Questions will be taken in the chat room for this one. Richard Garriot, Tracy Hickman, Chris Spears, and Mojito Spears will be on camera!
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Community Spotlight ~ Tales of the Underworld
Not all adventures turn out the way we plan, and not all partnerships are profitable. But sometimes when things go wrong, the only person we have to blame is ourselves. In today’s tale of the Underworld, Vandigeth weaves a story of adventure and betrayal while illustrating the danger of losing sight of Virtue in “The Cavern”.
The Cavern
She stood on the rocky precipice looking out upon the dense rock that filled this cavern. The sound of water filled the air before her; its smell gave what little freshness there was to be had in this dank place. A humid mist permeated the air and diffused the light across the cavern.
Jumping down from her precipice, she rejoined her companions across a small wooden bridge over the sheltered river. The stalagmites and other cavernous formations spoke to the absolute timelessness of this place. To her left was a modest waterfall, an obvious inlet of moisture from the surface far above this place.
The tread of one’s shoe was important here unless great care were taken. Moisture put off by the river both beautified the cavern but acted as a deadly host to her earnest companions. A simple mistake with one’s footing could result in a fall into the river below, or gravity between the rock and one’s head. However, she had much more experience moving through these so-called ‘catacombs’ than any of her companions.
Finally, she caught up to the companions. Two of them, both male, were a wealthier sort from the cities. Flush with cash and equipment, they hired her to guide them across the continent on a pilgrimage to a famous shrine of Honor. Both were showing their inexperience now as they began to question her about the caves to which she had become so familiar.
Community Spotlight ~ Tales of the Underworld
Shroud of the Avatar will be home to many adventurous souls; many of which will team up with others in their quest for glory and riches. And in the end, they may discover something more precious than fame and fortune; they might instead find lasting friendship. Thus, it seemed fitting that our next featured Tale of the Underworld be one of both adventure and fellowship. Presenting, “The Expedition” by Archaaz.
The Expedition
Noor sat silent and still upon a high outcropping overlooking the town of Niverale, nestled in the distant valley below. The sun had not yet pierced the horizon, and the world was still bathed in the gray miasma of early morning. A sudden late autumn breeze whistled down from the mountains above, and she pulled her woolen cloak tighter against the chill.
Her perch afforded a splendid view of the town, spread out along both sides of the narrow valley, split by the gentle river Vuryn- a river that would slow to a frozen trickle with onset of the winter snows, and swell to a raging torrent with the spring thaw. Smoke from a hundred chimneys curled upward, dissipating wistfully into the pale, predawn sky.
Community Spotlight ~ Tales of the Underworld
Today’s featured Tale of the Underworld is one of our shorter entries, but a testament that a powerful story need not be lengthy. Without further delay, I present, “The Warrior and the Flower” by Tekkamansoul.
The Warrior and the Flower
The warrior opened his eyes.
Cold, hard ground. A far-off glow. The sound of a river.
What happened?
He tried to move, but his body wouldn’t listen. His eyes refused to focus; his brain, to recall where he was or what he was doing.
With a forceful grunt and an exertion of muscles strained beyond their limits, he managed to prop an arm beneath him and roll over onto his back.
Thud. The pain was unbearable.
Community Spotlight ~ Tales of the Underworld
First off, I want to say how humbled both myself and the team were by the amount of amazing stories that were submitted. What I thought would be an easy task in selecting the best turned out to be quite the epic quest! One that I must admit, I could not complete without some alterations to my plan! Which is why every day this week, I will be publishing one of our favorite FIVE Tales of the Underworld!
Today, we begin with a tale of unexpected adventure. Join me in celebrating Corlag the Bard’s Tale of the Underworld.
Krelm and the Underworld – Part 1
A Shroud of the Avatar Fan Fiction
It all started when Krelm ventured north east into the forest, to hunt for a stag to feed his family. It had been a lean year for crops, and what little they had after their tithes had not lasted long. They would starve if he didn’t make the journey. That would be a worse fate than risking the danger that lie within these woods.
Pledge Grace Period Ends May 20th, Updated Tier Prices & Descriptions, Modified Titles
It took us longer than expected to finalize the changes to the pledge tiers, but after much brainstorming, editing, debating, re-editing, soliciting community feedback, editing again, staring at them some more, tweaking here and tweaking there, we’re finally ready to make the updated pledges public! We did our best to walk the tightrope between ensuring the modified rewards are appealing to new backers while showing our deep appreciation for our special early backers with lots of Exclusive Early Founder rewards. If we were ever in doubt about whether a reward should be reserved for our Early Founders, or made available to new backers, we leaned towards reserving it exclusively for our Early Founders. As you read through the updated tier descriptions outlined below, we feel certain that most of you will agree the new tiers contain enough great rewards to attract new backers, while reserving a great many awesome rewards for our very special Early Founders!
Title Changes
We also want to thank all of you that provided feedback about how we should handle in-game honorific titles for new backers and Early Founders. There is quite a lively thread filled with great title suggestions over on the forums (https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?topic=community-feedback-request-for-new-tier-titles). We did our best to weigh all the suggestions, and balance the varied considerations. Our primary goals for the title modifications were 1) Provide special, easily identifiable, titles to the Early Founders, 2) clean up some of the title ranking inconsistencies and generic titles, and 3) allow Early Founders to choose from any of the titles, including the new backer titles, the special founder titles, and even the inconsistently ranked and generic titles originally described in the Kickstarter tiers.
There were several suggestions to make the Early Founder titles stand out visually by using a different colored font, which is a great idea! Thus, all Early Founder titles will be in gold colored font when viewed in-game! Additionally, most of the Early Founder titles either have a special prefix, or are ranked higher than the new backer title for the same tier. Several community members posted the proper ranking of titles, which we also cross-referenced with Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_and_noble_ranks). The biggest changes were with the Lord tier and above (where we didn’t adequately research proper ranking when we originally named those tiers and titles). We did our best to balance the divergent community opinions regarding these title changes.
Grace Period Ends at 12 pm CST on May 20th; Early Backers Lock-In Lower Tier Prices
The new tiers will go live at 12 pm CST on Monday, May 20, 2013. The prices for the tiers have increased an average of about 10%, but all backers that have pledged any amount prior to the end of the grace period will be able to upgrade their pledges thru April 7, 2014 at the old, lower prices! So if you haven’t already pledged, then hurry up and get your pledge in before the end of the grace period so you can lock in the lower prices for your future tier upgrades!
NEW TIER DESCRIPTIONS
Community Spotlight ~ Markee Dragon
This week’s Community Spotlight star will be very familiar to our UO fans! Markee Dragon, a longtime community leader for UO, has been an advocate and voice for Shroud since its conception, with his interviews with Richard reaching thousands of fans and his Shroud of the Avatar Fansite offering a home to all those with a passion for New Britannia! He is currently hosting a live SotA roundtable each week on Saturdays from 5 to 6pm Eastern at www.twitch.tv/markeedragon. If you missed this week’s episode, you can watch it right here; AND get a sneak peek at the exclusive Warrior Concept Art featured on the show!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BdjTPII-yZA#!
The great thing about Markee Dragon’s Roundtables is that ANYONE can join. And I wouldn’t be surprised at all if a Dev or two manage to sneak into future broadcasts! If you would like to participate, you can join via Google Hangouts. And in addition to exclusive “sneak peaks” of content and Dev interviews, once SotA is launched, Markee plans to air game-play live streams and create YouTube episodes for content a well. For now, check out his Shroud of the Avatar channel on YouTube to catch up on all the interviews and roundtables you may have missed!
Pen of the Avatar ~ 5.14.13
Our next Dev Chat will take place on Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 3 pm CST and will feature Stephen Daniele in Pen of the Avatar. As always, I’ll have the exact link where you can watch 15 minutes prior to broadcast, and you can submit your questions via Google using the #LBSotA_Hangout tag, or from the Shroud of the Avatar Chat Room!
Until then, here is another housing sketch from Stephen!
