new

new

new

new

new

new

new

new

new

new!

new

new!

new!

new

new

new

new

new

new

new

new

new

new!

new

new

new

new

new

new

new

new!

[Off Topic]: Shiny Shenanigans!

    Well, there's a new patch today, which shouldn't really surprise anyone since Wednesday is always patch/reset/weekly goody bag day. But this week we get a special treat! And it's right up my alley! That's right, it's all about shinies this week! It runs until the 24th (today), until next Wednesday, the 31st! Here's the details on what's happening with this shiny extravaganza!

     Trion awknowledges that artifact hunting is one of us Ascendeds' most beloved pastime. I mean seriously, who DOESN'T like shiny hunting, or spends sometimes hours at a time poring over a zone so they can complete a set?? Or maybe that's just me...? I absolutely love filling in my artifact sets and when they complete it's sooooo very satisfying! I'm so proud of myself that I was able to finish off most of Silverwood and Gloamwood just by patiently spending hour upon hour in those zones, looking for those ever elusive shinies I need to complete my sets! Of course I'll admit to spending a pretty penny on the AH as well for the few left that I couldn't find. But 95% of the artifact sets I complete, I do myself! And I'm so proud of that! I love shinies and I love when I discover new ones because there's the potential for a tiny tidbit of story to be revealed to me to better understand my beloved world of Telara! Telara is like a second home to me, but at the same time I'm a stranger to it still. There's so many things I really want to learn more about, and the artifact system definitely helps with that!
     That being said, now we have a chance at getting our sets completed this week! Log in between now and next Wed and you have all kinds of treats and bonuses to help find shinies! For instance, all the "draw"'s are going to be 50% off! I've never used the Draw feature before because 1. It's wayyy too stupidly overpriced for just artifacts you can hunt for yourself if you dedicate enough time, and 2. It doesn't seem as fun that way to cheat and have the system give you a shiny instead of putting in any effort yourself and finding them the old fashioned way! I still won't be using this feature, even with the 50% off sale, but it's there for those who can't spare the time for shiny hunting! Also, all artifact tracking vials are 25% off too! That's totally awesome for those who need to do some poison, burning, unstable, twisted artifact hunting! For me, I've always been lucky enough to come across one of these and thus end up with a 5 min buff of being able to find more. Sadly, I always forget that it takes a toll on your health and I've shamefully died a few times while searching for poison or burning shinies! Don't forget to keep an eye on your health while searching for these ones!! :)

     Also, there are going to be new artifact pinatas! Woot, I loved those!!!!! I never got much of a chance to do them during Summerfest because that event happened to be horribly timed for me. I literally spent that weekend moving into my new place and then ended up with no internet for 10 days, so I got kind of screwed over there. Pretty sad about it, but oh well...life goes on I suppose? Hehe. Still, Summerfest and Fae Yule are my fav holidays and I'm kinda bummed I missed it. So I'm so happy that there are going to be more pinatas around Telara for me to break! And there's going to be all new artifact sets to complete too! Interesting ones! Like for example there's the ones depicting the stories of "Kiki Kookoo", a young sleuth who solves strange Telaran mysteries! I don't know much about it yet since I haven't logged in yet, but it sounds almost like a take on Veronica Mars, which I absolutely LOVED watching, so I'm very eager to collect these sets!!!! Maybe a new fanfiction story will spring up from this eh? Oo. Another set is Violet and Pimpernel, which is apparently about two incredibly illusive and hard to find Fae who are talked of as nothing more than children's imagination because they are hardly ever seen. We all know that children see what we sometimes miss though, don't we! And they even have artifact sets for us lore hounds, wootsies! There's one titled "Deep factions of the Planes" which apparently explains that Telara isn't the center of the cosmos. Interesting!!

    Also, there's something called "artifact eyes" you can get to make your eyes glow a creepy eldritch color that matches the artifact color that you completed. Say if you completed a poison artifact set, they glow green, for a twisted they glow purple. If you complete the meta achiev for them all, you get rainbow hued eyes! How neatso is that!!! I want rainbow eyes!!!!!! :)

     And to top it off, there's a special artifact piñata that only DeadSimon can spawn, with it's own special set of 7 artifact sets. Completing them gives you special rewards like artifact beguiled pets, who have artifacts for eyes! There's an owl among others. To learn more, there's going to be a livestream on Friday with details all about it! So excited because I get to actually see this livestream for once since it's in the am, and I work at 5pm!!!! Usually the time for me for livestream is at 4:30 which really sucks, because I have to leave for work and I end up missing the entire thing. :( But not this month! So far I've watched 2 of them because they decided to change it up a bit this month to see if peeps like this new time better. I can see that the number of people watching the stream dropped, which makes me sad, but I'm so happy it's finally at a time that I can watch since I work night shift!

     Well that's all for now folks! Time to dive into the game and check this new stuff out! So excited for Rae to start collecting these! Happy Rifting!

Dark out

new

[Off Topic]: Moved back to my apartment!

     Thank the gods, I'm so beyond happy that I was finally able to move back to my old apartment last week on Friday. I've been waiting 9.5 months to move back here. MONTHS man. What happened, you wonder? Well in August, there was a flash flood and my apartment got ruined. They went in and while assessing the damage they realized that the asbestos insulation they used to line the walls had been damaged, which means asbestos exposure and poisoning for me. Yay me...so I had to be evacuated, along with everyone else on my floor, and they shoved me in some horrid little temp apartment across town. And I walk to work. Ugh! So frustrating. My landlord assured me it wouldn't be more than 2 months to get it fixed up, but when the 2 months passed and I asked, they said it wasn't ready. They kept putting it off and not giving me information and taking forever about it. I was about to give up! But I had a lease with them sadly. But it's all good cause I'm finally back. And I gotta say, it's much improved! Like a brand new apartment! New wood flooring, tile in the bathroom, walls all repainted! Very pleased! It looks overall much nicer, and with the new design it also looks bigger, more spacious! Which is definitely what I need with a 1 bedroom shared with 2 cats and lots of cosplay! I spent the week unpacking all my stuff, putting everything away, redecorating, and buying groceries and things to fill my cupboards. Now I can't wait for payday haha. Also it sucked that when I moved, I of course had to move my internet as well, and they had to send an agent to hook it up for me, but there wasn't one available until Friday (today) so I had to wait one whole week to get my internet. I thought I was going to die of boredom, I swear! You have no idea how much you miss your internet until you don't have it anymore! So sad!

     But on to other news! Rift has....for rather flakey reasons, renamed their expansion. It's now called Prophecy of Ahnket instead of Starfall Prophecy. They said it was because they didn't want to get it confused with a new charity program they signed on for, which has Starfall in the title. Rather an odd charity name, dontcha think? Also this weekend, you can grab the expac for free! For those of us who didn't pre order it anyway....cough cough. For those who DID already have the expac, and paid for it too, we got a box of things in the rift store. A pretty white fawn pet, a 20 sided dice for dimension, upgrade parts, dungeon charges, a few odds and ends. It's appreciated, but doesn't equate to having an entire expac free. Of course, there wasn't much of an expac to look at anyway when we did buy it since it was missing a good chunk of its end game! I got my internet just in time to log in and claim this reward, as well as my weekly and daily rewards today. So pleased to finally be able to log in to Rift and WoW and see my beloved characters again! <3 I missed them! Yes I know, I'm weird...but I did get a bit of things accomplished in this dry spell before I got my net back. I finished sewing up my Loque'nahak plushie! (He's a very rare, very beautiful kitty pet you can tame as a Hunter in WoW) and I also started on making a custom Barbie doll figure of my second fav female character in WoW: Tyrande Whisperwind. I'm making her out of a monster high doll I got online. The doll already came with bluish green skin, which was perfect, since Tyrande is a Night elf. I just uprooted all the monster high doll's hair and added my own wig wefts, punching it in with a needle in aqua blue. So far I'm pretty proud of it! For pics of my finished art, see my art section, and for progress pics of what I'm working on currently or in the future, check out my facebook cosplay page! Links for that are also in that tab of the blog. Please, go look and let me know what you think of my hard work! It's always appreciated to be complimented!

     I was also FINALLY able to get the next chapter of my Warcraft novel uploaded online, a whole year later. I feel so horrible for taking so long, but it just seemed like time escaped my grasp, what with the flood and the fires and the conventions and the move and xmas and working so many hours! It just never ended up on my priority list. In fact, even my priority items never got finished. It took me a whole year to finish my kitty stuffed animal, after all! But I have plans to better manage my health and time, and I'm hoping I can accomplish my goals for this year. I'll write them down here in my blog to provide some inspiration for myself!

2017 Goals:

• Complete an armored Onyxia cosplay for BlizzCon in November
• Create a dog plushie for a friend who lost her pet
• Start an RRSP account so I can actually retire at a reasonable age
• Save up money for a trip to New Zealand next year
• Save up money to go visit my mom in early fall
• Eat healthier and lose belly fat for my cosplay
• Make a Tyrande, Onyxia, Alexstrazsa, Ysera, and my 2 main character dolls
• Make druid cat plushies
• Make a moonkin kigu for my sister
• Get out the next chapter of my WoW fiction
• Work on some art projects
• Get my blog up to date to this year
• Get my Rift characters to 70 and prepare for end game content and next expac
• Organize my cosplay space and start keeping things in designated boxes
• Break some bad habits
• Be more responsible about my finances and life
• Practice patience, respect, honesty, and remaining silent in social settings
• Help others whenever I can
• Start using the microwave and my phone less

Those are just the top ones that come to mind right now. I'm sure there are other goals I'd like to accomplish for this year, but I haven't thought of them yet. I think those are very noble goals, but I need to get cracking on them since 2017 is already half over. Yikes! So stressed about a lot of things right now, but all of these items are easily fixed starting now, and I've already started on a lot of them! I'm excited to get started on all my projects and finish them all in time before the new year! I think it's a good motivation to have these goals, since I turned 30 this month and I'm feeling the middle age creeping in like a creeper. I don't wanna be old, waaaaa!!! It helps that everyone assures me that I don't look or act my age, although sometimes I don't think they mean it as a compliment haha. Ah well, can't please everyone!

     Okay, I'm done for now. Going to go catch up on all the things I missed in Rift, then WoW, then work on my Tyrande doll some more and have a shower for the night. Have an 11 hour shift to get through tomorrow! Dark out!

new

[Off Topic] Patch 4.1: Forged in Flame

     Hey look yall! Forged in Flame is FINALLY here!!!! Wooooo!!! I bet everyone is super excited about the long awaited 4.1 patch. Ever since I first learned about it and how we'd finally get an actual raid, and new content, I was tickled pink! I'm so excited to dive into this new stuff this patch! All kinds of things finally happening in Rift, which has me super relieved. I've been concerned about the lack of things to do at end game and that it would drive too many players away and Rift would be left dead in the water, which is something I definitely do not want! So imagine my surprise when I got off work today and saw that I had an update. To be honest, the time kind of got away from me and I forgot that today was the 29th. Well, I knew that date, but I forgot that it was significant for Rift! So now I have something to look forward to tonight and tomorrow, since tomorrow is my day off! The good news just keeps on pouring in, because I can finally have the green light to move back to my apartment this week! I've been waiting 8 months now to move back, after the flood that happened in August. Ya, 8 months it took them to repair it. WTF were they up to for those months?? Who knows. I guess they were just not in a great hurry, since it was all paid out by insurance. I was just sort of floating in limbo in this other apartment they stuffed me in until mine was ready, and I've been so miserable here, all my things packed in boxes. I haven't been able to work on my costumes or anything creative, and it's killing me to not unleash my creative side other then with this blog and my fanfiction story! :(

     But enough with that, let's get back to Forged in Flame! I watched the livestream for the art and design of Rift a bit ago, and I have to say, I'm blown away by the beautiful art that is going to be in the new raid, Tartaric Depths. Especially that beautiful flaming boss dragon. Omg I want him as a pet or a mount!! Why couldn't Maelforge look that stunning?! This dragon looks epic! The entire dungeon looks epic actually! My only fear is that it won't be enough of a challenge to keep the raiders happy for long. I really hope they have more raids in the works or something to keep the end gamers satisfied until the next expansion. I hope they can turn things around and lift Rift out of the dust, because I love this game and its beautiful design and I want to keep playing it for years to come like WoW! Speaking of WoW, they just came out with their huge patch on Tuesday! Lots of crazy things going on in that game too! All new content, new questlines, new mounts, everything! Super excited about that too. So I'm actually a bit torn of which game I want to play and for how long. So many games, so little time! lol
Here's the list of stats for 4.1!

• Tartaric Depths-entry lvl raid for experienced players as well. A prison created by Alaviax (dunno who that is...) to keep all the Red Flight dragons (there's more then one, and they are called Red Flight now??? I'm thinking Alexstraza and her brood now haha!) contained. We have to stop Queen Carli's plan to implement the prophecies of the Goddess of Fate, Aia! Oh noes! Sounds neat! :)
• Better Dyeing-new tinting quality for Wardrobe items that can be dyed. I'm looking forward to checking this out.
• New Dye colors, as well as more variety! Gonna have to check into this too!
• New crafting recipes available!
• Eternal Items-best in slot, end game weapons for players. Includes abilities that can reduce raid wide dmg, do all kinds of other neat stuffs! There's 2 ways to get these. From drops or by doing the epic questline!
• 6th Carnival of the Ascended! This begins on March 30th though.
• Starfall Prophecy available now with credits or Affinity points! Man, wish I knew about this before hehe. Oh well, I don't regret pre ordering it! :)
• Earring slots now unlocked for all players
• Planewalker: Water, has been removed. This makes me kind of sad.
• Mounts can now...walk?? Really? Must check this out!
• Cross shard trading. Finally yay!
• lvl 65 boost and trade skill boosts now available on the store!
• Looooooots of changes to classes. Some nerfs, some buffs. Read the notes here for all the details on that.
• Capes are now double sided!
• Tons of dimension stuff added and tweaked.

     Apparently, TD (Tartaric Depths) is an "entry level" raid though, which makes me kinda sad, cause there's no other raid coming out soon, so hardcore raiders will have to deal with potentially easy content. Kind of a let down there. Another thing about TD that's different is that there is no trash mobs! What, no trash mobs?! That's never been heard of before! Half the content of a raid is the trash mobs lol! I'm not sure what to think about this turn of events. On the one hand, ya who cares about useless mobs that give you no reward or benefit for killing them. Players would do everything in their power to bypass the mobs anyway so they wouldn't have to waste time fighting them, so why have them in there? But trash mobs also make the raid last longer, which could be a good thing. The longer a raid lasts, the more entertained your group is going to be, even if it's frustrating. If you just add something to some mob groups, like random green drops or something, that would be more of an incentive then removing the mobs entirely. It would make players feel like their doing something meaningful, rather then just plowing through the raid in mind numbing boredom. Of course that's just me the WoW raider talking, since WoW raids are notorious for being full of packs of trash mobs, and I'm used to having to mow through them between each boss. It will be weird to have no trash mobs at all to kill. We'll just have to see I suppose!

     About the Eternal Items. To me they seem almost like a cross between a legendary and an artifact weapon in WoW: Legion. Legion had these new weapons introduced called artifact weapons, that were unique and special for each class/spec combo. They lvled up with you and you could do special things in game to unlock different looks for them and abilities. So this kind of reminds me of the Eternal items in Rift. But that's ok because I like the artifact system in WoW. It's fun and different and unique. It would be fun if Rift did class mounts or special class quests too! That would be so epic to do!! I would love it!! :) If your listening, Rift devs, I think that would be an awesome addition to the game for players to be busy with. That's the biggest thing about a linear, content driven game like this one. You have to always be providing players with something new to do. If you don't they get bored and frustrated, and although they might stick around because they have already dedicated so much time and effort to the game, they will become increasingly bored and annoyed and will perhaps jump on whatever shiny new game comes out that seems similar. This is what happened to me after all, when Rift first came out. I literally leaped right into Rift and left WoW in the dust for like a whole year-the first time I've ever unsubbed from WoW for any extended period of time actually!

     Also coming in 4.1 is new Planar Crafting stuff! You can get new specialized rewards for each of the professions, and you can craft all new best in slot items, as well as ranged items! Woot! And the ability to gain more from gathering professions too would be a plus! Can't wait to test that out!

     Well I suppose I'm done ranting about the new patch for now, since my download is now complete and I can go play the game for myself! Happy Rifting!

 

[Off Topic]: 2017 Producer's Letter!

    Well, I just read Rift's producer's letter for this year, and I gotta say, even if it was just comfort words and an apology, followed by some stuff to sidetrack us, I can definitely say, it definitely worked on me lol! I'm sooooo dreadfully excited to see what's coming up next! I can't wait to get Rae to that point, omg! So much awesome. I'm looking forward to the epic questlines involved in the new Eternal Items next patch (4.1) as well as all the new and cool stuff coming with 4.2! Finally weekly quests, new raid rifts, new IA's, and a whole buttload of other stuff!!! So much information was given, my mind is still reeling. I know that the devs have a pretty tough, and often thankless job, especially among us players. I think gamers are very critical and quick to offer snarky, hurtful comments where not needed, simply because we are spoiled, entitled nerds who are used to just having everything we want at our fingertips. And we are very passionate individuals. When it comes to the games we love and cherish, we can get pretty hot and bothered about things that don't go our way. For that, I have to say I'm sorry Trion! I've read plenty of cutting remarks on the forums, that do nothing but insult without offering basis for their hurtful comments, as well as evidence or solid proof of why they have been so wronged. Sometimes we get stuck in a certain mindset and our stubborn selves don't want to expand out of it, or admit that we were out of line. Of course, on the other end of that spectrum, after reading many posts on the forums about the state of SFP and the end game content, and then witnessing it for myself, I have to say that there was definitely quite a few things lacking in this new expac, which makes me sad, because I want everyone to enjoy Rift, so that they continue to support it, so that I personally can make sure Rift will be around for me to play for years to come! Because I love Rift just as much as I love WoW and I would be devastated if I ever learned they were shutting down servers, or that the population was so low they were unable to support actual, updated content on a regular basis.

     So I'm happy to see this letter finally going up, because people have been crying for the producer's letter since the beginning of January. I just find it funny how enraged everyone was that the producer's letter took so long, because I myself keep every single email that Rift has ever sent me, and I have an email from last year proclaiming that 2016's producer's letter was ready to read, and that was in the middle of February. So they aren't too far off their mark by having this one in the middle of March. Cool your jets, peeps. It's just a letter!

     Things mentioned in the letter that we can look forward to!

• Eternal Weapons in 4.1 with a long and involved questline
• Changes to Planar Crafting, with new BiS items!
• Tartaric Depths-10 man raid
• New Weekly quests
• 6th Anniversary Carnival
• Vostigar Peaks- New lvl 70 zone with new content, and even hardmode group content!
• New Daily quests
• New Full questline, with replayable content
• New Zone events, new IA's
• New Raid Rifts and Chronicles
• New souls for the Primalist

    Another, truly epic sounding thing that Archonix mentioned in his letter was something called "Rift Challenges". Which he mentioned several times could not even happen, and there were no promises on it, but it seemed they had this brilliant idea to create a new, temporary, ever changing server, separate from the live servers, where you can go on and participate in special, hard mode, or challenge mode activities, which would then impact your live server status! It sounds truly awesome, right?! There's a lot of potential there for brand new items, quests, mounts. ANNNNNNNNNND the most important thing that he mentioned about this was a tiny little, innocently placed comment mentioning that one of the rewards could be......drum roll please......a new race. Yes, you heard it, a NEW RACE. OMG! We've had the same 6 races on Telara since the beginning of time, and it would sooooooooooo beyond amazing, if we could have a new race(s) introduced! Even though I know it wasn't a sure thing, or promised, or whatever, but already my mind is going through potential races that could be playable. Seriously, a truly awesome idea I would throw all my money at! Please Trion, please make this happen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I want new races so badly!!!!!!!!!!!! Some draconic would be neat! Or serpentlike. Or something with horns!!!!!!! Or wings....or claws....Ugh omg! There are so many potential ideas when the world we play in has such possibility for new races. With the mix of the Planes, and the exotic creatures that come from them, we could have all manner of creatures to befriend and have join our faction! HNNNNNNG this needs to be a thing. I will donate to it so it happens!!!

     Well anyway, that's my rant on the producer's letter. Very much on the hype train for Patch 4.1 and 4.2, as well as this new hint at Rift Challenges!

     Here's a link to the letter, for anyone curious and wanting to read the entire thing for themselves! Enjoy! 2017 Producer's Letter

new!

Golden Maw Lore

The Golden Maw

Pitiful plenty

Golden Maw: A mouth agape, with a bottomless gullet, starving even as it overflows with treasure. If another cult is as aptly named, do not say so around Laethys’s slaves, who are as envious as they are greedy, and they are greedy beyond all reason.

These are the corrupters and embezzlers, merchants who buy magistrates and magistrates happily bought. The Golden Maw holds its decadent rites in the halls of power and the parlors of the fabulously wealthy, and in the afterglow of gross indulgence they plot to seize more wealth and power.

The Golden Maw can be found wherever there is want, as filth can be found wherever there is plague. They wrest wealth from the workers, food from the farmers, toys from the fingers of children. And they always want more.

Architects of desire

The Golden Maw is a rigidly structured cabal. Acolytes bow to (and covet) the superior assets and influence of their leaders, a pyramid of lickspittles and lordlings topped by golden Laethys. They will free the Earth Dragon to flaunt her plenty over the wanting world, and hoard her discarded morsels.

Always remember that the Golden Maw gapes for every excess. The glutton, the pervert, the narcissist is welcome. Each believes Laethys loves the cultist who eats and is never sated, or wants her perfection and is never indulged… yet in all the planes there is but one being Laethys loves at all.

Golden Maw

Eboni gold

Richest of the ancient Ethian holds was Eboni, its queen Callista the dazzling gem atop a city of treasure. She and her fathers and mothers before her wrested untold bounties from the earth, and so made Eboni prosperous and fortified beyond the dreams of other Eth. The royal family had grown demanding in their tastes, and Callista was no different—it is said that as a girl she had a dollmaker’s hands struck off for making her a doll of porcelain and not gold.

Shortly after the Blood Storm first darkened the sky, Callista began erecting statues of golden dragons on every street corner. Passersby would find themselves wanting more: more wealth, more lovers, more power. And they grew ever more certain that their neighbors, their loved ones, their children had things they did not. All Eboni fell to squabbling, then to crime, then slaughter in the streets.

Soon, the few survivors lived like jackals amid the decay. When Laethys's army walked into the city, they dropped scraps of copper in their wake, and the people hailed them as saviors.

Eboni became the stronghold of Laethys, at whose bidding Callista had built the statues. After Amardis and her comrades turned the city into a volcano to imprison Laethys, they found Callista surrounded by flows of magma, scrambling on hands and knees in the dragon’s horde. Clutching treasure to her bosom, piling it on though she had more than she could carry, heedless that everything around her had already melted to glittering slag.

As the molten gold reached her, Callista did not scream but smiled, still beautiful. "Now I shall be like Laethys. Sheathed in radiance."

Love in the age of the shade book

      While adventuring, I came across this rather amusing book featuring a story about the most unlikely love story you've ever come across in Telara. Is it true? Who knows, I've seen far stranger things among the wood of Gloamwood!

Love In The Age Of The Shade

     "Beryl" said vampire Jeb in that low, drawn out voice that sent shivers up her spine, "I care so very deeply for you, and while I have suppressed my bestial nature, the sight of you tempts me into acts I had long put behind me."
     "Oh vampire Jeb, you're so elegant and refined, like a Mathosian knight of the old kingdom." Beryl grabbed hold of her ancient blood sucking boyfriend. She loved him so much that she thought her heart would burst. He wasn't like the other boys in Gloamwood, not priggish or grabby. He was dangerous in a way that made her feel safe in his arms. His fangs lightly traced the nape of her neck and she shivered. "Oh vampire Jeb...I want you to turn me. Right here, right now."
     "Beryl, that would mean you would become a thrall of Regulos. His rage would course through your being, and you would be a monster." Vampire Jeb stared intently into her eyes. "Besides, tonight of all nights, I would be unable to perform."
     Beryl frowned and rolled her eyes. She had thought that dating a vampire would be a little more adventurous. While she appreciated the long nightly walks and the talks about how special she was and her father totally hated him, sometimes she wished he'd act a little like those priggish Gloamwood boys. A girl does have needs.
     The clouds above the town parted and the full moon shone down upon them. "Oh no! Beryl, you must run from me!" Cried vampire Jeb, leaping back from Beryl and shielding his face. "What's wrong vampire Jeb?" Cried Beryl, running toward him. She was so worried. It seemed the list of curses and hexes he suffered under grew daily. The Hag gave him a soul to punish him for not mopping up the blood from a kill. The Gedlo Conclave hexed him for writing love poems while crying at Tearfall Creek, and those Guardians arrived and put all number of debilitating spells on him. Just last week he got hit by a full blast of sparkling faerie dust. Now he sparkled in a most unmanly way.
     "It's the curse of Gloamwood!" Cried vampire Jeb. Instead of his perfectly smooth, alabaster skin, he was covered in patchy fur, his beautiful face now lupine in nature.
     "Wait, you're a vampire and a werewolf?" Asked Beryl incredulously. "Really Jeb, now this is just getting stupid."

The End

Found by completing this artifact set:

Love In the Age of the Shade (lvl 25)

A gory romance novel that is a thinly veiled morality play. A guilty pleasure.

• Twilight of the Shade
• Underplane
• Interview with a Lorn
• Vampire Journals
• Beryl the Vampire Slayer
• Living Dead in Droughtlands

References: Well, this amusing little tale is a book you can collect and read in the game. You can collect the book by completing the artifact set mentioned above! Happy reading! PS, interesting how one of the artifacts is called "Beryl the Vampire Slayer". I take it that she got fed up with her lover and put an end to his endless suffering from all those curses? Hehe!

Maelforge Lore

Maelforge

Rough earth grips me, scraping my scales. Jagged teeth of stone transfix my wings, wings that once fanned flame across eternity. They have entombed me, dull gray rock for miles before my eyes. Their crude magic drains my heat, dragging it far above, to ooze from the mountain whose weight has crushed me through millennia.

These Telarans. They have forced sleep and stillness on me. How I hate them.

In long-gone eons I blazed from star to star, far ahead of my sisters and brothers, the void screaming, scorching in my wake. I would tear the cores from living worlds and gulp them down like beating hearts.

And as the molten juice ran down my chin, warrior gods would come give me battle for the ashes of their dying creations. We would clash in the sky and the spaces between the planes. I slew them with great relish, and my triumphal roar blasted their brittle remains across the heavens.

Some fought so fiercely I bade them “RISE AND FIGHT AGAIN,” but Regulos, my eldest brother, held death absolute, and snatched them for his own, forever.

We came at last to this world. I had heard of Telara’s mighty god of war, and yearned to paint his death in glorious relief against a smoldering sky. But Thedeor heeded his cowardly fellow gods and hid from me as they forced us to fight worthless mortals.

The frustration! One snort of flame and armies shriveled like ants, and they could not even challenge me anew before Regulos claimed them all.

Then Crucia whispered to us, “Why not turn on Regulos?” Ahh, now this would be battle! But when we fell upon his bloated form, sly Crucia hung back, as if to direct us like some upstart general. I scoured her with flame, and then turned upon the rest of them, and together we clashed through the planes.

Slaughter, agony, bright red ruin! Glorious! I lost myself amid the wreckage of kingdoms.

And then—somehow—faced with a handful of paltry mortals, I fell. They drained my heat and sunk me in the earth. Held so still that even anger seemed futile. Shameful, slothful slumber was mine through the ages.

Now, their sky breaks. My children rush from the rifts and kill. As I feel their burning steps upon my mountain, my rage returns. With rage comes heat. The stone softens around me. Heat melts earth.

I am coming, Telarans. To fight you, and your gods, and all my brothers and sisters. And when I alone am the Blood Storm, you will burn and rise and burn again. How I will revel. Glorious.

new

new!

[Off Topic]: Fortress Seiges!

     So they've finally put an actual official announcement on the Fortress Siege release, even though it's out a few  times since it was first introduced a couple of weeks ago. I say a few times because it had serious problems when it first went live. For one thing, it repeatedly crashed clients for lots of players because of lag and other server issues from the sheer number of players rushing to the area, all excited and eager to do this event. I can't really blame them, seeing as how this is the first interesting and major introduction for lvl 70 players to actually DO in the expac. Unless you count Tok's Proving Grounds...which a lot of end game raiders don't even consider part of end content.

     Actually, there isn't much end game to the end game this expac. Starfall is a bit...lacking in the "things to do" department when it comes to raiding and dungeons after you've reached lvl cap. Usually in these types of games, you'd go on to doing dungeons, rifts, slivers, etc so you can gain better gear, skill up, that sort of thing. Not so in Starfall, sadly, which is causing a ton of frustration for players right now. Maybe if I had a lvl 70 character I could assess this for myself and potentially cry as well, but right now my little Rae and Kara are still not at end game, so I don't have anything to worry about personally. But what were we actually talking about? Oh right, Fortress Siege!

     This Fortress Siege is called "Cracking Xarth's Skull" and is located in Xarth Mire. The objective is to overcome a series of stages, all of them a "siege" type battle. There's a wall you need to destroy, endless enemies to destroy, 5 bosses to take down, and canons to protect and charge up. I do believe there's....4 stages total? I think? Apparently there's a few kinks and problems so far with the Siege event though. The timer is way too short for any player to complete successfully, leaving most events an utter failure, and the rewards for completing the event are rather lackluster, leaving players uninterested in even attempting to complete it. The only reason anyone seems willing to put effort into such an impossibly difficult event is that at the end if the Ascended are successful, it opens up a new 1 boss raid, the first raid to introduce LFR. For those who don't know, LFR means Looking For Raid. I'm most familiar with it because of Warcraft, who has had LFR for...a very long time now. At least 5 years. Was it a good decision? Not necessarily, in both Warcraft and Rift. Speaking from my experience in WoW, LFR has brought a new generation of players who expect easy content and easy high end epic loots. Because LFR picks players from the large amount of playerbase based on hard stats, you have no way of knowing if the people you are teamed up with are even advanced enough in skill to handle a raid, or raid mechanics. And sometimes, sadly, you get the jerks who deliberately join an LFR raid just to screw it up because their bored or trolling or something. And then there's the afk types who just want their loot and join the LFR and then sit at their keyboard either doing nothing or just auto attacking the boss to make it look like their doing something when they're really scrolling through facebook on another screen or watching a movie instead.

     Of course I can also see the good side of LFR. It helps less skilled players see content that they would otherwise never see, because the LFR level of the raid is lower than say the normal version or expert version. It also eases players who are first time raiders into the raiding scene more gently, instead of shoving them face first into a chaotic, intense, anxiety-ridden regular raid where even a second of inattention gets your entire team killed. At which point, you would get insulted and removed from the group. That kind of puts a damper on your dreams of being a raider, right? Especially if your guild is small, casual, or not into raiding or you join the game or the end game scene later and never got a chance to gear up with everyone else.
     This method though, relies on the fact that you DO have more than one difficulty level for the raid, like say LFR, normal, expert. That way the more skilled and high end raiders who will burn through the LFR in record time, still have something else to while away their time on, as well as help the less skilled players advance after confidently completing LFR and feeling like they can try something harder. That's the point of LFR after all. To help the lesser skilled become better so they can advance on to harder modes of the dungeon. Sadly, Trion seems to have...well I have no idea actually what happened this expac and it makes me sad that so many players are so upset! I love Trion, they are my second favorite game company after Blizzard and I've been part of the Rift community since 2011. I've never seen any release of content that was so lacking on content ever in Rift. Starfall Prophecy was just so bare of anything relating to end game. Maybe they didn't expect players to level so fast? Or to get so frustrated at lack of raids so fast? I think this has something to do with how they are dumbing down content and making it easier for the less skilled players. Even the regular 5-man dungeons in Rift in SFP are so easy and silly that no one is taking them seriously. Both regular and expert mode are so easy that it's not even worth writing guides about apparently, since if you're really skilled you can run in there with a friend or two and do it yourself without any strategy or a full 5-man team. This makes me sad as well....

    Wow I'm actually kind of mortified that I turned a post about Fortress Sieges into a semi-rant about Starfall Prophecy. I'm sorry! I didn't mean to sound like the various threads all over the forums, but I guess when you are as passionate about something as I am about Rift, when something goes wrong you tend to have some pretty strong feelings about it either way. I just wish that something could be done to fix the depressing mess that is end game. I would like to see:

1. More difficult dungeons
2. Fortress Siege timer being extended a little bit
3. Better rewards and achievements for completing Fortress Siege
4. Three difficulty levels to dungeons instead of just 2
5. More raids, although I hear Tartaric Depths is coming in March, but we need more!
6. Better crafting recipes and recipes for higher end gear to give crafting something useful
7. Get rid of the karma system, it doesn't help anyone
8. Fixes and patches for all the bugs and issues with end game content
9. Don't remove something simply because it has a bug or a problem, please fix it instead! We enjoy your hard work and like doing it if it works correctly!
10. Fix the randomness of Planar Fragments. Today I got a mage frag on my rogue and a rogue frag on my mage.
11. Where the hell is the Valentine's Day (Mariel-Taun Festival)???? Did you remove it?? WHY!!???!!?!?!?! I loved that event!!!!!!!!!

     Okay that's enough for now. All I can say is, I hope that Fortress Sieges prove enough to keep players occupied until March 1st when Tartaric Depths comes out. And I hope all the kinks and bugs also get ironed out pretty quick because nothing is more depressing than having nothing to do because the only thing to do is so glitchy that it's impossible to succeed at.

     Let me know what you think about Fortress Sieges, just comment below if you wish! I look forward to doing the Sieges myself and investigating the 1-boss raid hehe.

Update: Yes, they did remove the Mariel-Taun festival event! That makes me very sad. I was looking forward to the event and having fun and getting some cool achievs, but alas, that's a no go. They did put some new Valentine's Day items in the rift store though, but what use are they if there's no reason to wear them?? If we don't have a festival to celebrate for, there's no use getting all dressed up in themed costume armor. Although I did guiltily buy it anyway, as well as the Self Love Bug, which is hilarious and I love how it makes adorable little pink hearts float out of me. But I hate that the mounts are locked behind a lock box RNG. It's so frustrating cause I'd love the Love Buggy mount but no way am I trying my luck with it. :( Oh well. Ok that's my update on that, ciao!

new

New

plane of life lore

Plane of Life

bogling

Life Rifts: wild growth

Exploring Telara, you may find a lush oasis in the heart of a wasteland, where alien plants grow thick as corded sinew and heavy with fruit, and new species of beast prowl, displaying fur and plumage in unreal colors.

Turn away from such places, for if you wander in alone you may become intoxicated with scent and sight and lose all sense. By the time you realize the foliage has blocked out the sun, you will be bitten by legions of ravenous insects, and finally come to the center of the growth.

There hangs the Life Rift, vines and roots spilling out, tearing the rift wider like fingers pulling at frayed cloth. One of the vines will notice you and dart for your guts like a viper as its end sharpens to a venomous spear…

The Plane of Life: nothing in moderation

There is no ground in the Plane of Life, and there is no sky. Both are overgrown with plants as exotic as they are deadly. Roots clash like enemy armies, shoving and scrambling, while vines bulge together, sprouting thorns to stab each other. Mere survival in this plane means no coexistence or compromise, only constant competition.

This is a place of beauty, but no peace, where eternity is one long, bloody chain. Childlike in loveliness and cruelty, a faerie torments wildlife with illusions and traps, until plucked from the air by a leaping raptor and chomped to bloody gobs. Plants pulsate and grow in around the reptile, forcing it to flee until a forest troll snatches it up by the tail and breaks its back on a tree trunk. As the troll feasts, the tree— actually a treant’s leg— uproots and crushes him flat. The treant moves for the first time in centuries, seeking a new spot to root until it succumbs to the poison of sun-bright flowers.

Enemies: red in tooth and claw

These and more are the denizens of the Plane of Life, obsessive in their will to survive by supplanting other species, like the amphibious boglings who eat and kill all interlopers, usually in that order.

Many of Telara’s most savage beasts are invaders from this plane. Dire wolves hunt the local game to extinction, and razorbeast boars trample like jagged boulders over any natural predator. The Plane of Life can warp wildlife into abominations like the shamblers: swollen toadlike heads pulled along by spindly arms, with no body but a mass of soggy leaves.

The Lifetouched have adapted countless tricks in their war for survival. Ecstatic satyrs might raid a village, calling barbed roots from the ground to bind their victims in place to be poisoned, while the goat-men heal their own wounds by regrowing flesh as a tree regrows leaves.

Dragon of Life: Greenscale the Primeval

Greenscale the Primeval is the relentless enemy of civilization, hating any structure that coddles the weak or hobbles the strong. His ideal is constant, shifting struggle, where species of every sort live and die at each others’ throats, till only the most vicious survive—or something stronger comes along.

For centuries, Greenscale has raged against his sterile, lifeless prison, as his faerie servitors leech off his power to fuel their wicked games. If freed, he may crush them for their impudence or reward their ruthless drive. Greenscale yearns to level Sanctum, Meridian, every bastion of order and progress until Telara is covered in writhing, biting wilderness.

Cult of Life: House Aelfwar

For eons, the High Elves of House Aelfwar safeguarded Telara’s wild places. Then the Ascended returned from death as protectors of all Telara, and Aelfwar fell in status from Tavril’s chosen to mere mortals. When the goblins emerged from Gloamwood to burn the Elves’ wood to the ground, Prince Hylas of Aelfwar resented the Guardians’ failure to act.

The Prince led his house to worship Greenscale. Now they loathe the orderly civilization that betrayed them, and work to foster the wild at its wildest, spreading the Primeval One’s philosophy of endless competition. No less glorious for his bitterness, Hylas is a leader of ambition, charisma, and intense focus. He may quickly outstrip even Fae Lord Twyl as civilization’s most implacable enemy, though once he was harmony’s devoted friend.

Amid a teeming jungle, only this ruined wall remains of an Eth city. Something has carved this into the wall in jagged glyphs:

“This stone reminds all prey that the predator will find you, though you huddle together. Great Greenscale trod upon this city, and hungry plants rose from his footsteps, choking out the desert. Screaming his name, the city rats ran in vain from his burning eyes and breath of fragrant poison. He tumbled the towers, and he broke the streets, and he roared the triumph of nature amid the toppling pillars. Greenscale gives this jungle to Telara, to devour and be devoured as it deserves."

plane of water lore

Plane of Water

Deep One

Water Rifts: the deep rises

The surface of all water is a membrane between sanity and lunacy, between the open air and the dark depths. By the shores and in the swamps, where real meets surreal, the Water Rifts form, letting madness loose upon Telara. Stay away from the water! Better to fish in the sand than risk ever meeting the gibbering, slimesome horrors that slither from the nightmare plane.

But then, a Water Rift can take hold even in the driest desert. Salt water rushes from nowhere and spreads into a reeking lake, from which tentacles rise and quiver in frantic rhythm. Toothed tendrils writhe from a rent in the sky, living creatures drown on land, and monsters spill from the rift like rotten fish from a net.

The Plane of Water: the crushing dark

Be thankful that the planes are closed to mortals, for mere moments of gazing into the Plane of Water would snap the sturdiest psyche. This is the plane of nightmares, the bottomless depths of its endless sea mirroring the darkest corners of the mind.

Reefs grow that defy geometry, where unclean creatures build cities and play their games of torture and depravity. Colossal creatures lie entombed within the glaciers that float upon the Plane of Water, awaiting word from their master to push through the rifts and swallow continents.

Touched by Water: the things that should not be

Watertouched invaders merge the worst bestial traits with the worst human urges. Fish-headed, with squirming tentacles for legs, the cephalons build fluted cities deep beneath the waves and hold depraved revels, hoping Akylios will wake and lead the dance. Slouching sobeks with scaly hides and crocodile jaws wallow in everything cruel and lazy. They have long served as enforcers for Telaran sorcerers arrogant enough to summon them.

The Plane of Water breeds twisted beasts such as notchback crocodiles with catlike legs, and dragon turtles that walk upright, twin heads spouting blasphemy. Deep ones lurk in seaside caves, crab-faced hulks whose pincers can crack the spines of giants. Like a maniac’s smile, the things that wash up from the Plane of Water resemble something healthy at a glance, but a second look reveals the alien, awful thing before you.

Dragon of Water: the Profane

The prison fits the prisoner: Akylios waits deep beneath one of Telara’s great secret shames, a place of terror and darkness and forbidden magic. He sleeps and he dreams, remembering endless eons marauding through the cosmos with his Blood Storm brethren, learning every tragic secret, every evil spell, sipping the nightmares of dying worlds.

Telarans can comprehend the other dragons’ urges to consume, to conquer, to hoard, but Akylios is beyond understanding. The living interest him because the tortured howls of races sound almost like music. He does not seek victory over men any more than the ocean strives against the land. One day he will simply wash all mortals away just to hear them scream their silly symphony. He was mad even before he learned all fears and secrets. There are no words for what Akylios is now.

Cult of Akylios: the Abyssal

Cabals clad in the skins of children, chanting in tide pools by moonlight. Artists locked in seaside shacks, bidden by spirits to summon blubbery monsters or else venture out and carve up village maids. Sages who venture into forbidden archives and read until their eyes shrivel in their heads. These are the wretches who serve Akylios.

They will seek any path to power, learn any magic, betray any loved one to rouse their dreaming lord. They whisper their nightmares into bottles set adrift on the tide, and draw his filthy spawn into Telara to feast. Meridian was theirs before the Defiant drove them out, and now the Eth scholars hang Kelari dreamcatchers by their beds, hoping their nightmares never reach the Abyssal’s sleeping lord.

Shortly after the Shade, the oceans swallowed a coastal manor house. Only the following was legible on this scroll found in a sealed case within.

“The fog rolls in like a gauzy tide, creeping closer by the night. It coils about my bones, slipping over the waves toward the little fishing village.

By day I pore over my tomes. By night, I watch shapes writhing in the mist. Things bray and gurgle and men scream, and every morning when the fog slips away, more fisher-folk are gone. The village is eroding, like a sandcastle left to the hungry waves. I do not care for the villagers and their stupid superstitions, but I envy no man such a fate.

Yet I hear the tentacles grasping at the cliffside, and flutes squealing in the cities in the crushing dark. They know the secrets my books keep from me. I need only join them, and they will tell me all. It seems I do envy the villagers, but not for long."

plane of fire lore

Plane of Fire

Fire Rifts: death and destruction

Beasts rest in a glade, sipping sweet water from a trickling stream, soothed by birdsong from boughs high above. And then a glowing, orange slit opens in thin air, waves of searing heat pulsing from it in all directions.

Small volcanoes rise from the ground as grass and soil burn away, leaving cracked, ashen bedrock. Underground gases poison the tress, the smell of sulfur seeping between withered roots. Where once brooks flowed, trees bloomed, and life abounded, this Fire Rift brings streams of lava, charred stumps, and the smoldering corpses of every living thing caught in the inferno.

Every rift carries the threat of death and planar invasion, but the incendiary magic released by a Fire Rift consumes everything. Monsters rush from the rift, roaring like a flame, eager to waste the land and roast the innocent in their homes.

The Plane of Fire: fields of flame

The Plane of Fire is a broken and cracked expanse of sharp rocks and blasted mountains, valleys obscured by smoke and ash. Volcanoes rise thousands of feet into the methane sky, spewing rivers of molten rock into seas of fire that the plane’s denizens walk upon as if it were harmless soil.

Razor shards of stone carpet the scorched plains, where fire elementals and ifrits clash together in a riot of joyous violence. Demons fly between the jagged peaks, plucking goblins from their lairs in handfuls to gorge upon.

Tainted by fire: devouring hordes

The creatures that come to Telara through Fire Rifts make up for a lack of subtlety with pure, ruthless aggression. Goblins have lived in Telara since the Age of Dragons, and every mother scares her children with tales of the goblins’ vicious cruelty. Recently, the Gedlo priests have joined their lesser goblin cousins, honing anarchic tribes into war-bands that harass and butcher even well-armed patrols.

Invaders from the Plane of Fire overwhelm their victims with bursts of devastation, but this does not mean they are stupid or without foresight. Tall and beautiful in their monstrous way, Devils can incite victims to mindless fury, or enter such a state themselves when one of the lesser races has the nerve to pose a threat. If bested, they may fall on their own swords in arrogant spite, denying their lessers the honor of ending such elegant malevolence.

Dragon of Fire: the Flame Sire

The red dragon is chaos incarnate. Any goals beyond sowing turmoil and ruin are a waste of his time. While many of the other dragons of the Blood Storm have additional motives controlling Telara, Maelforge sees anything beyond the cycle of annihilation, regrowth, and new destruction as decadent self indulgence.

A creature of rapacious lust, the Flame Sire would tolerate no other Blood Storm participating in the destruction of the world, and so he turned against his fellows. Unlike Regulos, who seeks to end all creation once and for all, Maelforge would let the world regrow, only to return and burn it again and again, an endless cycle of fiery torment.

Cult of Maelforge: the Wanton

The Wanton revel in senseless violence and brutality. For these cultists, the only goal of conflict is more conflict. Devastation, fire, and chaos fan the flames of the Wanton’s passions, their dearest desire to sow mayhem. Every person killed, every town destroyed, every forest burned is a sacrifice to Maelforge.

The least organized but most fanatically loyal dragon cult, the Wanton ranks boast many monstrous humanoids such as goblins or dragonians. In Telaran communities, cells of Wanton can rise up suddenly, burning and despoiling in huge swathes before dying out. Many cultists seek to emulate the brutal centaurs: doing violence without honor, seeking a meaningless death, a body-count their only contribution to the world.

Ritual sacrifice is common among the Wanton. The dismembered limbs and spilled gore of their victims fuel the cultists’ hideous magic. As the Flame Sire decrees, death sows the seeds of new destruction.

Ranger-Captain Dio Booras (newly-promoted) on the destruction of Diokesi Village,

“Captain Gaiane broke ranks and rushed the smoking ruin. I suppose she could no longer stomach the screaming. As if to counter, the ground broke in her path, magma welling in the cracks like blood in a fresh cut. Her legs a blur, she cleared the lava, dodged gouts of flame, then leapt, spear twirling, into the smoke.

A huge, clawed hand plucked her from the air and dashed her against a blazing hut. The captain jabbed into the smoke, but the beast only chuckled as it stepped into view. It had wings and cloven hooves, and its forearms were twisted inside out, bone over muscle. But none of this mattered. Its bestial maw split crosswise, ear to ear and nose to jaw, to reveal a second set of humanoid teeth at the end of bleeding gums… It shoved the captain in there up to her waist and bit down, twisting its head to the side…”

plane of eath lore

Plane of Earth

Troglodyte

Earth Rifts: avalanche from beyond

The ground shakes. Dust swirls and rocks rain as a monstrous spike of stone stabs down through a tear in the sky. Carbuncles and stalagmites bubble up like boils as hulking monstrosities emerge from this new Earth Rift.

Explorers may be tempted by an Earth Rift, for every new spire bursts with precious minerals and gems clearer than water. These riches are but a trap to lure the greedy into the arms of waiting horrors. With each treasure hunter so doomed, Laethys smiles…

Plane of Earth: the unquiet stone

The Plane of Earth is a desert of multicolored sand, pierced by massive spikes of crystal and stone. Rivers of molten metal flow down mountains that rise beyond the sky, cooling sometimes into continents of alloy in a sea of dust. Rock formations defy gravity as tiny necks of stone support boulders that span between horizons, dotted with gems as big as houses.

Earth Rift

Earthtouched: immovable objects

Sheer, unrelenting might is the trademark of the Earthtouched. They resist all coercion, bow to no force. They summon unbreakable shields and wear soldered plate armor, and they strike with such power that their victims would prefer to stand in the path of a landslide. From the lurking gnar, to numberless swarms of giant ants, to basilisks with corrosive poison dripping from their fangs, the beasts from the Plane of Earth exemplify this base brutality.

Orelings tunnel underground, enslaved to expand the mines of troglodytes. The troglodytes’ bulbous cousins, the Mountain Trolls, imitate boulders in their bulk and blunt stupidity. The minions of Laethys only grow from there: sharp-toothed ogres and muscle-bound cyclopes, golems of mud and rusted iron and even diamond.

And the Titans. Once rulers of an empire within the Plane of Earth, these enormous beings make the tallest mortal look like a toy. They are not brutal, the Titans. They are not stupid. They are Earth at its most dangerous: wise, cold, mighty beyond comprehension. And they will have an empire again.

Dragon of Earth: Queen of Avarice

The Gold Dragon’s flesh flows like molten metal, and diamonds are her eyes. The riches of worlds will fall through her clutches, and she will never have enough while anyone else has anything at all. Laethys will feast atop a pile of famished wretches. All will adore her alone, and she will never give them quite enough.

Laethys would never let Regulos destroy the world, for how can she possess that which does not exist? She hates Crucia for spreading passionless devotion where there should be ravening lust. But she will work with nearly anyone who offers enough treasure, if only to steal the source of their wealth and watch her former ally grovel in the dirt.

Spoiled and fickle, Laethys discards her followers as quickly as she warms to them. Who knows how many back-alley beggars were once fat merchants who forgot the proper sacrifice to Laethys: pretty youths, their eyes cut out and replaced with rubies.

Cult of Laethys: the Golden Maw

There is a tale of an Oligarch of the Golden Maw who would pour molten gold down the throat of any of his cultists who even used the word “enough.” “Never,” he would say over their hideous corpses, “not even now.” Such is the way of the Golden Maw. They want more, more wealth, bottomless wealth for its own bloated sake.

You might see a cultured merchant leading a life of glittering splendor, and never know that he feels every day like a starving beggar because somewhere he imagines a fatter belly or prettier slaves. The Golden Maw make a game of manipulating economies, sluicing a nation’s wealth into their own overflowing hoards. They serve Laethys in hopes of splitting her leavings, and having a bigger piece of the refuse than any of their fellows.

In sickness and in wealth

In the ancient Dwarven Delve of Broochforge, there lived a jeweler named Igor Burburov. Igor Burburov had a wife who thought of nothing but their sick son, and Igor’s gold went to doctors, then to Elven healers from the wood, then rare treatments from across Telara, and still the boy only coughed and coughed, until Igor Burburov was all but a pauper.

“I wish he would cough up something useful, for a change. Like diamonds!” said Igor Burburov one day to his wife.

And so the boy did. He coughed up diamonds of rare beauty. Igor Burburov laughed as they tumbled through his fingers, not noticing when his wife caught the illness. And when all his neighbors caught the illness. But Igor Burburov did not notice, until they coughed up enough diamonds to fill up all of Broochforge.

There is no more Dwarven Delve of Broochforge. There is a hollow filled with diamonds. In the center is poor Igor Burburov. And he is still laughing.

telara the world lore info

    Telara is a unique world, forged by the gods from Sourcestone and located at the nexus of the elemental planes. The creatures that inhabit these planes and interact with Telara are both familiar and exotic.
     The Shade rendered much of Telara inaccessible to explorers. The civilized territories are now bordered by impassible mountains on north and west and in the east and south the coasts are battered by churning waves, the sea whipped into a frenzy by planar energy unleashed by the cracking of the Ward.

     The somewhat smaller continent of Mathosia boasts a wide variety of climates brought about by the ever-changing planar convergences. Within its borders lie ancient forests and haunted swamps, mysterious bogs and snow covered mountains that seem to touch the clouds. It holds skies of crystal blue and thunderstorm gray and deepest sable, all struggling for dominance over a landscape that changes at the drop of a hat with the advent of a planar tear. All of this on just one of Telara's continents, all brought upon by the coming of the Rifts and the cracking of the magical barrier that had always protected the world from the chaotic touches of the planes. The world's other two continents, rife with intrigue, mystery and danger, are as vastly different as night is from day, hosting immense rocky mountains and technological wonders far advanced from that of Mathosia. Many small islands also dot the seas, each one a tiny micro environment with it's own unique wonders and monsters.

     At the time that the Ascended arrive on Telara from their respective timelines (20 years in the past for Guardian and 20 years in the future for Defiant), the Ward that had surrounded Telara for countless years is failing, allowing the various nutjob followers of the Blood Storm to work themselves into a frenzy in renewed efforts to release their masters, knowing that this is the best chance they've had in a long time. This was made possible by the combined efforts of the king of Mathosia and the notorious scientist Orphiel Farwind. Because of their reckless decisions, the planes were finally able to again touch Telara, causing a wave of chaos to ripple across Telara. Once opened, the rifts were a floodgate into Telara, creating new dangers and threats toward the civilized sections of the world. Strange creatures began attacking towns, changing the local climate, and twisting the minds of Telara's native inhabitants. Where rifts form, the sky changes color, the ground is warped until it becomes a mirror of that plane, and all nearby creatures become affected physically and mentally by the energy of the planes. Also, the rifts leave planar residue behind, which is a valuable and powerful resource for Ascended. Is Telara better off without the convergences of the planes or does it need this spark of new life that has been breathed into its atmosphere? Who knows, but it certainly makes living on Telara more hazardous and interesting, each day a different experience.

     Apparently there are many worlds out in the universe, but Telara is the only one unique in the fact that is made entirely out of Sourcestone, created at the nexus of the planes. It means this world, above all others, is the most valuable, and is therefore, the most sought after by the various powerful denizens of the planes.

     Each region on Telara is full of unique challenges and beings, all waiting for a brave and enterprising adventurer to explore or an Ascended to come and bring aid. And the dragon cults are again active, stirring up old magics, corrupting the innocent and waking ancient horrors in their quest to free their Blood Storm masters from their age-old prisons. Rifts ravage the landscape, some appearing where their element is plentiful, others a surreal contrast to the terrain around them, but all are full of deadly planar creatures with one single goal in mind: to kill all they see and claim this land for their own. This is Telara. But it is also home to many different creatures, sentient or otherwise. And all fight to the last to keep it safe.


References: As always, everything Rift related belongs to Trion! I just read stuff in game and pay attention to all the tiny background tidbits to turn it into Telara's history! Also, there isn't much actual lore on the actual world of Telara as whole. I think you should get on that and write up a little "history of Telara" there Trion! *hint hint* Hehe. :) Oh, and in case you didn't know already, I don't own any of this stuff. It's like writing an essay on a novel already written. I'm just summarizing it in my own words is all!

plane of death lore

Plane of Death

Death Rifts: a rot upon the land

There are places in Telara where death holds dominion: Graveyards that rot in the stinking swamps as inscriptions fade on the headstones, or battlefields where the grass has been crushed under charging feet, and the bones and blades of fallen warriors sink into the mud. Beware such places, for the air itself might tear open, spilling horrors like maggots from a corpse.

Around these Death Rifts, plants wither as the air stills, trapping rotten smells. The undead patrol the brittle dust, slaughtering and feasting upon passersby, the cries of fiends and victims chilling folks’ blood for miles around.

Places of decay are most likely to attract these diseased patches, but Death Rifts can appear anywhere in Telara, blighting the pristine snow or the forest glade. Beyond each rift lies a plane of endless decay where even the Ascended cannot tread.

The Plane of Death: quiet forever

The Plane of Death is an endless, flat expanse of dust and bleached bone. Shadowy tendrils slither across the horizon, while vast obsidian spikes tear from the ground to claw at skies of purple and gray. The few clouds are ragged and pale, and the occasional flash of lightning sets everything into stark relief.

Things rot under pools of black oil, ready to yank prey down to a gruesome end, and mummies wait in elaborate tombs that were not built by hand, but grew from the land like cysts.

While death is the natural end to life, there is nothing of rebirth and healthful change in Regulos’s realm. The Plane of Death devours, it erodes the flesh from living bones, stealing vital energy. Its denizens spread slow, painful rot through virulent diseases, or infect the mind with fear, nightmares, or outright compulsion.

From the journal of Maura Reinhard,

“We lived at the heart of where the Shade appeared, my husband, my two sons and I. We tried to flee, but the land was dead in every direction. The undead beasts of the rifts did not slaughter us, but watched with hollow eyes, as if they knew. As if they knew.

My sons changed, skin tight over bones, and so pale I could see down to their dear hearts. Their father recoiled from them, but I could not. By night, they would tell me how alien everything seemed, how strange it was that father’s chest rose and fell as he slept, while ours did not. We decided to open him up and see why. My boys and I did not leave the shaded lands, but no matter how many people we open up, we can never remember how to breathe."

Tainted by death: the dead and the doomed

When a Death Rift opens, the plane’s denizens pour into Telara to spread terror and despair in the name of Regulos. One group of invaders, the lorn, are hollow imitations of the glorious Ascended, husks that yearn to reclaim their lost spark by spreading pain and suffering to the living. They are often accompanied into Telara by the shadow elementals called umbrals, who leave their victims’ faces frozen forever in terror.

Anything from the Plane of Death can enter Telara through a rift, from its monstrous natives such as mummies and vampires, to fell energies that send corpses shambling forth as zombies, or bind the souls of the wickeddead to Telara as spectres.

Even the living are touched by energy from these awful rifts. Mortals who run afoul of death-tainted witches are cursed to stalk the moonlight as ravenous beasts. Madmen in hidden laboratories stitch corpses together into loathsome abominations, composing with flesh as a musician composes an overture.

Regulos, Devourer of Worlds: Dragon of Death

Regulos lies. He promises his cultists peace through death, but the peace of the void is not prosperity. He promises his lieutenants eternal power over the undead, but will unmake and consume all of reality to sate his hunger. Even his dragon form is a lie, rotting flesh disguising his incomprehensible nature within a cage of bone and sinew.

The Destroyer hungers, seeking to end the keening screech of life. Thanks to the treachery of his fellow dragons and the unforeseen heroism of Telara’s defenders, Regulos remains banished to the Planes. But when his pawn Aedraxis Mathos broke the Ward, Regulos’s hideous energy flooded once more into Telara. If he is not stopped, the Devourer of Worlds will consume everything, and stretch his bloated form across all creation.

Cult of Regulos: the Endless Court

Telara was young when Regulos first arrived, and his cult has festered in dark places ever since. Mighty Titans, haughty Elves, even the humblest human priest could fall victim to the Destroyer’s overwhelming vision of the end of the world. Throughout history, wherever thoughts of doomsday take hold, the Endless Court works its evil.

From nihilistic madmen who believe Telara should receive the gift of tranquil death, to mortals so hungry for power they would rule over the undead, Regulos’s followers are the worst of the worst.

While Aedraxis once led the Endless Court, Regulos’s most famous follower has not been seen nor heard from since he released the Shade, and his body was never produced. Folk everywhere fear that he might one day return, to hone the Endless Court into the scythe that reaps Telara for the dragon of extinction.