I will be rolling out our new defence system tomorrow morning US time.
For the most part, this will be largely an internal update and should be
mostly transparent to players, but there will be some player-facing
changes, which I'll list at the end of this post.

This first release is going to feature a very small number of converted
defences, to give us a chance to ensure everything is working properly
before we start converting defences en masse. As such, to begin with,
only the basic enchantment defences of Kingdom, Beauty, Perfection, and
Mercy will be converted when the new system is launched.

If no problems are discovered, I will then start moving larger numbers
of defences, starting with those granted via common and trade skills. I
will announce full lists of converted defenses as they are released;
again, there should be little player-facing difference as these are
released, though there will most certainly be cases where some
mechanical changes are necessary to make the conversion work, and these
changes will be announced ahead of time as I've done with the affliction
overhaul.

Now, for the player-facing changes that will be introduced with the new
system:

o Like the Overhaul afflictions, all defences will be given a
player-facing canonical name.

o The DEFS verb will gain new arguments, analagous to the AFFS verb.
DEFS on its own will still list active player defences. Additionally:

- DEFS INFO <def> will be added to view detailed info on a defence.

-DEFS LIST [<category>] will be added to list all converted defences.
The DEFS LIST table will be sorted into categories based on the defence
source, e.g. which skill they come from, and the optional argument to
DEFS LIST will list only those defences from that category.

- DEFS CATEGORIES will be added to list the categories defences will be
sorted into.

o All converted defences will feature a generic defence-raising line (in
addition to any skill-based flavour text). The line is:

You are now protected by the <defence> defence.

o All converted defences will feature a generic defence-losing line (in
addition to any skill-based flavour text). The line is:

You are no longer protected by the <defence> defence.

o Defences will now be accessible via GMCP, via Char.Defences, largely
analagously to the Char.Afflictions table documented in Announce #2447.
The main difference, aside from the table name, will be that the the
Char.Defences.Add and Char.Defences.List tables will include only the
name and desc fields.

o The DEF output for listing active defences will list the names of
active defences, instead of the descriptive lines used at present.

Penned by My hand on the 15th of Shanthin, in the year 411 CE.