Here's a thought: give both cities a quest that allows them to destroy Serenwilde's totems. I know we have the cut skill in Environment, but frankly, it just doesn't cut it. Now, this is just a random thought I had, so feel free to disagree.

How about a new area to the northwest of the basin which is a volcanic plain surrounding an active volcano. A community of dracnari live around the base of the volcano, and have established a cult of elemental worship.

The head of the priesthood is a venerable dracnari who is questing for more power over the elements. He wants pixies from the Serenwilde in order to empower his elemental creations with the life magic he can drain from them. The pixies can be entranced in a similar method to the colts have been, by means of a small quest.

With enough pixies and various other components (maybe something specific to each city) and at a particular time, he will be able to awaken the Elemental magics for the city who completes the quest and bring the volcano under his control. This not only provides the successful city with five Earth/Water Elementals (special guards that can be ordered to attack outside the city) for hire, but also causes the volcano to erupt, spewing three or four flaming boulders into Serenwilde forest. This sets fire to random locations, instantly destroying the totems in those locations and allowing the fires to spread and maybe destroy more and more totems until it is brought under control. (And since most seren novices can put out fires, that shouldn't take too long. Hopefully the fires in Lusternia will be quite dangerous to enter, though.)

This is just one idea for an anti-Serenwilde quest that could reinforce the distinction between commune/cities. The fact that both cities can obtain special offensive units should be an enticement for both to attempt the quest, including Celest, otherwise be left behind in defensive measures.

The reason I think this would be of benefit is that we seem to be able to maintain a very strong power presence with little hope of any city actually breaking that passive regeneration significantly. I don't think the cities have anything similar.

I would hope eventually Serenwilde (and in time Ackleberry/Gloriana perhaps) would obtain a similar reverse quest as well, but then I doubt we'd ever live it down.

Thoughts?

I may be wrong, but it was my impression that the chop skill in environment was useful against totems (or nymph trees, for that matter) which is really too bad, since those are the only trees I have any real beef with. Maybe just letting people actually chop down trees would make the chop skill useful? Then, nothing else would be necessary, and it would no doubt be insanely hard to chop down totems...but in theory...

I'm impressed. Lots of coding and all that stuff, but still impressed.

Well, that is one alternative, true. But even when we had just normal trees to be chopped down, how many were actually able to do so? And did it invite attack from both cities, or just one?

Edit: Nuts, that was in response to Olan. And now I'm scared, Daganev...

You should be I have skullberries of doom!

There is already more quests targetting the Serenwilde then the Serenwilde has quests targetting the Cities.

Perhaps, but they are one-sided. I assume you mean the Glomdoring quests, which have naturally brought us into opposition with Magnagora as they ally with a tainted area. Also, as far as I know, now that we have the whole forest totemed, there is no way to break it unless we are lax in keeping them as totems.

Realistically, this quest wouldn't impair Serenwilde's defence much at all, since we have such a low proportion of bonded totems (or bonded totems needed in the wider forest). It would instead provide a small means of disturbing any one-sided alliance between Serenwilde and a city. Also, I haven't heard that the cities have anything like our totem generating power capacity. If that is a severe problem, maybe it wouldn't need to destroy the totems, just set fire to the forest.

I was looking for totems to be improved, since prior they were said to have the huge advantage over statues that they were/are much more difficult to destroy (even though they took longer to create). However, with the improvement to statues, statues are now basically for all intents and purposes, indestructible. So by the old argument, totems need to be improved somehow.

Actually, I would agree that Stag totems could do with a bit extra oomph to compete with new and improved statues. But I don't think that should happen while they are so plentiful and actually -are- indestructible.

Plentiful, yes, but only a small number do anything. They aren't indestructible either, and can be destroyed once per IC year. Considering they take about an IC year to make...

They're vulnerable for the period inbetween them reverting and a pixie-quester noticing that they've reverted and shouting it on ct.

In essence, never.

If its imbalance that will caused... well, we can always think up some counter quest.

A rogue witch lives in a hidden forested cave on the outskirts of the cave, seeking to disrupt and kill the dracnari priests. Complete her quest by bringing her certain elemental items from both cities, and she will contact the Spirits of the volcano and disrupt/destroy the experiments of the dracnari sage. The explosion of magic will instantly obliterate any previously gained elementals outside their city, and the released fae spirits will conglomerate in the Serenwilde as a few Hamadryads (or something), which would be our version of the fun uber-guards. These particular creatures can almost instantly rip apart statues. *nod me*

Put the witch near Dairuchi and it would make more sense.

I doubt that Celest will try to do the quest. After the fae incident, they're not doing anything that has even a remote chance of harming Serenwilde.
Good idea nevertheless.

I KNEW they were berries, Daganev.
And Olan, there's no such thing as nymph trees (you mean dryad trees), and...last time I checked, they couldn't be cut down. Someone suggested it, though. Hmm. Did it get changed w/o notice?

I don't know what these nymph/dryad trees are, but I agree with the blue monster dude.

Totems are nearly impossible to destroy.

Even -IF- I had inside information about EXACTLY when a totem would revert, I'd STILL have to find a way into Serenwilde without being killed, to destroy the totem in the miniscule time window.

The quest overall is good, a way to create trouble for Serenwilde through forest fires. But I think that the destruction of totems would be too much, seeing how difficult placing them in is in the first place (even when there are more unbonded totems than bonded, so it's not like Serenwilde would miss some totems defense-wise).

You're right, of course, dryad trees. I know they can't be cut down, that is the basis of my concern. It was suggested that they be cut-down-able, and unless it was changed with no notice AND no one has tried it again, they remain indestructible. They shouldn't be.

Well, it does take time, but isn't really hard. As far as I know, we have the most power of the three organizations now. So I definitely think being able to cut down a few totems and set fire to the Seren would be a nice balancing sort of thing. It's not like it could be done easily or often, I imagine we would become rather vigilant on pixies being led outside the Serenwilde, and patrol the mobs of the new area.

I want a skill in environment that will allow one to set fire to places. Both forest and urban environments.