Ankylosaur

With Glimmers (the magic post-praetoria series) done, I wanted to go back and make sure the two paths aligned and complemented one another. In particular this comment had stuck in my mind.... It's true that as the penultimate arc, it is mostly you confirming suspicions and knocking ConDev down a peg before the grand finale. However with Neo Tokyo being revealed in the Glimmers path, that did give me a chance to integrate that better here and try to better prepare for the finale too...

Thanks for giving this a run and for the feedback! All of your feedback throughout the series has been super helpful, and as you know, even influenced some things. As to Marchand I struggled quite a bit on who should be the contact. Originally it was going to be the spirit world Vanessa DeVore since she bookends the Carnival of Light's involvement, but then she couldn't hand you the things you needed to compel the gods. Then it was going to be Hellewise since she has all the magic knowledge and knows about traveling dimensions/planes, but she has been a bit out of the picture to step in and take charge. In the end, I thought back to 4.1 and how Marchand is coordinating all of the special ops related to this, so he would have been in charge when Desdemona and Pendragon went missing on their op, and consequently - even though he doesn't know much about magic - he would bring all the resources to together to solve the problem. That's just who he is... It also helps bridge the slight left turn that 4.2 is. So as he is coordinating the ops he reaches out to specialists: Hellewise knows about the magic of the planes, Nadia about charms and compelling gods, and Archivist Jaena of the midnight squad about the history of the gods on Prime, the banished pantheon, and the Mu - it takes a team! Interpretation of the Gods Way back in 3.1 Hellewise talks about this interpretation of the gods. I'm with you though, its far from perfect - even just the Mu history alone has many different beings / dieties / sources of magic and sea gods seem to be around in different forms with Merulina's history suggesting she's not even a god at all but an alien. But, as you say, just cause the Mu wrote down with their interpretation does not mean its true - and I think its "true enough" for the purposes of this. 🙂 As to the fixes and typos - thanks so much! Will get to those fixed post haste.

Well, I'm pleased to say I finished what I set out to do - place the First Ward, magic using ex-pats in our world and see what happens. I am sure I will tweak it a bit, but I can call it done! Like the All That Glitters series, this series changes the game world, so I am considering doing a single 5.0 to tie the Glitters and Glimmers paths together in a bit of a capstone or epilogue. We'll see if I get around to it... All in all it was a very fun writing/creating experience. I planned this one out a bit more than I did Glitters, so it was a lot less haphazard in how the story evolved and its construction. I think overall it is probably tighter as a result too. If you give it a whirl, as usual I'm open to all feedback to make it the best it can be. Enjoy!

My mistake! Found her in the resistance. (Just a case of misremembering and looking in the wrong place!)

The carnival of Light used to have two versions of the "light" Vanessa De Vore - both are missing after the recent AE update. One of them was level 20-34 to correspond to the mob level. The other was an EB level 1-54 and did not have a mask. Both are absent now - maybe something to do with the Carnies mob rename and multiple Vanessa De Vores? No idea really but would love to have her back. 🙂

The new update with new maps and new high level Nictusy mobs (+ a contest) spun up my Kheldians vs. Nictus thoughts. I purposely avoided doing anything significant with the Council or with the 5th Column when I made the first one (except for a few Void Seekers). I started thinking about where Arakhn and Requiem are left during Primal Marchand's arc, and, well came up with a sequel for Police vs. Aliens! So what was a single arc is all of a sudden a little series: Police vs. Aliens 1: Nictus Exodus and introducing... Police vs. Aliens 2: Nictus Evictus!

Bit of a mad dash to try to pull this all together by the deadline, but here's my submission: Arc ID: 43278 Police vs. Aliens 2: Nictus Evictus @Ankylosaur Your old Transcended pal, Col. Buddy Bolton of the PPD, left a message on your phone. You haven't talked with him since fighting Nictus on Praetoria! Call him back to see what he needs?

In the latest update, the Cimeroran mob was updated to include a few boss versions of mobs that were there as AVs: Sister Solaris and Sybill Bramlett. It seems like they replaced the AV versions, which I suspect was unintended. Ideally we would have both a boss and AV version if available.

I think Sister Solaris and Sybil Bramlet's AV versions were replaced by Boss versions in the update in the Cimeroran group. They used to be available as AVs - Would be great to have both options.

This has been subsumed, with some modifications, into All that Glimmers as the penultimate arc of the series. (All That Glimmers 4.2)

I was thinking about pulling this down, as the lore is a bit off in it, and I have heavily expanded on part of the core idea in All That Glimmers. (The First Ward evacuees finding a new home in the reclaimed Astoria area) This plot is quite different though and as it was the inspiration for All That Glimmers, am leaving it up there for now.

Its a little meta?

Unpublished this as a completely redone version of it is part of the All That Glimmers series. (All That Glimmers 2.2) It's underlying plot is similar, but it is no longer redside, the flow and motivations are different, the contact, maps, and even final boss are different, and it ties into something much bigger...

So that was fun - totally redid M2. As @Kyksie said up above, it was a little odd to have a low level Paragon Cop go to Praetoria. As much as I loved the idea of the PPD Officer exchange, it felt a little weird in practice and is way outside the lore. But, there was a map I have been trying to come up with a reason to use, and it fit well, level-wise, and now that I have a human form warshade character I came up with a way to use it. The map is the sprawling skyway tram map. And here is how I used it...

Its funny how you can find things buried somewhere in the Architect months later... This arc is a Kheldian / Praetorian story and one of the big limitations there is the lack of AE toons with kheldian powers. Working on another arc, I just found one, Romulus - hidden away at the bottom of a long list of longbow. Recasting/coloring/naming him as a villain nictus (Stardust) lets me insert a named character who you can encounter in more than one mission. This provides some good continuity as this arc also spans years (simulated by each arc mission advancing in level range, and you remembering them - you and your contact are advancing in your careers throughout too). I have been able to use him in M1 and M3. This also changed the level range of M3 a little and made the encounter with the shadow freaks a bit more focused. (I pulled out the rikti freaks as I use them in All That Glitters to better effect). It only took a year to stumble upon him. 🙂 I may even redo M2 to use him. M2 was a hard mission to build but takes a little liberty with the lore... There never was an officer exchange program between Praetoria and Prime. 🙂

Just to be clear wasn't that I disapproved - just that I died a lot. 🙂

I had a big issue with the onslaught of Olympian Guards too - even on the improved version. But I tend to probably make my stuff too easy with allies and the like. 🙂

You can do some creative things with escorts. They have a dialog option when you meet them and when they arrive at their destination, and can change behavior when you arrive (like wander off or betray). But its the kind of thing that works best in VERY specific situations and maps that have real front, middles, and backs in distinct areas - preferably different levels. One of my first successful attempts at this was in Rularularian Mission 4 - it worked better than I had even hoped. It uses the nemesis shard map which has a big outdoor area and small interior, and it goes a little something like this... Setup Flynn, your contact says he will go in to the mission before you. Mission entry pop up says "Flynn talks to you in an earpiece and says 'Come meet me on the platform'" (Discovered if I filled all the slots, he always showed up in the same spot - I'm presuming it follows a specific load order. Will never touch the sequence I have the load items in as a result.) Flynn is an escort set to empty, and non combat - the map is set to empty and manually populated with friendly mobs. The outside area only has allies so that while you escort him he can't be killed so you won't fail. The interaction You meet him and he says "Hi" and he has a destination set to another escort (Julian) inside that small room. You lead him to that room following the waypoint and to Julian. Upon arriving Flynn is set to exit so he exits through the door to the small room saying "I'll step outside". Julian is an escort set to empty, who says "Hi, take me to that wall glowie." Arriving at the glowie he says "click it." (In the same room are other glowies with optional info to keep the interaction going longer - you know something will happen when you click what Julian wants you to click, so you just might linger and try the optional clicks. When you do, as suggested above, the clue says "Julian tells you about this glowie." ) And then you click the wall glowie. The unexpected bonus Flynn comes back in from the outside! He is a Soldier/FF MM and set to trigger when the glowie is clicked and this time is an ally set to aggressive. He actually comes in through the door saying "we're under attack, let me call the troops" He then proceeds to summon his minions. Outside wisps and some battles trigger too, so you go out with him and clean up. So yeah - with some planning, the right map, some luck (like the platform and the door), and some finagling you can do some things, but it is surrounded with loads of qualifiers. 🙂 I have a few other missions where I managed to pull something like that off, even M3 of the same arc, but nothing as (surprisingly!) successful as that one.

A few folk like Kadabra Bill, Sigil, and Cyrus are not in there either... https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Generic_Heroes but easy enough to recreate

Look at the map description. It will let you know if you can place 4 bosses in the back. When you place each of the four "fight a boss" encounters - set the Surrounding Enemy Group to empty. Set the map to empty too. All four will be in the back room, though spaced out and without minions.

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