This month we're bringing you a few odd things!

First, giftbags: For every 25 credits purchased you get a giftbag! For the first 100 credits, you get one for every 10 bought. So for 100 credits, you get 14!

It's been since January, so I won't mess with their contents until refresh, to give people a chance at things they've missed. Don't forget there's a GIFTBAG verb to gift them, or change their colors.

Second.... a lesson sale! Go to Aetolia.com/credits to buy lessons directly from the website for a better deal than just converting credits.

It's an odd combination, I know. But there's reason behind the madness...
1: Hobbies
2: Artifact Auction

I'll start with #2: We're going to do a midmonth artifact auction, carrying to the end of the month or a little past. I'll do another post about then to inform you all of the things involved! We'll make sure to include credits, gold, and ironcoin items.

Hobbies are a new class of skill. They are bought for lessons, depending on the skill, and are very much not what other skills are. Let me try a table...

Type - Costs - Uses
General Skills - Default, roughly 1600 lessons to Trans - Utility, PvP, PvE
Guild Skills - Class, roughly 1600 lessons to Trans - Utility, PvP, PvE
Tradeskills - 100cr, roughly 1600 lessons to Trans - Utility, Gold
Mercantile - Free, roughly 1600 lessons to Trans - Utility, Gold, PvP
Practical - 100cr, Learn by Doing - Utility, PvE, Gold
Argricultural - 10k gold, roughly 1600 lessons to Trans - Utility, Gold
Hobby - 500-1k lessons, Learn by Doing - RP

Hobbies are meant to be things that won't affect the game as a whole, at least not by messing with the economy or combat. They could be a source of Gold, but it'd be more of a roleplay thing, no automated system is buying things from you. But they enable an entirely different depth of character! Our goal here is to increase roleplay depth and support within the system, without rocking the boat elsewhere. The commands to learn are in HELP HOBBIES.

For example: Gaming. This hobby is focused on gambling, cards, dice, anything of the sort. Your character is a gambler? This is the skillset for you! Included are ways to run numbers rackets, show off card tricks, summon your own gaming tables, even do extended effects with normal things (like dice or cards). There are skillranks with titles, emotes, all sorts of things. The goal is to put it all under one roof. (HELP GAMING for real deets)

Gaming is our initial release, and we'll add more during the month; we want to test the waters a little. Our plans include four more for sure being released and a lot of wiggle room for things that catch our fancy. There's no limit to how many you can take! Getting good at them takes a little dedication, though...

And yes, I'm open to discussing what the game needs! Because these are made to not tilt combat balance or economy balance, they don't have as large a barrier to entry, nor as strict requirements as a talent or tradeskill. To spoil our second Hobby: Butchering. This doesn't have a great deal to it, but it's a way to formalize the conversion of slaughtering NPCs into cooking ingredients. There are titles, bloody emotes, and it's useful.. but it's hardly the complexity of a full Talent or Tradeskill... so Hobby it is! And yes, I'm applying our Idea Rule to it; if you come up with the idea and we use it, we'll give it to you freely. Though, we do already have a stack of them!

-T

PS The other three? We're still boxing around the code, but keep an eye out for a little birdie with more information!

Penned by my hand on Quensday, the 8th of Slyphian, in the year 482 MA.
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