|
Aluvians
Gharu'ndim
Sho
Viamontians
Ispar History
Auberean History
Texts
Rumors |
Event Teaser - from the
Turbine Site,
May 13, 2008
The air was heavy with smoke and the stench of burned
flesh. The smell of slaughter lingered on every blood- and ichor-spattered
surface in the underground cavern. A man dressed in gore-encrusted leather
armor walked across the cavern floor, which was littered with corpses. A few
of the corpses were human, dressed in robes, now sodden with blood and
filled with puncture wounds. Most of the corpses were spectacularly inhuman:
great tentacled beasts and finned horrors from another realm…
Stepping around one particularly large, tentacled carcass that still stunk
of the dark magic that once animated it, the master assassin Oswald found
several of his acolytes gathered together around something in a back corner
of the cavern. As he grew closer, he could hear a sibilant whispering noise.
It seemed his acolytes had managed to capture one alive, after all. He
smiled slightly, even as the crowd of acolytes noticed him and parted
quickly to reveal their prisoner.
The captive was humanoid in shape, a two-legged, two-armed shambler that
walked mostly upright. But its skin was scaly and fouled with slime, and its
head was crested with a sharp finned ridge. Goggle-shaped eyes glowered
balefully at him, and its wide, fish-like mouth flapped and hissed with pain
and rage. Its limbs had been pinned to the ground by the simple expedient of
four heavy dirks driven through its flesh and between its major bones. By
the creature’s head, one of his acolytes stood by with a blade, ready to
dispatch the creature at his command.
Oswald looked up and met the eyes of one of the other acolytes assembled
here, a young woman whose cockiness was evident in the set of her arms as
she watched her Master approach. “Sabithra,” Oswald said to her, “report
now.”
The woman grinned and bowed with exaggerated deference. “We managed to bring
this one down alive, Master. As you told us, it is different from the other
Moarsmen that we’re most familiar with, but it does seem, in its powers and
its inclinations and its… smell… to be similar to the new colonies of these
creatures that have appeared on shores around Dereth. First near Ayan Baqur,
then Tou-Tou, and – “
Oswald held up a hand. “Enough. I’ve reviewed the scouts’ reports. I know
where these things have crawled ashore.” He paused to listen to the noises
the creature was making. “Have any of you been able to understand what it’s
been saying? Have you been able to divine which of the Matriarchs this one
serves?”
Sabithra shook her head. “Unintelligible to all of us, Master. It doesn’t
seem to recognize any of the Matriarch names you taught us. At least, it
didn’t seem particularly reverent or respectful of any of them. Just seemed
to get more and more angry when we repeated those names.”
Oswald nodded. “As I expected. Give me some room.” He made a gesture, and
the acolytes all took a step back as their Master approached to squat near
the creature. They watched in fascination as their Master looked into the
creature’s eyes and muttered something harsh and guttural.
The creature’s eyes, which were beginning to dim from pain and blood loss,
snapped back open, alight with surprise and anger. A torrent of gibberish
spilled forth from the creature’s mouth, and more blood and ichor spattered
on their Master’s armor. A gob of slime hit their master in the face, which
he wiped away with calm dignity. He continued to speak to the creature in
its own language, and the beast grew even more animated. The acolytes all
watched in dumb incomprehension.
Finally, Oswald seemed to ask the creature a question. The creature’s
response was a croak of what seemed like malevolent laughter, and a word
that sounded like “T’thuun” seemed to issue from its lips several times as
it responded to the question.
Sighing, Oswald drew a handkerchief from within his armor and wiped off his
hands and face. He stood up and looked back over the rest of the cavern,
where more of his acolytes were dutifully dripping lamp oil over the rest of
the corpses. He nodded to the acolyte standing ready with the sword, then
stepped back. The acolyte nodded and brought the sword down in a smooth arc
that severed the creature’s bulbous head from its body. Blood and gore
fountained from the neck-hole and showered the sword-wielding acolyte and
Sabithra with more pungent ichor. Sabithra cursed and stepped back, flicking
pieces of viscera from her armor.
Oswald indulged himself with a small smile at Sabithra’s displeasure before
he tossed the handkerchief to her. “Clean your hands off,” he said to her.
“Now, are you carrying parchment and a pen like I asked you to?”
Gritting her teeth, Sabithra nodded. “I am, Master.”
Oswald nodded and smiled at her. “Very good. Now, retrieve them from your
pack and get ready to take dictation.”
Sabithra almost dropped the handkerchief. “Dictation, Master? I don’t
understand.”
“Dictation, my quick-learning acolyte, means I will speak out loud, and you
will write my words down on paper. Then, we will roll up the paper, and send
it to someone as a letter. Make sure you write neatly. These hoary old
nobles do value good penmanship. More to the point, I’m sure that they’re
going to want to hear all about recent developments among the Falatacot.
Perhaps that old fool will even be able to tell me why these creatures have
found something to worship in place of the old Matriarchs. It’s the least he
can do, with all the time I’ve spent cleaning up his mess.”
“I…” Sabithra looked into Oswald’s eyes and decided not to push her Master’s
patience. “As you say, Master.” She finished wiping her hands off, then
retrieved a sheaf of parchment and a quill from her pack. She sat near
Oswald, braced the paper on top of her pack, wet the pen in a small bottle
of ink, and made ready to take dictation.
“Wonderful,” Oswald said approvingly. “I’ll start the dictation now. ‘To
Lord Rytheran of Menilesh…’”
Sabithra tried to contain her own look of surprise as she began to write.
Exclusive Teaser
Pics!
(click to enlarge) |
Maggie's |
Vault |
Mystics |
dereth.info |
Warcry |
Rollout Article - from the
Turbine Site,
May 15, 2008
Lord Rytheran sat in his
most recently constructed sanctum, his journal open before him to a blank
page. The proud Lord of Menilesh, once the most favored noble of the Eternal
Court of Dericost, slouched in a most undignified fashion in his hard stone
throne. All around him, his servants silently carried on their tasks,
engaged in research and minor magical experiments, while he himself brooded
over the empty journal, staring at the white parchment with empty eyes. He
thought about mistakes and miscalculations that dated back millennia – to
memories that seemed more like dreams to him now, perhaps stories that he
had once been told. He thought about the very real problems those mistakes
had created for him now, in an age he could never have foreseen and in a
situation he never wanted to be a part of.
His thoughts were interrupted by his Steward, who entered the room, dodged
past a few scurrying acolytes, and took up a position just to his side,
obviously waiting to be acknowledged and unwilling to speak or touch his
master in order to receive such acknowledgement.
Rytheran let him stand there for a few moments before he turned to look at
the Steward. He then noticed the rolled-up parchment in the Steward’s hand,
and asked him with a flat voice, “What news do you bring?”
The Steward bowed deeply, almost abjectly, and presented the letter. “A
thousand pardons for interrupting your, ah, contemplation, my lord. This
missive was brought by… a mortal. An Isparian.”
Rytheran’s interest piqued, as much from interest as irritation. It bothered
his ancient pride to even have to treat with the lesser races that had
stumbled into a land his people once claimed for their own. Still…
“What sort of Isparian?” he asked. “One of the little slave-queen’s
servants? The witch’s? The assassin’s? Some other pawn of the Yalain?”
“From the messenger’s dress and… methods of ingress, I believe this missive
comes from the assassin. The seal would seem to indicate that as well.”
Rytheran took the letter and looked at the seal. The deep red wax indeed
bore a familiar sigil. He straightened up in his seat and raised his head to
look around the room and announced, “I will be alone now.” With little delay
and in almost total silence, the room full of servants and acolytes set down
what they were doing and shuffled dutifully from the chamber, shepherded out
by the ever-servile Steward. The Steward himself was the last to leave, and
closed the door softly behind him.
Sighing with all the weariness of a hundred dusty centuries, Rytheran broke
the seal and looked at the letter. He sneered to see that the text was in
the primitive characters of the Isparian alphabet, and knew this to be a
deliberate insult. He held the parchment in his right hand while
absent-mindedly tapping an ancient, half-forgotten song with the fingers of
his left hand. Gradually, his fingers stopped tapping, and clenched into a
fist. When he got to the end of the letter and the sign-off from his
correspondent, he raised his fist and slammed it down onto the granite
surface of his desktop.
The whole table shuddered from the force of the blow. Cracks spread out from
his fist in a spiderweb pattern. A nearby candlestick swayed, and an ancient
vase fell from its mount and shattered on the stone floor. Rytheran stood up
from his throne, balled up the letter, and threw it into a corner of the
room.
There was the sound of running footsteps from outside. The door opened
slowly as the Steward hesitantly poked his head back into the room,
expecting to have to duck a magical bolt, or at least a thrown lamp. He was
relieved to find his master merely pacing the room in agitation. “Is all
well, my lord? Is there something you would have of me?”
Rytheran stopped pacing and turned to address his Steward with a calm voice.
“Open the pathway to Bur. Bring me a scribe and a messenger. An expendable
messenger. When they see what I have to say, when they find out what has
happened to their followers on this world, those treacherous old crones will
undoubtedly want to sacrifice someone.”
Release Notes - from the
Turbine Site,
May 13, 2008
Hello there and welcome to the May 2008 Release notes!
Lets see what is new and exciting in Dereth this month.
New Content and Updated Functionality
As a way of saying thank you to our players for their understanding while we
worked through our server issues a couple months back, we will be offering
each player a choice of reward items. When players log in to the game after
the May event goes live, they will be able to speak to an NPC who will give
them a token they can use to choose one of several special items. The items
players can choose from are:
1. One free level. If a player who is level 275 accidentally chooses this
reward, the will get their token back to choose another item.
2. Aerbax Pack Doll
3. One 25 use key to golden chest at one of the three casinos. For this
event we have slightly increased the luck on the Casino chests.
4. One foolproof bag of one of the following salvage types
- Aquamarine
- Black Garnet
- Black Opal
- Emerald
- Fire Opal
- Imperial Topaz
- Jet
- Red Garnet
- Sunstone
- White Sapphire
- Peridot
- Yellow Topaz
- Zircon
5. 20 Enhanced Health Elixirs (200
health) There is a 5 minute cooldown on the use of each potion.
6. 20 Enhanced Mana Elixir (200 mana) There is a 5 minute cooldown on the
use of each potion.
Locked fellowships will now transfer leadership to the next in line when the
leader drops so that the leader can be re-invited. There will only be a 15
minute window in which this option is viable. So if after 15 minutes, the
leader has not returned, they will not be able to be re-invited to the
fellowship. This fix also resolves the issue of players not being able to
rejoin a fellowship after being dropped more than once.
Hoshino Kei is no longer in two places at once.
Based on player feedback, we have gone through current spells in the game to
ensure that spells are not overwriting each other improperly.
The reward NPC for the Burun Kings quests and the Deep no longer give out
title tokens. They will now just give players the title, rather than the
token.
Due to technical reasons, any Dark scarabs that players have when the worlds
come down for the May event, will be gone when the worlds come back up. We
apologize for any inconvenience this may cause players.
The invoker quest and the Burun Kings quest have both had their XP rewards
updated to higher amounts.
Items with Cooldown timers now have a visible countdown on their icon. This
should allow players to more easily tell when an item is ready to be used
again.
Graveyard Wisps now show their correct level to better reflect the
difficulty of fighting them.
Some strange new forts have appeared in the waters around Dereth. Players
may want to investigate these strange structures.
|
|