The door flew open and Rurian appeared in the door frame, with one hand leaning against it, gasping heavily.

>>Brother!<<, he brought out, before he sank to his knees.

Rongar sprang to his feet and rushed towards him, supported him, held him in his arms.

>>What happened, Rurian?<<, he asked jittery, giving the four arrows in Rurian's back a horrified glance.

>>They...<<, Rurian began before he coughed and swallowed up his own blood. >>They are coming, brother. The Vorak Tribe, they are coming. We are at war!<<

>>Calm down, brother.<<, Rongar replied after a moment, trying to let his voice sound firm. He tried hard, but his heart was palpitating, and a certain weakness has come over him when he caught Rurian's words. They had touched him to the quick. >>Where? Where are they?<<

>>In the Rolóra passage.<<, Rurian answered wearily. >>They have overrun our outposts, burnt down the watchtowers while we were still inside. They came under the cover of darkness, brother, hundreds of them, and they surprised us.<<

>>Who else got away?<< Rongar dreaded the answer to this question, he didn't raise his hopes of getting a positive one. And he should be proved right, Rurian looked him deep in the eyes, then shook his head. A tear ran down his cheek and Rongar pressed him to his chest, staring into a far distance. His throat felt like corded up.

>>You,<<, Rurian continued after a while and Rongar released him. >>You must organize a counterstrike, brother. Mobilize every dwarf who can hold a weapon and give notice to our allied tribes.<<

>>The other tribes would need days before they arrived us.<<, Rongar opposed. >>We cannot count on them, brother. We should flee.<<

>>No!<< Rurian's voice sounded as solid as a rock and Rongar appalled by the anger that met him all of a sudden. He felt like being hit by an invisible fist. >>We must fight back, brother! Or else we will be on the run forevermore. If we are to be defeated, so be it, but as long as there is a little chance of victory, we must fight. We shall not bend before our enemies. Never!<<

'Live by the Hammer and the Blade'. This ancient saying suddenly came to Rongar's mind, as if Rurian whispered it into his ears. It was known to him ever since he was but a little fellow, every young dwarf from the Clan did, since they were nurtured with it, held to live by it. It demanded every Hammerwielder to seek honour in battle, regardless of the rules of the tribe, or the mentality of the individual. Honour, the highest goal to be achieved by a Hammerwielder, battle, the highest way to achieve honour.

>>But our numbers are limited, brother...<<, Rongar said lost in thought. He still considered fleeing for the best, even though this would bring discredit upon his family, for they lived by the code of Sha'y'ta, the code of honour and disgrace, just like most other dwarfs from the Hammerwielder Clan lived by it. But the time to prepare for the attack was simply too short, in Rongar's opinion anyway.

>>And so are the Vorak's.<< Rurian answered and coughed up blood again. Rongar gently wiped it off Rurian's mouth. >>Once their units are thinning, they will abort the attack. We are speaking of the Vorak, brother, they won't fight unless they are outnumbering the enemy. They have no honour, not even in battle.<<

That wasn't entirely true. Rongar remembered the day when he ran into one of the Vorak. They met in the woods, and both of them stopped dead when they did. Keeping their eyes on one another, they did not move for quite some time, a long time it was, or so Rongar conceived it. If someone would have passed by, he would have seen the statues of two dwarfs.

So they stood there in the middle of the woods and didn't move at all, until a Juloo let its incredibly loud cry from one of the branches above their heads. In that very moment they both reached for their axes, as if they had just been waiting for a signal, and with a warcry they were rushing towards eachother like there was no tomorrow.

The Vorak fought well, Rongar had trouble to bear up against him at first, but slowly he accomplished to drive back his opponent, until he finally had to surrender, which he did. He was down to his knees and looked up to Rongar, awaiting his fate while keeping a straight face. He was prepared to die.

>>Has your father returned by now?<<, Rurian asked and jolted Rongar out of his thoughts.

>>Not yet.<<, he answered and cleared his throat. >>I expected him already yesterday.<<

>>Elder Garumir would know what to do. And you as Garumir's son should do as well. As long as he is not present, you are the head of the tribe. Do what he would expect you to do.<<

>>I will, brother.<<, Rongar answered casually. Once again his eyes wandered to the arrows that stuck deep in Rurians back.

>>Forget about them.<<, Rurian whispered knowingly. >>You know as good as I that they are poisened. It's long running through my veins, brother. I feel cold and queasy. Death is near me, extending its hand, and I am tempted to grasp it. But before I am to meet our ancestors in the Great Halls of Angeról, you must promise me to stand your dwarf and fight. Promise it, brother, I please you.<<

>>I... I promise, brother.<<

Rurian nodded and his lips started to form a smile, his eyelids seemed to become heavier and the body in Rongar's arms slowly flagged. Carefully he laid him down, and with tears in his eyes he stood up to get a blanket to cover the dead body. They had grown up together, and spent a lot of time in the wilderness playing, hunting, gathering firewood, or later doing combat training. A piece of his heart felt like it was torn out, when he laid the blanket upon his closest brother.

*>>R'yi tokka Keves o sa Kris Anivar, brogga.<<, he whispered, before he went to the window and stared into the darkness.

The village was yet quiet. Of course so, since it was night and most people were sleeping. Tomorrow would have been the great festivities, every house had been decorated days ago, and in the middle of the village square there stood a large, sprawling green tree, decorated with countless multicolored ribbons. Those ribbons were meant to be plaited in a dance performed by the maids of the tribe who were of age. With this dance they symbolically illustrated their converting from girl to woman.

The festivities were held every year to celebrate fecundity, the start of something new and the regeneration of something old. Other races probably wouldn't associate Hammerwielders with such a rite, since they are known to be destructive rather than constructive, which often leads to the asssumption that they do not appreciate continuity. A wrong assumption. Two days and two nights the whole village would have celebrated, with a giant feast and lots of ale, naturally. But this year, it wouldn't be happening.

Time was running out.

Live by the Hammer and the Blade

Rongar breathed a deep sigh and took his axes from the wall.



*May you find salvation in the circle of our forefathers, brother - Hammerwielder language


[The start of a longer story; hope you find it not too shabby. Comments are welcome, but please bear with me as I am not used to storywriting in english. Also note that some time might pass between one post and the next.]

1) Flaming weapon
2) Electrotouch
3) Flame Spire
4) Rock Armor
5) Defensive Wind
6) Dazzling Light

System tells me that all of them do have some effect, but I have actually never seen any difference before and after casting them. The supporting attack spells (#1, #2, #3) should at least say for how much they are damaging the enemy, say,

>Your flaming weapon hurts the enemy for 12,34 damage!

or
>You injure your enemy with electricity for 12,34 damage!.

The supporting defense spells (#4, #5, #6) on the other hand should say that they block attacks, or how much damage they absorb. Like

>XYZ attacks you, but your Rock Armor blocks it!

or

>The spell Rock Armor averts 12,34 damage!

It's just hard to see if a spell works as it is now.

The Awakening

An old Hammerwielder was sitting in an armchair inside his room in the guild halls of the Elemental Light. Outside his window with view onto the secret garden, thunderbolts were flashing the rain-swept night, had brought him a short and loose sleep; another night in which he didn't get to sleep. He was so dead tired.

On his lap, a thick and outworn, leather bound book laid open on page fourhundred-thirtyseven, bearing a nearly illegible handwriting underneath the sketch of some sort of pearl, a small and smoothly shaped stone, looking simple as simple can be. But simpleness is often delusive, and the dwarf knew that very well.

He yawned and stretched himself, his eyes were hurting and deciphering the encrypted text really didn't ease it. But it had to be done, his curiousity was too big, to be left unsatisfied.

Breathing a sigh, the dwarf turned his attention back to the book. A cursury glance at the sketch and his eyes were caught, slowly he drove his hand over it, like he did before, over and over again, faigning he could feel, what the nameless author thought or knew, when he made that sketch. But this was not the case, of course.

On a small piece of paper, laying inbetween the opened pages, the dwarf had written the passages, he already found out about. In his own neat handwriting, there were the phrases 'Talad', 'stone' and 'no glyph' to be seen. Nothing much, unfortunately, but surely better than nothing. The dwarf frowned once again, when looking - for probably the thousandth time - upon what he had written.

A stone, containing some sort of power, and being listed in an old book with the title 'Glyphs of Yliakum' - it took him a while to even decipher the title - and then the stone should be no glyph?

He shook his head and reached for a small casket on a table next to his chair. The inside of the casket was fitted out with red velvet, showing a small deepening, in which a bright white pearl had been placed. As he took it in his hand, a strange feeling came over the dwarf, like it always did, when he was touching it. Not a bad one, just... strange, unknown, but warm somehow. Taking a deep breath, he narrowed his eyes and took a closer look at it.

The stone was of a perfectly round shape, purely white and without any visible patterns or writings, the surface so very smooth and shiny, he was able to see the reflection of the stone, which was already reflecting in his eyes.

>>Not a glyph... ,<<, the dwarf mumbled to himself and reached for his pipe, >>not a glyph... pah! What else can it be then, eh?"

It was definitely not just a common stone, he felt some sort of unnatural essence when touching it, yet he was unable to define it even only to some extent. But according to the few phrases he deciphered - assuming he did it all right - it was not a glyph at all. And actually, when he was being honest, it couldn't be a glyph, which was just not discovered yet, since it felt so much different from all the other glyphs the dwarf possessed. And he couldn't research it either, no cord of might, formed by any of the magical ways, nor a cord of any combination of them, was reacting to the stone, not to speak of infringing it, in order to research the power it was containing. Nothing really worked.

>>Should ask Talad himself. <<, he laughed to himself. >>If it's a glyph after all, he should know... . Blimey, If he would only answer to my prayers! <<

He shook his head and took a strong pull from his pipe. Quite a while he sat there and stared at the stone, and with every minute that passed by, his mood grew darker, and his hopes of identifying that 'damn thing', faded away more and more. when suddenly his eyes widened.

The stone became warmer, and strange letters in shining bright light grew up on its surface, lightened up the whole room and forced the dwarf to avert his gaze. But his eyes - was it ever so fascinating - were not required in this very moment. Glyph or no glyph, the stone had for some reason finally unleashed its true power, and with gaping mouth, the dwarf received the message it contained for such a long time.

The stone was speaking to him. Not by words, rather by feelings. He felt a strong feeling of hope, getting sown within his body, sown within his mind and the dwarf for the first time really knew: the stone was not of a bad nature. It gave him not only a feeling of hope, but also a feeling of security, a feeling of warmth and joy, showed him visions of a world of hope and happiness, and told him to spread these visions and to turn Yliakum into such a place.

An eternity later - or so it seemed to him - the light in his room dried up, obsolete was just the stone like it looked before, much colder than just a moment ago, but still warm and friendly.

And that was the moment, the dwarf's life had changed forever, made him give up his former life in Elemental Light, as he couldn't spread the visions, without gathering followers. And regardless of the stone's origin, be it really a glyph, or just an enchanted stone made by much simpler beings than a god, he called it 'Glyph of Awakening', since it had just awakened him from his sleep, and opened his eyes for his true destiny.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Philosophy

We, the Awakened, believe in the phenomenon of synergy, which will always prevail over the strength of an individual. Our guild's structure is clearly organized. We have elders of certain ranks, responsible for the guidance of our most recent comrades in all important matters. They teach them how to take their first steps on the path that leads to glory, help them gain knowledge and power, until, one day, the new member becomes a teacher oneself. All we ask from those who are willing to follow this path, under our guidance, is to behave true to our overriding motto 'Do unto others as You would have others do unto You' and to go by our rules, from which we are positive of being the only right ones to go by. We place value on respect and condemn all acts of impertinence towards our members, as well as to any other righteous individuals or guilds.

Orientation

We are helpful and friendly, we do not seek conflict; thus, we consider ourselves righteous people.

However, due to our will to avoid hostility, we won't necessarily march to battle under the banner of Goodness, in order to fight all evil that may exist throughout Yliakum. Our own welfare takes priority, hence, we consider ourselves neutral as well.

Further again, even though we consider ourselves peaceful, we won't shy away from those who think us weak and fragile, and thus intend to bully and mistreat us as they please. We will stand up and fight for our right whenever the need arises.

Goals

Our true goal is to guide those who are in need of guidance. We open their eyes to a world of justice and hope, a world in which an equal treatment for all people is assured, yet without wanting to create this world by making use of any violence. We accomplish that goal by gathering followers and forwarding their talents, while acquainting them with our philosophy.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Ranks of the Awakened

Rank 1 - Sleeper
Rank 2 - Sleepwalker
Rank 3 - Awakened Wanderer
Rank 4 - Truly Awakened
Rank 5 - Beholder of Dreams
Rank 6 - Blade of the Just
Rank 7 - Sleepers' Guardian
Rank 8 - Sage in the Circle of Six
Rank 9 - The Awakener

1) The Sleeper is a new member, whom we try to awaken. Sometimes though, it may happen, that we have to release a Sleeper, in case one's sleep is simply too deep.

2) The Sleepwalker is not in deep sleep anymore, yet not fully awakened.

3) The Awakened Wanderer has finally awakened and is now able to gain much more knowledge, than before.

4) The Truly Awakened has gained great knowledge and abilities. From there on it is to decide, whether, and which of the following three honorable professions the Truly Awakened wants to aspire for.

5) The Beholder of Dreams is in search for the Sleepers and introduces guild members to the intricacies of social interaction in Yliakum, holds and spreads knowledge of the guilds' history as well as stages public events. [RP-Master&Recruiter]

6) The Blade of the Just has great comprehension of weapons and/or glyphs and how to use them. The Blade is responsible for the protection of our members and for teaching those, who are willing to defend the guild in times of war. [trainer]

7) The Sleepers' Guardian bears the responsibity for the Sleepers and teaches them how to arise. The Guardian is the first person, to receive answers and help from. [Tutor]

8) The Sages in the Circle of Six are the few trusted ones, who are meant to help run the guild, and to help the Leader with his decisions. Being called into the Circle testifies of great respect for the member by the Sages and the Leader.

9) The Awakener is the head of The Awakened. He runs the guild to the best of his knowledge and belief, aided by his intimates, the Sages of the Circle.


Note: The ranks 5-7 are considered perfectly equal.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[OOC - The Guild Rules]

1) Do not kill-steal
2) Do not randomly challenge other players to duels
3) Do not be rude towards other people
4) Do not speak OOC in main chat and avoid abbreviations and smileys
5) Do not shout for nothing at plaza
6) Do not beg for tria or equipment
7) Do not be disrespectful towards other members
8) Do not steal anything from other players

[The explanation of the rules can, like all the rest, be found on the guild's forum. I decided against posting it here though, as it would go beyond the scope. Anyway, I'd like to thank Jooba for his help during the guilds' creation.]

As you're strolling across the plaza, you see a small piece of paper dancing in a balmy evening breeze. Your eyes being caught, you halt watching it winding throught the air, until it finally lands right to your feet. You frown and bend down to pick it up. Giving this piece of paper a baffled look, you realize that both sides of it are empty, except for a black border consisting of clean, curved lines on one of these sides. You shrug, cogitating if this piece of paper happened to be a torn out page of a blank book from Jayose, and you almost threw it away again, when suddenly...




[OOC]

'Yet another stupid duel tournament, *yawn*'

If that's what you're thinking, don't bother reading any further, 'cause you're right: It is indeed just another tournament.

To everyone who is still curious:

This will be the first event I'm going to organize, and thus, I want to keep it simple, so that it's going to run as smooth as possible and without any complications. My next one will be more sophisticated, I guarantee you, but with this one I want to gain first experience in organizing. Nevertheless, I think it'll be thrilling to participate and watch.


The rules:

Like I said, I want it to be simple; and the simplest tournaments go by the following rules:

1) No potions
2) No magic
3) Any armor
4) Any weapons
5) Jumping rule (jumping 3 times before the duel begins)

*6) No use of bugs or glitches, such as the instant-hit-bug.
*7) During the preliminaries, there will be a time restriction for each fight. If the battle hasn't ended after even 5 minutes, it'll be considered a tie, no matter who has more HP left.


I'm sorry to disappoint all the mages, who are starving for another great tournament such as the one, organized by The Way of the Hammer some time ago, but since there are a few bugs related to magic, I decided to keep any spells out of the fights, that could make someone call another person a 'cheater'. My apologies, but I was highly interested in avoiding such ugly and disturbing happenings during the tournament.


The mechanism

Part I ~ Preliminaries

The tournament is dimensioned for 24 participants in total, who are going to be put into 8 groups of 3. In part one of the tournament, each member of a group will fight 2 times against the other 2 members. For each win, they'll get a point. The best 2 of each group will be allowed to enter the knock-out rounds, the 'third best' of each group drops out.

Part II ~ Knock-out rounds

The 16 fighters who were successful in the preliminaries are going to fight eachother in K.O. rounds, which means that a loss will be the end of the tournament for them. The 2 participants of each K.O. round will be determined by principle of contingency. This means, a die roll will decide who will fight against who.


The entry fee

Yes, there will be an entry fee, and with 25,000 trias each person, it might seem somewhat steep at first glance. But please think it over, 25,000 trias is not that much money. A set of plate mail costs about the same. However, the entry fee was purely made up to assure great prizes in the end.


The prizes

With an entry fee of 25,000 trias given by 24 participants, we have a total of incredible 600,000 trias, which are going to be split as following:

1st place:  300,000
2nd place: 200,000
3rd place:  100,000

You see, if you are confident to get a place within the top 3, the prize you'll be rewarded with will be at least 4 times as much as you gave for entering the tournament, so I think everyone who serioulsy thinks to be not too bad of a dueler, will be willing to risk the 100 circles it takes to enter. C'mon now, make an effort.


The location

The location, and name giver of the event, will be the wilderness. To be exact, the tournament is going to be held on Ojaroad 2, right behind the green corridor, when coming from Hydlaa. The reason for why I chose this location for the venue, is that I have been looking for locations with little or no lag to begin with, and the place I chose, happened to provide no lag at all.

This doesn't mean the tournament is going to be free of all lag though, because the only lag I can avoid, is client lag, occuring due to too many objects in a scene. The server lag though, is unpredictable and has nothing to do with the environment, it can happen all the time.


Date and time of the event

I'm aiming for the event to be held on SATURDAY, 6th of October at:

19:00 GMT (UK)
21:00 CET  (Central Europe)
12:00 PST  (Western US)
14:00 CST  (Central US)
15:00 EST  (Eastern US)

(Someone correct me if I converted incorrectly.)

If we don't get 24 participants until that day, the event will be postponed 1 week, time will remain unchanged.

Things that are still missing

At least 1 camera guy, who records the whole event and either cuts it to a great (official) video himself, or passes me the material, so I can do it.

>Assigned to Restound<
-----------------------------------

2 judges, who hold the entry fees and make sure that all fights are going by the rules. (A GM would be appreciated)

>Assigned to [blank]<
-----------------------------------

A bunch of people, who take responsibility for the catering of the participants and the audience. (But without flooding the ground with pies and such, since many objects create the lag I tried to avoid)

>Assigned to Erisnas and his catering service<
-----------------------------------

The sign ups

Now to the sign ups. If you are interested in entering this event, please leave your name here and/or contact me ingame. Once your entry fee was paid, your name will be added to the list at the end of this post. I hope many people are interested and going to help me with making my first event a good one. Thanks in advance!!

~~Rongar


List of participants

Rongar
Stylee
Akashani
Lecay
Shalier
Kezar
Indygo       (not paid yet)
Jolilok
Mordaan
Lupul
Gargaru
Rybbamma
Hideaki
Vesego
Sakmette
Frangelica  (not paid yet)
Lepohi
Kemedes


PS: For paying the entry fee, contact either me directly, or Nargon, my protege.

Greetings!

I've been working on a new skin for PlaneShift. Nothing radically new, just replacing the content of an already existing skin.  I also modified the GUI files to match with the skin, but now I have a problem. I want the writings to be in a certain font and color, and with most files I already succeeded. But there's a handful of files, in which I don't seem to be able to change the color, particularly the files 'configcamera.xml', 'configmouse.xml', 'configkeys.xml' and 'helpwindow.xml'. I added a line to these files, with the exact content for font, size and color, but this line only seems to affect the headers, and in configcamera.xml also the values. The funny thing, the font was correctly attached altogether (even without the additional line, I think).



Any idea on how to get it to work?


Thanks in advance,

~~Rongar

This might have been brought up before, but via search, I didn't find anything similar.

I don't really like the fact that 'you must be grouped with X to attack Y'. I know it has been created to prevent kill stealing, but it's somewhat unlogical. In my opinion, the best would be, if you could request your assitance, by attacking the mob, someone else is already fighting, without the need to group up with the person.

Example:

You see someone fighting an Ulber and want to help him. You target the Ulber and hit your attack shortcut. But instead of getting the denial message, your attack try should let a confirmation box pop up for the person you want to assist. Of course, a pop up is often quite annoying, especially in the heat of battle, and requesting a group has about the same effect. But, if you had the option to macro your confirmation, just like with the PvP request (always accept, ask each time, never accept), you could easily determine your attitude concerning the feature. I for one, would like to have the possibility of providing, aswell as receiving assistance and think, it could be an interesting feature.

Umm, I have another problem, but for exactly the same topic...

I was ingame before, then I crashed with "sever is not responding" message, so I thought it may be a good ol' server crash. After some time, I tried to login again, but in the login-menu I get "fragnetics: failed" and when I ping the server with the option in the updater menu, I get the same.
So I got curious and checked some sites with serverstatistics, like this for example: http://www.psde.de/serverstatistiken
It says the server is up, but I still cannot login. Like I said, I was online before and haven't done any changes in my own system to have caused that problem.

Could anyone help?


PS: I hope this is the right place, to make this post, and I apologize, if not.