Suggestion for Dark Astoria

[biostem]

Aping off the thread regarding a new GM/event for Croatoa, I think a better application may be to add an event to Dark Astoria.  Here is my proposal:

 

A sizable group of Drudges appear in Dark Astoria, led by the "Grand Taskmaster", (a non-hostile AV).  As they move across the zone, they gather up lost souls and attempt to guide them out from Mot's clutches.  They are periodically attacked by groups of Banished Pantheon, and if enough souls remain by the time they get to the other end of the zone, the BP make one final attempt and summon Adamastor, who blocks the portal through which all the lost souls can finally be guided to their final rest.  If no Drudges are near the lost souls, they will remain where they are, but will leash onto nearby players and follow them, who can guide them back to the group of Drudges, to resume their journey.  Alternatively, maybe the event could grant a "soul jar" temp power, that allows you to capture a lost soul, which can be released at a later location once near the Grand taskmaster.  The temp power, even if it contains a soul, goes away whether the event is successful or not.  There would have to be some provision put in place to prevent players form capturing the souls merely to grief the event/make it fail, though, (or maybe once freed from their BP captors, the souls simply resume the journey on their own).

Edited February 14, 2023 by biostem

[Rudra]

I'm guessing you mean Echo: Dark Astoria since I don't recall seeing wandering spirits in Mot Dark Astoria. And Echo: Dark Astoria already has Adamastor who can be summoned by the players. Also, while I understand that the Drudges as spirit guides are not constrained to Praetoria but are linked to all dimensions, I would rather not expand them beyond Night Ward. (Edit: Except in possibly a new zone that carries on from where Night Ward leaves off gold side.)

Edited February 14, 2023 by Rudra

[biostem]

4 minutes ago, Rudra said:

I don't recall seeing wandering spirits in Mot Dark Astoria.

I've seen them in the Western urban area.

 

4 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Also, while I understand that the Drudges as spirit guides are not constrained to Praetoria but are linked to all dimensions, I would rather not expand them beyond Night Ward.

Mot Dark Astoria, IMO, qualifies as being drawn between worlds/dimensions/whatnot, so as to involve the Drudges.  They seem like a significant enough faction, as do the events there, to get involved...

Edited February 14, 2023 by biostem

[Rudra]

Less crossing over as in First Ward slipping into the spirit world and more trapped as Mot's Dark Astoria doesn't actually have lore links to the spirit world. Rather, his presence traps souls that he feeds on since he is the only member of the Banished Pantheon (as in deific pantheon rather than cultist worshipper faction in CoX) to not actually be banished into the spirit world in any capacity. (Instead he was inside an idol that drove everyone mad to the point of suicide that was brought to Astoria for eventual destruction.)

 

Edit: All of which can just be argued as being semantics anyway. *shrug* I would rather not do as the OP suggests. That's me. I am a single individual. That is merely my opinion.

Edited February 14, 2023 by Rudra
Edited to remove "d" from "an".

[biostem]

3 minutes ago, Rudra said:

his presence traps souls that he feeds on

Which would  be all the more reason for the Drudges to have to intervene in a more direct manner, and on a smaller scale...

[Greycat]

Hmm. i don't' recall seeing any either - regular citizens, yes, but not ghosts. Bit of lore in there with them mostly being devoured when mot awakened, I believe.

 

That said, there's a perfect spot - with badge! - for anything like this, which doesn't actually match its badge description. The Palace of Stone Leaves:

 

Quote

Even with every man, woman and child in Dark Astoria slaughtered, the city never ceased to be a thriving metropolis. The bonds that held Mot in its torpor also prevented the spirits of the slain from passing on. Forced to remain as ghosts among the empty remnants of their city, the citizens of Dark Astoria did their best to resume a semblance of normality. Founded by a powerful Tsoo ancestor spirit, the Palace of Stone Leaves was the nerve center of this ghostly community. Now a refuge protected vigorously by its living Tsoo guardians, it houses the few remaining spirits that were lucky enough to not be swept away and consumed when Mot first stirred from its slumber.

 

It's a little bit of an odd spot for an "event," since there's just not that much room (A corridor? We used to DREAM of having an event in corridor, it'd been like a palace to us!) but if anything, it'd sound perfectly appropriate for something like this.

 

I don't know if drudges are appropriate for this or not - I'm *not* as heavily into their lore - but the character that was my "main" for a long time, and is recreated here as well, used to spend a lot of time in DA *specifically* because of the spirits of the people that used to live there - spending time disrupting rituals and such.

 

Tying it somewhat to the "last stand" warehouse might be interesting, too.

[huang3721]

The drudges are already overwhelmed by the events in Night Ward. Praetorian War and subsequent Hamidon awakening are not helping them either. IMO, someone would need to write a lot of explanations to justify their presence in Dark Astoria.

 

How about other magic-origin factions? Friendly Tsoo or Midnighters? 

 

[Rudra]

43 minutes ago, huang3721 said:

The drudges are already overwhelmed by the events in Night Ward. Praetorian War and subsequent Hamidon awakening are not helping them either. IMO, someone would need to write a lot of explanations to justify their presence in Dark Astoria.

 

How about other magic-origin factions? Friendly Tsoo or Midnighters? 

 

I'm still not a fan of the OP, but I do admit, this is an interesting change to it. Especially in light of what the Tsoo are doing in Dark Astoria and how their story progresses when you get to their portion of the arcs and the Palace of Stone Leaves exploration badge fluff text. Tsoo trying to save souls, especially in light of the horror of their incarnate ink and their possible drive for atonement over the measures they took to survive Dark Astoria and fight Mot, this would serve to highlight the honor the Dark Astoria Tsoo tended to exhibit. And with their Ancestor Spirits at risk, gives them added incentive to do so.

 

However! (Yeah, all of you knew there just had to be a "however", didn't you?) If this were to be implemented, then aside from using Tsoo instead of Drudges, I would propose the following changes or considerations:

 

1) Keep the event corridors short. There are a few escort events like this in CO. And they SUCK. They aren't hard, not even close to being hard, but they are very annoying to do since you have to know where the event enemies are going to spawn from, get ahead of the group, and anticipate where the enemies are going to spawn to avoid failure. Especially since they keep moving without the player and can trigger multiple spawns along the corridor. Not hard in any form, but definitely annoying. The longer the event corridor, the more aggravating the event is likely to be rather than challenging or fun.

 

2) Instead of having the Drudges, or preferably Tsoo, simply start at the start of the event corridor and proceed along gathering up souls (I still haven't seen), make them be starting points where the Drudges, or preferably Tsoo, already have souls and/or civilians gathered that are under "attack". Once the player(s) arrive, they can start attacking the Banished Pantheon or Knives of Vengeance or Talons of Vengeance assailants to start the actual event. This gives the players more control over when the event starts so they are less likely to find out about it as it is already finishing or failed.

 

3) Instead of the event possibly constantly being in motion, make the groups stop at waypoints. This gives the Drudges or Tsoo time to recover their position as well as giving players time to finish clearing out ambushes and additional threats along the travel corridor. They may only remain at each waypoint for a set amount of time, but the players can get the group moving earlier than the set time period by speaking to a surviving Tsoo in the group. This of course requires there to still be Drudges or Tsoo alive in the group or the event fails.

 

4) Once the escortees are free and under way, only the players and the Tsoo are subject to harm from attacks. The souls/civilians are instead subject to capture (like they are in CO's version of this.) Souls/civilians being captured have a window where the BP/KoV/ToV are in the process of subjugating the target via timer bar teleportation. Lose enough souls/civilians to being whisked away, the event fails. This helps reduce the likelihood of a random troll just griefing the event.

 

5) Tie in consequences to the loss of Drudges, or preferably Tsoo, other than simple event failure. For instance, maybe losing all Tsoo in any given group increases the chances of souls/civilians being abducted by causing them to run away. This is only subject to being triggered in there are also no players within 10 feet of the souls/civilians. If a player can catch up to the fleeing soul/civilian, they can lead them back to the group and continue moving them to the corridor "exit" or recovery point. This will require more than one player to do the event unless that player is able to keep the Tsoo in the group alive. It also gives the player incentive to keep the Tsoo alive as the Tsoo are the primary force keeping the souls/civilians from simply running away and despawning as if captured leading to event failure. Since the Drudges. or preferably Tsoo, will be flagged as allies to the players, players can heal the Tsoo to improve their chances of survival and players cannot grief other players doing the event by killing off the Dudges/Tsoo themselves.

 

(Edit: 6) Make the waypoints have additional souls/civilians being defended by Tsoo that acted as advance scouts for the event. This provides additional Tsoo to compensate for lost Tsoo from previous parts of the event. It also makes the corridor advance more critical since you would have a growing number of targets to protect. Though this may make the event overly cumbersome and annoying.)

 

Just the two cents worth from someone that is still moderately opposed to the OP.

Edited February 15, 2023 by Rudra
Edited for spelling.

[KingCeddd03]

On 2/14/2023 at 4:30 PM, biostem said:

Aping off the thread regarding a new GM/event for Croatoa, I think a better application may be to add an event to Dark Astoria.  Here is my proposal:

 

A sizable group of Drudges appear in Dark Astoria, led by the "Grand Taskmaster", (a non-hostile AV).  As they move across the zone, they gather up lost souls and attempt to guide them out from Mot's clutches.  They are periodically attacked by groups of Banished Pantheon, and if enough souls remain by the time they get to the other end of the zone, the BP make one final attempt and summon Adamastor, who blocks the portal through which all the lost souls can finally be guided to their final rest.  If no Drudges are near the lost souls, they will remain where they are, but will leash onto nearby players and follow them, who can guide them back to the group of Drudges, to resume their journey.  Alternatively, maybe the event could grant a "soul jar" temp power, that allows you to capture a lost soul, which can be released at a later location once near the Grand taskmaster.  The temp power, even if it contains a soul, goes away whether the event is successful or not.  There would have to be some provision put in place to prevent players form capturing the souls merely to grief the event/make it fail, though, (or maybe once freed from their BP captors, the souls simply resume the journey on their own).

That is a good idea but I think it should be our counterparts doing that it would be our counterparts would be evil or selfish grim reapers who want souls for themselves. I would take the idea of the banished fighting with the grim reapers to be able to power themselves up with the souls on both sides. and the player would have to stop both sides.

[honoroit]

fixup (and level scale) night ward, i say.  some mobs thatll trash incarnate'd folk. its better than chaining bafs, or whatever.  

 

 

[Lyrium]

8 hours ago, KingCeddd03 said:

That is a good idea but I think it should be our counterparts doing that it would be our counterparts would be evil or selfish grim reapers who want souls for themselves. I would take the idea of the banished fighting with the grim reapers to be able to power themselves up with the souls on both sides. and the player would have to stop both sides.

Now I need a Titan/DarkArmor melee character. Thank you