In many helpfiles for Lusternia, Achaea, and other IRE games it speaks of intrigue and whatnot, but the reality is, there is no alternative to fighting if you want to kill someone else. I was thinking the other day and came up with an idea for one or two PK quests.

The Amulet of the Dead

Place a spectral hermit wandering about the Specter Isle who requires the souls of others to feed on to help slake his hatred. He begs you to aide him in the taking of a soul and sends you about the continent gathering the pieces needed, and finding the words for the incantation, which change every quest, and must be rediscovered. (Set a group of five or ten incantations for the pool of them, if someone uses the wrong one, the quest fails and has to be restarted.) They then travel about Lusternia collecting the materials for the Amulet, and speaking to the Hermit, who speaks in riddles, as to where the incantation might be found. Once the materials are collected they must then piece together the clues from the hermit to locate the incantation then, when in the room with the Hermit chant the incantation, and the hermit will gather the pieces of the amulet together into a whole if it is the right one. You then take the Amulet and point it at a victim and it curses them. They have a Lusternian day to gather the items needed for the cure, seek out Cle Lanuae in the desert and have her cure them, or the curse kills them.

Set several quests like these about the world, perhaps one with poison, etc. It would reduce the complaints about the world being incredibly biased toward those with combat skills, and allow questers to be on equal ground with them. As is, brawn beats brains every time. Give a few PK quests, and the amount of complaints about combat will go down.

Interesting concept, but open to abuse. It'd be interesting if the curse thing worked like Rot in Necromancy (From Aetolia). A few quests with more then an honorsline and a gold reward would be interesting. Getting some artifact like item (Edit: that has a decay time), say for example. Or the amulet with which to curse someone.

Edit: The more I think about it, the more I like this concept.

Me too, it sounds like an awesome idea. I'd love to see a few of these around, even if I was only ever on the getting cursed end of it. And things like wings out of serpent corpses or that crown that gave more mana were always cool, I wouldn't mind seeing something along those lines, but new and fresh and Lusternian. A few on the planes couldn't hurt either.

Yes, I'd really like to see denizens inhabiting the earth and water planes too, maybe with some quests. Oh and some quests having to do with the Ethereal plane, specifically the Faethorn realm. As it stands now, there is almost no quests off of the Prime Plane.

I remember in Aetolia, there was a few quests in the Hunting Grounds to get some artifact like items (that decay) and only one exists at a time, and the quest is doable every 12 days or so. There was a sword with insane stats, and a few other things. And when you killed the Dragon on Polyargos, you'd get his wings, which could be used like the Atavian's wings artifact (though they decayed in like a few months.)

Edit: I said Achaea rather then Aetolia

Try looking at the new Tosha Monestary area. It's different.

Fain, that pit is hard, heh. Or so Narsrim told me, haven't made it in yet myself.

Iiiiiiiiiiim LIKING! it. good idea. T

To have quests like what have been described in the previous posts put in place would be fantastic.

In addition to PK items or power item quests there could be quests that would permenatly alter a charecter in a specific way based on which quest was performed or the outcome of the quest. Instead of an honours line your char would when looked upon by another player would be horribly scared or blessed with a serephic glow. Or......a quest that if failed......results in the loss of your arm or hand for a year or another quest to restore it.

Real consequences for your actions is another great trait of Lusternia, enemy status has real implications and removing it is tough. These type of quests would reinforce that by permentaly altering your char for their actions.

I like the concept that there could be actions which are extremely difficult or impossible to reverse once done that define your char for the rest of their life.

Yeah, I could see that open to abuse.... interesting idea though.... what about you can only invoke the quest if you have suspect? Of course, it would remove suspect status and it wouldn't be as severe as the Avenger, and there'd have to be a 'cure' quest.... ok, I'm just thinking out loud now...

Perhaps instead of killing the person, it gives them peace or Maggot status for a while. And yes there would have to be a cure quest.

Another interesting option would be a quest that only targets people of a certain position or guild or city rank.

I like the ideas about some alternative quest rewards, but I think if there are going to be some that involve PK, there should be at least an equal number that involve something other than PK for all those pacifists out there (you know who you are). I really like some reward other than just a little line saying you did the quest, though those are certainly very cool

The monastery quest is broken right now, Ulan gives you his blessing but it doesn't actually register as being given.

I just think there needs to be something to balance the scales for everyone who doesnt have the latest addition of Zmud, triggers, etc. but are still heavily into roleplay. It would give them a way to strike back, but I honestly dont think that killing them would be a good result for the quest, perhaps give the quest a little more oomph to it by adding an effect that can only be removed by the counterquest, but effectively disables someones ability to PK.

It would allow for people to deal with issues of harassment easily. Have it give the victim suspect on the person, but not vengeance, as it does not actually kill them, but would prevent someone from doing the quest, then killing the person it effects. Similar to Delver's idea. Give 'aggressive quests' disabling but nonleathal effects would give those with sharp minds, but lacking the latest equipment, programming skills, money, or such an avenue to get back at the ones that constantly harm them.

As someone who has never been great at combat in an IRE game, but has frequently been involved in it nonetheless, I can say that I on the whole am wary and against this idea. I do not believe that you should be able to kill someone, or completely remove the ability for them to pk merely by a quest.

I for one do not see Quests as good roleplay, In fact, as they are not neccisarily dynamic, and repeat the same situation over and over, I see them as less focused on roleplay and realism than player killing.

However, I would love to see a quest that does something, like as you suggested, the rot affliction. I think a more interesting idea though would be something resembling the Hatred affliction from Aetolia. Basically, it makes you unable to attack ANYTHING BUT the person who gave you it, until a) you die to them they die to you or c) (in this case) you complete a counter quest.

The whole point of this was to reduce PK by giving the little guys a weapon to use against the PK freaks. Valek isnt going to be too likely to beat down that little faeling who spends all of their time in Lusternia RPing or questing anymore if something like this goes in. If Valek jumped em, they would actually be able to kill him back, rather than simply having to live in the "XP farm" mentality, in which certain people kill someone, then wait until the suspect fades away to go kill them again.