Anyone with experience in the old Hart/Crow cycle (me) could tell you that those quests were heinous. Instant burnout. Really, we don't need a convulated new cycle of quests, we have enough of those already (and I imagine Crow/Hart will be reactivated in some form in the future so that the communes may experience the joy the cities do in the sea).

I would prefer keeping watch on a few special items, and being ready for a dangerous window of time that happens once a day, to going back to guarding Etherwilde 24/7, and constant attacks. I like quests because they limit the extent of the conflict by how they are set up, as opposed to freeforall killing.

But, oh well, just a thought.

No one likes guarding 24/7

What if .....
Moon Avatars are invincible except when Aapex is conjunct Antlers.
Night Avatars are invincible except when Aapex is conjunct Spider.
Holy Supernals are invincible except when Aapex is conjunct Dolphin.
Demon Lords are invincible except when Aapex is conjunct Skull.

Then you just get people sitting up there for that entire month or whatever.

If you make Avatars/Supernals/Demon Lords only hurtable during certain periods it'll just become like how village revolting used to work. People could work out an approximation when they're to occur and gather people and plan the attack. The old system gave the sleep-deprived zombies of Magnagora a huge edge over all other organizations and was subsequently changed. I can't see this system sticking around for long.

Egh. Supernals and Demon Lords are already nearly impossible to slay - Raziela and Gorgulu are doable because do one comes to assist them, though even they require a huge force and a lot of luck. I'm not sure how strong the avatars are in comparison, but I imagine they're close. They ought to be close, at least, especially because there are fewer of them.

I have a habit of throwing out ideas to get ideas rolling as part of the brainstorming process (the gods know I do this a lot).

The challenge is how would/could you make the ideas work!

Though I fail to see how having to keep watch 24/7 for 12 months out of the year is easier than 1 month out of the year, what other variables could there be to narrow/randomize the window of opportunity?

Flying by the seat of my pants as I type this.

The big difference between the two that I see is that the cosmic planes have two entrances--one is very, very heavily guarded, the other is absurdly time consuming to access, whereas the ethereal communes have two entrances--one is very, very heavily guarded, the other is very, very heavily guarded. Neither are hard to get to. Reducing the ability to guard the area as a whole is going to make the communes more subject to raiding, not equally subject to raiding.

The first idea that comes to mind is simply removing those archways. That all by itself removes the fortress element without compromising our ability to muster serious forces in territory that needs defense.

The other idea would be to make the archways even more limiting, but removing guards, totems, and adding an aetherspace dock and cubix exit. We'd need to toss around ideas for permissions (No Night/Moonspirit enemies? Commune members only?) for the archway, but the basic premise is to make the archways no longer a viable option for raiders to enter through. If you want in, you use the nexus (yeah, right) or take the long way around.

Just go with the original idea: No guards or totems in etherwilde/glom except the nexus, make it like Cosmic, and we'll all be happy. There's no need to complicate things just because it's the commune plane. Elemental planes have... nothng in terms of guards except for the nexus, same with the Cosmic planes. Why make it different for the communes? =/ Just one simple change: no guards or totems, and all the hassle is fixed. This isn't a Rube Goldberg project

Because no one walks past the nexus to get to the Avatars.

I think just removing the Archways will fix the problem.

Ethereal was raided just fine before then. The only reason it became constant was because of Tainted Fae, and then Glomdoring. Both situations aren't problems anymore.

I think that's a good idea Xavius. The archways have always been a thorn in Faethorn's side.

Not sure if you noticed or not, but no one walks past the nexus to get to Supernals/Demonlords either. Well, moreso with the demonlords, because Celestia's setup is evil =/

Except how do you get to Cosmic again? Oh yeah.. through the Nexus, an Aethership, or a Cubix.

How do you get to Ethereal? Transverse Ethereal at an Archway.

Only if you use a cubix or the aetherspace dock. There's a big difference between a 2000cr artifact, a million gold piece of machinery that takes 15 minutes to operate, and TRANSVERSE ETHEREAL, NW, NW, NW, SW, SE, SW, SE, S, SW, ENTER ARCHWAY

Not exactly true. If you're ignoring Cubix and Tesseract you will have to get to Celestia/Nil through the Pool or Megalith regardless. So technically there is only one entrance into each of those Cosmic planes and yes, they are heavily guarded. On the other hand, Ethereal doesn't just have two entrances, it actually has a lot more if you factor in the rifts from Prime to Ethereal. So in actuality the Ethereal communes have one heavily guarded entrance and a lot of weakly-guarded entrances. Regardless, I agree with you. Reducing the ability to guard the entire area of Ethereal will just make it absurdly easy to go after the Avatars.

The other entrance is the aetherspace dock, Terenas.

Oops, right. I forgot about that. My fault for not jumping on the ship-frenzy bandwagon.

Well, just add amendment 1 to the original plan: Get rid of the rifts to Water and Earth. Bingo! Now we're in the clear to do Operation: This-is-NOT-a-Rube-Goldberg-Machine

Worst idea ever.