WERE DOOOMED WERE DOOMED, now totems wont work unless someones bonded to it...240 living totems...240 of them by golly. *wave serenwilde* Need a miracle to pull this through and with the current leaders and military "effectiveness" were gone.


*pray auseklis, lisaera*

Hrm. Well surely only the ones around the edge REALLY need to be bonded to work effectively, and keep in mind that (with difficulty) statues can be destroyed, whereas it's REALLY hard to catch a totem as an elder tree and knock it down.

Not EVERY totem needs bonding to keep the Seren defences working properly.

You really only need a few well-placed totems to defend your commune.

This sounds awesome! Could someone post the announce post for me? I can't enter Lusternia on my grandparent's computer; it keeps giving it viruses, according to Mr. Norton.

ANNOUNCE NEWS #148
Date: 12/30/2004 at 19:00
From: Estarra, the Eternal
To : Everyone
Subj: Runes on Totems

Runes on totems will not fire if the totem is not bonded to a person.
This also applies to unbonded statues with runes (though that's a pretty
unlikely occurrence). What this means for Serenwilde is that those with
the Stag totem will probably want to be more strategic on which totems
to bond. The design for totems and statues was actually always meant to
work like this but it was only recently that it was discovered by the
designers (as everyone thought this was how it was supposed to work).

Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Klangiary, in the year 106 CE.

Whew.

When I was in serenwilde, I was dissappointed at the lack of emphasis on bonding.

Seems better now.

And no, not because I can walk around now. I still don't know which are bonded...

Incidentally, do I hear correctly that mages can bond to any number of statues, whereas Stag users can only bond to one totem? If so, what's the reasoning behind the difference?

It wasn't meant to be a difference at all, We always intended it to be this way.

It was just one of these things that we didn't notice was bugged.

Well, this dosen't affect my Nihilist, as he constantly just flies over the forest. You might see Guido taking some leisurely walks, however.

By difference I meant how mages can bond to multiple runed statues and have them working whereas a Stag user can only bond to one totem and have it working. If such a difference, as I am told, exists.

Well, I can't say if the Mages bit is intended, but statues are -VERY- easy to destroy, and a highly trained Artist, then Enchanter, are needed to make them in the first place.

Yeah, I guess it IS hard to catch a totem out for chopping when it reverts back to Elder. All the same, it takes a LONG time to get it back up if it does get caught, or even intercepted while it's growing...fair point, though, statues are easily destroyed.

Indeed, I could walk through Celest and take out every one of them as long as they didn't notice. In fact, I sometimes wonder why I don't do that.

Totems are much too hard to destroy. Perhaps a good forest fire will take them down.

Plus, mages don't bond, they enchant, correct?

*mutter* Should have left my totem bonded, I had one north of the moonhart.

For a statue, the person with the Enchantment skillset must "enchant" the statue, then affix the runes to it. Both Guardians and Mage archetypes can do this. FYI, Totems can be placed on the Ethereal. We can't place statues on the plane we are sworn to protect.

Plus we can put guards all over the Ether Serenwilde (I think), but you guys can only place them on the Nexi. Mind you, with the Nexi it's the only way in.

Wow, that is incredibly lame. I could see this change taking effect if we HAD the option of using statues, but we don't. Cities can place statues whereever they like, and they are fire and forget. We on the other hand now have to pick and choose, when Serenwilde is huge? Yes, totems are more difficult to destroy, HOWEVER, they are also more difficult to put up, taking a weeks time or more to create. So if someone manages to destroy one or two, it is a huge loss. Now that just a small few will even fire, that is just sad, and next to useless. I want to be able to use statues damnit.

Anyone can be bonded to it, I'm sure if richter is bonded to one, that one works fine even though he's not in serenwilde or whatever, just make sure people don't bond to the same totem and your fine.

Also statues are not fire and forget, you have to keep checking to see if they still exist.

Actually, only half the commune, optimistically, can do that, since it's a Stag ability. It's actually less than that, because there just aren't that many Hartstone around, and quite a lot of the Serenguard are Moon.

statues!=totems

I think the points were covered but to recap:

Totems are near impossible to destroy and you can only bond one.
Statues are easy to destroy and you can enchant multiple.

There's pluses and minuses to each but no side will get both. Sorry! That's just not fair. (Not to mention how would one explain totems in Celest and Magnagora?)

Also, just to avoid confusion, when I said "bond" for statues, I meant "enchant". Its written in the enchantment statues AB help file that mages magically bond to statues they enchant but I can understand why non-mages may be confused if its referred to as 'bonding'.

Totems are difficult to destroy, but just as difficult to create, and take a lengthy period of time. Statues can be put up in a few seconds, but go down just as quickly. I always saw THAT as the balance. Now we have the largest area to cover, and the fewest number of available defenses. We are severely disadvantaged compared to cities now. Not to mention it is very easy to walk into the forest, since it has numerous entrances, whereas cities have but a few. As well, much of the city is indoors, so you cannot fly to all locations, whereas in Serenwilde you can fly or take to the trees throughout the entire forest. Thirdly, there is no enchantment to knock people from the air, and no one in Serenwilde possesses hexagram, so a person can fly freely. We went from having defenses that were about equal to the cities, to having defenses that are severely disadvantaged.