Alyrian News

Materia Magica 4.4 Build 2384 Update Released!

Monday, 23 January 2012 01:29

We are pleased to announce that build 2384 of Materia Magica 4.4 has been released! This new update to the game and world of Alyria introduces many bugfixes and tweaks, as well as some fun new quests and adventures. A partial summary of the major fixes and updates follow.

Skills

• Made Regenerate Cartilage work 25% better underwater/in floods.
• Made Lay Hands affect Leech Conduit.
• Fixed a bug that made blindness remove all defenses.
• Made Strike Match not work on lights that are equipped.
• Made Strike Match deal double damage from infinite lights.
• Added new spells Sandblast, Damnation, Spider Incubator.
• Made waterspouting while webbed deal significant damage to its caster.

Runs

• Added 2 new bosses.
• Made Stargazer all PK and psychotic.
• Made distinct boss kills alter their killers' alignment by 10% of their alignment, eg killing Yourban for the first time would grant +100 alignment.
• Added a method to get back past Kessarian's Gatekeeper, available from a new source nearby Kessarian.
• Increased the lifespan on Kessarian's gems from 50 minutes to 24 hours.

Areas

• Added a new, higher-value Bar to bankers: octarine-gold, worth 9.9M gold.
• Added a dragonslayer-dagger option.
• Made witch Guild pins removeable-in-safe, instead of noremove/nouncurse.
• Added a statue in the Strange Ruins that will destroy 7 standard, bound Relics and create a new, random relic.
• Fixed and streamlined some issues with Banker trading.
• Fixed Ganuk Jr's display of the Mayor's chosen destination.
• Made it so that a no-outside-noise room inside of a no-outside-noise area will make the two negate each other, permitting outside sound where there normally isn't (most useful for BUILT homes, when most estates are no-outside-noise areas)

Change Changes

• Per anti-Santa, removed all rapid-regen from bosses. This will likely be applied to select individual bosses at some point in the future.

Rankings

• Made gold not scale infinitely for Rank.

Commands

• Added SHIP RENAME, available at a cost of 5000 tourmalines.
• Added MARK WHERE command to find marks obtainable in the nearby area within the player's current class or lower.
• Added area information (where marks may be obtained) to MARK command output.

Professor Silax's Missing Reindeer

Friday, 23 December 2011 13:13

Professor Silax is a fairly obscure magical scientist from the Towne of Sigil. Funded by a grant from the Council of the Arcane, he has been researching animal breeding experiments, in attempts to produce faster, more efficient, leaner, tauter animals. His latest experiments have focused on Lord Vendredi's prized pack animals, south Auryn reindeer. Magically tampering with their physical and mental prowess has produced very interesting results. An original sixteen reindeer were selected for the breeding program, with half as the control group. The other eight were made nine, after one of the control group proved himself too intelligent and rowdy to be tricked by pine wands, rather than yew. They were experimented on over a course of months, finally producing three quarters of a dozen super reindeer. The test was a success, producing capable, strong, responsible reindeer for towing Vendredi about the winter solstice nights, as he traditionally delivers all of his year's work worth of toys to children around Alyria.

In fact, not only was it a success, breeding the smartest, strongest reindeer possible, but it was too successful, allowing the reindeer to see their inbred inferiority and subjugation by the humans. Although never Lord Vendredi's intent, it was indeed true. The last test subject from the program, Charles, led a revolt among his fellow enhanced reindeer. Up, they levitated into the night sky, as they always have, only without their master's sleigh. Feeling vindicated, free of their social, zoological and physical bonds, they also freed their lesser kin, the hundreds of other reindeer raised in captivity since the start of the domestication of the animals. The original nine led their brethren through the sky, dispersing themselves back into the lands whence they came.

However, many had only known city life for their entire upbringing, particularly the young, and quickly gravitated towards the respective city centers of the continents they landed on. Viewing it as a temporary setback, rather than a fundamental flaw in their plan for freedom, the nine followed them into the towns, to help them adjust to life beyond the feedbag. Professor Silax, the director of the experiments, now needs help in gathering the creatures, to bring them back into captivity.

He has come up with a magical trap for the reindeer, which he has been giving out to anyone who offers to help him. The trap - operating under an alchemical spell - will attract the reindeer and magically teleport their organic matter back to Sigil, where they can be chained once more. To receive credit for their captures, their original laboratory tags will fall to the ground after their teleportation, and the tags may be redeemed by Professor Silax's assistants Snide, Bide, Wide, and Pride, who are located in the townes with the reindeer, attempting to corral the beasts. The trap must be outfitted with a special lure to work, however, and the list of lures that will attract them is somewhat limited. Professor Silax will sell you lure. You can see the various lures by typing SHOP LIST, and may purchase the one best suited for the type of reindeer you will be catching.

A special lure, the reindeer moss, is offered to help brave adventurers capture the illustrious silver reindeer, the fastest reindeer bred that did not receive neural enhancements.

The reindeer have been cleared from Sigil using the traps, but the Townes of Xaventry (where you will find reindeer for levels 11-60), New Rigel (where you will find reindeer for levels 61-120), Rune (where you will find reindeer for levels 121-180), and Tellerium (where you will find reindeer for levels 181-241) are still plagued with the antlered beasts.

Keep on the lookout for the lead reindeer, Charles Billingsworth III, and his fellow conspirators, Temper, Stamper, Doughnut, Mitten, Tulip, Steelwool, Stupid, and Pigeon. They have managed to make themselves immune to Professor Silax's traps and therefore must be fought to quell the reindeer resistance.

If you wish to change your class after receiving your trap, and need a new trap to accomodate this change, you may sayto Professor Silax "Exchange my trap", and he will give you a new one.

If you'd like to help Professor Silax, try saying to him, "I will help recover the missing reindeer".

The Legend of the Bearded Gnome

Monday, 12 December 2011 12:08

As the Yule season begins each year, talk inevitably turns to the Bearded Gnome. While this has been a tradition in some areas for many years, he has been celebrated mostly in the countryside--the traditions only recently making their way to Alyria's cities and towns.

With five clockwork winged mules pulling his flying sleigh, the Bearded Gnome sneaks into denizens' homes during the Yule holiday, leaving behind gifts for the owner of the house. It is traditional in the Alyrian countryside to leave snacks out for him, as legend says his gifts are better if his stomach is full of cookies and milk. Some even leave presents of oil for his clockwork mules.

A Letter from the Office of Professor Silax

Monday, 12 December 2011 11:55

A letter from the office of Professor Silax:

My friends! I have wonderful news that I am just too eager to relay to you all!

I'm sure you are all aware of the work currently taking place in my research laboratories in Sigil: my work on the Seven League Boots has caused a bit of publicity over the last few years, and we all remember the incident with Charles Billingsworth III and the other south Auryn reindeer last year. I'll have you all notice that we've had no such incidents in the last 6 months... a record for our facilities! To celebrate and reveal some of the mystery behind the Silax Labs, I will be hosting a reception and conference at my facilities in Sigil (across the street from the Alyrian Chronicle Offices). Normally, a strong illusion spell prevents people from seeing our building, but we will lift this veil shortly before the event, which will start promptly at noon system time of the 23rd of December, 2011.