sun had disappeared, the days began melting into one long arduous night. Desperately clinging to hope that they had survived, she hurried from town to town, but what she found devastated her each time.
Nothing was left. The towns torched to the ground. What surprised her however, was the lack of bodies. She found no sign of her sons' corpses.
Her mind raced at the possibilities, 'Perhaps they still live? Escaped like her? Have they been taken?'. She clung to the hope that they still lived. That they would be reunited somewhere and somehow would make things right again. Surely Lantan couldn't be completely taken.
She tried to look for tracks leading away from the inns, towards any areas of safety, but being no tracker she had little success.
There was only one place they might seek to go, she thought. Lillery steeled herself and turned about, trudging in the direction of her own inn.

Shortly after leaving town she felt as if something was following her. Picking up pace, she turned towards a nearby forest, hoping she could shake whoever it was there. Several minutes passed as she walked on, listening for signs of whatever it was, when all of a sudden a shriek bellowed through the forest and heavy thudding could be heard on her left. 'A gnome! A fellow gnome!', she thought at first her mind bubbling at the prospect, but then she saw his eyes. Bloodshot and feral, the gnome lunged towards her, wordlessly swinging the leg of a chair at her. Lillery brought up her pot to take the brunt of the swing before tossing it aside. The resounding impact caught the gnome off-balance, leaving Lillery enough time to bring up her ladle for a heavy overhead swing. The ladle struck true, connecting with the head of the gnome giving off a dull crack as it splintered his skull. Lillery stared dumbfounded at the gnome, blood seeping out from the meaty sack laying before her. She suddenly caught herself thinking of the gnome as a meaty sack. Could she? She had no other food. Her stomach rumbled in response. In fact she hadn't eaten for quite a while. She had found no mushrooms for a good while, and no fruits were growing in the snow and the only berries were already mostly fermenting. She said a quiet prayer to Garl, kneeled before the gnome and took a knife from her belt and began sawing at the meat. Meat for several days, she reasoned with herself. She had her cookpot, her ladle, and plenty of firewood. She would survive.
She turned and began trudging onwards, a large pool of red snow at her back.

Nothing but the ruins of her kitchen. That was all that was left of her old home, crumpled together like an ancient tomb.
She stood quietly staring over the ruins... and it was death and despair. Her sons were not there.
Yet despair can only last so long. In time it will give way to other emotions.

A season of desperation and madness began. A never-ending season of darkness.
Lillery roamed the dark nights. The sun was gone. She had no count of the days she had been alone. Animals started acting strange, she caught herself thinking strange thoughts, staring up at the sky. Life was not life. It was survival. A fight to stay alive, to forage for the next meal, to gather wood for a fire. For near a year, Lillery toiled on her own in the darkness, fighting to stay alive, hoping to find her sons.
The once mother of thirteen, once joyful and kind, she was anything but. A ghost of her former self, forced to live simple, live on the run, she had lost everything.

Then, one fateful day, a light shone in the darkness. A flicker of hope and dread raced through her mind. Salvation or an end? She crept closer, wary of tricks.
A sign stood outside what now appeared to be a fortified camp, light spilling out from a few poorly shut windows. 'Ilmateran Refugee camp'. She was not alone! She was finally saved!

Or so she thought.
[/Hide]

It was fun through most of it and I'd guess her biggest achievement would be to have kicked off RwG's death matches by being the first to take that plunge. ^^

I'll post some screens later!
 

IG Username: MadsAP
Character: Lillery Gobblestick

I finally got to level eight and wanted to see how much the rage would actually give, given the charisma Lillery has.
I was a bit surprised when I gained +4 strength/+7 constitution.

Edit:
Just to clarify; Lillery has 16 charisma and looking at the info on the rage she gains third tier strength buff but strangely gains between second (6) and third (8 ) tier con.

Character: Lillery Gobblestick
Playername: MadsAP

I managed to make dough out of bluecap, which made me think I had found a new main ingredient for a different table of cooking.
However, the table seems to be exactly the same as regular bluecap and seems to react with the same secondary reagents.

Overall I'm quite happy with the system.
However I'd love to be able to figure out what major ingredients went together to form a specific type of cooking, kind of like the library part of herbalism and alchemy.

Also it'd be great if the food had a slight mechanical advantage over regular food. In the form of temporary health points or added saves and such.
Currently most food has no advantage over sporebread or Lower Grub (boiled shoe?) and though I thoroughly enjoy explaining the difficulty of my dishes compared to sporebread, there's no incentive for buying it other than pure RP-munchies.

Akachi Imari is dead. Sacrificed to remedy a bit of defilement of the beetle ranch. (Sorry for that Thomas ^^)
She was a part of the Chultan Necromancers, also known as Ukoo wa Tano amongst no one other than themselves.
Had a blast during the most part; great players and great fun altogether!

[Hide=A bit of background]
As a part of the exiled Eshowe, Akachi grew up in the Valley of Lost Honor. Growing up was tough in the Kivuli tribe - the Shadow tribe. Her tribe was a highly spiritual one, with great emphasis on stealth, shadowcraft and religious reverence of Eshowdow.
Never much being one for stealth as a child, Akichi despaired and sought to appease the Great Shadow with daily prayer and blood sacrifice. Such was her devotion to Eshowdow that a shaman of the tribe took notice and took her under her wing. Toiling away, learning to recognize herbs, magic and to train her mind at focusing and meditation, she only continued to impress her new ward. During this time, Akachi was quick to learn that she was special, even favored, by Eshowdow. Shadows of the jungle were at her beck and call, defending her, protecting her, killing for her...
When she reached maturity, her skill at commanding the shadows was well-known within the Kivuli and her skills as a shaman were quickly recognized, so she rapidly ascended the social ladder in the eyes of her tribesmen, for she above all others was in command of the spawn of The Great Shadow, Eshowdow. She too had this view, and she made sure others heard of her powers, witnessed them and knew of her strength and what might be gained in strength by devoting yourself to Eshowdow.
She now reigns as the head shaman of the Kivuli, or what remains of it. She proudly bears the Totem of Shadow, the headband and raven feather that signifies her the head shaman of the Kivuli.
[/Hide]

A few personal achievements:
Got into more PVP than most of my characters combined, which was quite a new experience.
Managed to get to level 9 and keep it until the end.

If you're lacking for a concept, then I can very much endorse the Ukoo wa Tano! They're still out there.

And no, I didn't get any screenies.. I always forget to. :(

Playername: MadsAP
Character: Akachi Imari

Paid Oddo Borne(The Tychean standing in the lower right area of Lower) the 400 gold for what I'd guess is a restoration spell, as it entailed cleansing the body and soul.
He did not cast any spell though.

Should probably add that I initiated the conversation while invisible, but removed it before choosing the restoration blessing.

Player: MadsAP
Character: Akachi Imari

If you take part 2 of the pirate kobold cove quest ( the sailing part ) and you fail it by the boat running aground, your journal updates with a failure but also makes you unable to get a reward for part 1.
It seems odd you loose the part 1 success reward by failing part 2. I'm guessing it's a bug, because I still had the invite tool after the journal update. (Or it's just a bug that it's not removed when it fails)

Shadow Weaver from the shadow summoning theme has a breath weapon that can be rather disruptive in the community of shadows.
The problem lies in that they tend to damage your other shadows(and/or friendly players and/or yourself) when they use it. That causes the rest of the shadows to turn on it and for some reason prioritize that higher than attacking your actual enemies, which turns into a great brawl amongst shadowy fiends.

It'd be nice if the breath weapon was removed or made so that it doesn't turn your shadows hostile to the 'caster'. Or perhaps replaced by a negative circle spell instead?

So Lew finally bit the dust.. or metal or whatever. He's probably not dead, unless one of you gits kill him!

Had a blast most of the time, with many different players as Lew has been around for a bit of a while.
Isn't much to say about him, other than him being a bit all over, having been a drow-friend, a werewolf, a kobold-tribesman, an auxilliary and now:
[Hide=The End]


So bring it on druids, rats, bugs and Chosen! Lew will fix the Machine!
[/Hide]

See you on the next one!

Character: Lew Tanners
Player: MadsAP

Earlier today, the random transitioning of the Access Ways caught me in a trap.
I took the gate from the Waterworks area and ended up in Dunwarren - Travelling, the lab, with only a single door exiting out from that area.
Sadly though, the exit door was non-functional and I had to get SanTelmo to save me from a day of boredom.
It happens from time to time that a few doors aren't functioning, some even throwing a JLabyrinth error, stating the location isn't part of the maze or..somethingsomething. I don't remember the exact message. I'll update it when I see it next time, if it's important.

Character: Lew Tanners
Player: MadsAP

The locked Sealed Svirfneblin Containers in the Dunwarren Travelling area don't have any contents. Tried on two occasions, being the first to get there and unlock them, I think -  unless the containers relock automatically after a longer period than the doors.

The exact area is the one with:
One locked door, one unlocked door, two locked Sealed Svirfneblin Containers.

Character: Lew Tanners
Player: MadsAP
 
For several hours today my perk has been telling me that my character is too dispirited to search another trash can.
Yesterday it was working fine. A shot in the blue: I think it may be connected to logging out while having the perk on cooldown.

So, she finally bit the dust, which I was kind of hoping to happen in case I didn't hit something else fun (which sadly just happened the day before her death ^^).
She was my first attempt at a paladin with a wavering morality, mostly due to the fact that her god (Kelemvor) wasn't answering.
She went through a whole bundle of phases, going first Scriveners, falling from grace, becoming a Jergalite, making her own 'cult', screw over Jergalite ways and gods in general and become a no-good full blown necromancer.
 
Thanks to the players that helped her along her path and thanks to the DMs that put up with my continous apping and other things (especially Cmenden, Caster and Wiggy) :)
 
I'll post a few screenshots some other time!

The Crypt Emerges!
 
Mausoleum-esque institution, but unbound by the pishposh rules of Upper, though Jergalite rules are still in effect.
 
Get into Jergalite chenanigans while we make ourselves a home.
Battle it out with other factions in Lower, as our ideals clash.
Impose Law and Order on Lower.
 
Great place for necromancers that wish company and all characters that aren't too picky about their companions.
 
Horizontal allignment: Lawful-Neutral
Vertical allignment: Neutral-Evil.
 
All non-monster races are acceptable and most classes. Druid is a no-go.
 
I'll be in #Crypt for questions and such.

Justin bit the dust a few days back. I originally made him just as a character to run around, explore and try other aspects of the server.
Then he met Gideon after a couple of days time and that pretty much turned around the randomness. Suddenly he got caught up in Lower and the Ascension and a love interest with Summer(Sumah), though it never developed much.

And so here's my one screenie of him that makes any sense.


Thanks a load to HDM, Hound and Wyar's player - great fun together!