nekodracones
nekodracones
Here Be Dragons
39 posts
The stars may fall The moon may sway But wilder are the dragons- here to blaze the night away. Here be dragons, Watch us soar. Here be talons, Hear us roar.
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nekodracones · 4 years ago
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even the stars have fallen to walk amongst us
AN: I wrote this in order to compete in a discord competition.  It was a fun journey, but I’m pretty sure I’m not built for writing long stories.  I don’t post here much, so if you like you can take a look at some of my little poems over at my Sky Instagram.  I’ll probably post all the photos I used to conceptualise the flow of my story there, too.  At some point when I get off my ass.  
Other than that I really wrote this as a way to flesh out all the ideas I’ve had over the two years I’ve been playing sky regarding the hidden forest, since the devs haven’t been giving us much lore to work with.  I considered making another post detailing my specific ideas and head canons, including the title, but I think it’s better to leave everything open ended.  The imagination is a powerful tool, after all.
I hope you have as much fun reading and exploring my story and ideas as I did writing it. :) Thanks for reading!
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So young a body, so old a soul. How many times have you returned hoping to be made whole?
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Awareness came fitfully, and not all at once.  Her limbs curled heavy around her sides, cradling her abdomen as though to protect from her some external impact, or perhaps to protect something within.  It was as if her spirit had gone roaming uninhibited, and had only been drawn back into her body with great reluctance, sinking inexorably into her flesh- as it should be.  For a moment, she lay on the cool rock beneath her, muscles and tendons aching, eyes closed.  She didn’t want to get up.  Above her, the birds chattered noisily, as they always did.  Around her, the night air settled, soothing her tired body. Twin eyes blinked open, bleary.  The little fox struggled to her feet, marvelling at her surroundings, none of which she remembered, and yet at the same time were familiar and comforting in the way that remembered dreams often are.
Ahead of her snaked six paths, twining their way through the frames of six stone arches into six distant horizons that were perhaps too far away to see or perhaps not so far at all, and a throbbing compulsion rose within her to set her feet upon one of the paths that began innocuously at the edge of the stone disc she stood upon.
The first path led into a pale lilac dawn, pale sands blowing onto its little dirt path, and she turned away from it, for the winds blowing from those lands were strong, and she had some impression of not being impressed by them.
The next path led into a cerulean blue morning, rolling green fields spilling out around its little dirt path, and she turned away from it, for she could feel a burning warmth radiating from those lands, and perhaps she would have turned towards it some other day, but tonight the air was crisp about her and the warmth did not appeal.
But the third path led into a dim blue forest, and the quiet twitter of birds and gentle suggestion of a cool breeze drew her towards it, little whispers of sound eddying and curling about her; she turned towards it and set her feet upon the soft loam of its little path, turning away from the other paths.
And so the little fox walked into the wan blue light.
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The sickled slash in the sky bleeds silver tonight. Midnight’s cloak of a thousand stars blesses our journey, casting us in their pale light.
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She walked for perhaps forever or perhaps not so long at all, and in time the air and light began to take on a different quality about her.  It was in this fashion that she came up to the cliff’s edge, where the path crumbled away under her feet.  Ahead of her a spire of pale light shone in the far distance, and she knew deep within her that that was where she must go.  Below her, the cliff fell away into vistas of pale clouds, and emerging amongst them little islands of grass painted in impossibly vivid shades of green, primordial trees reaching into the clouds as though supporting the little aerial path they formed.
The little fox swallowed, and let herself fall.
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For the second time in recent memory, the little fox felt herself blinking awake in an unfamiliar place.  This time, though, she felt hands on her, and a low, thrumming voice bidding her to wake.  She looked up and into the glowing eyes of an antelope, horned and imposing.  Cloaked in what looked like a fine fur cloak, once majestic, but was now not only yellowed with age, but also dripping wet from having carried the little fox out from the puddle she had landed in in her unfortunate crash-landing amongst the trees.
Are you alright? A voice, rumbling with low amusement, spoke not aloud, but rather in her mind. The little fox shook her head, then paused and nodded vigorously.
You may call me Deer, murmured the antelope, still radiating quiet mirth.  It has been a long time since the Weeping Forest has had visitors, let alone one as enthusiastic about their landing as you.  I wonder what you’re doing here?  Most avoid travelling down the path into these lands, whether they know or not.
A good point that the little fox hadn’t really considered when first stepping foot on the path.  She’d really just followed her instinct, then.  She scratched her cheek, unsure.
The deer saw her hesitation, and reached out with a blue-gloved palm.  I’ll come with you, the deer said.  I may not know all that lies beyond, but I’m sure I know more than you.  And it has been a long time since I’ve been able to move through these lands alone.
They walked, hand in hand, towards the gate set in the towering fortress walls, and the deer set a suddenly flaming palm against the crystal embedded within the wall.  With a grinding sound, the gate shuddered open, and the fox and the deer passed through the vestibule, murals glowing golden as they passed.   Boats stacked high with little bottles shone from the carved stone walls, and the pair paused a while to appreciate the artistry.  The deer gestured at the carvings, shrugging.  You won’t find a lot of those here.  Those are used in the Clouded Plains to contain and calm light fragments.  With time, they will grow into stronger shards that can fly further, and further, until they can finally return home.
They took her hand and led her into the courtyard, where she saw stone boats, laden heavy with their burdens, docked neatly at the side but overgrown with moss, as though they had one day been abandoned, forgotten despite their precious cargo.  But her eyes soon turned to a ghostly silver figure crouched in the corner, and at the nod of her deer companion, the little fox headed over to investigate.  
Summon your soul-flame and reach out your hand, advised the deer.  It’s a soul imprint.  Sometimes you can help them, if they let you.  Just as the little fox was about to protest that she did not, in fact, know what a soul flame was, let alone how to summon it, her gut began to grow uncomfortably warm and their hand, outstretched to touch the ghostly spirit, pulsed, suddenly aflame.  
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‘Shit, it’s cold.  Any idea what’s with the odd weather in the Forest today?’ cried Zeynab, shivering.  Josef turned to her, still loading the boats with the jars they had just purchased.  ‘No idea, dear, but let’s go back and grab the last pallet?’   Zeynab sighed.  Of course, her practical husband wouldn’t be wondering about the erratic weather patterns in the forest lately, with rain that chilled her to the bone and seemed to nourish the odd, blue-black plants growing all about.  Her usual merchant had been unusually short with them as well, and she had written off her mood to the worsening weather, but with the increasing number of bruise-coloured plants all about, who knew why it was suddenly raining so much...oh well.
It wasn’t as if a little rain would kill them.
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The little fox came to, surfacing as though from a deep pool, falling to her knees on the damp grass and gasping for breath.  Next to her, the deer was staggering to their feet.  Above her, the female spirit stood, towering over them.
Blind silver eyes turned to the little fox and her companion.  Why are you here?  The spirit made no noise, face still as stone, and yet the little fox heard her voice rasping through her mind.  If you are here for the Forest’s wares, there is nothing left for you here.  We couldn’t escape, but you still can.
The little fox shivered.  She had nothing holding her here beyond her innate curiosity, and the curious pull behind her navel drawing her to the faraway star-touched temple shrouded amongst the clouds.  But she had never been one to turn from a mystery long buried (how would she know?), and so she bowed her head.  There may be nothing left, but I wish to go on.
The spirit was silent for a long time.
Eventually, she lifted a translucent silvery hand.  Take them.  It’s not safe to go alone. Twin white butterflies, bone-white and luminescent, flapped lazily down from above and landed gently upon the spirit’s outstretched hand.  I gift you the blessing of safe passage.  With a light shard, small as it may be, the darkness cannot touch you for as long as you carry it.  Be safe.
With a final rasping breath, the spirit sank into the crystalline dark figure kneeling at their feet, and the little fox and the deer were once again alone in the glade, two butterflies flapping about them.  Solemnly, the deer guided the little fox’s palm to the figure, her own already lit with soulflame.  With a quiet crackle, the figure burned away to a wisp of light, that soared up and away towards the distant temple.
Together, the fox and the deer turned away and pressed their palms to the crystal set within the wall, and watched its growing otherworldly light limning through the cracks between their fingers.  The ancient mechanisms deep within the wall groaned as the gate ground open, and they walked into the darkness.
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The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.
-       Robert Frost
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Soon the dark that enshrouded them faded to gray, and then to pale light, casting the forest floor in pale shafts of light slanting from the fog-hidden canopy above.  Ahead of the pair, a little mud path wound, escorted on both sides by cracked lampposts, standing forlornly stalwart in the rain sheeting down.  
In her mind, the deer murmured, See, here the path ends.  We shall have to fly.  Indeed, the path ahead dropped off rapidly into a burbling brook winding through the forest.  But the little fox had spotted a glint of silvery light in a crumbled gazebo hidden behind the calcified trunk of a tree.  She took the deer’s hand and tugged them insistently towards the spirit, kneeling, barely covered by the eaves of the decayed gazebo.  Her hand, already wreathed in soulflame, brushed the spirit on the crown of her ghostly head.
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It was a bright and sunny day- until it suddenly wasn’t.  Ingrid shivered in the cave tunnel, chilled by the sudden cold rain, and torn between turning back and forging on towards Ana’s little shop.  Her family had needed new lanterns to replace their cracked ones for a while now, and she had put off her duty for long enough.  There should be lanterns ahead to warm her, she thought, but she did so hate walking in the rain, soaked to the bone, not to mention having to wash her dress after dragging it through the mud.
Mud which had been, annoyingly, increasingly common these days as the rain fell in stops and starts; a deluge that was growing to be more or less a fixture in the forest these days.  She had hoped to make use of the clear skies that day to make her purchases, but clearly the weather refused to cooperate.
‘Ingrid? Did you bring an umbrella?’ A voice hailed her from behind.  Shamil!  He had snuck up on her behind, and like the sweetheart he was, had evidently brought her an umbrella.  ‘Take it, it’s really pouring out there today!’   Ingrid smiled at him, something bubbling up happily in her chest, and a rosy flush warming her cheeks.  She had settled down with Shamil a year ago, and he was still as sweet to her as he had been that day they had first met down by the brook.  She bid him goodbye and continued down the little path to Ana’s shop, the rain not so much an inconvenience any longer; instead a pleasant background pitter-patter.
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This time, the little fox simply blinked away the afterimages flitting across the back of her eyelids.  This spirit smiled at them benevolently, and reached out, a single cool palm tucking her sodden hair behind one ear.  
You’re cold, child.  The spirit commented idly, hand still trailing down the little fox’s cheek.  Such wet weather, what were you thinking coming out here without an umbrella?  She considered her little blue umbrella for a while, turning the handle over in her hands.  I suppose you could use this, more than I can, anyway.  It’s not like I’ll ever need it again.  I gift you the blessing of protection.  It shall armour you against the rain, I hope.
Silvered hands pressed the wooden handle of the little umbrella into the deer’s hands, who accepted it gracefully if not with a base expression of mild dubiousness.  Don’t worry so much, child.  Take care of it, my love gave it to me.  Chuckling gently with a voice like a peal of bells, the spirit floated into the dark figure by her feet, and was gone.
The little fox set her palm against the figure, flame burning the figure away to nothingness.  Like before, a wisp of light circled them once, before soaring over their heads towards the temple.
Well, let’s try it out.  The deer carefully opened the umbrella with no little amount of bemusement, and they stepped out down the little dirt path the spirit had been headed in her imprint-memory.
Lo and behold, the umbrella did indeed shield them from the freezing rain, and hence the little fox and the deer  huddled tight under its little circle of protection.  About them, the two little butterflies circled, content to flit about in the rain.
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In no time at all they came upon a cave opening; where yet another silvery spirit knelt by a cluster of extinguished wax candles.  The pair wasted no time lighting the spirit- they knew the drill by now.  The familiar perspective change that descended upon them was no surprise either.
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‘Damn it, when will this cursed rain stop?  Zeynab and Josef promised to stop by hours ago and they’re still not here.  How am I supposed to make a living like this?’ fumed Ana, resident Silent Forest shopkeeper.  Zey and Josef were a nice couple, she supposed, but absolutely mercenary with haggling.  She was barely making a profit trading the last of her light-concentration jars to them, especially with the Plains (or Prairie, as some of the newer denizens were calling it) nearly having satisfied their demand for those damned jars.
Really, she made a living off fulfilling the needs of others, but some of these requests were getting more outlandish by the day.  Call her a traditionalist, but all these nonstop newfangled inventions couldn’t possibly be just created from thin air, right?  She supposed she wouldn’t know, though.  Best to leave the planning to the experts.
For now, she would sit here a while by her little fire, gaze out at the deluging rain, and...well, she was pretty tired.  Perhaps she could just close her eyes for a while…
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This spirit gazed at them out of flaming golden eyes, regarding them calmly, a stark contrast to her irate visage earlier.  Ah, visitors.  You’re too late to buy anything from me, young ones, but I can offer you a dry place to stay for a while.
The little fox blinked up apprehensively at the wrinkled face of the shopkeeper.  Thank you, she hedged, but we’re moving on soon.  
The rain never stops.  It makes little difference to dry off now, supplied the deer.  The little fox snuck a glance up at the deer and smiled at them gratefully.  The spirit had been so, so angry- she wasn’t good with anger.
Fortunately, the spirit took no offense, or if she did, she hid it well.  Fair enough.  But you won’t leave Ana’s shop empty handed!  At this, the spirit turned away, and when she turned back, she had retrieved a wrapped bundle from one of the cases behind her, and offered it to the fox child.  
Take this, small fox-child.  The spirit, gently smiling, bent towards the little fox, unfolding the bundle to reveal a shimmering blue-green cape, material ethereal and smooth as gossamer silk; and yet held a comforting solidity.  Your cape is thin, but the rain chills, and the least I can do is to gift you the blessing of warmth, such that the flame within you shall be stoked for a longer time.
At this, the spirit flicked her eyes amusedly at the deer.  And you, deer-child.  Your cape is more than thick enough, but you too shall feel the sting of this cursed rain dulled.
The deer dipped its snout, acknowledging, but turned from her and plucked the gifted cape from the little foxes hands and draped it about her.  The cape, heavy against her little frame, wrapped around the little fox, and she spun around, causing the cape to flare out, admiring how it glimmered in the dim light. It fits you.  I’m glad.  The spirit clapped her hands together, her light waning gradually, until she too was gone, and they were once again alone with a darkness-encrusted figure.
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Over the burbling brook they clambered; and under yet another shattered bridge they took shelter.  The rain pelted them, but with the blessing of warmth they barely felt it; and the umbrella caught the worst of it.
Shall we continue? Asked the deer, very low.  Or shall we forge our path into that cave by the brook?  I can hear the living rocks screeching; and they only screech where there is fallen prey to feed on.  
The little fox said nothing, but she entangled her hand with theirs, which was good enough an answer.  The darkness plant withered under their twin flames, and they were in the cave.
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It had been a long time.  
Here in the darkness Lucim knew no day or night, and only restless sleep took her, sometimes, unwillingly and into the land of dreams, only to jerk her awake again, breathing hard, listening too-intently to the shifting of the deep earth beneath her.  It was nothing, as always.
A lifetime ago she had been playing with the other village children, secreting herself away in the nooks and crannies of the Silent Forest she knew best.  They never could find her.   But one day the earth she had run upon for so long had opened up and swallowed her, and now...she had been hidden better than she could ever have herself, and they never would find her.
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The little girl-spirit leapt to her feet.  I’m free!  Oh, thank you, thank you, I’m going to return to Ama and Apa and they will be so happy to see me!  She grabbed the deer’s hands and swung them around, laughing mirthfully.  Oh, travellers, you are kind.  I shall gift you the greatest blessing, the blessing of youth, such that your feet can carry you further and more swiftly, and your breath shall not grow short, for as long as you determine it not to.
With a final peal of laughter, the little girl was gone.
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The gazebo receded behind them into the fog, and the little fox and the deer, huddled under the umbrella, forged on through the trees and over the little outcroppings on the ground, rocks overgrown with moss.  It was a hard journey, and even with the little girl-spirit’s blessing, the deer, much stronger, had to stop for the little fox.
Eventually they came upon a plateau overgrown with lichen, but the calcified fungi above provided a watertight shelter for the pair.  Here the ground was still wet, but less of a marsh, and as they settled, chests heaving with exertion, the loamy soil crunching below their tired bodies with a clean, sweet aroma.
The little fox drew her fingers through the earth and brought a handful up to sniff at it, turning to the deer in silent questioning.  The forest had clearly once been beautiful and less…wet-
The deer bowed their head somberly, considering the umbrella laying in their lap.  It used to be simply the Silent forest.  When I was still new to this world I traversed these lands freely, all alone and yet without fear.
The spirits sang with all the songs of the wind that whistled through these verdant forests, and from the trees sprang new growth young and verdant; blossoms and leaves falling like snow and growing green and golden in turn with the ponderous rising and setting of the sun and his moon.  The grass came in thick, emerald green, and heralded the eternal springtime you could find amongst these peaceful woodlands.  These glades used to be a nursery for light fragments to fuse and grow larger, and stronger, and then journey from these lands on to harsher ones, passing untouched into the heavens.  
To the naked eye it looked something like a continuous stream of shining birds, glowing in the sky like the Milky Way, rising on unseen currents and soaring towards that faraway temple up above.  Below, the burbling brook mirrored the birds winging their way past high above, winding between the ancient trunks of the trees.  Little butterflies flitted about tall grasses and glowing spirit fungi alike.  Beyond these glades; an open courtyard leading up to the temple corralled little spirit mantas until they were amalgamated enough to fly on into the Triumphant Ridges.
But such a rich font of growth had to be hiding some treasure, reasoned the elders.  Everything comes from something- so the Silent Forest must contain natural riches untold- and it did.  Everyone wanted something.  The Clouded Plains wanted jars to capture their light fragments, the Triumphant Ridges blessed gold to craft their monuments, the Golden Sands colossal arks to explore their vast shores, and the Sacred Archives their darkstone to power their mechanisms.
Only the Isle Guardian turned away from them, his old face grave and wrinkled in concern- or perhaps sorrow.  ‘Everything comes at a cost.  The crust of this soft, borrowed world has gifted us many boons freely- to sup so hungrily at her lifeblood today is foolish.  Tomorrow, she shall run dry.’
If only they had listened.
Silently, the deer raised its head.  I have walked these woods a long time.  All I have accompanied into these grasping trees have perished in one way or another, and yet none of them regret embarking on their journey.  All I can do is ease their way, and hope and strive to bring one of them to the end one day.  And eventually you children have stopped coming entirely, whether due to those whispers that all who enter these gates are doomed to death, or perhaps the spirits here have simply stopped calling for new blood.  The deer raised a hand, and a butterfly settled, gently on their finger.  But not one of them has thought to relive these spirits; fearing that whatever rot had petrified them would infect them too.  I have hope, once more.  Let us go.
Here, the deer reached out a hand to the little fox, and the little fox propped herself up, ready to take their hand, when suddenly the lichen-covered rock she had been sitting on gave way, and she fell back, back, back- a panicked shout in her mind from the deer- until the world turned inside out all about her and she fell to the end of time.
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By the golden light of your soul-borne flame The fallen have risen again in their silvered ranks, Clad in their eternal truth, shining.
And they shall stand up once more to say- ‘We never deserved these deaths, Rent open by hidden knives To feed the darkness hungering below’
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I’m dead, thought the little fox, the certainty a thorned bud aching in her chest.  She had fallen from a great height, after all, and her surroundings were so unfamiliar and lovely it was simply impossible that she was still in the forest.  Next to her, the deer groaned as they peeled themselves off the ground they had slammed into facefirst, gingerly picking soil off their furry cape, now even more dirtied than before.  The little fox felt a pang of guilt.  She hadn’t meant to kill her guide alongside her with her clumsiness…
But the deer was already gaping up at the forest, eyes glittering strangely in the light.  It’s the forest of old.  Look, look how alive it is.  They whispered reverently, gazing upwards.  The little fox looked.
Here the cloud canopy was higher than it was elsewhere, and bright sunlight filtered unhindered by clouds, through the primordial trees, down onto the verdant forest floor hundreds of metres below.  From the trees sprang new growth young and verdant; blossoms and leaves falling like snow and presumably growing green and golden in turn with the ponderous rising and setting of the sun and his moon.  The grass came in thick, emerald green, and heralded the eternal springtime found amongst these peaceful woodlands.  The open glades were a nursery for light fragments, which flittered about, glowing silver and golden and all the iridescent colours of the rainbow.
To the naked eye it looked something like thousands of fireflies, glowing golden sparks in the pale wan light about the bases of the ancient trees, circling idly.   Below, tangerine-orange fishes darted merrily in the spring burbling below, encircled on all sides by softly swaying grass, little flowers blooming amongst them.
Fox and deer alike stood in wondering amazement, drinking in the dreamlike beauty of the glade, so different from the drowned woodlands they had just left.  With hushed reverence they crept through the sunlit glade, shocked into silence.  
As they walked, the glade grew darker about them and the trees seemed to bend over them into a bower, and ahead- there was yet another hollow in a great tree trunk, as though the tree itself had been split open by some unseen force and carefully turned inside out, carefully revealing the hole in its core that descended down into the formless dark.  From deep below the clarion call of a distant beast called, and the strange pull behind her navel tugged her forward- and down.
The little fox swallowed hard, commended her soul to the elders high above, and leapt.
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The stars may fall, The moon may sway, But wilder yet is my call. We the dragons- let us blaze this night away.
We begin here, while birdsong trills, Here animals frolic, clear waters flow. But let us soar over those faraway hills Into the wilderness where no men dare go.
Before velvet darkness turns to day, Let us run wild and free tonight.
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Sliding through the stone chamber was fun, but bouncing to a stop at breakneck speed less so.  Soft grass broke her fall, and she skidded, inadvertently tearing up the grass as she went- until she crashed into the deer headfirst.  Kinetic energy turned into the sharp pain of the jab of golden horns into her side, and they rolled together to a stop.  
The deer huffed, winded by the weight of an entire fox, small as she may be, landing upon them like they were a convenient mattress, but quickly brushed themselves off, offering a hand to the abashed fox as they went.
You have a talent for unfortunate landings, fox, the deer mused.  But look ahead- butterfly jars!   The jars lay, abandoned and rolled onto their sides; some had cracked open, and around, butterflies teemed, a wild swarm basking in the patch of sunlight shining down from high above.  The butterflies that the first spirit had gifted them flew up and forward to join their brethren, chiming happily, and the pair followed.
If one called to light fragments, most would happily carry you above, so long as your voice was deep enough such that they could hear you.  Yet another non-memory rose like a surfacing fish to the top of the clouded pool of the little fox’s memories.  With this in mind, she called to the butterflies with her voice of chiming bells, accompanied by the deer’s deeper, more melodious call, and the butterflies swarmed about around them and carried them to the high ledge above.
The platform sloped sharply ahead and then dropped into a sharp cliff leading into a sea of clouds; perfectly even, fluffy, and white- and a long distance down.  Slim spires of earth protruded out of the clouds, topped with a dusting of verdant green grass.  All about the cavern; birds glided amongst the formations, casting the entire location in an ethereal silvery light, which was no small feat.  The scale of the cavern was large enough that it was difficult to judge it’s true size, and even as she stepped forward further into the strange warm light the entire cavern seemed to be bathed in, when the clouds suddenly burst apart and a colossal coelacanth rose from the depths, even it looked oddly stretched and faraway amongst the clouds.
The coelacanth emerged in a rolling blast of cool air, and with a sonorous boom that ripped through the cavern and through the two travellers, who subsequently had the breath blown out of them.  It towered high above them like some sort of oversized dragon; oddly misshapen and color mottled in the golden light, which glinted over remnant scales dotting over its massive flanks.  Wispy trails of clouds trailed behind it; caught upon its numerous ridges.  For something so large, it was surprisingly silent and mobile; soon it had wound its way about all the odd islands of earth stacked high, and vanished into the depths of the vast cavern.
I don’t know what that was, breathed the deer, reverent.  Something so large… it’s odd that it hasn’t made its way into further realms.  Creatures of the light are always drawn ever closer towards the greatest source of light in the heavens.
I wouldn’t know either, the little fox whispered back.  Any chance it’s just a benevolent coincidence?
Likely not.  I’ve never seen any creature of light that colour,  The deer murmured, grave.  We should continue on, with haste.
The little fox and the deer leapt off the cliff and took wing, rising with the air currents, and at the top of the cavern, they finally landed on a plateau on the tallest pillar of stone in the cavern.
Above them hung a perfect sphere, luminescent with blinding warm light so piercing it was almost painful to the eye.  It...simply hung in the air, a miniature sun warming all that its light touched.  The little fox gazed up at it in wonderment, but the deer grabbed her hand and dragged her, with haste, towards the gates ahead, as though afraid of that innocuous, yet inexplicable miniature sun hanging above the Sunny Forest.
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Imagine a room, a sudden glow- A sunbeam gaze blessing all the creatures far below Blind forevermore
☾ °☆ . * ● ¸ . ★ . •
Here there had evidently been a landslide, for the earth that the little fox gingerly toed at was loose in large chunks, and the tree above them looked rather like it was clinging onto the sheer mountainside precariously, roots mostly exposed and dangling off the edge.  With trepidation, the pair peered off the cliff and down into the floodplains below.  There was nothing for it; they would have to go down.
Ahead of them, the temple loomed huge and imposing, and far below the crumbled ruins of pavilions dotted the flooded landscape, with many half submerged in the marshy ground below.  Quite used to jumping off high ledges now, the little deer and the fox threw themselves off the edge, and landed, crouched, in the silty marsh down below.   There was a darkness sprout ahead, glinting oddly.  Ever curious, the little fox stepped out of the umbrella’s protective shade for a closer look- a manta lay, contorted and thrashing weakly, bright white light suffused and dimmed, choked by the growth of the darkness from its tender wings.  She gasped, for her travels through the lifeless, rain soaked woodlands earlier had taught her she would not find anything still alive in these wetlands.
The deer, who had followed her over in a bid to find out what had drawn her over, clucked in sympathy.  Together, they burnt the darkness away and freed the little manta, which circled about them in delight, before flapping its way gently over to a concealed alcove cut in the rock face.  Here; the darkness had grown neatly over a hole- big enough to admit us, the little fox guessed.  Perhaps it wants us to save its brethren within!
But inside the cave was nothing but a spirit, kneeling alone within.
☾ °☆ . * ● ¸ . ★ . •
Once upon a time, down in one of the deep dark caves of the Silent Forest, there were five orichalcum miners hard at work in their subterranean mine.  Orichalcum, an ore regarded with such high value as to be near-mythical, was treasured in the kingdom for its ability to project a subject’s wildest dreams into solid reality.  Many teams had been sent out hoping to strike gold (or better), but theirs were one of the only ones to find a thin vein of the ore leading deep into the earth.
Work in the mine was hard.  Dust clouded the air in the dig site; and the air was noxious, so heavy it was nearly tangible.  They spent fourteen hours at a time seeking out miniscule scraps of the ore, and five hours resting in small rock alcoves they had carved out in the cave walls with their own pickaxes.  It was hard in the start.  Some miners escaped, yelling that they couldn’t take slogging away amongst the fumes any longer, and were sent home with nothing to show for their toil.  The rest may have silently agreed with them, but none of them wanted to be dismissed without their pay.  Slowly, they learned to make peace with the endless slog their existence had become; chipping at the walls daily with little hope of being sent home to rest until they had collected all the orichalcum possible.  It simply wouldn’t be economical to spare any of the dig teams that had been sent out, searching for rare minerals in the Forest, after all.
Days, weeks, or perhaps even months into their idyllic existence, the daily monotony of their lives were suddenly disturbed by an ominous judder of rock, debris raining down from above.  The miners all looked up- they were deep within the earth, what could possibly have caused an impact so great it had shaken the cavern walls?- and it was then that a massive blackened appendage punched a hole neatly through the top of the cavern and through the solid stone frame bracing the cave entrance.
Almost immediately, chunks of detritus falling from somewhere high above landed with a tremendous boom; neatly sealing off the newly-made hole- as well the airholes they had so carefully drilled in the cavern roof a lifetime ago.  To make matters worse, the cave entrance had begun to sprout florets of malignant blue-black Darkness.  The miners drew back.  Everyone knew the Darkness released spores into the air almost immediately after budding, and everyone who breathed them in would inevitably succumb to the fatal wasting disease, black death.  They needed a new air source, stat.
‘We shall have to dig ourselves out from the other end, go under the rubble, and hope we emerge in a safe location,’ cried Elsad, one of the more assertive miners.  The other miners all looked at each other.  It wasn’t as though any of them really had any other better ideas, and they were on a clock here.  In unison, they focused their efforts on the western wall of the cavern; where the floor was higher and they were hence less likely to hit bedrock.  
They never hit bedrock.  Water erupted out of the new hole they had dug into a hidden aquifer; dislodging the loose rock about the hole, which crumbled into a massive cave collapse.  By the time the dust cleared, three of them had been crushed by the rubble.  There was nothing Elsad and the other miner could do for them, but comfort them as they feebly breathed their lasts.
Now they were only two, and their only hope of escape was either through an aquifer or through the unknown amount of rubble and Darkness crushing the cave entrance.
They sat down and waited for death to come.  But Death is a cruel master, and Elsad soon noticed that her companion, bruised blue-black, had been unusually silent for a while.  But when she turned to him, it was already too late.  The Darkness had claimed him, too, and Elsad was alone in the cave.  Cursing the heavens, she curled up in her little alcove.
About her, the water rose.
☾ °☆ . * ● ¸ . ★ . •
There was nothing to say.  The spirit bowed her head, silvery tears still dripping down her face, and raised her hands in silent supplication.
Please, free me, she cried, softly.  Let me go back home.  All I ever wanted was to go back home.  May you be blest with my gift, the blessing of empathy, such that you may find and bring all our lost souls home.  With yet another feeble cry, the spirit shrank into herself, fading into the darkness-encrusted body kneeling behind her.
The little fox reached down and took the body’s cold hands in hers.  Be free, she thought, hoping with all her might, as her vivid darkness waned into a pale light.
★ ° . . . ☾ °☆ . * ● ¸ . ★ . • ○ ° ★ . * . . ° . ● . ° ☾ °☆ 
They left the tear-stained cavern behind them, following the manta as it led them steadily across the silted courtyard and circled back on occasion to warm them with its pure light.  The deer hoisted the umbrella higher, in the hopes that it could be saved from the occasional mud splatter as they slogged through the marsh.  They had clearly long given up on their fur cloak; for it hung damp, mud-stained, more brown than yellow, and more yellow than   white.  The little fox trailed behind, sodden despite the deer’s best efforts, and too tired to even try to keep her gifted cape clean.
Beneath a ruined bridge they found yet another manta, which, once freed, seemed content to circle about their little group, dipping and weaving between their legs.  Up and over the bridge’s ruined pavilion they clambered, and took a brief reprieve beneath the eroded roots of the calcified white skeletons of the massive trees dotted everywhere about the landscape.
And through a pair of hollowed tree trunks the travellers found a pair of kneeling spirits, wrapped about each other as though deriving comfort from their incorporeal embraces.
☾ °☆ . * ● ¸ . ★ . •
‘I’m telling you, there’s something seriously wrong with the trees!’, Voski whined, tugging on Leyla’s cape.  ‘You’re telling me this fungal calcification looks normal to you?’
Leyla snorted, forcefully plucking Voski’s grasping fingers off her cape one by one.  ‘You’re asking me?  Besides, you’re the tree expert, go tell me more about how the trees going through an occasional dry spell as they do every few moons is anything special.’ ‘It’s not a dry SPELL at this point, it’s a dry SEASON, Leyla.’
‘Big deal.’
In a huff, Leyla stormed off.  Voski was really too worried about the wrong things, she thought.  The real concern here was how the number of light creatures in the Silent Forest seemed to be falling steadily with no replenishment.  She would like to hope that they were simply migrating away as always, but if the trees were truly ailing as Voski said… perhaps something was truly wrong.
The trees towered mighty above, as they always did.  Melodious birdsong floated through the Forest, as they always did.  Ahead, the pavilion path up to the temple shone bright, lanterns lit at every gazebo, and though the courtyards were flooded by the neverending rain; the land still shone bright under the light of the sun far above.  
A thunderous crash interrupted her thoughts, and the little bird she had been idly tracking through the hollowed trunks chimed its displeasure and took off, joining its brethren in the overcast skies.
She turned towards where Voski had been, fuming.  ‘VOSKI.  I THOUGHT YOU SAID YOU WANTED TO PROTECT THE TREES.’  Between them, a newly fallen tree lay, calcified, bald trunk incongruous amongst the lush greenery.  Voski, herself shell-shocked, threw herself onto the ground ahead of Leyla.  
‘I’m so sorry! Are you hurt? I was only tapping the tree to check the bark for any faults,’ she cried, reaching for Leyla, who brushed her aside.
‘Don’t ask about me.  Look at this.’
Together, they stared down at the tree, once towering mighty over the Silent Forest, but now entirely rotted hollow within.
☾ °☆ . * ● ¸ . ★ . •
The two spirits, arm in arm, met their eyes somberly.  We were only checking on the health of our forest, they said, voices as one.  It looked fine, but we never thought that it would have rotted through.
The forest they set their eyes upon now was nothing like the forest the spirits had known.  Where before, the trees had stood proud above; now many of them were splintered in the trunk, or stood as mere stumps, monuments to a glorious path.  The sky was dark with fog; and no birdsong filtered through the forest any longer.  The pavilions from whence they had came stood ruined and strangled within florets of darkness.
They turned to the moss-covered tree behind them.  But by the time we knew, it was too late.  When they turned back, their eyes were filled with sorrow.
The hunter placed one hand on each of their foreheads.  I gift you with the blessing of foresight, such that you may see through this damned fog as we once did.  
The lumberjack, however, raised her hands to her own head, and, reverently removing her crown, pressed it into the deer’s hands.  A token of passage, she explained.  You’ll need this to enter the temple.  Take good care of it for me! With tearful smiles, the spirits sank into their darkened bodies.
★ ° . . . ☾ °☆ . * ● ¸ . ★ . • ○ ° ★ . * . . ° . ● . ° ☾ °☆ 
To the left, a massive, toppled tree lay.  Wordlessly, the deer grasped the little fox’s hand and dragged her past it, soaring high above, where the birds once had, in the lumberjack and hunters’ memories.  I saw something that wasn’t there...before, they murmured thoughtfully, which really didn’t answer much.  Clearly much had changed in the forest.
The deer touched down gently in a decrepit pavilion, boots making a clacking noise against the slick stone of the foyer.  The whale skeleton.  It’s hard to kill these giant beasts; I wonder what could have.  As with everything else, the skeleton was overgrown with darkness plants, emanating a bilious sense of wrongness.  It didn’t quite seem right to leave them as they were, even on a creature so long dead as the whale, and so together, the little fox and the deer bent over, silently burning them off.  The mantas circled anxiously about them as they worked.
Finally, the bones shone white and pearlescent once more, and-
☾ °☆ . * ● ¸ . ★ . •
Once upon a time, in a silent forest in a realm stripped of her treasures by man’s greedy fingers, there lay a vast silty marsh of waste, composed of the noxious fumes pouring from a hundred busy mines all around, the discarded slag pouring from the smithy high above, and the trash of all the men who had begun to traverse through her vast expanses.  Borne of the myriad pollution pouring into the green clearings of the forest, this marsh was so bilious and foul that it had necessitated the building of the pavilion bridge above to allow safe passage to the temple above.
In these lands there are many old wives’ tales that float about, the bread and butter of many dinner-table conversations, shared only to be dismissed easily by most who hear them.  But the older men and women used to say- for every beloved object, it would need only ten years to grow an awareness, a hundred years to grow a soul, and a thousand years to grow a sentience.  And everyone knows that all living things are comprised of body, spirit, and soul, and anything with a defective soul will begin to decay, poisoning the spirit and body alike.
But the truth of these two statements is that an emotion in the opposite direction would have very much the same effect on the manifestation of a soul, and that a living thing only needs a soul, while the other two can be...sourced.
And so the marsh, neglected for so long, began to hunger for attention.  First it sank deep within the burbling brook, and, fed into the verdant trees, instead began to draw the vitality out of them, taking indulgent tastes of their well-fed spirits, given so much attention and oh so revered by their local communities.  When the trees were empty and dead; with even the fungi calcified into vague memories of their earlier shapes, the marsh was satisfied for a while.
But not for long.  Next it began to drown unsuspecting light creatures, reaching primitive tentacles up from within the water, wrapping its around hapless prey, and drawing them down into the deep.  With their glimmering spirits augmenting its mass, the marsh was satisfied for a while.
But not for long.  Men themselves began to disappear, and locals started to warn each other to stay away from the river, for strange things happened if you stayed too long.  The marsh, of course, had simply been plucking unfortunates from the riverbank as its fancied meal of choice.  With their rich spirits augmenting its mass, the marsh was satisfied for a while.
And one day the marsh found a thrashing light creature caught amongst a cluster of darkness plants.  A gentle light whale, which soon found it’s grisly demise within the eldritch abomination that the marsh had become.  
With its pure, strong spirit, and its massive, sturdy skeleton, the whale was the last spirit the marsh ever consumed, for it was all that was needed to birth the Leviathan as a being that had claimed enough lives to form an amalgamation- a patchwork spirit and borrowed skeleton, strong enough to seek out the temple far above- for it had smelt the scent of the mightiest spirit high above, a familiar stink entangled deep within its decaying bones, and its patchwork soul throbbed in its swollen need, and hungered to consume it.
(Just like how the spirit had once consumed her own home and spat it back up, aching, forgotten, below her own temple.)
☾ °☆ . * ● ¸ . ★ . •
Her voice sounded different.  A voice of chiming bells it was no longer, but now a sonorous wail. The whale call was mighty, and the mantas heard its call, carrying the little fox and the deer up towards the temple, where they were gently deposited.
Ahead, two stone doors loomed, and where they split neatly down the middle, an empty socket awaited.  Gingerly, the little fox placed the diamond crown carefully into the hole, and it sank into the stone with a clink and a scrape- and when the doors opened, it was not with a scrape but with a sky, as though it had been waiting for their arrival for a long, long time.
Together, they clasped each other’s hands and walked into the nothingness.  They walked for perhaps forever or perhaps not so long at all, and in time the air and light began to take on a different quality about them.
★ ° . . . ☾ °☆ . * ● ¸ . ★ . • ○ ° ★ . * . . ° . ● . ° ☾ °☆ 
Once, the hidden forest had a mother, A mother who never grew old. With a smile of sunshine, And a heart molded of pure gold. In her eyes two flaming stars, Upon her head a cold forged crown. Strong arms swinging a celestial hammer, But always gentle when setting it down.
But that golden heart was broken long ago. So now you shall see- When you visit her, Kind she will not be.
☾ °☆ . * ● ¸ . ★ . •
In a land before time, or perhaps in a land that came so long after time that the space around her had forgotten what it felt like, the fox and the deer walked, and walked, and walked.  About them shadowy memories of trees rustled, a susurration of a million quiet voices threading through their ghostly leaves and whispering in their ears.  Ahead of them a figure far distance knelt bowed over -shimmering and waning in some pale, unearthly light.  It never seemed to grow any larger, but after an indeterminate amount of time it raised a staff, face still downturned, and the trees drew apart before them with a sigh-
All at once the little fox realized that her sense of perspective had been entirely wrong, and the figure was a titanic woman towering over them, at once both a million miles away and an arm’s length away, and the staff was not a staff at all but rather a golden hammer, metal cracked and stained dark.  But the woman’s face was the most terrifying of all, for where in all the other spirits two flame-bright eyes had resided, her eyesockets held only fathomless dark, and where a mouth had been was now a bloodied gash, and on either side her high, regal cheeks had been smashed and her nose broken.  Down her arm, hanging at an odd angle, black blood dripped freely from ugly gouges, and her dress had been torn open, lacerations rent by some beast down her chest and opening her belly like a flower- the little fox stopped looking.  The room stank of ichor and slag.  And when she looked in their direction, she smiled.  It was not a kind smile.
★ ° . . . ☾ °☆ . * ● ¸ . ★ . • ○ ° ★ . * . . ° . ● . ° ☾ °☆
Once upon a time, in a silent forest in a realm unmolested by man’s greedy fingers, a wise queen presided over her kingdom.  Here was a land where flowers bloomed beneath the boughs of flourishing shrubs and glowing fungi, where birds sang and creatures frolicked, where a brook burbled happily as it wound its way beneath the roots of ancient trees.  Her open glades nursed many a light fragment on their journey into harsher realms, and songs of her people and beasts alike filled the gentle winds with joy.  
High above the queen in her smithy smiled, and her soul, pulsing gently within her, shone all the brighter, casting all the lands in its protective light, which shielded all from the darkness lurking beyond her realm’s borders.
But even the wisest of men are men, in the end, and men are hungry things, always grasping for more, more, more.  Bounty exists solely for the plundering, the High Council said, and the queen was only too happy to allow her councilmen to do so, for they paid her a handsome price for her services, which she turned into infrastructure improvements for her people, for after all, she was a kind queen, and she cared for her people, but not so much her land.  
In time her kingdom began to hear whispers of something stealing her men away, in the dark, dragging them down and away into the deepest parts of the little forest brook, and she spared no expense sending men to seek out the perpetrator, for after all, hers was a rich kingdom now, natural bounty spent for untold riches.
But she never could.  How could she, when the culprit may as well have been the forest itself, given form and risen again from amongst her buried sins to punish them for their pride?  For all that she and her men searched, they never suspected that the forest itself would turn against them.  All about them, the forest itself began to weep, for it knew that the root of its evil could not be excised.
Until one night, the Leviathan rose out of the waters of the oil-slicked marshes below the temple and roared its furious challenge with an earthshattering scream.
☾ °☆ . * ● ¸ . ★ . •
I didn’t know I was going to live until I had Crossed the oil slicked sands, Clasping a single accompanying hand.
I didn’t know I was going to live until I had Driven the cracked fragments of my staff through its skull And pinned it, thrashing, into the wastelands, Bright eye going dull.
It may already have killed me, and I didn’t know if I was going to live, Even after it had gasped it’s final breath, twitching.
And so I fell to the ground, Spent and shivering.
But still I didn’t want to die Unless I had spent myself down to my cold stone core, Until my limbs gave way, Until my heart refused to beat.
Until I had bought my victory With a thousand years of remembered pain, For a thousand more forgotten souls.
And so I grasped your offered hand And drove my staff into its dragonheart once more.
☾ °☆ . * ● ¸ . ★ . •
For ten days and ten nights they battled across the skies, light against dark, perfectly matched.  One, two, a hundred trees fell, crushed under the weight of their violent celestial battle, and still they fought on.  The queen lost count of how many times she had thrown, or been thrown by the massive shapeless beast.  Her mighty hammer blocked the blows of the Leviathan countless times, but she had not escaped its fury, for now her right arm hung useless and dripping ichor at her side, and her stomach had been torn open and she was losing her strength fast.
(Down below, rocks from the Leviathan’s most recent meeting with a cliff face showered down upon one little miner’s hole)
But the queen had the wisdom of experience and the sorrow of years of mourning her subjects backing her, and, with an effort, she finally regained the upper hand over the spirit.  But her body was torn, crushed, and abused beyond the hope of any semblance of repair, and she knew then, that if she failed in her final blow, she would not have a chance again.
And so she heaved her celestial hammer high above her, and, infused with the power of her ancient soulflame, brought it squarely down upon the single massive eye of the Leviathan.
Soulflame met bright eye and fused in a burst of flame, which ripped down the amorphous dark of the body of the Leviathan, golden light racing through the cracks in its body.  With a pained roar the Leviathan crumbled apart into three- a golden light swept past and up towards the heavens, a silvery, massive spirit- body, revealed under its shapeless dark, flung unceromoniously in the direction of the hammer’s swing, and a whale skeleton, freed from its prison, tumbled into the marshes below.  The Leviathan’s eye, shining like a sun, was flung alongside the Leviathan’s spirit towards the edge of the forest, where darkness lurked and no man dared tread.
But the queen saw none of this, for her body too had succumbed to its injuries, falling down into the smithy where she had spent so many days ruling over her golden kingdom.  Her body, devoid of soul but not of spirit, lay lifeless in her throne room, the beginning of its slow torturous decay.  Around her, the kingdom began to crumble.  She did not hear the screams of her subjects as they were swallowed- for without her soul to light the way, the pollution and darkness, taken on a life of its own, could not and would not be stopped.
Above, the rain kept falling.
☾ °☆ . * ● ¸ . ★ . •
So at long last I have visitors to my glorious domain, declared the woman, face upturned, arms spread wide and gesturing up at what must have once been a truly glorious room.  She seemed to not notice her injuries, or how as she moved, her dress slipped further, catching on the exposed bone of her broken arm, heavy with the stink of ichor that dripped down and ran into the water pooled around her podium.  Welcome!  I have waited long and eager for you.
The deer pushed the little fox behind them, hiding them from view.  Your majesty.  We are honoured to be in your exalted presence, he intoned, bowing deeply.  But the little fox saw the tension in the line of their back, and their grip on her arm was white-knuckled and trembling.
You have just what I needed, she murmured, smiling her too-wide smile.  Don’t hide it, bring it here.  I would have a look at it.  The woman trailed her fingers slowly across the hammer at her side.  I don’t want to ask twice.
Still the deer bowed, and in a steady voice, they answered, This one is honoured by the request, but it is no treasure, merely an untested child.  Here they raised their hands to their chest- I am a soul who has wandered this earth for a hundred years before the Darkness came and took what was yours from you, and have wandered a thousand years since.  Surely I am enough.
The woman snorted.  How dull.  I can’t use your old, dim soul.  I suppose you will make me ask twice.  In the space of one heartbeat and the next, she had crossed the chamber, and, twirling her hammer with the ease of one long-practiced, she flung the deer into a wall, where their surprised yell had cut into a croak and gurgle of blood upon impact, leaving them crumpled to the floor.  They did not move again.
The little fox, who had leapt, crying out, towards her fallen companion, was suddenly flung in the opposite direction onto the podium, caught by the handle of the golden hammer, and struggled, crushed beneath a colossal weight, pinned helplessly.  Above her two claw-tipped hands reached, and she gasped, for in the space between her ribs the bright soul had begun to crackle painfully, drawn upwards towards a being so powerful and painfully devoid of one-
The little fox closed her eyes.
The fallen queen closed her palms about the flame, snuffing it out.
☾ °☆ . * ● ¸ . ★ . •
All about the latticed windows set high in the walls slammed open, sending golden sunlight shafting into the forgotten throne room, and the bells flanking the great stone doors, silent for so long, began their sonorous tolling, and the doors slid open with a mighty scraping.
All the creatures of light, locked out of their home for so long, began to spill into the throne room, clamouring in their myriad voices. In the midst of the chaos the queen sat, stricken, singed hands stinging.  Above her a newly forged darkstone diamond shone, adamant and burning with the light of a new soul.  Below her two bodies lay, lifeless.  In her face two flame-bright eyes gleamed with a strange wetness.
★ ° . . . ☾ °☆ . * ● ¸ . ★ . • ○ ° ★ . * . . ° . ● . ° ☾ °☆ 
At the end of the world There lies a fallen star Memories of shining moments Crumbling like stardust.
☾ °☆ . * ● ¸ . ★ . •
These days, if you visit the Hidden Forest, you shall find that the corruption has stopped.  Why? No one knows.  Still it rains, but the air smells of growing things and petrichor, and the water does not sap at your strength.  You may meet a deer guide accompanied by two spirit mantas, who will smile at you and tell you that sometimes, you do not need to be great to do great things, and you do not need to be brave to be courageous.  You may meet a titan, diving through the air in a slow, momentous descent in a hidden cavern far beneath the earth, with its own little sun casting the chamber in eternal sleepy afternoon light.  Far below the calcified trees a little brook winds its way through the woodlands, burbling merrily on its way into a vast flood plains, filled with water clear and sparkling.  Above, flies a flock of migrating birds winging their way across the Forest, glowing in the sky like the Milky Way, past a silent temple where they say on the darkest nights of the seasonal monsoon, you can sometimes see a woman, silent under the weight of her sins, kneeling behind a altar built to an absent god.  High above the altar a diamond shining brilliant with a pure, flaming light smiles down upon a resurrected kingdom.
And if you journey through the entirety of the forest, you may find that at the end, there stands a little child-star, eyes closed, face tilted towards the heavens, and you should know that once upon a time, she saved an entire world.
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nekodracones · 5 years ago
Text
In Support of Pirates
LARGE DISCLAIMER:  I wrote the majority of this before sticky glory came into play, but was already on the horizon, so, uh, if some of the benefits of pirating look slightly less shiny now, that’s why.  Nevertheless, if you’re determined and bored enough glory is honestly not the biggest part of why you should pirate.
Love the freedom or hate the pirates, it’s undeniable that these pirates were a prolific feature of Atlas...until PG came in with sticky glory and ruined their heyday.
Some may celebrate this.  Others may bemoan not being able to get easy glory anymore.  But why did this undeniably unorthodox, often troublesome method of getting glory arise?
It’s hard to get glory, and doing it the intended way by raiding and sniping is boring and unfun. Why?
Gates exist.  Megaalliances are a thing and small teams are good meat shield gates because they’re shit glory, and no one hitting for glory really wants to waste troops on that.  At the same time, bubbling through them is necessary if you want to get to the actual good glory targets, who’re often buried behind a few of these smaller teams.  Additionally, if one of them decides to locate the disable shield button, you’re screwed, and not in the fun way.  Imagine if you could make hitting gates be worth good glory!
Widespread stagnation.  Conquering castles is not fun. Half the hits done on a busy, contested castle don’t count. Guards are annoying to clear.  If you’re starting with no castles, don’t expect to be able to receive any decent internal castles on your own under your own power, unless you get insanely lucky and you see a castle where someone fucked up and forgot to pay upkeep, or something.  Imagine if you could just disregard the existence of the concept of owning castles!
Castle guard swapping/troop swapping.  Both pretty attractive because glory is so hard to get for all the aforementioned reasons. Also, megaalliances. Who gives a shit if your castle loses 2m guards for a guard swap? It’s not like you can plausibly lose it anyway, unless you fuck up and forget to reload guards.  Imagine if you didn’t think doing either was fun, but you still wanted to do well in Atlas! Imagine if you found your own way to do that!
High level defensive primes on teams with high power rank.  It’s pretty unfriendly and demoralising trying to level lower level primarches, and even worse levelling them.  Tell me again about how people who have a level 25 trapper or taunter in Atlas got it purely by attacking other primes, too.  People without access to glory swaps or guard swaps needed another way to level their weak primarchs.  But how?
Troop hoarding. So one key feature of Atlas is how someone always comes out on the losing side.  I imagine this isn’t fun to endure for long; plus with troop and guard swaps players have already seen that it is possible to control troop loss and get a set amount of glory for x troops lost.  Imagine if you could control that even further by playing Atlas on easy mode!
Megaalliances.  Now imagine if you could escape the shitty shitty midlevel management in all these megaalliances for a few hours at a time and not be beholden to asinine no hits.
No reason to go past 3.6m glory in a season.  Who gives a shit about Atlas chests honestly. Also, it’s ridiculously easy for larger teams in each megaalliance to complete the season on pure guard swapping/ troop swapping. This is how PG intended Atlas to be played?  
Shit Atlas seasonal ranking system. Land-based instead of activity-based a boring Atlas landscape does make. No one’s going to take the risk of conquering castles for fear of losing their own; and as it is, castle conquer mechanics make conquering larger teams’ castles ridiculously difficult so the only conquering you’ll see in this Atlas will be people conquering smaller teams who don’t have larger teams’ support.  As a smaller team, isn’t it equally viable to drop the easy access castles and go pirate?
Strategy isn’t a thing. It’s about who’s bigger/ who has the bigger friends. The current solo dragon meta combined with buff primes and shit revive rates for hitting out of your comfort zone encourages people to hit smaller weaker primes on smaller weaker teams.  PG doesn’t encourage hitting teams that play as smart as you do; other than the joy and thrill of competition it’s really quite painful, objectively.
What are the benefits/goals of pirating and how do they counter some problems in Atlas?
Pirating is great and every intellectual should try it out at least once.
Easy glory for higher power ranked teams. It’s also great for teams who cannot guard swap or think troop swapping is pointless for whatever reason aka. it’s not limited to people privileged enough to squander guards and troops as they like. 
Opening gates for better glory for higher power ranked teams. This is good because gates get smacked either way, and I’d really rather circumvent that really dumb meta by making their low-glory meat shield concept obsolete. So obsolete that meat shield teams realise that the people they protect need to be worth protecting beyond the ownership of their gate castle itself. Best of all, if these smaller teams all go pirate and force larger teams to gate themselves.
Circumventing megaalliance rules. Especially for smaller teams lmao. There’s so much bs that happens in megaalliances, seriously. Bigger teams don’t really need to do that, since they already do what they like.
Being able to attack people without bringing hell down on the other 49 people on your team.  Mostly for big people on smaller teams. This is ok in my eyes as I…honestly do not believe in forcing people to have to consider the limits of their teams and hitting conservatively instead of trying bigger targets. Bigger teams dealing with pirates should just defend better or give up their castles and go pirate too.
Being able to take revenge on bigger teams bubbling gates without having to worry about retribution. Mostly for smaller teams. That revenge suggestion some diamond team put on forums a while back was bullshit. Bubble your way in if you want revenge so bad? Can’t? Afraid of retribution? Too bad so sad. Let’s all go pirate.
Fun raid-style format. Psychologically, by leaving your team, it’s like you go into a separate, glory-focused state and just keep killing people. Bit hard to explain if you’ve never tried it. It’s really fun to try out at least once, even with the new restrictions.
Temporarily ally yourself with friends from different alliances. Political allegiances of the megaalliance sort, and their permanence, can go eat shit while you’re pirating. Heck megaalliances! They should die in ditches.
Either be rich, or be free.  Atlas is only really fun and beneficial marginally if you’re on either end of the spectrum- either pirate, or top-ranked high activity team. If you’re in the middle, to get to the fun and beneficial parts of atlas, it’s honestly easier to just be a pirate.  Cutting out the detriments of being on a pirate team full time, of course. Again, let’s all go pirate.
It hurts no one in the long term. I’ve never seen a pirate conquer attempted before; I admit that it would probably have a better payoff than a normal conquer, but at the same time it kind of defeats the point of pirating. Pirating is a purely glory-motivated action. Team rank should not play into this; the defender puts out troops that they’re willing to risk in the defence of the castle, the attacker takes the risk of an attack, their respective teammates support each endeavour. It’s an exhilarating way of playing 1v1 in an Atlas that’s so much about team action. People aren’t incentivised to hit down when they pirate; they’re far more likely to pick targets that are 100% glory and would ideally be comparable to them. Even if they’re not, shouldn’t better gear, flying, and activity be rewarded anyway? Rather a team of pirates out for glory, than a D1 team that conquers an alliance team’s T2 castle because they got ousted from their T5s. It’s far more defensible.
Why do people hate pirates so much?
As I see it, people can’t stand the concept of teams and players they can’t retaliate against. Unfortunately…
That’s already a thing lol. If a diamond team bubbles you, a gate, to get to a team behind you, are you going to be able to revenge that anyway? How could pirating help? 2 (because that large team is likely hiding behind gates), 4 (because big teams are probably going to revenge hits on them), 5 (obvious), and 7 (because sometimes the team that bubbles you is from your own alliance. Fantastic!). PG’s fault for being elitist.
For fully defensive high league teams that have already completed their seasons, most of them just want to slack off and enjoy their infra bonuses in peace. Defending pirates requires activity and being online. That’s challenging! PG’s fault for making seasons so easy to complete for them and so hard for everyone else. Suck it up.
Smaller teams are simply too inactive to actively defend against pirates and end up getting drained. Hey, okay, it’s annoying. But seriously. You put out the troops the pirates are hitting. If they’re good glory to hit, they’ll be hit. It’s your choice to 1. put out those troops 2. keep the castle that keeps getting hit. Also, this is PG’s fault. They made gates a thing. They did not make conflict bonus a thing. They’re not punishing inactivity on castles and rewarding activity. They’re rewarding the act of owning land.
Because atlas is so stagnant that oftentimes pirates are the only action they see that they feel they cannot control. To circle back to the point about troop hoarding, people HATE losing troops. It’s understandable; sometimes it feels like atlas is literally unplayable without atlas elite. This is something to blame PG for though. Why can’t they boost revive rates and hat regen rates? Blaming a symptom for the root cause seems backwards.
Teams in the middle of the pack have shit castles that keep getting hit by pirates. Again, Atlas is only fun on the extreme ends. My advice to you is to go YOLO and go pirate as well, since y’all think it’s such a great, easy life. Again, PG’s fault for creating such a large strata between castle exposures.
They see a symptom and link it to the underlying problem- everything else in Atlas. PG’s fault.
Personally, I’ve seen a lot of great suggestions to PG to decrease stagnation and make Atlas more fun again. I’ve made a suggestion post for floating islands; to distribute castle exposures more evenly. One person suggested abolishing gates. Someone else suggested allowing people to drain castle guards by having hits that land on dead primes land on castle guards instead. People have suggested tweaks to conquer mechanics. People have begged for increased hat regeneration rates. People have asked for gold boosts. People have asked for better revive rates and defensive glory.
(This is all great, but everyone who benefits from the status quo don’t actually deserve what they have, and are worried they won’t get it back! They’re right, because they suck and most of them never had to work for their gifted/legacy castles! PG shouldn’t give a shit if they want to fix the game in the long run, but they give a shit anyway! THIS is one big reason why we’ve seen no change in Atlas. We’re not blameless.)
Nothing groundbreaking has actually happened, but PG takes away pirating, because it’s not how Atlas is intended to be played.  This really feels like putting the cart before the horse!
Newsflash, PG: Atlas isn’t working out the way you want it to. When there’s a widespread symptom, there’s a widespread problem. Sometimes it’s better to lean into player solutions; in this case, pirating, until you’re able to roll out a fix for everything else, instead of piling straws upon our collective camel back.
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nekodracones · 5 years ago
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Gauntlet: Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t
Alternatively titled: Concrete Reasons to Hate Gauntlet that Also Make Me Want To Quit The Game.
I’m starting this post 5 days past after when I had originally intended to post this.  Typically one might say that no one needed to know this unnecessary info, except I can probably relate the procrastination directly to my disengagement with the game this past week, which is definitively directly linked to the unhappiness of my teammates during Gauntlet, as we each tried to hit our higher-than-normal personal prize tiers.  Also, while I stoned like a shitty teammate in WD this week, I played Call of Duty Mobile and it’s actually a decent game that rewards my grinder tendencies, so I’ve been occupied with that.
I should make it clear that while this, being the shittiest discount-period PvP possible, made it a particularly shitty Gauntlet to have to grind out, my points stand for any Gauntlet, in general.  Gauntlet being the discount PvP simply highlighted it’s most hateful facets and drove me to analyse where and how exactly this event went all wrong.
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FOUNDATIONAL PROBLEMS
1. Too little opportunity for teams to differentiate themselves by consistent activity- and possible activity is limited.
In higher leagues, many teams have most if not all of their PvE islands on cool down at any given time.  Some larger islands even see people setting timers for their appearance, just so that they can get in hits before said islands disappear. The rest of the time, everyone just waits for PvP islands to appear once every 3h.  This means that differentiating one’s team from the competition falls to PvPs, which come with their own slew of negative implications.
2. PvP and PvE islands die too quickly and regenerate too slowly.
This week, I watched my teammates congratulate each other for getting hits in on Gustav island.  The typical teammate would only get in one hit, and then have to wait another 4h for the largest PvE island to reappear.  In the meanwhile, they would hit the other islands, and at multiple instances this event, we’d have all the islands in cooldown...at the same time, leaving us with nothing to hit.
Current island health seems like it was balanced for supers, not megas.  When islands appear once every 4h only to disappear after 3 minutes, this seems poorly designed.  It should not be possible for no islands to be open at any one time.
3. The first few islands are worth fewer points for each attack for no reason.
For most players in Sapphire and Diamond, all the PvE islands are equal in difficulty.  Not only is it unnecessary to force us to all spend energy and inner fires at suboptimal rates  at early parts of the event, it also creates competition for the PvE islands with better value, and elicits unnecessary consideration of the conundrum ‘Do I kill earlier islands at terrible rates to contribute to team points, or focus on getting personal points for better value by waiting for larger islands to reset?’  I don’t think it’s fair to force people into having to consider the value of personal progress against helping their team; isn’t the point of a team-based game to incentivise teamwork?
4. PvE is meaningless and unsatisfying.
PvE bases have low point value and take precious time to grind, but are also unchallenging and boring.  This isn’t to say that I think making them challenging will fix this, but rather that their point value should be increased and the work needed to get those points decreased, with, say, a raid button, instead of wasting our time.
5. 70% is a win.
Unless every single base on a team is a maxed base, most bases optimised for strength, under level 550 hit 70% at an earlier point as compared to bases optimised for a longer time needed to reach 70% completion, which are often weaker.  This places forces players to choose between having a strong base, or a long base.  With a single defensive base design meta and the latter being generally detrimental with it’s only benefit being a longer completion time, should it be an encouraged base design?
Should sudden spikes in performance be rewarded over constant high performance?  Does the ability to have a fraction of the team complete bases to 70% a few seconds faster really determine a superior team?
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IMPLICATIONS
1. The deciding moments of Gauntlet occur in literal seconds.
As pointed out, the deciding moments of Gauntlet are the PvPs.  Between two competent teams who spend enough megas to finish off a PvP island in one wave, the difference between a loss and a win is very often mere seconds.  This is bad for multiple reasons.  
First and foremost, 2 minutes (or less!) of PvP every 3h is both too draining over 4 days and too insignificant to excite and satisfy when it happens.  Additionally, any internet connection problems or PG server glitches, which are common, within those two minutes can cost your team the entire PvP.  Finally, it’s idiotic that these few seconds to 70% matter far more than the hours of grinding a team does on PvE islands.  All in all, flying a base a few seconds faster comes down less to skill and more to fortune, which makes it a very idiotic metric to determine whether a team should be winning the entire event.
PvP rounds should be decided by some other metric other than completion time.
2. Longer bases > Stronger bases.
This is an unfortunate meta that has been becoming more and more prevalent in recent times.  It rewards the wrong things- logically, shouldn’t planning ahead and building strong towers be encouraged?  Farms give an unequal % of base completion as compared to actual damaging towers of the same or higher level, as they have higher HP.  As most bases have no hope of stopping recent dragons stronger than their towers, if said base isn’t endgame, it’s ideal that a base backload a larger comparative percentage of HP with it’s farms by having lower level, and hence a lower HP kill island ahead of the farms.  Rewarding poor base building not optimised for damage tower strength seems bad.
Somewhat tangentially, shorter bases are preferentially attacked over longer bases in order for teams to win PvPs.  Sacrificing points and risks taken on larger bases just because they take too long to complete devalues defenders and makes PvPs a pure speed race instead of valuing skilled flying.
Stronger bases should be rewarded instead of bases that take longer to complete simply because their HP was backloaded.
3. Defence is undervalued.
Say you shut down an attack on your team’s PvP island before 70%, sacrificing the opportunity cost of being able to launch your own attack on the enemy team and having it land, helping your team complete the PvP island faster, potentially winning the round.  However, while your defence may screw that one attacker, the next enemy hit to land will probably finish off the island, so multiple defenders are needed to make a noticeable dent in the enemy wave.  Additionally, defences are unrewarded in the PvP, your attacker only needs to kill 70% of the defended base with three dragons; in the case of a failure will likely still score a percentage of points from their unsuccessful attack, and also have the choice to receive an energy refund if they drag out their attack for long enough.  Also you’ve probably spent a bunch of hammers and boosts.
Defence should be rewarded more strongly in PvPs, as dragons and bases are two sides of the same coin (and people tend to spend more on bases than dragons, as a rule)
4. If your team isn’t competing for points, your team isn’t good.  If your team is competing for points, your teammates are selfish.  
Obviously, while this statement, while echoed in the sentiments of many players, may be logically untrue, the reality is that individual sandbagging is rewarded in this event.  In a less competitive team with fewer competitive teammates, players are able to access and earn more high-value personal points with less stress and time management.  This is bad; isn’t the point of a team-based game to encourage teamwork?
One might argue that such sandbaggers would miss out on team prizes, but the fact remains that personal points are easier and less stressful to earn on shittier teams, and that alone makes the sacrifice worth it for some.  Team strife is never fun to have to deal with; some may feel any animosity unintentionally caused by competition with teammates for high-value points is undesirable and wish to avoid such a situation.
More points should be made available to decrease the scarcity of points and hence intra-team competition for points.
5. PG isn’t maximising profits from this event. 
By creating a PvP where some point sources are more valuable than others, PG has artificially caused some to believe that it’s not worth it to push for higher personal prize tiers if their teammates are constantly causing said point sources to be unavailable.  This may cause some to spend less PvP resources than they might have otherwise, since they may think it’s ‘not worth it’.  PG isn’t very good at this comparative pricing thing!
The value of certain point sources should be increased relative to each other.
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CONCLUSION
Gauntlet is a pretty terrible PvP as is.  Most of it’s problems arise from it’s not providing enough comparatively high-value point sources; I’d like to posit that island HP were never adjusted appropriately after the introduction of megas. 
 (Megas are a fine high-value introduction to the game; if I had a gripe about them it’d be that IF costs were never adjusted after the energy pack discounts, and 20 IFs to launch one is far too expensive for how ubiquitous and necessary megas are in more competitive leagues now.  This is probably another post, though.)
Where PvP islands used to take 10+ minutes to be cleared with supers; now they’re cleared in a single wave.  If you’re not clearing your PvP islands within 2 minutes, you’ve probably lost that wave, too.  This is obviously bad.
I’m not asking that island HP be adjusted accordingly, or for PvP islands to spawn more frequently, since this would only increase the necessity for megas in this PvP and exhaust team resources more rapidly, but the PvP should be adjusted for their addition to the game.  
A few suggestions:
1. PvE islands should have shorter regeneration times in general.
2. PvE islands can have shorter regeneration times based on how rapidly they’re cleared by the team, since PvE island clearing speed can be a fair indicator of the activity of the team, and hence their greater need for point targets.  Obviously, this also gives greater advantage to teams with generally higher team activity, since they can kill the same island more times than a less active team that clears islands more slowly.  Maybe a point multiplier to be applied on team/personal points based on how many times each island is cleared?
3. Point value of each attack on the smaller PvE islands should be increased to be more in line with the point values that larger PvE islands provide.
4. Install raid button for PvE attacks.  I’m tired of Krelos being used as an excuse for going half-lazy.  Always go full-lazy.  #RaidButton2k20
5. No points awarded below 70%; instead, a full energy refund is provided.  This point is controversial; in higher leagues this would punish players legitimately trying bases outside of their expected ‘ez point’ range.  At the same time, others disagree that people should get ‘free tries’ on enemy bases until they get it down, since it further devalues defenders.
6. 70%ing a base still remains a win; but no points are awarded until farms and mills are killed.  Most bases have their farms and mills behind all their defensive towers, this solution ensures that no one needs to adjust their base so they’re not 70%ed until later into their base.  At the same time, higher level bases remain advantaged as it would take longer to clear/skip islands before the farms, to kill them.  However, this also punishes players hitting above their weight class, and puts a defensive focus on defending farms.
7. Reward defenders by awarding points for dragons shot down; scaled according to dragon DP as compared to base tower level.  Or something.
8. Let all attacks started against PvP islands land, and have bonus hits that land after the enemy island is killed earn bonus team points, with a significant multiplier.  This is good as it rewards teams that have more attackers online and ready to go for their higher blanket activity, instead of just the speed of their fastest attackers.
Mainly, I’d just like this event to not punish active teams for their activity.  It’s tiring to have to entertain thoughts of leaving for a smaller team every time this event runs.  My team’s really nice, so it’s actually a pretty serious internal debate.  #ChronicSandbaggerCat
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nekodracones · 5 years ago
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Don’t Touch Your Perch!
Once you hit level 30 on your perch, (100% gear effect) you’ve just gotten the majority of the use you’re ever going to get from it until you max it.  Congratulations!
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Now, some of you are probably wondering why.  The temptation with the perch is to level it up as you go, especially with more pearls dropping from platinum chests.
1. For the same reason you wouldn’t gradually level up a new tower instead of doing it all at once, gradually levelling up your perch isn’t that great.  Certainly, you can do it; but a level 30 perch vs a level 60 perch isn’t going to do much more damage against Eldritch dragons.  Better to take it all the way to whatever it’s max level is.  If you can’t, save your pearls until you can do it.
2. You’re spending timers you could have spent on towers that deal more damage, on your main island, on your perch.  Again, the difference between a level 30 and a level 60 perch isn’t going to be that noticeable for the largest dragons we face today, but a maxed tower on your main island that could not have been maxed otherwise without those timers?  That’s far more valuable.
Even if you can max your perch...
3.  Unless you have towers on the micro islands where the perches are located themselves, a perch by itself, on an otherwise empty island isn’t going to do much damage to the dragon.  Upon taking damage from a perch on a rage drain island, most modern dragons will be able to heal themselves immediately anyway.  It’s good to group up damage-dealing towers.  Especially as a long island is the ideal for most viable, defensible bases in today’s meta, you’re probably not going to find much use out of your perch until you have 15 towers and can fill that island where the perch is located with a defensible set of towers.
4. Though it isn’t very effective as a stand-alone tower, it still contributes the same amount of base destruction % when it’s destroyed.  This means that it’s ineffective, indefensible, and hurts you more than harms you when you’re not maxing it as part of a defensible island.
5. Forum user Morreion posits that choosing to max a perch means you’re stuck with it, since you can’t move or otherwise transform your perch should you decide to change layouts.  This is a common problem for people stuck with microbases because they decided to invest massively in their Seagazer perch, which hurts to lose should you decide to move to a midlong setup instead.
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Tl;dr: Don’t level your perch past level 30 unless: 1. you want to stick a mythic of a certain tier on it and you need to hit level requirements.  Perch levels and corresponding dragon tiers can be found here 2. You can max it. 3. You’re filling the island the perch is on with a defensible set of towers. 4. You’re certain about the longevity of your setup.
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nekodracones · 5 years ago
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How to Run a Team, as Instructed by A Shitty Leader
So you have a team.  You know that you need to recruit to replace the slackers. You know that you need to enforce rules and keep your remaining cats in line.  You know that you need to Exhibit Leadership Qualities.
But how?
At this point I should remind you that when I say ‘leader’, I mean that I have some really terrible innate leadership instincts, not that I actually ran teams into the ground by leading them.  If you read this post-
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- I wasn’t exaggerating.  I had been leader of my team then for minutes at a time, when my leader forgot himself and accidentally promoted me on occasion.  Maybe that qualifies me for both definitions of the word!  
However, in the two years I helped to run my team, said team has had fewer than 5 teammates leave for a different team because they were dissatisfied with how things were in our team.
I should clarify that not all these points describe how we ran our team, but rather how I wish we could have.  It’s often not possible to stick to all these pointers; but we must all do the best we can.  I don’t help to run that team, now; I’m not even on that team.  Even so, I feel like the points below are mostly universally applicable and honestly pretty common-sense.  
Sometimes, we all just need a reminder.  Who better than this shitty leader who needed constant conscious introspection and reasoning to lead a team?
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BASICS
1. Know your team.  Take the time to get to know your most active members, and then take the time to reach out to and speak to your less active members.  This helps to build a bond between you and your individual members.  It’s helpful to make your teammates feel like they can come to you when they have concerns.
2. Know your leadership.  Your officers, your leader- these are the people who will be supporting you in the weeks and months to come.  It is important to ensure that all of you can trust each other to come forward with opinions you may have. Keep your lines of communication open so all of you are aware of what’s happening within the team at any one given time.
3. Help your team know each other.  It’s good to have at least one common chat open for game discussion and socialisation.  This helps your team get to know each other better and build stronger bonds of community that make this social game a much more fun one to play. - You can opt to separate the two, to cater to people who may want a pure game-related chat.  Ensure that you police the division between game-related and social chatter.  The upside of this is that you can add random people and alumni to your social chat and not have to worry about them SPYING on your team.  My old team’s social still manages to be one of my favourite chats in LINE. - Speaking of LINE, some teams choose to use Discord, WhatsApp, or Slack as messaging alternatives.  I’m fond of LINE, as it’s the most popular messaging app and is hence more convenient for getting in touch with people who aren’t on your team.  It’s also anonymous, which is important for some people to feel comfortable. - Starting weekly team calls is something that many teams choose to do.  It, however, often falls to leadership to initiate and begin such a team tradition, so it’s less socially pressuring for teammates to join and establish such a habit.  Feel free to inform your team beforehand so they can set aside time, if they’re interested.
4. Know your partners.  Particularly relevant for Atlas teams, know your 5ta leadership well and get to know your extended alliance’s leaders well, when you get the chance.  Atlas is a political game, except it’s politics are based on who you’re friends with, and who will vouch for you.  It may sound scary, but really it’s just about making friends with the people you want to be friends with.
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MINIMUMS AND EXPECTATIONS
5. Set your rules and guidelines.  And then make them clear and accessible in the team wiki, LINE notes, or otherwise.  Ensure your team is aware of them. A good team is one that expects all it’s members to adhere to the same standards, and a clearly visible set of guidelines is key in enforcing that. 6. Ensure that your new recruits are aware of these expectations.  Again, no matter their size, it’s important to hold everyone to the same standards.  Make sure that you’ve impressed this upon your new recruits so they aren’t surprised when they join.
7. Be flexible.  This may seem to stand at a counterpoint to the last two points, but it’s important to recognise that at the end of the day, War Dragons is only a game, and real life can often get in the way of us fulfilling in game obligations.  I personally emphasised that if anyone was aware they wouldn’t be able to meet minimums for any particular week, it would be fine to seek clemency in advance.  If they don’t meet minimums without letting you know, consider asking what’s up before booting them.  For longer periods of time, though, consider discussing moving them off the team, to keep it fair to the rest of the team.
8. Think about why you’re setting certain minimums and policies.  Sometimes, leaders may choose to set minimums arbitrarily without considering why exactly they’re doing so.   - Personally, I never set minimums for Fort and Breed- I wanted my members to be able to progress the way they wish instead of arbitrarily spending resources to get points. - Troop minimums made very little sense for our team- we had recruited a team of responsible people who knew how to manage their troops, and we didn’t want to stop people from sniping their little hearts out.  This team I speak of is currently ranked amongst and above a majority of diamond teams for troops killed, now. - Bank policies are good to think about- how can you make them fair for your team?  Do you want people to pay taxes, or submit donations, or otherwise?  Does it make sense to restrict food and wood withdrawals outside of fort and breed?  How can you make the distribution system fair? - I made a post about PvP minimums here, too, if you want to look into this topic further.  
9. Give your teammates a voice.  Make sure that they’re aware that they can speak up if they agree or disagree with certain policies, minimums, and expectations.  This helps your teammates feel included and cared about.
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RECRUITMENT AND REPLACEMENT
10. Recruitment: Long Term vs Short Term.  This is an important consideration for any team, and you should consider your team’s specific situation to make a decision on this.  Anything I say in this section holds true for merges, as well, btw. - Long term recruitment: You hold off on many meh recruits for those recruits you want to keep and grow, in the long term.  The downside of this is that you’ll probably be waiting a long time. - Short term recruitment: You go through new recruits by constantly upgrading to newer, better models.  The downside of this is that you’ll probably destabilise your team’s social fabric in the long term by making so many changes to your roster in short order. 11. What makes your team attractive?  This may be quite duh, but, what sets your team apart from everyone else’s standard egg tokens, castles, etc.?  Every team has those.  What makes you different?  Capitalize on these to stand out to new recruits.  Also please stop with the one-note recruitment posters, unless you have fun making them.  Then carry on.
12. Give the people you’re replacing time to find new teams.  With few exceptions, these are players who have contributed to making your team what it is today.  As much as possible, give them a few days to find a new team. 13.  Vet your recruits well.  Remember, these are people you’re letting onto your team.  What they do and how they behave will directly affect your team’s performance.  You can spare an hour to just chat with them and get a better feel of their personality and how they will fit on your team, beyond their game performance. 14. Make your recruits feel welcome.  Take the time to go through team conventions and rules with them when they first join.  They may be from a very different team environment.  Check in with them often in the first week to see how they’re settling in.  It’s good to send out a weekly mail to introduce everyone to each other, to ease transitions into the team.
...---... EVENTS AND ATLAS 15. Be gracious.  Don’t take losses personally, and don’t gloat (too much or publicly! Have some fun!) over your wins.  Leadership’s attitude towards any occurrence in the game will affect team morale.  Other people’s opinions are secondary, but they’re entitled to what they think, too.  Accept this as well.
16. Your team comes first.  Ahead of your personal interests.  Ahead of the interests of your friends on other teams.  You’re responsible for the gameplay and enjoyment of 49 other people.  Please don’t be that team that does officer only guard swaps, or sets up farm bases to swap with another team without informing your members.  This also means that you can and should feel free to ignore opinions by other teams, on your team.  They matter far less, so long as your team is happy.  You know your team best, and haters gonna hate.
17. Be certain of how you want to play your game.  There’s no shame in sandbagging.  There’s no shame in choosing to target only certain teams in PvP.  There’s no shame in sniping.  Are you certain you want to take a gifted castle?  Are you certain you want to swap guards?  Are you certain you want to help in this failed raid?  There’s no shame in playing the game as you are allowed to play it.  All that matters is that your team is in agreement, and you can reconcile how you play with your conscience.
18. Do what makes you and your team happy.  You don’t need to be efficient to enjoy your game.  As long as your team is fine with it, go pirate your little hearts out!  Sandbag away!  The world is your oyster!
19. Form your own opinions. In this age of some pretty propagandised Atlas movements, consider what you’ve personally observed of the subjects at hand and form your own opinions based on that instead of listening in to gossip.  You’ll be much happier distancing yourself and your team from drama, too. 20. Think long term.  If you agree to gate this T4, you’ll get a T4, but in the long term, will your team’s troop loss be worth it?  If you don’t participate in Atlas battles with your alliance, what happens when you’re forced on defence?
21. Stay humble.  No team is the best in every single category.  There’s always something new to learn from everyone else.  Some pride in your team is good, but too much is hubris.  It results in things like teams threatening to destroy other teams and getting destroyed instead.  Conversely...
22. Keep your own counsel.  If you play your cards close to your chest, this is how you become that team that destroys all bragging comers.  Crouching tiger, hidden dragon!
23. Be proud of your team.  This may seem contradictory, but you know your own team’s strength best.  Confidence boosts your team’s morale, and increases activity.
24. Communicate early.  If you have a guard swap coming up, give a few days’ of notice.  If you need people online for a mega wave at the end of a fight pits round, tag in advance.  If you’re going to change minimums for the week for any given reason, give notice.  This gives time for people to discuss any concerns they may have about changes with you.
25. Lead by Example.  Leading a team is a thankless job, but in return you get the respect and recognition of all your teammates.  This means they will look to you to embody a platonic ideal of the team they love.  Make sure that you’re helping them open paths in TR, that you’re supporting them for XP runs, and that you’re right there with them hitting low glory teams to open paths. That’s all I can think of for now.  If you have other topics/points to add on, feel free to PM/submit an ask to me so I can add it.
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nekodracones · 5 years ago
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A Guide to Defending Gig
Withermoon mythic warrior.  Total shithead.  Terrible braindead dragon design.  Horrible tanky warrior that just won’t fricking die.  Excuse the slight detour to whine about Gig.
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#Death2Gig.  Fortunately, it’s got a fatal setup: 
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Yeah.  That’s it.  But, to go into more detail... Base - You definitely want a rage drain island. - A storm/earth flak and two mages on your kill island, a minimum of one red.  (Colour doesn’t actually matter if you have that rage drain up front, but have a red so your base is more flexible, lol) - Nonmage towers right at the front increase the chance of Gig passing over those towers without being able to kill them. - 2 other high damage towers on your kill - Howitzer on the back island’s front row. - If you have the space, a red mage in the back row of 4 is nice to have. - The below is a decent antigig setup.  It’s fine to swap the back lightning and the ice flak, if you like.   - If I were smaller, I might like the ice flak for it’s silencing supershot to prolong the amount of time Gig is neutered, and because it has a long range normal shot; for, but with higher level towers I don’t need it.   - The lightnings are just nice because they’re long range fast firing towers that can hit Gig while it’s unshielded/silenced.   - The back tower next to the red mage, whatever it may be, can also be swapped for a storm if you want to keep Gigs with death gaze equips from killing your front of island 4 in one fell swoop, or just to keep them from demolishing that island too fast.
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Active defense - If you’re defending your own base, feel free to supershot three blue mages on your rage drain; if you’re defending a friend’s base use two supershots and save the rest. - Don’t bother supershotting the red mage on the kill island; it’s simply there to draw the first Bolt.  Supershot the other mage tower to keep Gig’s rage bar frozen. - Definitely supershot the kill island storm/earth flak - Supershot damage dealing towers on the kill.  A dark flak or fire flak works; and if you have good things to supershot in Row 4 supershot them too.  No need to supershot the Howitzer, though. - You’ll want to pelt this dragon with as much damage as possible before it starts earning rage and enabling it’s shield again; if you’re a lower level base save one remaining supershot for an ice flak or red mage to keep it from turning it’s shield back on.
Good luck killing it before it kills you.
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nekodracones · 5 years ago
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A Guide to General Basebuilding: Pt 1
A*** GRADE towers, must haves on any base - Storm/ Earth flak: Anything with a fireable one-shot-kill spell, or is generally a breath-damage reliant dragon will hate the invincibility supershot.  Storm supershot is far, far longer range than the earth supershot, which has a HP buff included to make up for it. - Ice flak: Anything with active spells will hate it.  But in all seriousness things with white shields hate it the most.  The supershot locks dragon spells for a short duration, but keep in mind that it is still a flak projectile and needs to actually hit the dragon/it’s shield to take effect. - Mages: The red mage is marginally better in the meta right now, and you definitely want at least one on your kill island, but the blue mage isn’t worse by that much.  I personally expect it to be cool again after people start using Hauhezen more, so don’t transform it to a red mage tower.  It works like a red mage, basically.  It’s good to have two mages, at least one red, on your kill island.  DEFINITELY have the research that helps each drain 2 rage bars instead of just 1 done. A GRADE towers - Lightnings: Must haves on the first row of the back island of the midlong.  Anything that cloaks or dodges flak/projectile damage (flak style spells) will despise the lightning tower’s long range beam (anti-dodge), super fast, super high damage attack.  Lightnings are nice to group up; they multiply each others’ damage when adjacent to each other up to a 3-lightning damage bonus. - Howitzer: A must have on the first row of the back island of the midlong.  Again, cloaking dragons will despise how this tower deals super heavy damage if you aren’t careful enough to dodge it, with it’s normal shot.  Shielding dragons will have their shields broken, and be stunned by the long range supershot. B GRADE towers - Fire flak: Pretty nice against damage-reliant dragons if you’re endgame and can get the fire flak supershot (which halves dragon damage) to hit.  Damage is decent. - Dark flak: Honestly pretty irrelevant in the current midlong-centric meta.  But it does good damage if you can get it to hit it’s target while unshielded.  Supershot stuns dragons, which can be helpful.  Good as a decoy tower; most poor flyers choose to kill it first.  Conversely, if they choose to ignore it, supershot it and watch people regret their lives. - Ice turret:  The supershot HP buff is helpful, especially if you’re endgame.  This stacks with the earth flak HP buff, I believe.  Don’t quote me until I check. Beam damage is pretty helpful against projectile-dodging dragons, too, but this tower is expensive to maintain at high levels, like all turrets.
C GRADE towers - Fire turret: This is one grade down from the ice turret because I don’t really see a minimal-damage-buffing supershot as being particularly helpful in our current meta.  The slow-firing supershot deals decent damage, but is overshadowed by the Howitzer. - Electro flak: Again, this buffs flak supershot damage and deals decent per-shot damage.  Probably only relevant on islands that already have two flaks, minimum, and I don’t see a damage-buffing supershot as being particularly helpful right now.  Nevertheless, if you’re endgame and have a base with more than 10 towers, this could be a good choice for your second kill island. F GRADE towers - Trebuchet: A long range stunning tower.  Pretty much only good for a supershot, and probably only matters on the back end of a long island.  But you can probably replace it with any of the towers above and get a better result.  Slow firing.  Still the best of the F grade towers. - Cannon: Used to be the OG at breaking shields, but now it doesn’t break half the shields that are coming out and the ice flak and Howitzer towers exist.  Slow firing.  Completely useless. - Archer: High supershot damage.  Used to be the highest damage long range tower in the game, but now the meta has shifted to lightnings and the Howitzer. There are better towers to put on the back of your long island.
F*** GRADE tower, DO NOT FRICKING TOUCH. - Ballista: It...poisons you.  But I promise you it won’t even tickle.  Let’s not mention the normal attack.
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nekodracones · 5 years ago
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A Guide to Defending Noctarn
This one is the Frostwreath mythic hunter.  I’m not a fan of her spellset, while I acknowledge she’s strong. Honestly I don’t see her as being viable for much longer, but for now, she’s still terrorising a lot of bases. Again, this dragon requires skill to fly well.  Make use of people mistiming blinks to kill her.  This guide also assumes that you’ve read my base guide, which is...going to be long, so I’m not going to work on it until I’m through with my dragon defence guides, I guess.  Make your assumptions and have fun with it!
Base - You’ll want two mages, with a minimum of one red mage, and preferably an ice flak on your base.  It is definitely VERY nice to have lightnings in the front row of island 4, and the howitzer is always very nice to have.  Storm is optional imo but always good to have for versatility on any good base; in this case I don’t think specifically Noctarn gives too much of a shit about it since it’ll probably get snowed or outblinked. - Position your red mage(s) at corners of your island; highest damage towers on the remaining corners.  If you have a blue mage, a corner/center position are both fine.  Storm/earth can go anywhere, but a weird placement for the storm specifically works wonders; it’s often hard for unskilled flyers to double snow a middle storm. - Lightnings in the front row of 4.  How in the front row of 4. - Red mage in the back row of 4. - The below setup works; but it’d probably better to have a lightning in place of the fire flak for a Noctarn-specific setup.
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Active Defense - Time your supershots such that none fire before Noctarn’s first blink.  Having the ice flak supershot hit her immediately after said first blink will be nice, but will only catch incompetent flyers.  Still good to do, though. - Supershot your mages one by one, again, the blue is a better bet than the red since it likely won’t be snowed first.  Noctarn depends on rage to keep flying; once she gets hit by one mage she’s dead to your row 4 and any remaining unsnowed towers on your kill island. - Supershot all lightnings in the front row of 4, it’s likely to bring an unresisted Naja down.  DO NOT supershot the howitzer; never do so for dragons that don’t have shields.  The damage is potent. - Place all remaining supershots on ice flak and mages as Noc flies past.
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nekodracones · 5 years ago
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A Guide to Defending Naja
Lotusbloom Invoker Mythic, a hellbeast to defend against and honestly you’ll probably think it’s OP unless you make a base designed to counter it and learn to defend it.  Fortunately, you don’t need to make your base too weird or read a book to achieve this.
This guide assumes you’ve read my Base Guide.  If it’s not up yet, make educated guesses.  It’s probably also because I’m procrastinating so feel free to nag me about it.
Base - You need 2 mages on your kill.  For sure.  It’s good to also have an ice flak and a storm/earth flak.  Two red mages is ideal but honestly, so long as you have one, we can work with that. - Position them such such that Naja can’t double kill any of these towers.  Keep in mind that the storm tower has a weird hitbox, so it’s fine to plop this in the centre of your kill island.  It’s hard to double. - For the back island, bad Naja flyers dislike the How and lightnings intensely.  If you’re closer to maxed level, the fire flak supershot can help, too. - Here’s an example of a good kill setup for Naja, specifically posed for this image by yours truly- red mages, earth flaks, and ice flaks are fine on any of the four corners, then arrange your other towers accordingly.  If you’re running two red mages, it’s okay to have one in the centre, too. - ONLY MAINGAME: Keep in mind that the storm fires ridiculously fast in the third row.  This is true to some extent in Atlas, but...it’s slightly slower, so if you’re facing a war it’s a good thought to consider moving your storm to Row 3.  Keep in mind that this is a low-key Advanced Move that will require good defenders and a good knowledge of tower ranges to pull off an effective base design well, though.
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Active Defense - SAVE YOUR SUPERSHOTS.  Chaining them, instead of firing them all at once, is the best way to mess up Naja. - Preload your storm/earth flak.  Poor Naja flyers often mess up the timing and slam their first ammo volley straight into a shield. - Load up mage supershots one by one.  If you have two mages in the same row, never load them both up at once.  If they’re on staggered rows, they’ll fire in short order one after the other, but not at once, so it’s fine to load them both. If you have a blue mage, preferentially load it after the red mage- most Naja flyers will choose to target the red mage first. - Timing an ice flak supershot after the first blink is good; if you can figure out the timing to chain an ice flak supershot and the Howitzer firing (hopefully a normal shot!), you’re very likely to kill Naja. - Lightnings are underrated.  If you have them in the first row of Island 4, and extra supershots, it’s good to supershot them.
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nekodracones · 5 years ago
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A Guide to War
知人知彼,百战百胜。 When you know your enemy and know yourself; a hundred battles you shall win. - Sun Tzu
I’m personally not big on war; I don’t feel like league ranking matters enough to warrant the long nights spent sitting with an open device waiting for the enemy team to wave.  Nevertheless, I’ve warred a few times and therefore think I’m definitely your friendly local war expert at this point.  Obviously.
I should clarify that there’s been a recent decent post on the forums regarding this, and I was challenged by a friend to make my own.
PREPARATION Attacker’s advantage is defined as the advantage one has if they’re the one making the first move while the opponent is unaware.  If you’re declaring the war; it’s your attacker’s advantage.  Don’t waste it.
- Inform your players that you plan to war on x day beforehand.  This obviously gives them time to prepare, and see if they can or want to spare the time for a war on that day. - Prepare your bases; configure them back from their Atlas or PvP configurations.  This means that if you’ve adjusted your base to suit Atlas tower ranges, you should definitely consider shifting them back to a more maingame-friendly configuration.  Remember to remove any non-mage towers from ahead of your kill island; unless it’s an ice flak on the rage drain, if you need it.  (I’ll make a post at some point about some base metas, maybe?) - Scout the bases you plan to hit on your target team, assign individuals, or pairs, if necessary, to hit them.  Obviously, go for the highest targets you think each individual can hit, and then set a backup target for when the first target just isn’t working out and people are running short on attempts. - If it matters, scout out what elements of dragons are getting debuffed that week in wars. - Declare minutes, or even better, seconds in advance to war start time.  Have your first wave ready to go immediately.
OFFENSE You hold the advantage here, too; the opponent has no idea what dragons you’re going to be using and you can plan to your advantage given the assigned base.  
- Always wave, unless you can’t.  Waving stacks defences and makes it hard for defenders to catch all banners.  You can wave different players, or have players use their unused attempts to wave difficult bases, and hide the actual assigned player amongst the people in that wave, drawing defenders away from their attempt.   - (Players completing their war attacks locks their remaining attempts, so you can either have confident players save fewer hits, and go in later waves after helping to wave difficult players as decoys, or have people complete main game attacks on them instead.  The former is slightly more effective but it can be challenging to organise.) - Don’t time your waves on the hour, exactly.  Savvy teams will often expect this and have more people online to preempt this. - Each player only gets seven attempts.  After 5 on a target they’re failing, consider switching to something safer, or risk losing flames. - Keep in mind that your goal here is to have your players hit 70%, not 100%, if they have backers.  35% is not ideal, but good to get if you can’t get 70%.  In this context, slightly risky dragons like Morak and Noctarn can be flown comfortably with the knowledge that it’s fine to leave towers alive, so long as the overall run is done well and hits 70% completion.   - Remember that there’s no time limit, too, so feel free to take your time with Noctarn and her screeches, unlike in Atlas.  In fact, if you take your time, you’re drawing defenders and keeping them from defending other hits in the wave. - Always leave a lead tower before the kill island if you can.  Whether it’s a perch, or a non-mage tower, (or even a mage, if your follower is using a dragon that can deal with that), having a lead tower can act as a rage anchor for your follower to set themselves up for a better run and clean up after you.
DEFENSE Unfortunately, you probably don’t have the upper hand here.  It’s great that most attackers are terrible flyers and don’t have much practice coordinating with their backers, though.
- This is basic, but never forget to use the 30% hp and attack boosts.  They can make all the difference. - Also basic, but time your hammers instead of dropping them willy-nilly. - Be familiar with the dragons in the modern meta, and have your base arranged accordingly.  Noctarn and Gig are susceptible to mages, Naja and Morak hate ice flak and invincibility supershots, Narlyth...you’re screwed if you see someone competent, and Namaka and Fafnyr are...eh.  Keep supershotting the storm and delay your supershots for Gale.  Prepare for the other dragons you see often in your league, too. - Be ready to rearrange your base based on the actual war attacks you see on your base.  Combat each dragon specifically. - Always have a rage drain.  It foils a surprising number of bad flyers; if your league is so bad at flying that you actually expect them to be surprised by an ice flak on the rage drain, use that. - Save your supershots.  Delayed supershots are more surprising and hard to combat for the average flyer.
Thus concludes my shitty War Guide.  Hope it helped.  Again, my honest recommendation for wars is to just throw them.  All of them.
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nekodracones · 5 years ago
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Here be Dragons
The stars may fall, The moon may sway, But wilder yet is my call. We the dragons- let us blaze this night away.
We begin, here, while birdsong trills, Here animals frolic, clear waters flow But let us soar over those faraway hills Into the wilderness where no men dare go.
Before velvet darkness turns to day Let us run wild and free tonight. Ships in the night, we find our way aglow in the firefly’s flickering light.
This wilderness be free, these treasures agleam, Here open sky beckons, there blue seas shine The heart aflame, a dragon’s scream- All I need is a hand in mine. Here be dragons, hear them roar. Before daybreak, before sunlight, Will you take my hand and soar?
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Collaborative work with a friend, ostensibly written for this blog and a certain fire-themed bronze team.  Thanks, friend! <3
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nekodracones · 5 years ago
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Fish or rats?
Furballs are gross.  Fish any day.  There’s more variety, too.
Though sometimes...accidents happen. :(
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nekodracones · 5 years ago
Conversation
Much Ado and...Nothing
The Players: Please sir can we please have a button to open all chests at once
Purrket Gems:
Purrket Gems:
Purrket Gems: *sweeps more sane suggestions off the table with paws*
- 1.5 years later -
Purrket Gems: Hey guys we added the open all chests button
Purrket Gems: Btw we're also making changes that will break most of the bots some of y'all have been working on for years on years...
Purrket Gems: You have two weeks to adapt.
(Based on a LINE conversation witnessed. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. And any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.)
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nekodracones · 5 years ago
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The castle-focused Atlas economy: How it’s contributing to Atlas stagnation by rewarding the wrong achievements
When Atlas first launched, it was presented as a high-octane conflict rich battle royale.  Seen here:
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The reality is, of course, far less exciting.  While Atlas conflict still occurs in the form of an occasional raid or sniper jaunt and even the rare large-scale castle battle, the average team is unlikely to see any serious castle battles on 5ta castles, or conflicted castle turnovers within a typical month.  (Unless, of course, said castle was poorly manned and an obvious target.  Then you’re just asking for it.)
When asked for an assessment of the above excerpt in the context of our current reality, my friend Titan commented as such:
20:09 Cat I need you to describe this (the photo above) in the context of our current Atlas situation 20:09 Titanium it appears to be describing a much better game than the one we get to play.
Indeed.  But why is reality falling short of expectations such a problem?
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Expectations vs. Reality
It wouldn’t be a problem if PG devs could admit that their Atlas reality falls short of their ideal Atlas and adapt their season ranking method to suit the current state of Atlas.
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This is the scoring system for the Lotusbloom Atlas season. (here) A quick read shows that the leaderboard is based on the most valuable 20 castles.  In any competition, something has to be competed for.  This leaderboard reads like it was concocted in an ideal environment where castles are fought over, and the longer a team holds a castle or the number of castles a team conquers within a season are a valuable measure of their competence.   
This is fine...if castle ownership and conquering were actually based on any sane standard metric of performance and activity.
In real Atlas, they are not.  How so?
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1. Basic Economics 101
I’ve spoken to a lot of people in my time playing this game.  A shocking majority of people didn’t even know you got team rewards for completing an Atlas season, beyond a few Cat-triggered realisations that that’s where they got so-and-so portrait from.
Why?  For said majority of the atlas-playing population, said rewards are marginal to the point of being unnoticeable, to the point that for most, there is no incentive to go past 3.6m glory and waste troops fighting for castles.
Here are the rewards for the Lotusbloom Atlas season.  Notice how rewards drop off dramatically after the 26th-50th bracket, arguably even after the 11th-25th bracket.  Don’t forget that such highly-ranked teams are likely to home players who probably won’t even notice such insubstantial rewards for completing a three-month long season.
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When your competition rewards are irrelevant for 95%+ of your atlas population, they’re badly scaled and you probably shouldn’t be surprised when your competition ends up being irrelevant and ignored.
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2. Shooting Yourself in The Foot to Kill a Fly
The following mechanic was intended to encourage conflict and incentivise getting one over your opponents via retaining castles all while conquering theirs, but in reality, this actually backfires.
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Given how difficult and costly conquering castles actually is, it’s better to sequester yourself away on castles and maintain peace with your neighbours once you have the castles you want, to prevent getting attacked.  Conflict isn’t rewarded enough to risk a conquer; when infrastructure bonuses are far more significant than any benefits the paltry Atlas season prizes (for most teams) could provide.
Below rank 25, there’s also no reason for teams to make conquer attempts on rivals’ castles in order to reduce their victory point potential, as it is unlikely to put them into a new bracket on the leaderboard, to get more prizes.
All in all, this mechanic just reads like a cruel, ironic joke in the context of how Atlas really is.
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3. We came, We saw, We (did not) conquer
Conquering castles is an extremely costly time and troop investment.  With the existence of mega alliances, any given team has a limited number of viable castles that could be conquer targets, and it’s perhaps more costly than PG might expect to conquer a single castle. To expand on this, as part of a mega alliance, teams within the same mega alliance are socially contracted to not target each others’ castles, even though they may be vulnerable, or strategically easy conquers.  This reduces attractive conquer targets for individual teams drastically.
On top of this, mega alliances tend to send lots of teams to defend castles from conquer; the better positioned the contested castle, the more teams are summoned.  This is a point that has been belaboured multiple times in multiple channels, so I won’t expound too much on it: hitting ten times and only having one hit land is not fun.   Castle conquers are not fun.
Furthermore, the work needed to conquer castles is not worth any advancement made in team prizes unless you’re on the brink of the next bracket, which is...again, a marginal increase in prizes.  Season ranking honestly only really matters to the people already at the top (within the top 25 ranks), and at that level you probably already got all the castles you wanted in previous seasons and decided that further advancement via conquer wasn’t worth it.  Don’t forget how a majority of the people ahead of you are from your very own alliance, and you can’t conquer from them.
Social factors aren’t fully PG’s fault, but it’s irresponsible for season design to not consider these factors’ effects on player behaviour.
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4. One Atlas Season, Disguised as Many
Castle ownership isn’t reset between seasons, and the churn is so low that it makes no sense to pretend that we expect any changes to the castle ownership-based leaderboard in each season.
Before some of you pick up your pitchforks and run me through for blaspheming and suggesting seasonal Atlas resets (which is an entire different discussion that has seen a lot of sane discourse on both sides, and deserves a whole series of posts)- that’s not what I’m saying.
Without touching the issue of whether castles should be a resource that carries over between seasons, it makes little sense to me to award discrete seasonal rewards for achievements made in past seasons that carry over into new ones, with such a low loss rate that basically all most teams need to do is ‘don’t fuck up’.
If you’re not doing much beyond maintenance work between and during seasons, and possibly expending less effort on expanding and maintaining your territories as compared to smaller teams that actually see significant/insignificant changes to their real estate holdings within a season, should you really be rewarded prizes that are tens of times as valuable?
(Cue the pitchfork mob coming @ me to tell me how much they worked for whatever castles they have.  Sure.  That’s a whole other debate, and I’m not going down that hole yet.)
Point being, the static nature of a team’s castle holdings throughout different seasons make them a poor metric as an assessment of seasonal ‘team performance’, and trying to pass them off as a good ranking system for discrete seasons is a Bad Idea.
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5. Easy Lies the Head that Wears the Crown
Last but not least, we must consider how alliance plays a big part in terms of the castles teams have the ability to hold.  Amongst the 25 teams on the castle ownership-based leaderboard, PaleHorseRider is the only longtime non-Dread Friendly team.  (EXITIUM/ theMovement is politically relatively new on the scene, and the ownership of castles involved with them are still shifting, so let’s not talk about them yet)
Before this season, all the teams that were on the top 25 leaderboard were Dread-friendly teams.  We can probably thank(?) theMovement for PHR’s move up the ranks.
By virtue of having a stronger alliance behind them, Dread Friendly teams are less likely to lose their castles as it is more risky for opposing teams to make conquer attempts on them.  Conversely, it is more attractive for their stronger alliance to go after attractive castles that teams with weaker alliances own. Certainly PG devs could argue that this is intended.  But to what extent does PG want heavily influential social factors to play into a team’s individual leaderboard ranking, which one could argue should mainly be a measure of a team’s individual competence, performance, and activity within a season?
Just as PG’s castle ownership-based season scoring system assumes the setting of PG’s ideal Atlas world, is that same ideal Atlas world as heavily influenced and bound down by politics as the reality of the game we actually play is?
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6. Ships of Theseus
If one were to gradually repair a ship and replace every single component of it as time passed, would the ship with all parts replaced still be the same ship?  Similarly, if one were to replace members on a team as time wore on, would the team, with a majority of players replaced, still be the same team?
Castles, however, follow teams, not individual players.  Would a mostly-replaced team with a wealth of inherited castles truly deserve the seasonal rewards that said castles would grant them, when the goal of each season should arguably be to reward competence, high performance, and high activity in teams?
When you use a castle ownership-based seasonal ranking, how do you differentiate grandfathered advantage from true competence?
You don’t.
You choose a better metric to measure seasonal competence by.
...---...
Data Analysis: Elementary, my Dear Watson
Let’s take a look at the Atlas seasonal team rankings from past seasons.
It’s been the same since the first Atlas season, and these results could have been predicted long before the first season was even announced.  You may notice that this ranking also matches the current influence ranking.
I’ve made a point about how the castle ownership-based leaderboard seems like a single season arbitrarily divided and rewarded as many.  Arguably, the castle ownership-based leaderboard assumes that gaining and keeping castles = activity, so, as a general guideline, these top teams’ castle holdings should align with their all time troop kills, no?
In the format: Influence. TeamName [ ATK / ATK rank ] 1. DREADNOUGHT [ 2.21B / 1 ] 2. LethalDescent [ 1.96B / 2 ] 3. JAPANeeeeZE [ 1.02B / 19 ]
Clearly these are all top teams who have consistently performed well since the release of Atlas.  While I regrettably have no way to obtain the full season’s worth of data on these teams, let’s check out their monthly troop kills.
In the format: Influence. TeamName [ MTK / MTK rank ] 1. DREADNOUGHT [ 45.7M / 5 ] 2. LethalDescent [ 22.8M / 105 ] 3. JAPANeeeeZE [ 33.2M / 32 ]
This is unfortunately less valuable data than the last set.  As it’s the last month of the Atlas season, most players on top teams have finished their seasons and wound down their Atlas activity, having most likely finished it within the first month, specifically within the first two weeks of double glory.
(This is actually indicative of another problem within the Atlas season, this one about personal glory- there’s very little incentive to go past 3.6m glory; the atlas chest return on troops is paltry.  This is another factor that has discouraged conflict this season- it’s more worth it to save for the next season than make an attempt to change one’s team Atlas ranking by attempting to conquer castles for the reasons provided above.)
While the data comparison above doesn’t really prove anything beyond proof that atlas seasons are really a sham and it’s just all one season arbitrarily chopped up into three-month durations, the following data will hopefully demonstrate how the castle ownership-based season structure fails to reward high-performing high-activity teams for high seasonal activity.
In the format: Influence. TeamName [ MTK / MTK rank ] [ ATK / ATK rank ] 22. PaleHorseRider [ 40.0M / 14 ] [ 1.40B / 8 ] 27. RoyalRoad [ 31.4M / 39 ] [ 1.51B / 7 ] 30. ButWeAreBetter [ 39.7M / 15 ] [ 1.71B / 3 ] 46. ProjectGhost [ 33.3M / 31 ] [ 0.56B / 73 ] 71. ANGELSnDEM0NS [ 66.2M / 1 ] [ 1.25B / 10 ] 113. WarEnforcers [ 64.5M / 2 ] [ 1.05B / 18 ] 346. UnitedinHonor  [ 32.0M / 35 ] [ 0.46B / 110 ]
The first three entries are the three non-Dread teams with the highest power ranks in the game.  One may notice that while they’re well ranked and comparable to LD, Dread, and NeeeeZE both in terms of monthly and all times troops killed (they’re consistent!) their influence ranks are significantly lower than teams higher-ranked than them on the seasonal leaderboard that have killed fewer troops in both areas.  Is this truly fair?
As the largest team in Arachnid, ProjectGhost holds their own troop-kill wise and surpasses many teams on the seasonal leaderboard.  Their all time kills are lower; they seem to have come into their own niche more recently.  Nevertheless, their influence ranks are similarly noticeably poorer than lower-performing Dread Friendly teams.  On top of this, the juxtaposition of their ATK vs their MTK highlights how teams can adapt and change and increase their performance seasonally instead of simply maintaining the same standards throughout their Atlas careers.
ANGELSnDEM0NS and WarEnforcers make for an interesting comparative case study.  The former is a Sine Nomine team, arguably the crown jewel in the Dread Friendly empire of alliances.  The latter is a founding team of the Libertas alliance, a semi-independent anti-Dread alliance.  They beat out 70 and 110 higher-influence ranked teams respectively to rank as the top and runner-up in terms of troops killed this month so far.  In terms of all time kills, both are ranked higher than a majority of teams occupying the top 25 seasonal leaderboard.  Clearly both teams have been demonstrating consistent, long term high-performance atlas activity, and yet both of them are comparatively low on the seasonal leaderboards.  It’s also interesting to note the disparity in team influence, which can probably at least be partially attributed to their political allegiances.  I can’t definitively speak for why either team never chose to attempt to break into higher ranks, with their activity, but I suspect that their reasons are varied, can probably be derived from my previous points, and will likely culminate in the conclusion that the effort just isn’t worth it.
Finally, UnitedinHonor is personally a fascinating team to me.  At rank 346, if the seasonal leaderboard was an accurate judge of a team’s activity, one would expect their performance to be solidly middle-of-the-pack.  Instead, they come in at rank 35 on the monthly kills leaderboard and 110 on the all time kills leaderboard, which puts them ahead of certain teams on the seasonal leaderboard itself.  This is no small feat for a platinum team with a lower power rank.  Additionally, noting the lower comparative ATK, we can make an assumption that this team has come into its own more recently, which would easily explain why they don’t have as many castles- they likely haven’t been prominent for a long enough time to receive gifted castles, as many higher influence-ranked teams have.
Of course, all these specific analyses are pure conjecture.  I cannot pretend to understand fully every team’s situation, but I will suggest that these stats shed a light on the veracity of my points.  These teams’ individual situations and positions on the seasonal leaderboard can all at least be partially attributed to a few of the points I’ve made in this post.
If PG would be willing to consider using a better metric to measure team competence, performance, and activity next season, I’ll be a happy Cat.
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nekodracones · 5 years ago
Text
Of Guards on T2s
Two hundred thousand guards a day
What dangers do they keep at bay-
Perhaps a frothing mob?
A rampaging god?
But it’s none of that really, it’s just fear
Of not getting points as prime training draws near.
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nekodracones · 5 years ago
Note
Are you in the LETHALDESCENT???
No I’m in the SALUBRIOUSASCENT.
That being said I just left my diamond team because that life is so not me.
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nekodracones · 5 years ago
Quote
Where there is a sea, there are pirates
Greek proverb
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