The Blackhaven Wood

Summary:
A spooky ethereal forest that spreads both east and west of Faethorn, the Blackhaven is home to many spirits of nature which do not share Queen Maeve's tolerance of mortalkind. Disillusioned with the corruption and sickness that has touched the wilderness in the past, they blame all civilizations equally for the harm which they have suffered. The bitter and vengeful Fae within this dangerous land will often attempt to lure mortal adventurers to their deaths, charming them with a beautiful and seductive facade. Additionally, travellers are warned that a great spell bound to the Blackhaven forest by the blood of elfen sacrifices ensures that any effort to strike down a Spirit within will draw the ire of the Kraven, the magical guardians of the wood.

Purpose and jusification:
These two areas (east/west forests) will function as a high-level bashing area, as well as a very high-level influencing ground. Throughout the Blackhaven wood will be fae mobiles which are influenceable. They will be coded to aggressively engage in influence battles with players, and also summon guard mobiles if they are attacked physically. The environment will be sylvan forest, allowing another neutral area for wood to be grown and harvested. There will be a number of internal quests, including two which negatively impact Serenwilde and Glomdoring. This area would be necessary because we have no high-level influence area, and there are few external quests that affect the two communes. This could solve both problems in one go, while enhancing the depth of the fae concept - most importantly not forcing a change to either commune's RP while we do so.

Influencing:
There will be approximately 60 fae mobiles of 7 or 8 types (most similar to other fae, maybe a few new ones) that spread across both areas and wander. They will be coded in such a way that they will begin an influence battle with any player in their location - slightly different to normal influence battles. The messages will be something more akin to "Flashing you a disarming smile, a dark-eyed pooka urges you to relax and let go of your troubles." or "A dark-eyed pooka sings a soothing melody and a pleasant drowsiness fills your head." The effect would be the same as regular mobile influencing messages, draining a portion of ego each time. If the player's ego reaches zero, they don't lose the influence battle, but rather are killed. This way, it removes the player from the area (either by praying to the fates or by conglutination) without leaving them at the mercy of further egodeaths. To fight back, a player can use seduction or weaken attacks only, neither being superior to the other, allowing both Glom and Serenwilde players an appropriate response. If the player wins, the fae becomes non-agressive until respawn. Note that the usual effect of seduction/weaken influence won't occur, so seduced fae in this wood won't attack the enemies of the influencer.

As a further suggestion, it would be handy if the fae mobiles would occasionally give the transfixion affliction, and maybe one or two others.

Bashing:
To encourage influencers rather than bashers, the fae mobiles will be coded so that if they suffer health damage from a player they summon a certain number of Kraven guard mobiles to their side. These are slightly below Astral-level creatures in strength. The amount that are summoned is dependent on how many fae mobiles have been killed. If all are alive, attacking one might cause them to summon between 1-2 Kraven. If you kill the guards and finish off the fae as well, then the next fae you attack might summon 1-3 Kraven, and so on. I think this is enough deterrent not to kill too many of them to disrupt influencers efforts, while still providing bashing opportunities at the same time.

Edit: Actually, the fae themselves will have to be of Astral-level strength or higher to be useful for high-level influencing, so it might be fairer if the Kraven mobiles are less strong individually.

Quests:
There will be a large quest in the two woods that when completed causes the rebel fae to launch an incursion against both serenwilde and glomdoring at the same time, sending aggressive Kraven into the Ethereal Serenwilde and Ethereal Glomdoring. In addition, fae will migrate back to Faethorn at a very quick rate from both forests, and neither pixies nor shadows will spawn until the counter-quest is completed. This quest will require a number of fae mobiles to be killed, as well as some influencing of important mobiles.

Also, there should be a few minor quests throughout the area. One in particular should involve a means of profiting from influence - when a fae is dominated (weakened) or soothed (seduced) they will give up their tiny crystals (or some object) which can be sold to other denizens.

Accessibility:
The Eastern and Western areas will be accessed from archways that lie to the northeast and southwest of Faethorn respectively, as well as two mirrors that act as planar gates to connect each area to the prime plane. The eastern mirror will be located in the northeastern parts of Avechna's teeth, while the western mirror will be found in the southwestern razines.

Any comments?

Isn't Ackleberry meant to be on the eastern side of Faethorn?

Other then that it looks good, though it would be better if it was only the west side, rather then two unlinked areas. The aggressive influencing part i dont think would be that good, though i'd say make them give good experiance and gold for influencing and have them drop little, if that's possible.

One big area on the west would be fine too.

I really want the aggressive influencing because I think all high-level creatures should present a challenge. If Astral spawns are aggressive and really dangerous in groups, so too would these creatures, but it's your ego that you'd have to watch rather than your health. Meaning all classes are relatively equally balanced.

You realize how insanely difficult that'd be?

Mobiles who aggressively attack your ego to kill you... ego attacks being the one kind of attack most people have virtually no defenses against... on a level that equals fighting an astral mob?

I think that'd be overkill, really. Even if getting ego-attacked by one creature renders you immune to other creatures' ego attacks the way it works for debating.

PLUS guard mobiles spawning if you harm one of the overkill-influencer-fae?

Also: We all know what happens when people try to pass through Faethorn who're not friends with certain forest dwellers. And we all know what happens if a wiccan spots you doing anything remotely aggressive towards a fae, unless they're the enemy's kind of fae.

Even though I do love the design and all, I think it'd need some serious downgrading before it'd be useful for what you want to.

If they whern't aggro influencers, but still had influencing at a high level, it would work out better, though still have them summon a guard type mob, but keep the attacks to physical if they're attacked physically.

Yeah, having to worry about your health AND ego at the same time makes things over-kill. There really should be areas that are just seperate for influence and combat style bashing. Maybe made it so that there is an outside perimeter that is non-aggressive fae who are on their own faction, and then on the inside are aggressive combat non-factioned fae. Could have something where the taint split the fae into two different mirrors of each other and one of the mini-quests could be gathering the aggressive fae and giving them to the non-aggressive fae to cause them to become 'whole'. Then influencers can work on the factioned fae and bashers on the non-faction fae. Maybe the influencable fae start to follow you after you win an ego battle and then merge as soon as you take them into a room with an aggressive fae to allow influencers to finish the quest in a similar manner.

Cause the way you have it, it'll either be too difficult to be worthwhile or else everyone will just kill the influencing fae anyways as they'd cause even MORE creatures to bash. This way they gain enemy status for bashing the influencable fae, losing the ability to quest there an such.

Bear in mind that Astral-level strength in influencing doesn't necessarily equal the same level of health/ego drain. Influencing is quite different. The strength can be adjusted to be reasonable, and I'd leave that in the hands of the admin. I have been able to take Miakoda relatively safely since about level 70, and she "exudes an aura of overwhelming power", 3 levels higher in strength than Astral critters.

I just want an influencing area that is actually worth it for levels 75+. I find Astral a dangerous place with the creatures, insanity, and spheres. How dangerous do you think Astral would become if none of the creatures attacked until you do? What would stop you from simply linking to your hearts content, chatting and joking around?

I don't want another Tosha. Yes, the monks can be influenced, and is great with an autoinfluencer program. But I want both a greater risk and greater return. Why do people go for the tough Astral mobs when they could just take twice as many of the lesser denizens? Because there's more risk and return. I don't want an area that newbies can happily explore alongside you, that holds no excitement whatsoever except for the bashers, which while nice, is not something that we desperately need.

Aggressive influencing can be scaled to be appropriate for very high level characters of above average charisma. As David said, perhaps only one creature will be seducing you at a time, but at least it gives the area character. You go there, you better be ready to deal with the dangers. I had intended that if you attacked a fae physically, they wouldn't continue to engage in the influence battle. So you wouldn't be dealing with ego & health at the same time unless another walked in.

And please do not give any more implicit approval for taint making fae better, or more force-feeding of the darned Glom+Seren=Whole. We've had enough of that.

Perhaps a few new skills could be introduced beside a new area such as this. One you could use on yourself to boost the reduce the ego damage you do take influence for x minutes and x power(active, not like SuperEgo, around Myth), and the other you might use on the denizen which would weaken the mind, making them more accepting of your arguments thus take more ego damage. Useable on denizens and people for debates.

I dislike the fact that it is pretty much influence only for a few reasons;
1. Anyone hunting there is enemied to Serenwilde for killing Fae.
2. Serenwilde becomes "obligated" to protect yet another Fae area.
3. They summon "guards' if attacked.

Yes we need more high level areas, but I prefer it not to be Fae, perhaps some entity that hates the Fae and has remained hidden, or a neutral entity. Something that can be both influenced and hunted by all parties.
I am not fond of an area being restricted to just trans influencers much either really. Astral isn't a place that you need to trans skills to survive, you need levels. Influence areas force you to trans influence to succeed.

I am almost level 90, and I can't influence Miakoda.

Really? I can.

You also have higher influence, and higher charisma as a Faeling. Which is my point. An area being restricted to only the highest levels of influence and the top charisma players is to restrictive.

I was human at the time.


Also I don't like blackhaven. It sounds a lot like Starhaven and I don't want multidutes of people rampaging through my manse in search of fae to kill.

Yeah, but I was hoping we could avoid that by having these fae absolutely abhor anyone mortal, and also by having a byproduct 'quest' of some kind where it is clear their spirits go back to the well of souls to find a new form when they are killed, or something. We've killed fae before, done right, we wouldn't feel strongly enough to protect the area, nor have the resources to do it.

Astral is restricted to only those with the most health(ego for telekinetics), and those with the best intelligence/strength. This would be less restrictive than Astral.

I like it. I'm not sure how the backstory would fit in with Lusternia's current history, but otherwise I think it would be fun. The thing with influencing is that if you sense you are loosing, which is a process that is much slower than in bashing, you can walk away.