If you recall from the livestream we did in February, we mentioned that for this year's Ascension we decided to keep the current format - a final fight for the staff - and tackle Ascension-related problems in three ways. The first prong was to tackle lag issues, the second to update, document, and balance individual Challenges, and the third to introduce additional mechanics.

The first has been addressed throughout the year, culminating in Klangratch Exercises that showed significant improvements in an Ascension-like scenario. Server upgrades have also helped. The second you have seen in action throughout the Ascension. The third is what we'd like to elaborate on in this post as there are two new mechanics which will complement the Final Ascension:

Rotating Nodes
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During the Ascension Challenge itself, Kethuru strains against his bindings even more than during the Challenges. He can sense his freedom is at risk so he sends an army of tentacles, blobs, and eyeballs to besiege those seeking to prove themselves worthy of becoming the True Ascendant to seal him away. Gaping wounds open overhead, tentacles thrust up through the ground, reality twists and churns. This year we are augmenting the usual way he fights back - his power will concentrate upon a specific sphere, instead of Astral as a whole, and to prove oneself worthy the Sealbearer will need to bring the Staff of Ascension there. What this means:

- for points to start accruing, you will need to bring the staff to the node on the correct sphere
- there will be area and plane-wide messages which will indicate where to go
- EVENT STATUS will show the correct place as well
- the correct node will change every few minutes
- to account for these changes, you will only lose the staff after 2 minutes if it's not on the right node (up from 1 minute if not brought to a node)

Prime Assaults
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As already needs to be proven during the Challenges and Final Ascension, a True Ascendant should not stand alone - they need support. You will now be able to show that support not only through participating in skirmishes on the Astral Plane but through acting on a Sealbearer's behalf on the Prime Plane. Just as parts of Kethuru can assault Sealbearers the moment they receive their medallion, broken seals allow Kethuru to wreak limited havoc elsewhere too. Places in the Basin of Life will be threatened by Kethuru during the Final Ascension and those vanquishing his manifestations will be considered as acting on behalf of a Sealbearer if they bring the remains to the correct Seal. What this means:

- powerful manifestations of Kethuru's power will threaten the Basin of Life
- you will need a team to slay these and you won't be able to track them
- there will be one invasion at a time
- one invasion consists of one attacking monstrosity
- there will be breaks between invasions (at least 10 minutes)
- you will be alerted of an invasion via a plane-wide message but have to find the area yourself
- bringing the corpse to a Seal will add points to the Sealbearer's score (total needed is still 3600)
- amount of points per corpse is in the range of 60-180 (depends on invasion frequency)
- the corpse will disintegrate so you will need to bring it to the Seal fast (5-minute window)
- Prime will remain protected by Avenger

Penned by My hand on the 19th of Urlachmar, in the year 600 CE.