COGG BBS

Stormholdt Castle is now accessible! It's rather bare-bones at the moment and missing lots of descriptions, but I'm rushing this release because them nightblades need their spooky foci. Stormholdt can be found at the end of a road east from Dusklamp. It's a bit out of the way, but its position is intended to eventually serve as a minor hub for the areas to be found beyond. Everyone's free to go and check it out - the public can traverse the courtyard, visit the garden, and buy very basic supplies at the small storehouse within.

Stormholdt facilities include ...
Public access:
- A small store to buy some very basic supplies
- A long-distance courier task destination
- A stables (no, no horses available yet in-game, but it's good to be ready for when they are)
- A mysterious eastern portcullis that is currently shut but can inspire wonderings as to where it might eventually lead
Members only:
- An individual training room for every current Warrior class. (The Nightblade one is hidden - get your magnifying glasses and funny detective hats!)
- A non-class-specific training area in the courtyard
- A fully-equipped smithy
- An armory with some armor for sale, and expedited paid repairs
- Free mount stabling
- (Coming soon) Baths
- (Coming soon) Food
- (Coming soon) Occult training area for those basic-level-but-still-useful arcana lessons and glyphs that the practical and pragmatic warrior may wish to swallow their pride in order to learn

So go check it out, and post any suggestions or things it might need that I overlooked.

The eventual plan is to remove class-specific training/abilities from the Shadgard chapter, so warriors will have to run to Stormholdt for their specialized training every now and then while still being able to get most basic skill training from the convenience of Shadgard itself.

I was going to suggest some sort of souvenir to be sold in the storehouse, but then found the soap, which is just as good. .

Navi wrote: ↑Tue May 05, 2020 6:07 pm I was going to suggest some sort of souvenir to be sold in the storehouse, but then found the soap, which is just as good. .

Haha, nice. Although I do kind of like the idea of every outpost having some kind of obvious souvenir token that says "I've been to this place", and people could collect them or whatever. Because some people are dorks that would do that kind of thing, myself included. Oooh. I think I know what I'm going to do.

I almost had bard envy reading changes until I saw this!

Souvenir coins or teaspoons *nodnods*

Is anyone particularly attached to the old Stormholdt crest from when it was briefly in a different location a long while back? Does anyone even remember what it was? I think it was only ever seen in one place. Because I think I'm going to change it, based on its new location and expanded lore. And also after discovering the old crest's similarities to some real-world ones.

It's nice having our own castle. I'd like to suggest weapons in the armory, an infirmary, and rooms for guild members to rent.

I've added some basic copper weapons to the armory, as well as a bow, sling, and associated ammo.

I'm still considering the requests for infirmary and rentable rooms. I don't want Stormholdt to become too town-like, because I worry that people will want to spend too much time there and cause the player character community fracturing I'm always so paranoid about. I'm mostly on board with the infirmary though - it makes sense, and could serve as a destination for Physicker tasks.

I wanted to poke at this to see if we can get some movement on Stormholdt upgrades. Here's some things I had in mind:

Kitchen - Human food (as opposed to cat food). Things such as:
- Beef and potato stew in a red wine sauce
- Leek and onion soup in a sourdough bread bowl
- Rotisserie chicken with steamed whole carrots
- Roast beef with carrot and onion
- Baked ham with mustard greens and cornbread
- A fresh dinner roll with butter
- A large slice of baguette with butter
- A fresh whole baguette
- A fresh sourdough loaf

Infirmary - advocating for this since it's so far away from everything else, it's a castle full of warriors, and there's potential for additional combat zones to be nearby, I think having its own dedicated infirmary makes sense:
- Allows the castle to be a more active hub of activity, but not a full town
- Might give physikers the potential for travel tasks
- Will allow those adventuring in the far reaches of the known map to do so in greater safety

Additional tasks as found in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=44&t=538&p=1779

Storage lockers:
- Not a full bank or bank vault
- Not a full rentable room
- Instanced lockers that people can use to store a spare weapon or set of armor or dump their bag full of lockboxes until they can make it back to town

I would very much enjoy seeing the suggested improvements to Stormholdt when time allows for it. I understand that there is a hesitance to improve other settlements overmuch for fear of luring players away from the intended primary population centers such as Shadgard. Still, I must admit that allowing warriors to consider Stormholdt a second home of sorts and lend a sense of comfort and belonging to its members would do much for the Warrior Guild that at present feels perhaps a bit too vanilla in its attempt to be inoffensively nondescript and universally acceptable.

There are hints to be found in various locations around Stormholdt teasing a history and a purpose to the Castle that I am eager to learn more about and use to help build a relationship between my character and his guild.