Ophiga and friend

The big news yesterday was the dropping of the Press NDA for Bioware’s Star Wars: The Old Republic. I read all the press reviews I could find; I’ll point to some of those later on, but almost all of them credited the storyline for pulling them deeper into the game. The game mechanics may be old hat, and the standard roles, dungeons and raids are present, but the story, by all accounts, is worth the price of admission.

I still fondly remember the story from the original Knights of the Old Republic. I played the game twice, once good and once evil, and the story didn’t change that much, but that was okay because it was a good story.

That’s really the job of an MMO, isn’t it? To give you something that gets you to log in again each day, and then when you shut the game down one last time, to leave you with some memories.

I don’t HAVE a screenshot of SWTOR, so up there is a shot of my DDO rogue with a Favored Soul hireling. We’ve destroyed a generation of kobolds and I made two new discoveries in the Sands of Menechtarum, but in a few minutes, I and my hireling would be dead. Stupid swarm of revenge-minded kobolds and their named chief…

News? We have that.
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Pining for Hrundle Fjord

It’s been no real secret that Wizard101′s Ravenwood Academy owes at least a little of its inspiration to Harry Potter’s Hogwarts. Alison Goldtalon and I were having a chat with Grandmother Raven over in Wintertusk; we’d just tied some gewgaws to the threads of our destiny in the Loom of Fate and freed her. Forgotten was that we’d earlier been told that because we were outsiders, the threads of our destiny were not part of the fabric of Wintertusk reality.

Well, NOW they are. ANYWAY, Headmaster Ambrose, using that mind talk voodoo all the Ravenwood faculty have mastered, summoned us back from deciding the fate of Wintertusk to give us some exciting news.

The Spiral Cup!

Finally! We’d teach those uppity upstarts at Hogwarts a thing or three. Those losers get all heartsore if they just see a couple of giant spiders. At Ravenwood, we fight the primal forces of nature.

Get ready, Potter. You may have overcome Death, but you have no power over Life.

Ambrose gave us the Spiral Key for the world of Wysteria, and we set off.

Wysteria, home of the famous wizarding school of… Pigswick?

Pigswick?

This is not Dumbledore.

Bait and switch much, Ambrose?

Well, before we can compete in the competition for the Spiral Cup, we have to win a series of duels against Pigswick students, and if the first couple of battles are any clue, this should be an easy run. But… rumor has it that the higher form students cheat. And the headmistress knows about it and does nothing!

The grand prize

That doesn’t matter. I will defeat my enemies. I will drive them before me and hear the lamentation of their pets.

Alison Goldtalon notices something

THE CONTEST HAS ENDED! SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM FOR THE LIST OF WINNERS!

The answer was Greyson Chance, and the silver chest was in the Library.

Woot! West Karana is proud to announce that we are giving away *15* Balance Houses to anyone that can solve Alison Goldtalon’s puzzle! Since everyone says my puzzles have been too easy, I’ve made this one (I hope) a little more challenging!

Here’s how to enter.

First, solve Alison’s puzzle. It *may* help to go into Wizard101 and have a look around the Balance home there. It shouldn’t be necessary. Once you have the solution, e-mail it to me at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. This is important. I will be turning off comments on this post so that the puzzle doesn’t get spoiled for everyone else.

Each day I will choose *two winners* from among the correct answers received until then. Be sure you have included an e-mail address with your entry where I can send a code if you win! I will be posting the winner’s names to this post as the codes are won.

If you are a lucky winner, head to http://www.wizard101.com/promo to redeem your prize and claim your new home! (Be sure you have space enough for a new home on the wizard who claims the prize!)

That’s the important stuff! Now, here’s the puzzle:

Map of Balance Excavation

Alison Goldtalon was standing in the basement excavation of her Balance home, when she, by chance, noticed that each of the seven rooms had a chest in it, and each of the chests was made of a different material. If you went counter-clockwise starting in the nearest room, the first letters of the material the chest in that room was made in would spell the name of her favorite singer.

She is keeping the Balance House codes in a silver chest. Who is Alison Goldtalon’s favorite singer, and which room holds the silver chest?

HINTS!!!!!

• The room that looks like it might say “SALINA” really should say “SAUNA”. Selena Gomez is not the singer. Good guess, though!
• Alison is standing outside the Wyrmkin Room. If you look carefully, you can find the chest in that room.
• The material of that chest provides the first letter of the singer’s name. The singer’s last name is given somewhere in the puzzle description.
• Woody Guthrie is not the answer :-) We’re looking for a ROOM name and a SINGER’S name.

WINNERS!!!

1. Morgrim Deathwielder
2. Adrianna Aune
3. Alura HexCaster
4. Justus Story
5. Saffron Fireblossom
6. Jose
7. Alyssa Moonheart
8. Paige Unicorncaller
9. Matthew
10. Valdus Talegiver
11. Noffin (forgot your wizard name :/ )
12. Eric Bearstrider
13. Lane Mills
14. Dylan GhostRider, the hardest working wizard in the Spiral!

I used random.org to help me award the last two homes to the people who gave the correct answer today. Here’s the list from random.org:

There were 6 items in your list. Here they are in random order:

1. Jacob Redblade
2. Victoria AngleBlossom
3. Moria Shadow
4. Blaine Lionheart
5. Amanda
6. Wolf NIghttail

Timestamp: 2011-08-19 02:23:16 UTC

Grats to Jacob and Victoria!

Mythology 101!

I spent a few nights last week getting my Myth wizard, Tara Mythcrafter, through Grizzleheim so she could enter Wintertusk. She was already max level when Grizzleheim came out, and it just made more sense to put my alt team through, as they could use the experience and loot. When Wintertusk was released and I found it required Grizzleheim, I was at a loss.

Nothing for it but to rush through from showing my bravery to bears to destroying the coven — twice. I’d missed a necessary update the first time through. It wasn’t tough, though — a level 60 balance wizard and a level 60 life wizard have little to fear from some old crows.

Imagine my surprise when, in Wintertusk, that same team was almost wiped out by three “trash” frost goblins. I officially hate Tower spells, when monsters play them, anyway.

So, here are the Norns. Ravens here, but in myth, they represented the divine force of women. From the sacred Eddas:

12. “Tell me then, Fafnir,
for wise thou art famed,
And much thou knowest now:
Who are the Norns
who are helpful in need,
And the babe from the mother bring?”

Fafnir spake:
13. “Of many births
the Norns must be,
Nor one in race they were;
Some to gods, others
to elves are kin,
And Dvalin’s daughters some.”

So they might as well be ravens as anything else. Note that some of the Norns were kin to Dvalin, that is to say, dwarfs. Note that Tolkein stole Dvalin from the Eddas, named him Dwalin, and inserted him into The Hobbit. These old Norse songs and legends are the truth source of Middle-Earth. Tolkein himself was a scholar of the old Norse legends, and never made a secret of the source of his stories. The One Ring itself was based on old legends that were woven into an epic opera of heroic fantasy, Das Ring der Nibulengen, a fifteen hour work meant to be presented over four nights. The first night is a prelude. The next three nights are the trilogy. Tolkein happily followed suit in his Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

So anyway, these particular raven Norns informed me that, as an outsider (an Auslander?), I am not part of the destiny they weave, so I can change the Fate that would cover the entire Spiral in ice once the evil ravens awaken the Ice Titan.

I was consumed by questions.

• Shouldn’t this be an Ice Jotun from Jotunheim?
• Now that Wintertusk is inviting wizards in, does this mean the Fate they weave is pretty much destroyed forever now?
• If Norns traditionally were midwives that helped women birth their children, what role do they have in a race that lays eggs?
• Why do the raven Norns have breasts?
• If they are weaving Fate, why can’t they just weave the Ice Titan’s defeat?
• Why can’t these Norns just do the tasks themselves?

I ask too many questions. But… I am on a quest for answers! One thing’s for sure, though. I bet I’ll be meeting the Ice Titan in battle at some point.

And it’s for damn sure that I won’t be getting any help from Ambrose or the other master wizards at Ravenwood. That Ambrose fella even informed me that even though I would be saving the world — ALL the worlds — I shouldn’t expect to get a pass on any schoolwork.

Forget that. When I save Wintertusk, I’m going back to Dragonspyre and re-opening the Dragonspyre Academy. Our motto: More saving the world. Less homework.