Return of the Nagasith and Sileni

Xenthos

ANNOUNCE NEWS #2737
Date: 6/1/2017 at 0:09
From: Estarra the Eternal
To  : Everyone
Subj: Jumping June Promotions!

For the month of June 2017, you can get Czigany coins once again on the
website! These coins can be used to spin the Wheel of Tzaraziko upon
Mount Avechna for a variety of prizes. As possible wheel rewards, we are
introducing the Sileni and Nagasith curio collections. For this month,
there is less chance of aethergoop in favor of these new curios! PLEASE
NOTE: We are not planning on releasing these as normal artifacts so this
month is your chance to collect them!

The Sileni and Nagasith collections include the following:

+ A curio which grants lore visions regarding the history of these two
races.
+ A curio mask granting the appearance of these races.
+ A curio teleportation leading you to the home area of each race
(Hifarae for Sileni, Muhalanesh for Nagasith).
+ A curio which you can CURIO ACTIVATE to gain a special mask for your
tells. (This can be disabled by activating it again).

As well, the full collection can be activated to grant you the race for
an in-game year. As your link to the race will be tenuous, this cannot
be kept up for longer, though you can refresh it after the
aforementioned year at will. You can read more about these races using
HELP SILENI and HELP NAGASITH.

We are also happy to announce that racetrack tickets are making a
comeback. You will receive a number of tickets for every credit purchase
via the website. These can be used at the Wakabidrome on Mount Avechna.
HELP RACETRACK for more details.

In addition, there is a chance of gaining a racetrack ticket each week
of June as you gain experience or essence.
 
Penned by My hand on the 25th of Dioni, in the year 475 CE.

Xenthos

Descended from the Elder Goddess Rhesileni, the sileni are a race of six-fingered, goat-legged musicians that was nearly destroyed during the Vernal Wars. All save two spirits - Lira and Taimon - survived the unending hunger of the Soulless God Zenos, and they were secreted away to a glade deep within the Hifarae Hills by the Voice of Trialante.

However, in 475 CoE, a temporal rift broke open from an event that manipulated the Wheel of Goloths, bringing forth a flood of ancient sileni to the present time. These anomalies, though eventually returned, left parting gifts for modern-day adventurers, thus allowing all the brief chance to know what means to be a sileni.

Languages: Common.

PERKS:

  o Level 1: 1/4 resistance to magical and asphyxiation damage.

  o Level 25: 2/10 ego regeneration

  o Level 50: Due to their musical intonations, sileni were notorious sweet-talkers, able to convince, inspire and seduce anyone they came across as they fled from Zenos. This quality has given them a minor increase in their wordplay, able to speedily influence as needed. Sileni with the Music skillset will find that their bardic milestones will persist twice as long.

  o Demigod: Echoes of the Past: You can SING TO YOUR ANCESTORS to set a contingency point. If you are attacked five times in a short period from other adventurers, you will be returned to where you set your contingency instantly. Due to the strain of this power to maintain, it will only last for a few days, and once used, you must recover for a month before it can be used again. Due to not being a native of the race, you are also limited to your contingency activating on the same plane.

  o Demigod+: Echoes of the Past now will work from up to 2 planes away.

***NOTE: SILENI RACE IS RESTRICTED AND ONLY AVAILABLE THROUGH A CURIO SET***

The nagasith have a complex history. Their ancestors were originally mugwumps of the Balach Institute of Magic and Science. As part of Project Touchstone, a precursor to Project Soulforge and Project Outreach, the mugwumps volunteered to be transformed in their body to withstand the rigours of a theoretical extraplanar space they were tasked to discover. Many perished in the experiments, but some remained in the caverns of Muhanlesh, only to be transformed further by the clouds of Taint unleashed by Project Cosmic Hope.

The modern nagasith are one of the breeds of the resulting creatures, the most sentient strain out of the numerous types of naga-kind produced by the amalgamation of Science, Magic and the Taint. Recently, a few relics of nagasith history as well as their mugwumpi origins have been discovered, allowing adventurers glimpse what it is like to live as this strange, mutated race.

Languages: Common.

PERKS:

  o Level 1: 2/4 resistance to poison damage.

  o Level 25: 1/10 health and mana regeneration on non-prime planes. Nagasith also gain the ability to breathe underwater naturally.

  o Level 50: You can SPIT POSION AT <person> to apply one of the following hidden afflictions: Asthma, Paranoia, Vomiting, Dysentery, Slickness. This has a delay between uses while your venom glands refill.

  o Demigod: Plane Slither - The after-effects of Project Touchstone have made the nagasith exceptionally adept in traversing the planes, a blessing in disguise as their hideous mutations and twisted visage make them feared and hunted by many. Nagasith can PLANE SLITHER to escape, traveling to a single plane in either direction (i.e., if they are on ethereal, they can go to prime or elemental), appearing in a random room. The nagasith will lose all their entourage. Further, this can only be done once per month, as the planar energies severely tax the body.

  o Demigod+: Plane Slither is buffed to travel to two planes in any direction (i.e., if on cosmic, can go straight to ethereal).

***NOTE: NAGASITH RACE IS RESTRICTED AND ONLY AVAILABLE THROUGH A CURIO SET***

Rancoura

I was just looking over these... The Nagasith file does not describe what they look like! Do they have snake bodies? Would anyone be so kind as to share?

Kagato

one of the nagasith wandering around:

Although certainly serpentine in appearance, the nagasith is far more humanoid than any other naga - 

a benefit, perhaps, to hide amongst the other races. His build is slender, with lanky arms and legs 

of equal length that terminate in clawed hands and feet; however, this thinness does not equal 

frailty, as hidden beneath the lustrous ripple of olive-tan scales are corded, tight muscles. 

Flaring around his neck is a fleshy hood that blends smoothly with his sharp skull. A pair of 

lambent, yellow eyes flick from side to side before a pitted nose, and occasionally, his tongue 

sweeps out to taste the air in a quick flick.

Hoaracle

Hopefully this helps... (and reference-wise, think more humanoid Yuan-ti from D&D)

Although certainly serpentine in appearance, the nagasith is far more humanoid 

than any other naga - a benefit, perhaps, to hide amongst the other races. Her 

build is slender, with lanky arms and legs of equal length that terminate in 

clawed hands and feet; however, this thinness does not equal frailty, as hidden 

beneath the lustrous ripple of banded scales are corded, tight muscles. Flaring 

around her neck is a fleshy hood that blends smoothly with her sharp skull. A 

pair of lambent, yellow eyes flick from side to side before a pitted nose, and 

occasionally, her tongue sweeps out to taste the air in a quick flick.

A sinister nagasith exudes a quiet confidence.

She weighs about 257 pounds.

A sinister nagasith is holding:

Nothing.

It has the following aliases: nagasith, naga.

Steingrim

Really well done on the event all the work this must have taken certainly shows.

I'll be passing on the crates. Coins are simply overpriced given all the wheel nerfs (including another this month) and I couldn't bear to pay money and wind up with another puppy crate.

Everiine

I wish there was a way to get neat things without the stupidity of curios.

Vivet

I was excited about Nagasith until I saw they have feet. My initial burst of severe disappointment has trailed off somewhat now that I've thought of why - obviously they need to have targetable legs for warriors/monks and such, but being this humanoid makes them kind of uninteresting.

Before now, I've seen Dracnari who would describe themselves as spindly-bodied and serpentine. Would this no longer be kosher now? And illithoid body builds also tend to lean in that direction, though they don't have scales.

I think it might be nice to hammer out more distinctive features to help them feel more apart from Dracnari/Illithoid, if at all possible.

That said, time for the heavy questions:

How will the Demigod(+) powers interact with Distort?
Will you be off eq/bal for any length of time after you arrive at your destination?
Similarly, is there a channel time before you leave or is it instant?
Will monoliths have any relevance in stopping these abilities?
What about Night's Bonds?

Ianir

Vivet said:

I was excited about Nagasith until I saw they have feet. My initial burst of severe disappointment has trailed off somewhat now that I've thought of why - obviously they need to have targetable legs for warriors/monks and such, but being this humanoid makes them kind of uninteresting.

Before now, I've seen Dracnari who would describe themselves as spindly-bodied and serpentine. Would this no longer be kosher now? And illithoid body builds also tend to lean in that direction, though they don't have scales.

I think it might be nice to hammer out more distinctive features to help them feel more apart from Dracnari/Illithoid, if at all possible.

That said, time for the heavy questions:

How will the Demigod(+) powers interact with Distort?
Will you be off eq/bal for any length of time after you arrive at your destination?
Similarly, is there a channel time before you leave or is it instant?
Will monoliths have any relevance in stopping these abilities?
What about Night's Bonds?

Yeah, the legs thing is a thing. Honestly, it's never been 'kosher' so to speak, all playable races are star-shaped (which is why we've never had playable centaurs).

Distort: Sileni doesn't, it's a pure, instantaneous contingency. However, you have to set it up beforehand, meaning prep time. Nagasith one is extended by 'masochism cooldown' (which is still tracked even if you don't have masochism enabled), enemy territory.

Off EQ/Bal: No.

Channel time: Nagasith, yes. Sileni, no, but you can't trigger it, only attackers can.

Monoliths should not stop either. Nor should bonds.

Falaeron

It seems what happens with the Wheel is that every once in a while it is absolutely broken and then nerf after nerf makes it not worthwhile at all until the next time it becomes absolutely broken.

Lerad

Distort no longer stops magic movement. It now is a movement resistance bonus/malus for allies/enemies respectively. So in other words, these are a return of the cubix escape, assuming they aren't channeled.

Edit: Oh, the nagasith one is subject to the cubix masochism channel time? Then it's hardly an escape ability as suggested by the flavour description in the race helpfile. Specifically, the cubix masochism channel time change was aimed explicitly to change the purpose of a bix and prevent them being used for escape - meaning if they somehow become viable to use as escape tools again in the future, they should be nerfed to make it so they can't - applying it to nagasith plane slither means that we're categorizing this as a non-escape thing as well. That should probably be made clear in the helpfile: "This is NOT an escape ability."

That said, it does make it fairly lame-o, since the destination is random. But it's a cool way to travel, I guess.

Vivet

Lerad said:

Distort no longer stops magic movement. It now is a movement resistance bonus/malus for allies/enemies respectively. So in other words, these are a return of the cubix escape, assuming they aren't channeled.

Oh, sorry. I missed that.

Lerad

Thinking about it, should just make the nagasith demi/demi+ a non escape ability, and make it more explicitly utiliy. We don't want more escape abilities, anyway. Something halving (or even eliminating) transverse rift eq time at demi, and/or reducing power cost or speeding up teleport/tesseract channel at demi+ (free aether-ring effect) will be good for travel utility.

As it is now, random plane fling that is channeled when in PVP, usable only once a month is... shrugcity.

Saran

spins wheel.... soo much goop, one race package

Aeldra

Am sad to say that the wheel is getting more uninteresting with each promotion. Like I do love the idea of these curios and if there would've been some more reliable way to get them, I would've strongly considered getting them, but... with $40 for 25 spin, which yielded me:

- 2500 goop
- a doll
- a -single- race crate ( 10 pieces )
- damage enhancement curios ( 10 pieces ) ( aka 10 credits )
- 6 random curios
- the usual experience

and literally -nothing- interesting aside of the race crate. I honestly feel like the wheel needs another look and be turned into something that's... a little more interesting honestly.

Xenthos

Have to echo, not sure what the point of a "plane slither" that is basically equivalent to an orgbix/cubix/etc. in terms of timing and is limited in usage is, actually.  I figured that the limited usage meant it was actually... powerful, for some reason.

Maligorn

I went ahead and decided to get 25 coins. After spinning those, I had 5 packages of 10 race curios, and 1 package of 25.

Apparently I was lucky?

edit: with the aid of 14k aethergoop I had lying around, I have now finished the sileni collection entirely <.<

Shaddus

40$ for 25 coins, isn't that more expensive than normal? 

Versalean

I will admit to cursing, out loud, when I saw another Coin/curio promotion, but by the time I got to the bottom of the announce I was rubbing both nipples. Bane shizzle's bane.

Maligorn

I just wanted to make this an extra post in itself: Curio of Curios (the wildcard that fits all, can roll a rare or normal piece!) is only 1k aethergoop! Almost every org has someone with entirely too much goop on their hands. Seek them out. Be the sileni. Or the Naga Sadow.

Ianir

Xenthos said:

Have to echo, not sure what the point of a "plane slither" that is basically equivalent to an orgbix/cubix/etc. in terms of timing and is limited in usage is, actually.  I figured that the limited usage meant it was actually... powerful, for some reason.

Well, I was erring on the side of caution to avoid the monthly event of players asking for my head on a pike, but damned if you do, damned if you don't. I'll discuss this with envoys in the next few days when I have a bit more time to do so.

Shaddus said:

40$ for 25 coins, isn't that more expensive than normal? 

No.

Shedrin

How's the spit poison work? Is it eq/bal free?

Xenthos

Ianir said:

Xenthos said:

Have to echo, not sure what the point of a "plane slither" that is basically equivalent to an orgbix/cubix/etc. in terms of timing and is limited in usage is, actually.  I figured that the limited usage meant it was actually... powerful, for some reason.

Well, I was erring on the side of caution to avoid the monthly event of players asking for my head on a pike, but damned if you do, damned if you don't. I'll discuss this with envoys in the next few days when I have a bit more time to do so.

Yeah, I can understand this.  Just saying that from my standpoint, if it functions like a *blix, it probably doesn't need a lengthy cooldown (because what is the point when you can just use the other options?).  I would say in terms of power creep you are probably right having designed the function the way you did (so it is not undoing the recent change to escaping), but at that point the cooldown could be reviewed-- not sure you would want to have it without one at all, but could definitely be shortened.

Once-a-month, to me, implies that it would be a one-time-get-out-of-jail-free card.

Maligorn

Shedrin said:

How's the spit poison work? Is it eq/bal free?

Its own balance, I think. Like a Nihilist's tail. Don't take my word on that though.

Maligorn

@Ianir , this month's promo is the first I've been totally hyped about in a long time. Thanks for working on it.

Ciaran

Seconded, this feels like a good promotion. Goldilocks zone.

I do think Naga could get a slight boost one way or another.  Their demi and demi+ just aren't that enticing.  Will be thinking of potential slight buffs.

Selenity

I would be lying if I said I didn't love this promotion.

Enyalida

I'd be way more hype about any curio anything if you could trade curios for currency and tilt for certain kinds of curio. 

Versalean

I'm more confused about the cooldown. Why give it a one-year cooldown on a one-year effect? I mean, why not just let me changeling into them once I have the curios?

EDIT: Just want to add to the ********** of people saying that the promo is tres cool. And that I'm glad Ianir erred on the side of caution on this one. It could have been very different.

Ejderha

I like and have participated in this promo. That said, I agree Nagasith Slither could use a slight buff. I like the idea and flavor. @Ianir I appreciate your point about designing it safely and looking at it afterward.

It is hard to test because of the cooldown, but the only advantage I see presently over easily available bixes is that it appears to work indoors. Otherwise, it would always be preferable to bix and control your destination.

Even if it had NO cooldown, it would still have a very niche use IMO. If it is to retain a cooldown and be a random destination, I think it needs to bypass something. I don't think a 1/month bypass of the masochism delay is too much to ask for. You still need to actively trigger it (unlike Sileni) and the risk of random destination deserves some reward to balance it. The bix change was to stop the CONSTANT bix outs - a time and access limited bypass of that is a cool exception to the rule.

Ejderha

Versalean said:

I'm more confused about the cooldown. Why give it a one-year cooldown on a one-year effect? I mean, why not just let me changeling into them once I have the curios?

EDIT: Just want to add to the ********** of people saying that the promo is tres cool. And that I'm glad Ianir erred on the side of caution on this one. It could have been very different.

My unconfirmed assumption is that it is to stop people from trading away the curio after they have changed race. Also, it is flavored as a temporary thing, not "really" being that race, as it does not require race change/changeling/reincarnation in the first place.