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Urgent news compelled Saugus to call a meeting of the officers of The White Crusaders.  He entered the room where the meeting was taking place and already saw Marshal Vortex and Lieutenants Toth and Lady Ji waiting for him.  As he sat down Toth began to share the reports he had been hearing from our spies "As revenge for the earlier attacks on our enemies, they seem to be preparing for an offensive against our home towns.  We believe that they will first strike Wispwood, hoping to deal a quick blow and knocking them out of the battle.  With Wispwood in shambles and their fighters disabled, they would then turn their attention to Gilfane."

"What should our course of action be then," Saugus fired back.

Vortex spoke "I suggest we post scouts around Yew gate tonight.  Prepare the defenses for an invasion of Wispwood tomorrow, and then for Gilfane the following day."

"Are we in agreement," Saugus questioned the officers.   A unanimous "Aye" was spoken.

"Then begin preparations immediately," Saugus said as all the officers stood up.




Basically, lets look for fights around Yew Gate, tonight between 10pm and midnight EST.
Tomorrow in Wispwood, from 12 noon to 3pm EST.
Sunday in Gilfane, from 8pm to midnight EST.

As Saugus sits at his table, still aching from the defeat in Stonehaven the previous day, Lieutenant Toth walks in and asks "Commander, Gilfane member Alizaren wishes to speak with you."  "By all means, send her in," replied Saugus.

The Elven Crafter Alizaren walks in and sits down across from Saugus and begins to speak "Saugus, we have found many rich veins of verite ore along the mountains between Spirituality and Sacrifice gates in Ilshenar.  However, the area is frequented by our enemies, and our miners have not the abilities to defend themselves.  This verite ore is instrumental in being able to craft our warriors adequate equipment for the war."

"You need not say anymore," said Saugus as he calls over Lieutenant Toth.  "Toth, round up whatever warriors we have left that are capable of fighting.  See to it that regular patrols are conducted all this week of the mountains between Spirituality and Sacrifice gates in Ilshenar.  We must protect the resources if we wish to continue to fight this war."

"It shall be done commander," Toth says as he walks away to ready the troops.



OOC - Basically during this week (Monday - Friday), if you're part of the war and looking to fight, lets try and meet up around Spirit/Sacrifice gate area of Ilshenar.  Stop by every hour on the hour between 7pm and 12 midnight EST.  So basically if you're in game, show up at 7pm, hopefully someone is there to fight, if so keep fighting, if not come back at 8pm.  I personally won't be around on Monday but should be able to Tuesday forward, though I'm in Pacific time zone and don't get home until about 10pm EST - just throwing out the times I figure most people are active.

Light began to shine through the window and land on Saugus' face.  Slowly he began to wake up, his body still massively aching.  A healer soon walks in to change the bandage on his shoulder.  He sat down at his table, and began to recall the events surrounding the invasion.  What had originally hatched as a masterful plan to defeat the enemies on their home turf, turned into a nightmare. 

The early spoils of war were good.  Small skirmishes broke out, our enemies were unprepared and we were able score some early victories.  But somehow they learned of our plans for the invasion, as they were prepared.  And once their warriors were called up to action, we lost our element of surprise, our edge. 

The officers soon enter the room and sit down with Saugus.  Vortex, Lady Ji, and Toth.  "The three of us couldn't sleep last night Saugus, we kept going over the battle moment by moment, trying to figure out what went wrong," Vortex said.  Saugus nodded, "What say you?"  Toth spoke up, "We didn't have them outnumbered as we originally thought we would.  It seems they were able to call up their troops faster than we had thought.  Our equipment was sub-par, and all the training was for naught as once we hit the battlefield, our troops scattered.  Their bolas were extremely effective."

"What must we do to make sure this never happens again?"  Saugus said frustratingly.  "Three things," said Lady Ji.  "Training.  Better equipment.  And given time, better combat experience.  With those, we will become a better fighting force."

"Agreed," said Saugus.  "Now you must excuse me, as I must give our report to the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor, they will not be pleased."  "Would you have us come with you," asked Vortex.  "Nay, this was my responsibility, and I must be the one to answer for it."

As Saugus walked over towards the leadership, he could not stop the pictures from appearing in his head of the dead strewn all across the desert battlefield.  Not in his wildest dreams could he have imagined that they would have lost the battle this badly.

Being appointed Commander of The White Crusaders, Saugus' first task given to him was to raise a militia capable of military action against its enemies.  He was now to report back to the Chancellor and Deputy Chancellor of The White Council the status.

He sat down at the table alongside Bruin and Hoffs, looked directly at them, and nodded.  "They will be ready.  Our militia stands at 15 strong at the moment, with more members enlisting each day.  A worthy Marshal has been appointed, Vortex.  A few more officers still need to be selected, that will conclude shortly.  Combat trainings have been ongoing over the last week," Saugus said with conviction.

Bruin asked, "Do they understand the risks they are taking?"

Saugus nodded.

Hoffs fired back, "Make sure they know they have the sincere appreciation of the members of The White Council."

"They know," Saugus responded.

"What are their strengths, weaknesses," Bruin questioned.

"We have the numbers.  With the size of The White Council, we should be able to field a considerable sized militia, that is our biggest strength.  Our weakness lies in two main areas.  First, our soldiers are typically not as well equipped as our enemies.  We know our merchants are working hard to craft better equipment for us, and we appreciate it.  Secondly, our soldiers are not as experienced in combat as many of our opponents.  That is something that can only be earned on the battlefield.  Don't get me wrong, they are good men and women – and given time they will become a very formidable force," Saugus finished and began to take a drink of his water.

"We appreciate your honesty," Bruin said.

Hoffs looked right into Saugus' eyes, "You have done well so far.  As you know, The White Crusaders were formed so that we would stop being on the defensive.  Your purpose, to take the fight to the enemy.  It is along those lines we give you your first combat directive.  The members of TnT have long harassed and murdered our members.  As you know, they live in the desert area surrounded by mountains just south of Umbra, in their home town they call Stonehaven.  Your task, lead your troops into Stonehaven and defeat their warriors – they will never suspect it so we can catch them off guard.  Deal to them a heavy blow that will be difficult for them to recover. 

Now be careful.  While it may be imperative for us think like the enemy in order to win this war, we are to never become them.  Therefore harm no citizens, harm no visitors, and harm no non-combatants.  Make sure your warriors know without any doubt, they can only attack their warriors.

And do so quickly.  The machines of war have been running for sometime now, and soon our enemies will begin to suspect something is up and learn of our plans, so be sure to strike before they are made aware of our plans.  The tactic of surprise is perhaps our biggest ally at the moment."

Saugus let out a deep breath, stood up, "It will be done."

As Saugus was heading back to the barracks, he began to think to himself.  "An attack on Stonehaven?  I knew they were serious about taking the battle to our enemy, I just would have never thought they'd have the stones to take it this far, politicians and all.  Perhaps this is the kind of thinking we need if we are to win this war."

Saugus entered the barracks, the room fell silent, and all the warriors begin to gather around him.  "We have our orders.  For many years we have watched in horror as our enemies have invaded our towns, slaughtering our brothers, sisters, mothers, and friends.  We now fight for them, for this Saturday we attack Stonehaven.  We launch our first assault at 12 noon (PST), and follow up every hour on the hour for at least 3 assault waves.  Gather your supplies, inspect your armour, and enjoy your last day at home for attack preparations begin at dawn day after tomorrow."

Finally coughed up the $20 to EA to change the name of Thrasher to Saugus Brisbane.

Vortex,

My brother and I have fought alongside you in one way or another for nearly 6 years now.  I need someone I can trust, who is battle scarred, to help train and lead the troops into battle as Marshal of Crusaders.  What say you?

Merchants, the time of war is upon us, and the need for your services has never been more dire.  Soon our brave warriors will be out on the battlefield, and without the proper supplies and equipment, their chances for survival are slim.  Keep the various White Council supply rooms across the land full of your supplies.

The Wispwood Shire Council has authorized the following resources to be donated to the war cause:
5 spined runic kits
5 of each shadow and copper runic hammers
1,000 of each reagent
5,000 barbed leather
500,000 gold

Donations to the cause are always welcome.

Tailors – Use the runic kits and barbed leather to craft armor to protect our warriors.

Blacksmiths – Use the runic hammers to craft Samurai Platemail using verite ingots.  We will reimburse you for the cost of ingots.

Alchemists – Use the reagents to craft your potions to keep the warriors alive.

Lumberjacks and Bowyers – your wood and feathers are needed to supply our archers with arrows and bolts.

Cooks – Your apples are needed to counteract the enemies' curses.

Horticulturist – Your orange petals are needed to protect our warriors from the ills of poison.

Tinkers – Trapped boxes are needed to protect those from paralysis.

Miners - Seek out the ingots in the mountains to supply our blacksmiths with the necessary resources.

Keep the supply rooms well stocked and organized!  Help our warriors resupply quickly and effectively so that they may join into battle without delay.

Merchants, you hold the key to victory for our warriors.  For without your goods, our warriors have no chance of survival in battle against our enemies.

Tonight there was a meeting of the leaders of the White Council.  Not one of those boring political meetings that dealt with events, or recruitment.  No, this one was important, this one dealt with security of its members.  Harassment of its members by murderers and thieves had been on the rise lately, never a good thing, particularly for those politicians who are up for election soon.

With Lord Casca recently taking the throne of Britain, the White Council Britannians had failed in their quest to install a fair and just ruler of their own through the True Britannians.  While they would continue to operate, other ideas were needed.

The meeting was called to order, and various ideas were presented.  "We need better equipment!" one member pleaded.  "How can we fight in these tired old rags when the murderers carry items more powerful than Lord British used to carry?"  "Better defenses, more combat training!"  Ideas were tossed around the table.

Then you could see it in the frustration of Vortex.  He pounded his first on the table.  You know it when he gets that look on him, he was going to say something good.   "The members of the White Council are tired of sitting idly by while their kind are slaughtered in the streets," his voiced thundered across the table as all the members sat silent.  "We're tired of being on the defense, responding to enemy attacks.  Building our defenses, patrolling the streets, waiting for them to come to us when we are weak and letting them slaughter us.  No, we've had enough.  The only way to victory if we take action, the only way to victory is we stop letting the fight come to us, the only way to victory is if we take the fight to them.  Hit them where they are weak, find the chinks in their armor and exploit it, hit them when they least expect it.  The time for action is now, I say we strike them, strike them hard.  Only that way, can we weaken the enemy, and protect our members.  Let us go on the offensive."  Vortex sat down.

The silence was broken with commotion.  The naysayers were speaking up, "But violence only begets violence!  We are not warriors, we are merely Citizens of Britannia!"  But Bruin and Hoffs looked at each other, and they knew what must be done, for Vortex was right.  And when the commotion settled down, everyone else realized it as well.  The decision was unanimous.

Notices were posted up all around the towns of Wispwood Shire and Gilfane:

"The White Council is putting out a call to all able-bodied members.  The formation of the White Crusaders (CRUS) has been authorized to go directly to war with its enemies."

Just wanted to share some basic pvp tips for those who are new to the pvp arena.


First some general guidelines:

Equipment -
- Plain and simple, equipment keeps you alive.  The more and better equipment you carry, the better chance you have at winning.
- The obvious equipment to carry:
- Armor, if GM try and balance your armour so that you have as close as possible to 60 of each resist.  If better than GM, shoot for higher resists, and look for properties such as mana regen, lower mana cost.
- Regs - if your a mage, try and carry around 60-80 of each reg.
- Warrior - your weapon, bandages, and make sure your tithing is high enough if you use chivalry.
Consumables:
- potions, carry at least 10 g-heal, 10 g-cure, 5 g-refresh (if you are a warrior 10 g-refresh), 3 g-strength, 3 g-agility at minimum.  Potions are cheap and are the difference between life and death.  All these potions would cost about 3k and will last you about 3-4 minutes of real field fighting.  A g-strength is 10 free hp, a g-agility is a 1 second faster heal for healers, makes a big difference.
- for those without magic resist, orange petals (helpful if you don't have resist as well) and trapped boxes.
- more advanced equipment - enchanted apples for curses (necro strangle), rose petals of trinsic for 5 str, drawing a blank right now on the rest.


Guidelines -
- Regarding cross healing, YOU are always responsible for curing YOURSELF.  If you are about to die because you are low on health and are poisoned, CURE yourself and your teammates will provide heal backup.  Make sure you have an adequate way of curing yourself in less than 2 seconds (2 handed weapon warriors, chivalry or drop weapon and cure potion), for the rest of you cure potions.
- If you see an enemy suddenly appear on the battlefield, on foot and apparently not doing anything, run like hell cause you're about to be bola'd (see Alizaren for demonstration).  If they are wielding a heavy xbow, run like hell cause they are trying to dismount you as well.
- Never be dismounted in a fight unless you can ninja transform.
- NEVER CHASE AN ENEMY by yourself, it is - a. usually a trap - b. you will rarely ever get the kill - once they are off and running its too late.
- ALWAYS STAY ON THE SAME SCREEN AS YOUR GUILDMATES - having a field fight and getting split up is a sure way to lose a fight.
- Keep a restock supply in your bank, regs, armour, potions, bandages, jewelry to get back into a fight quicker.
- Use VENT - listen in, call out targets.  If you can't use vent, watch who everyone else is attacking and attack them (kill the mages first).
- Set up your macro's and PRACTICE THEM.


The 3 step process to becoming a better pvp'er:
1.  You need to get over the fear.  The very first time a person is ever attacked in pvp, they usually experience fear.  The fear of death, the fear of unknown, the fear of losing your equipment, the fear that some big bad red evil dude is attacking you.  You need to get over this.  My suggestion - die a lot.  Hang out in front of Krystal's house with nothing on and let her keep killing you, you'll eventually realize its no big deal.  Some people get over this fear the 3rd time they die, some people it takes 100.  The problem is, when you are scared, you are not thinking straight.
2.  You need to stop thinking.  If you are in a fight and an enemy badly damages you and then you need to think "hmm, I'm hurt, now I need to click F1 which is my greater heal macro then wait for the cursor to show up and target myself" you're dead.  You need to stop thinking of what to do, you need to know what you will do before it happens, so much so that it becomes:
3.  Instincts through repetition.  You need to train up and practice a lot so that everything becomes instinctive to you.  When you first start driving, you think about everything you need to do, "I want to change lanes so I need to check my mirrors, check my blind spot, use my turn signal, and slowly move over."  Once you've driving for 3 months, this all becomes instincts – same thing with pvp.  When someone damages you, you know to instinctively click your heal macro.  When someone poisons you, you know to instinctively hit your cure macro.  The best way to train up your instincts is through dueling.

If you are new to PvP and don't know what to do in the middle of a fight:

First off, follow this general priority list of what to do:
1.  Heal an almost dead guildmate.
2.  Rez a dead guildmate.
3.  Loot a fallen enemy to take them out of a fight.
4.  Kill a redlined enemy.

Basic field strategies for:
Mages – stick with your guildmates, have a greater heal precast, and heal any guildmates that fall below ½ health.
Warriors – attack anyone your guildmates are attacking – use high damage abilities (armour ignore, lightening strike, deathstrike, concussion) on any enemy less than ½ health.

Intermediate field strategies for (use the basic strategies plus):
Mages – Curse your target, concentrate on high damage spells (explo/ebolt/flamestrike), heal up guildmates.
Warriors – para blow running enemies, mortal or bleed enemies on low health.

Advanced field strategies for (use intermediate strategies plus):
Mages – Mages fights are all about the dance.  Timing, rhythm, and getting into the flow of a battle (not as much anymore but still holds true).  You have a vast array of weapons at your disposal, and you need to know which one to use at the right moment.  With a group of mages, you always start off by firing off an initial salvo of high damage spells.  Start as a group with explo pre-cast, meet up with the enemies, and everyone target a single enemy with explo and finish off with ebolt/flamestrike.  A backup mage should always have gheal precast to counter as the enemy is probably doing the same thing.  Hopefully you can take out 1-2 targets in the initial salvo.  After this, the field fighting begins.  Curse your enemy, keep your guildmates alive, and try and get 2-3 mages to fire high damage spells at a common enemy.  If they are low on health and trying to heal, get close and harm.
Warriors – Get into the face of mages and disrupt them.  Take a few shots, keep shooting at them and let them heal if they are.  Hopefully, they make a mistake and let their guard down and fall to 50% of health or less, that's when you go in for the kill.  Mana dump your high damage moves on them (armour ignore, lightening strike, death strike, bleed, concussion, whatever).  If it doesn't work, regen your mana and do it again.


Ohh, and I almost forgot the most important rule of pvp, don't forget – this is fun! =)

(man this ended up being longer than I thought).

Cross posted from this thread on Siege Stratics forums.



Bruin didn't feel well, his head was pounding, his body aching. Perhaps he was getting old, but getting chomped at by Rikktor several times earlier in the day had really taken its toll. So he did what any good Ranger would do, he went to the Golden Unicorn and drank a few ales to mask the pain.

He spent some time talking with the young Aislinn, a new Citizen of Wispwood, about the past, the present, and the future, but the ale was not helping. His head was just killing him, distracting him from the conversation.

An initiate, Dale, had now stopped by and was conversing with the two of them. But this pain, it was something very unusual. Dale was wearing a deer mask, and Bruin could not help but stare into the lifeless eyes of the deer. It was as if the deer was talking to him....no wait, "Ouch!" Bruin exclaimed. Damn his head was hurting, but this wasn't pain. The deer mask helped him see, or rather understand, this wasn't pain...there were voices, masking themselves as pain as Bruin could not understand what they were saying.

The voices did not come from the deer mask, but instead somewhere deep inside his head. They were not clear, very cluttered, he could not understand a word they were saying, but they brought about intense pain.

The pain was so blinding he didn't even realize Dale had left the tavern earlier, and it was just he and Aislinn. Rest, this was the only thing Bruin had thought would help, as the ale was doing little. So he bid farewell to Aislinn and headed back to the forest to find a comfortable spot to rest his head.



OOC: This in-game story has a few goals of which one being an attempt to revive role-playing here on Siege. The first 3-4 parts are already drawn up and will be posted in the near future. However after that it is open as I have not written any ending to it – so I highly encourage any others who wish to join in to do so.

Just curious, if there was an in-character forum for acting out role playing and/or posting in-character stories/events, would you use it?  Many guilds have such a forum, and it would be nice if they are used - however I personally don't like forums set up that are rarely/never used - just adds to clutter.

How much do 120 blacksmith scrolls sell for, and anyone have any for sale?  Will need 2.

Any idea how much ecru citrine gems sell for, Stratics say 50k each, I think that's high.  Know anyone who wants to buy these as well?

Thanks...

So I tried enchancing a bunch of luck armor for a guildmate , each had 60+ luck, a lot of nice ones with 80+ luck on them, with spined leather.  Succeeded on only 1 out of 14 items, the other 13 items were destroyed.  Is that normal?  Just seems such a high failure rate.  Felt bad telling the guildmate that I destroyed most of his stuff (I don't craft/enchance much).

I am a 120 tailor.  Did I do anything wrong?  Should I wear a tailoring talisman when I enchant?

Hi All,

At the urging of Puffy, Wispwood will be holding a Story Night tonight at 7:30pm PST at the Golden Unicorn Tavern in the town of Wispwood Shire.

For those that do not know what story night is, it is simply a roleplayed tavern night where people tell some of their favorite stories. For each story night we have a theme which we like to base the stories around. The theme is simply to help those who can not think of a story to tell. Any and all stories you wish to tell are welcome at story night.

The theme for the night will be your time while a newbie on Siege. When you were first born into this land, what did you do? Some of the most exciting times for a person was when you experienced something new, so share those new Siege experiences with us!

For the location of the Golden Unicorn, visit a map of Wispwood Shire here: http://www.wispwoodshire.com/Location.htm. If you need a gate to the event, send me a pidgeon (ICQ 4842047).