While sitting marking assignments I saw an echo appear in Lareawan’s window:

The Duke’s spies have reported a previously unknown class of gnome deep in the tunnels of Moria.

Nothing on news, nothing on questnews or quest channel, nonetheless off to the tunnels of Moria I trundled along with many other adventurers.

Where gnome turned up a little information:
     where gnome
     | a svirfneblin gnome is currently at A small maze

Svirfneblin gnomes are also known as deep gnomes in the Dungeons and Dragons world, so another reference to add to the list.   A little wandering and I eventually spotted:

     A svirfneblin child scampers around.

     Covered with splashes of mud and nibbling a chocolate brownie, the child skips about splashing in puddles of dank water.

     A svirfneblin child is in perfect health.
     You peek at her inventory:
          Nothing.

Did someone say brownie?

     Your backstab **** SMITES **** a svirfneblin child!
     A svirfneblin child is DEAD!!
     A svirfneblin child gasps her last breath and blood spurts out of her mouth and ears.
     You get 108 gold coins from the corpse of a svirfneblin child.
     The corpse of a svirfneblin child holds:
          a chocolate brownie

Where there’s children there’s often adults, and before long I spotted this gnome:

A busy gnome scurries about the settlement.

Large grey eyes track your every movement, as the wiry, gnarled gnome
tenses for possible danger. Stone coloured fingers tightly grip the
chipped hammer.

A svirfneblin gnome is in perfect health.

A svirfneblin gnome is using:
<worn around neck> a quartz crystal on a braided lanyard
<wielded> a chipped hammer

You peek at her inventory:
Nothing.

Well… she might have more brownies in addition to those equipment goodies, right?

Your backstab MASSACRES a svirfneblin gnome!
A svirfneblin gnome thrusts her foot out and kicks you.
A svirfneblin gnome’s kick brushes you.
A svirfneblin gnome says ‘How dare you disturb our settlement’
A svirfneblin gnome cuffs you upside the head, sending you reeling.
A svirfneblin gnome’s cuff brushes you.
A svirfneblin gnome utters the words, ‘qkadagz dies’.
A svirfneblin gnome’s spell brushes you.
Your pierce mauls a svirfneblin gnome!
Your whip mauls a svirfneblin gnome!
Your circle _demolishes_ a svirfneblin gnome!
A svirfneblin gnome shakes her fist wildly towards you!
A svirfneblin gnome swats at you, hitting you with the back of her hand.
A svirfneblin gnome’s swat scratches you.
Your pierce mauls a svirfneblin gnome!
Your whip bludgeons a svirfneblin gnome!
Your pierce rends a svirfneblin gnome!
A svirfneblin gnome is DEAD!!
A svirfneblin gnome gasps her last breath and blood spurts out of her mouth and ears.
You get 32340 gold coins from the corpse of a svirfneblin gnome.
The corpse of a svirfneblin gnome holds:
     a chipped hammer
     a quartz crystal on a braided lanyard

I know.. tough guy beating up a gnome, but hey tell me you’ve never killed a peddler just because it game into the room at the wrong moment right?  The comment about the settlement makes me think that this is a permanent expansion, a new little spot for people to come visit in their 30’s perhaps.  So what about these doodads?

Object ‘a chipped hammer’ is infused with your magic…
It is a level 28 pounding weapon, weight 5.
Locations it can be worn: wield
Special properties: none
This weapon has a gold value of 40000.
Damage is 5 to 60 (average 32).
Affects damage roll by 2.
Affects luck by 1.
Affects constitution by 1.
Affects damage vs undead by 2.

Con?  Non-magic?  32 av dam?!?  I mean if you don’t have a WindWalker handy this might be a neat choice.

Object ‘a quartz crystal on a braided lanyard’ is infused with your magic…
It is a level 29 armor, weight 1.
Locations it can be worn: neck
Special properties: evil
Alignments allowed: evil neutral
This armor has a gold value of 18000.
Armor class is 9 of 9.
Affects damage roll by 2.
Affects hp by 20.
Affects mana by 20.
Affects intelligence by 1.
Affects wisdom by 1.

No love for the devs today but a nice levelling piece for appropriately aligned clerics, mages, rangers, nephandi… etc.

Who else might we encounter today?  Many brownies later and

The coals of a small fire flicker and pop.
(Invis) (Hide) The deep gnome wizard looks up, angered at the interruption.
A svirfneblin wizard is shrouded in flowing shadow and light.
A svirfneblin wizard is ensphered by shards of glistening ice.

Snarling with rage the wizard raises a gloved hand to prepare an attack
spell.

A svirfneblin wizard is in perfect health.

A svirfneblin wizard is using:
<worn on feet> a pair of duck boots
<worn on hands> fingerless silk gloves

You peek at his inventory:
Nothing.

Hey someone spelled up?  Should be a good guy for levelling but he does have a little bit of a kick.

Your backstab injures a svirfneblin wizard!
A svirfneblin wizard fades into existence.
Your whip pelts a svirfneblin wizard.
Tark’s pierce scratches a svirfneblin wizard.
Tark’s pierce misses a svirfneblin wizard.
Tark’s circle nicks a svirfneblin wizard!
A svirfneblin wizard utters the words, ‘xzatunso’.
A svirfneblin wizard utters the words, ‘gqafqpuio gjfoz’.
A fiery current lashes through your body!
A svirfneblin wizard’s scorching surge scratches you.
Tark’s pierce scratches a svirfneblin wizard.
Your whip pelts a svirfneblin wizard.
Your pierce nicks a svirfneblin wizard.
Your circle injures a svirfneblin wizard!
A svirfneblin wizard utters the words, ‘gpaqtuio ogrugs’.
Sparks arc from a svirfneblin wizard’s hands as he reaches toward you.
A svirfneblin wizard’s shocking grasp brushes you.
Your whip pelts a svirfneblin wizard.
Tark’s circle misses a svirfneblin wizard.
Tark’s pierce nicks a svirfneblin wizard.
Tark’s pierce nicks a svirfneblin wizard.
Your whip bruises a svirfneblin wizard!
Your circle injures a svirfneblin wizard!
Hands raised to the heavens, the wizard draws power from the
A svirfneblin wizard utters the words, ‘mosailla paieg’.
A svirfneblin wizard reaches toward you with fiery hands.
A svirfneblin wizard’s burning hands scratches you.
A svirfneblin wizard’s fireball nicks you!
(the intricate tattoo of the master warriors gets damaged)
Tark’s pierce nicks a svirfneblin wizard.
Your shield of flame grazes a svirfneblin wizard.
Your tendril of lightning grazes a svirfneblin wizard.
A svirfneblin wizard utters the words, ‘gpaqtuio ogrugs’.
Sparks arc from a svirfneblin wizard’s hands as he reaches toward you.
A svirfneblin wizard’s shocking grasp scratches you.
Your pierce cuts a svirfneblin wizard!
Tark’s circle wounds a svirfneblin wizard!
Your circle injures a svirfneblin wizard!
Hands raised to the heavens, the wizard draws power from the
A svirfneblin wizard utters the words, ‘mosailla paieg’.
A svirfneblin wizard reaches toward you with fiery hands.
A svirfneblin wizard’s burning hands scratches you.
A svirfneblin wizard’s fireball grazes you.
Your whip bruises a svirfneblin wizard!
Tark’s circle wounds a svirfneblin wizard!
A svirfneblin wizard’s flamestrike brushes you.
Your pierce hits a svirfneblin wizard!
Your circle jars a svirfneblin wizard!
A svirfneblin wizard utters the words, ‘xzatunso’.
A svirfneblin wizard utters the words, ‘gqafqpuio gjfoz’.
A fiery current lashes through your body!
A svirfneblin wizard’s scorching surge jolts you!
Tark’s circle injures a svirfneblin wizard!
Tark’s pierce cuts a svirfneblin wizard!
Your pierce hits a svirfneblin wizard!
Your circle jars a svirfneblin wizard!
A svirfneblin wizard utters the words, ‘gpaqtuio ogrugs’.
Sparks arc from a svirfneblin wizard’s hands as he reaches toward you.
A svirfneblin wizard’s shocking grasp scratches you.
Your whip thrashes a svirfneblin wizard!
A svirfneblin wizard utters the words, ‘xzatunso’.
A svirfneblin wizard utters the words, ‘gqafqpuio gjfoz’.
A fiery current lashes through your body!
A svirfneblin wizard’s scorching surge grazes you.
Tark’s circle injures a svirfneblin wizard!
Your circle jars a svirfneblin wizard!
Tark’s pierce tears a svirfneblin wizard!
A svirfneblin wizard utters the words, ‘xzatunso’.
A svirfneblin wizard utters the words, ‘gqafqpuio gjfoz’.
A fiery current lashes through your body!
A svirfneblin wizard’s scorching surge grazes you.
A svirfneblin wizard utters the words, ‘gpaqtuio ogrugs’.
Sparks arc from a svirfneblin wizard’s hands as he reaches toward you.
A svirfneblin wizard’s shocking grasp grazes you.
Your pierce tears a svirfneblin wizard!
Your whip thrashes a svirfneblin wizard!
A svirfneblin wizard’s fireball jolts you!
(a bright shiny bottlecap gets damaged)
Tark’s pierce tears a svirfneblin wizard!
Your whip thrashes a svirfneblin wizard!
Your pierce rips a svirfneblin wizard!
Tark’s pierce tears a svirfneblin wizard!
Your pierce rips a svirfneblin wizard!
Hands raised to the heavens, the wizard draws power from the
A svirfneblin wizard utters the words, ‘mosailla paieg’.
A svirfneblin wizard reaches toward you with fiery hands.
A svirfneblin wizard’s burning hands scratches you.
Tark’s pierce tears a svirfneblin wizard!
Tark’s spinkick jolts a svirfneblin wizard!
Your whip batters a svirfneblin wizard!
You leap into the air and kick a svirfneblin wizard on the chest with both of your feet.
Your leap jolts a svirfneblin wizard!
Tark’s spinkick wounds a svirfneblin wizard!
Tark’s pierce tears a svirfneblin wizard!
Tark’s pierce tears a svirfneblin wizard!
Your whip batters a svirfneblin wizard!
Your whip batters a svirfneblin wizard!
A svirfneblin wizard is DEAD!!
A svirfneblin wizard splatters blood on your armor.
You get 269500 gold coins from the corpse of a svirfneblin wizard.
You split 269500 gold coins. Your share is 134750 gold coins.
The corpse of a svirfneblin wizard holds:
    a pair of duck boots
    fingerless silk gloves

Doodads?

Object ‘fingerless silk gloves’ is infused with your magic…
It is a level 46 armor, weight 1.
Locations it can be worn: hands
Special properties: none
This armor has a gold value of 0.
Armor class is 5 of 10.
Affects hp by 30.
Affects mana by 15.
Affects luck by 1.
Affects constitution by 1.
Affects hp regeneration by 5.

Object ‘a pair of duck boots’ is infused with your magic…
It is a level 45 armor, weight 1.
Locations it can be worn: feet
Special properties: none
This armor has a gold value of 10000.
Armor class is 9 of 11.
Affects hp by 30.
Affects mana by 20.
Affects constitution by 1.
Affects hit roll by 2.
Affects damage roll by 3.
Affects affected_by by hide.
Affects mana regeneration by 5.

 

Again pretty neat stuff, not quite sure exactly where to include it yet but if nothing else those gloves can replace dragon’s gloves on some of my ghetto barbs.  Certainly a response to the recent CON changes.  The boots are better than some that are much harder to get in several ways, not the least of which being the mana regen.

Tark from Dragonslayer hung around and we killed a few times to get a feel for things and ended up with some nifty new levelling doodads.  The levels varied a little bit, the lowest we saw are reported here for your amusement.

Cheers and happy adventuring!

It’s been a busy few months and excluding Symposium meetings I have not been around regularly, in what is a continuing refrain.  I could say it’s been busy at work and at home which is true, but it’s also true that Season 5 of Diablo 3 sucked up my recreational time.  The season journey they introduced with rewards for completing different tiers absolutely plays into my OCD 🙂  I had previously suggested some sort of achievement system on Realms as well, one of the things I think I’ll wind up doing here on the website eventually or perhaps that’ll be my first attempt at coding in SMAUG, we’ll see.

Other things I’m working at:

• I continue to work on the Mr. Dressup mode item database … it’s slowly progressing, I just haven’t tuned my brain back into it.  The rough draft version of it is at  http://realmsofdespair.info/itemdb/mrdressup.php
• I’ve revisited my map idea, that was partly working on a local copy of the site.  My goal is to make the Herne map navigable so that you can zoom in and see rooms.  To this end I’ve figured out how to read cMud map files locally.  I don’t believe it will be possible to algorithmically  generate the Realms of Despair map just by reading rooms and exits (eg drawing the map from an area file) because there is no fixed room size or distance between rooms but I’m going to investigate it a bit before I give up.  At one point I had Darkhaven and surrounding forests on a single zone which was very difficult to manage, however with this change I can now put them into zones for use in cMud but ignore the zones when I render them on my overall map.  Work in progress lots to think about.
• The main site still needs content… I have got literally gigabytes of Realms info from old sites, game logs etc, and the site looks like it was made by a child (not fair, children actually are more creative) so I would like to get some of that content posted and shared.
• I want to go back and get the time line built for the information I gathered some time ago.  Right now it’s presented as a table and I think a visual representation might inspire some more contributions.  The idea that the game doesn’t acknowledge it’s own history except in very rare spots is something that strikes me as a bit of a travesty.  Thousands of people have played the game and left their mark on it, I’d like to try and bring that history to life.
• Speaking of which, I was contacted by Haus who has prepared a bit of an article for you, which I will post up shortly.

Thanks for visiting, I’m still alive and well, the Guild of Origin is still here and I’m still looking for ways to contribute, feel free to drop a line in game and say hi.

Until next time,

Tharius