Announcements - 2012/04 - Retributions

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April 2012 - Patch Page

Teaser Images

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  1 - CantBeGood.jpg

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  2 - EmperorStrikesBack.jpg

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  3 - Shocking.jpg

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  4 - WatchYourStep.jpg

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  5 - YouFirst.jpg

Release Notes

Original Link - http://ac.turbine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=703-april-2012-release-notes&catid=86-2012&Itemid=68

April 2012: Release Notes

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Greetings and welcome to the Release Notes for the April Event, Retributions. This month brings the long awaited arrival of Lugians as a playable race to Asheron's Call! With this addition, the team has opened another character slot for players to use. Let’s see what else is in store this month in Asheron’s Call!

Monthly Kill Tasks have been changed.

Quests of the Month update

• Weekly: Sword of Lost Light
• Bi-weekly: Silifi of Crimson Night
• Monthly: Dark Monolith

CONTRACTS:

• Aerbax's Prodigal Drudge
• Aerbax's Prodigal Human
• Chasing Oswald
• Hunting Aun Ralirea
• Gurog Creation: we have fixed an issue with name inconsistency.

There are now more baby creatures on the landscape. Spring has been fruitful thus far!

Lugians are now a playable race! Make yours today!

With the addition of another playable race, we have made another character slot available to players, rejoice!

Some Rare Jewelry items have been upgraded.

Beneficial defensive mods have been added to Alchemy phials.

Shields & off-handed weapons can now be equipped after thrown projectiles such as Alchemy Phials.

When an enchantment overwrites a previous enchantment, a replacement message is now displayed.

The Aluvian Rare exchanger should no longer get stuck in busy state when given Rogue's Crystal.

Fixed a transparency issue with the Crown of Anointed Blood.

Giving gems no longer displays the gem material name twice.

KNOWN ISSUES:
Characters with an off-hand weapon and a thrown weapon will not automatically revert to dual wield stance once the thrown weapon is removed, until a new weapon is placed in the main hand.

The following items do not display on Lugians, and will be added in a future update:

• Dresses
• Most Headwear
• Rare Armor
• Hieromancer/Exarch Armor
• Rabbit Girth
• Drudge Championship Belt
• Winged Gromnie Armor
• Shadow Wing Breastplate

So these are just some of the things we have in store for Asheron's Call in April. Please remember that along with everything listed here, there are new quests and exciting things going into the game for the April Event.

Teaser

Original Link - http://ac.turbine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=705-retributions&catid=86-2012&Itemid=68

Retributions

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"You are incompetent fools." Geraine stood with his back to the Archons.

Hahnain dared to speak first, "The intrusion was much unexpected Emperor. They didn't seem the sort to be capable of finding us."

"We never should have been kind to the Isparians when they invaded these lands. We should have killed them all." Renselm fumed from his recent defeat.

"The full blame is on me for ever thinking you could properly perform a simple task." Geraine turned to face the three decaying bodies which stood in his chambers. "They did have some help from an old adversary who still has not learned his lesson. He thinks that his growing power is any match for mine. The miserable oaf seems to have forgotten I defeated him at his peak many millennia ago and can easily do so again."

"The last time you had The Book…" Renselm dared.

Geraine swung his gaze to Renselm, "I do not need The Book! You do not question me! Feel lucky that I do not submit you to an eternity of suffering for your insolent behavior."

Renselm, startled by the outburst, fell silent. Geraine regained his composure, "The book is where it needs to be for now. It will serve a far greater purpose and I do not need it to handle House Mhoire."

Geraine stayed silent for an uncomfortable minute. The Archons, unsure of how to respond to this new side of Geraine and fearing the wrath of interrupting his thoughts, kept quiet until Saelar finally took the risk of resuming the conversation, "Shall we go to war? Destroy House Mhoire in one final blow?"

"No… not yet. We are exposed. It will not take Mhoire long to figure out what they stumbled on to. Soon Mhoire will send out his forces in search of my hosts, I must move them to safety."

Geraine turned to leave his chamber, "Go make sure my hosts are hidden away. I have a message to send to Lord Mhoire."

Immense crackling echoed through the valley in the Graveyard of Despair. Large stones crashed down into the hills, followed by statues and soon the North side of Mhoire Castle dipped down in the sky. The castle sunk through the air with increasing momentum until it slammed into the mountain beneath it. The ground shook violently from the impact sending rocks and dirt spilling in over the top of the structure. The weight of the collapsing hills pushed towers and broke free parapets. One section of wall slid down a ridge and slammed into a glen below.

As the rumbling quelled and the dust began to filter back to the ground, with pieces of statues and stone supports now littering the cliffs, a tall dark figure could be seen on a far away hill. Turning his back to the devastation he disappeared out of view leaving the destruction behind.

Release Fiction

Original Link - http://ac.turbine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=708-april-2012-release-fiction&catid=86-2012&Itemid=68

Release Fiction

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The day started much as any other, in the accursed halls of Castle Mhoire. Much of the population had not yet been freed of the ancient curse on the House, so those mages and alchemists who had been working to unravel the curse had to move in secrecy, avoiding their ancient kin. There had been a lull in the near-constant siege of adventurers that usually plagued the palace, so it was once again the best time to work freeing those that could be captured and then hopefully survive the treatments to make them into one of the ‘Reawakened’.

The ancient Magus had just successfully awakened another Mhoire undead to her new life when the castle fell eerily silent. He turned to two of the castle’s sorcerers and said, “Something has changed. Get this newly freed child to the Isparian’s town. I must see what is going on.”

As the sorcerers opened a portal to Holtburg and escorted the reawakened undead to the Academy, the Magus cast a spell to attune to the castle’s ancient magics, which would allow him to get a sense of what was going on throughout the castle itself, as well as the graveyard and oubliette below. What he saw filled him with awe and dread.

All of the flows of power through the castle and as far as the magics could sense outside of it had stopped entirely. The magics of the world paused in their ceaseless movement. “Such a thing should not be possible!” uttered the Magus, with fear echoing in his voice, “What in Auberean could cause this?”

As he watched, all of the flows of power suddenly redirected to a single point at the peak of a nearby mountainside. As the magic gathered, the Magus recognized his enemy... “Geraine. So you finally show yourself at last.” At the last of the magics in the area flowed into Geraine’s spell, the Magus called on his own power to summon all of the sorcerers of the castle to him. Even those still bound by the curse answered the ancient call, so powerful was the summons.

“We must defend the castle! Gather your strength, mighty sorcerers! An attack the likes of which we have not yet faced comes for us!”

Almost instantly, dozens of magical defenses were poured into the castle by the assembled sorcerers, all being directed by the Magus himself. Unsure of what to defend against specifically, he pooled the majority of the power into a holding pattern, to be applied where it would be needed most, while the rest he fed into the castle’s existing defensive barriers.

What Geraine did next, surprised them all. Instead of attacking the castle or any of its inhabitants with the massive amount of power he had drawn in, he simply gave one final magical tug, and all of the spells on the castle unraveled, from the barriers that they had just empowered to the spells that held the castle aloft for millennia.

Sounds of panic and chaos echoed through the castle as the whole thing listed to one side and the exterior of the castle began to disintegrate under the stress. The Magus quickly turned the pool of magics he had into a shield to protect and hold together the heart of the castle. He didn’t have the strength to keep the castle afloat, not with all of the ambient energies gone, but he hoped he could at least keep as much of the castle intact as possible.

A moment later, the whole castle crashed into the rocky hills below it, just barely missing the most inhabited areas of the Graveyard. The impact was so great that the hillside itself washed over the castle as it sank into the earth.

Many sorcerers perished pouring their very essences into the defensive shield, and their sacrifice kept most of the inner halls intact. The Magus himself was nearly destroyed, as he stood as the focal point of their combined magics. His ability to see what was going on outside the castle ended with the dispelling of the castle’s enchantments, so he did not know if his attempt was successful, or if there was another attack coming. All they could do was keep pouring power into the magical barrier and hope everything settled into place before the magics failed.

After a time, all grew silent once more. Many of the reawakened undead who worked with the Magus had ceased to be, pouring all they had into defending their ancient home. All of the cursed sorcerers who had answered the ancient summons had been consumed in their mindless determination to fulfill the protection of the castle they were bound to.

The Magus laid on the floor, utterly spent. As the dust settled, he called out to those who survived. “We’ve done it. We’ve saved all we could. Send word to the Isparian Queen, and gather forces to release and inform the Lord and Lady. Geraine has shown himself. Our time to strike has come.”

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Lord Kresovous stood on the ramparts of Linvak Tukal, looking over the assembled Lugians of his clan.

“The time has come for us to more formally join with our allies. You are the youngest of us, and I have gathered you here because you are also the most adaptable of us. Tradition runs strong in our people. Our clan sits ever in our hearts, lending us the strength of all our clansmen. I am asking each and every one of you to be even stronger, even greater, than that bond.”

“To you goes the most difficult task of any of our people. I am sending you all to join directly to the free peoples of Dereth. To make all who stand in that alliance part of our clan, and to share in their lives and turmoils. Long have we stood beside our allies, but remained separate. No more! Now, my brothers and sisters, we join with them in truth!”

Fear and excitement flowed through the assembled crowd. For good or ill, the Lugians will spread into the world at large.

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Borelean sat for a long time in the veritable library of books he had assembled from those taken from Geraine’s rituals. “How could there be so many copies of the same tome?” he wondered to himself. “How could all of these be that damned, evil book, yet none of them be the Book I need?”

As he sat there, heart filling with despair, one book in the pile began to pulse with a faint, red glow. An eerie voice filled his mind with whispers, too quiet for him to understand. A female voice rose out of the whispers and said into his mind, “You have called to me, by despair and blood, and I have come. If you will pay my price and learn my secrets, that which you seek can be returned to you. But, with all your soul, you must desire this above all else, and you must be willing to do all that must be done. The road is long, but all things are achievable.”

Borelean slowly stood, fear and awe etched into his features. “I could get her back? Bring her back to life?” he whispered, too fearful to speak aloud, lest this all be a dream.

“That and more, my love.” answered the Book, “That and much, much more.”