One-million point shots in Grumpy Gobbler game

This is from an e-mail one of my friends has sent me; apparently, these guys have better inherent Geometry skills than most people, and can nail on the first shot a complete wipeout on the brick castles and easily get a million or better with their scores.

The trick to every block castle in Grumpy Gobblers is to hit the "lynch pin" brick. In every configuration at every level, there is one, solitary brick to hit that will cause the entire structure, or at least 90% of it, to violently explode and send bricks flying everywhere. If you get good enough on your aim, then you can hit that one brick on the first shot. If you do, then the game rewards you with a "super shot" and a score bonus of one-million points, or something close to that.

The "lynch pin", or the "keystone", brick is not always at the heart of a block castle. There are a few configurations where it is just off-center, or is actually a brick that does not seem to be important.

Here is where we can really see the effectiveness of the "lynch pin" physics.

An important strategy is to not let the wind play you. If you do not get favorable wind conditions, hit the big red X, then come back into the game; keep doing this until you get the right wind speed and direction to not negatively affect your shot.

The advantage to doing this is it saves time, avoids monotonous repetition, and speeds up training your pet. It may take some practice, but you got to train your pet anyhow, so might as well quickly develop this skill to save yourself the boredom.

In these pics, you can see that within one or two shots, the field has been cleared, a max score has been achieved, and we are done here. That ensures a boost to our pet of +4 before we feed a pet snack, and it only took one shot, or sometimes two. The magical "lynch pin" brick does not always explode the entire block castle -- sometimes there will be one or two left. But guess what, on those few remaining bricks, there will also be a "lynch pin" brick -- thus you can do the whole, complicated block castle in just two shots.

This guy also drops Evil Magma Peas

This time, I was playing in Avalon (about a month ago, actually) and I discovered a boss who drops Evil Magma Peas. And I got the proof to prove it!

Location: Harlequin Tower in Avalon and whatever boss resides therein. The top shot shows without a doubt that, while victory dancing, I got an Evil Magma Pea as a drop!

A funny thing happened on the way to the Gobbler roundup

I am proud to have here the MOST unique location in all of the spiral -- the firing ground for Grumpy Gobblers!

Apparently, due to a lost connection glitch, a friend of mine got the completely unique opportunity to walk around the whole valley where normally there would only be multicolored blocks and cardboard cutouts to blast with a cannon. He sent me a whole series of snapshots from different spots around the valley. Scattered throughout the valley were various blocks, and where the block castle once stood, there were some floating blocks in a good resemblance of post-modernism art.

I only posted these three pictures, but may post another or so for chuckles. My friend says that he was able to fully explore the valley - from the cliff face to the houses to the multilevel landscape... everything!

Oh yeah, and happy birthday to me.

By the way, happy birthday to me, thanks guys who remembered.

Yes, I am a Sagittarius (the centaur with the bow)

Back to blogging!

Hey friends who read this!

Ok, sorry for the long lag since August. As many friends already know, and as others do not, Life took a big turn for me that month.

Get your coffee, it's story time.

My brother, during a stay with related-by-marriage relatives in Texas, got me hooked up with a sweet management job with a family owned car dealership. Being fresh out of home-schooling high school, this was an amazing opportunity, and thankfully I am smart enough at my young age to see that and to seize it.

I also got into an expensive (and I am guessing that makes them 7334 (elite)) university for a business degree -- business is my thing.

Anyhew, fresh out of home-schooling and I left beautiful Colorado for flat, and always warm, Texas for a whole new life, all in the merry month of August.

Sooooo, game playing, blogging, other hobbies, brushing of the teeth, all fell by the wayside as I did not have time with my new schedule. However, I have gotten comfortable into the swing of things with my new life, and am back to gaming and having fun with my friends on Wizard101, which allows me to interact with my pals who are a long ways away from me now.

Thanks Wizard101.

P.S. - boy, am I waaaaay behind. My e-mail is jam packed with material sent to me by my friends over the past few months.

What music do you listen to while playing Wizard101?

The creators of Wizard101 have gone to great lengths, apparently, to create original music pieces for each area and world of Wizard101, and that is something special every player should appreciate on some level for the effort that goes into our favorite game.

However, some more seasoned players who have logged many months, and yes years, on the game get tired quick of the same digital tunes and put their own individualized music on when playing Wizard101; some of my friends who responded to my survey say that their music actually helps them when in those tough fights.

Here is my little survey, but feel free to add to this in the comments!

Valkoor Legend says he listens to Big Band music, usually playing Rat Patrol Radio for that WW2 Glen Miller music. His girlfriend who is a new addict to the game, Heather Firewalker, listens to Tchaikovsky, Berlioz, or Rachmaninov...

Valdus Legend says he listens to Classic Rock Hits on Pandora.

Talon Shadowwalker listens to Techno, or he listens to Tiesto (best DJ in the world!)

My brother used to listen to the soundtrack of Conan the Barbarian (the one and only Arnold) -- try listening to Riddle of Steel or Riders of Doom while in a boss fight.

I used to listen to pop rock, until I heard some of my friends' suggestions, now I try varying it up while fighting on Wizard101. I got to admit, some of their suggestions do get the blood flowing while fighting, and seem to add to the game.

So what's your music?

This guy drops Evil Magma Peas

I just got word from Valkoor Legend that this guy:

drops Evil Magma Peas. Valkoor regrets not getting a snap shot of the actual drop; he says he was not paying attention, and after leaving the cave, he noticed that in the chat box, it said he got gold, some gear, and an evil magma pea. Sure enough, he had the seed in his inventory. So, he ran back in and got this picture. This guy is in Avalon, in the Wild (Wyld?); be sure to bring a friend, as he is tricky and difficult - mostly because he gets power pips at 80-90% consistency.

Back from vacay, and Wizard101 has a new pack!

Hey everyone,

All my friends have been wondering where I disappeared to for a couple of weeks... having forgotten that I told them where I would be before I left.

Dad took the family to Spain for a couple of weeks. He was there to capitalize on their collapsed housing market by purchasing houses and property at dirt cheap prices (also the Euro is really weak right now to the dollar). While he did that, the rest of us were on vacation.

I asked Dad for a rental car, and cruised back and forth between Madrid and Granada and Cordoba -- Dad was buying property in the Cordoba and Granada areas, and the family was staying in Granada. Anyhew, it's only a few hours drive, so I went clubbing all night in Madrid (yay lower drinking ages!), then would hot foot it back to the hotel.

But there was tons of other great things to do, and I did them, and it was the longest and funnest two weeks of my life. Spain is awesome! By the end, I was begging Dad to not leave Spain without buying at least one house for us that I could come back and stay.

So, I get back, and Wizard101 has a new Lore Pack out -- the Avalon Lore, or Knight's Lore, pack. I am completely out of cash, so it will have to be a little bit before I can get crowns to check out this pack.

If any friends have gotten it, give me an e-mail, I will post pics!

Got done with Dragonspyre too early

For a full day I could not figure out why I could not get to Celestia... I had finished all the necessary quests!

And then a friend told me that I was too low of a level. The battle of Malistaire gave enough experience to level up to 47. My friend told me that I needed to be 48. So, I have to go through enough quests to gain a whole experience level.

My friend suggested Grizzleheim, which I have ignored up until now.

On an un-related side note, We (my little clique of friends and myself) have a new member to our tight circle -- Heather FireMancer (she is apparently, in real life (IRL) the girlfriend of Valkoor Legend - which explains why he hangs out with her all the time on the game).

Valkoor promised me pics soon.

Whatever could it be?

Valkoor Legend did send today this pic --> It is a hatching between Lady Pepper (Pedigree 62 Hydra) and Lord Chico (Pedigree 53 Orthrus). Lord Chico manifested a selfish talent at Ancient, so that's the end of him. Lady Pepper had amazing talents all the way to Ancient, and is expected to manifest a great talent at Epic.

The talents slots on this pet are all far, far better than Lord Chico, and are about as good as Lady Pepper.

Drat... I was told that the result was just another Orthrus, nothing at all special other than a higher level two-headed dog.

P.I.P. update: A less annoying balance pet

The problem with Balance is that it is very, very hard to get a good pet. Probably the best pet is Judgement, supposedly. However, Valkoor Legend reports that his Judgement manifested the exact same talents as his pet dragon (Pedigree 29, purchased in Shopping District). He has, or had, several of those basic dragons, but there was one that manifested useful talents instead of selfish. So, his Judgement (Pedigree 60) manifested the same thing as a Pedigree 29 pet. After having a hydra that only manifested selfish talents, a Jade Oni that only manifested selfish talents, and several other Balance pets that were less than useless, he was ready to give up on Balance pets.

Valkoor did not tell me what he crossed a hydra with, but he then crossed that second generation hydra with a different judgement pet to get Lady Pepper (seen above).

As you can tell, he is finally getting something worthwhile. He anticipates that if he takes the pet to Epic, he will most likely get the talent of Pip Boost. He does not think this pet will give Spritely. The pet only had two Epic talent slots, and both manifested early. Valkoor also reports that the pet hardly ever casts the weakness spell, but the vengeance is helpful, and the added defense from Balance has proven useful in the Waterworks :)

Is it possible to take something beautiful and make it more so?

The answer to that is apparently yes;

Valkoor Legend has already beaten me to the punch. He has Wysteria Villa, and has already decorated the place. And, he did a magnificent job! I mean, really, he made the place just absolutely fantastic.

I always envied Valkoor for what he did with his Wizard's Tower -- the outside is incredible, and turned the downstairs into a museum (and it really looks like a museum), and the upstairs into the most fantastic library you could imagine.

Well, with the Wysteria Villa, it is unbelievable how awesome he changed the place. He reports that you don't crowd the place with junk. Instead, you work with the architecture, colors and design -- he also said it was a bit of a challenge because Wizard101 does not have much in the way of furnishings that appropriately goes with the villa -- yet.

However, the fine details he did with his villa just make the place seem, I don't know, it's hard to describe as I am not an interior decorator or an architect.

Valkoor says he will work on some photos for me to post on my blog later this month. He is really busy with his job all the way up until the last week of July...

Wysteria housing

YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!

I am gonna say this, it is the most beautiful, most awesome housing on the whole Wizard101 game. Wizard's Tower comes in a very close second, but the Wysteria Villa is gorgeous.

And you can buy it for gold in the crown shop!

Which means that once again, all  my crowns will be blown on the packs.

Benefits of gardening on Wizard101

To get a full idea of all the benefits of each plant that is available for gardening, go visit the Wizard101 wiki. Just know that you can farm certain plants for years on that game and you will never, ever see some of the drops.

So, my list here is a list of the common drops from these plants, and is the reason why I am growing them. If you also garden these plants, it is likely that you will only ever see or benefit the same as what I am doing.

Dandelions -- these guys are very regular in dropping the slightly harder to get reagents that cost a small fortune in the bazaar, and are rare to get when running around harvesting. I only raise the pink and orange dandelions; the yellow dandelions do not drop anything worthwhile, even at the final harvest at Ancient. The Pink and Orange also drop good storm-snacks. As for the gold, don't count on getting rich anytime soon with these plants.

Dragons -- I do both the burning and maelstrom snap dragons for even more rare reagents, better quality snacks (although they don't do much in the snack department), but mostly for gold. The Maelstrom provides the occassional good quality Treasure Card, but they are excellent at dropping the extremely rare sandstone and sunstone, and pearl and golden pearl.

Venus Fly Trap -- I don't know, gold maybe? This guy is in my garden to make the dragons feel happy.

Ninja Fig -- The Fiery Boom Shrooms like this plant. Otherwise, this plant is just in my garden for the universal curse treasure card which adds nice damage in a fight. Also, I get lots of polymorph into a Ninja Pig, but I never use those cards.

Fiery Boom Shrooms -- very nice treasure cards; the evil magma peas like this plant.

Evil Magma Peas -- what is there not to like? Treasure cards, great rare reagents, mega-snacks, gold

White Tiger Lily -- very hard to come by the seeds, but gives very nice amounts of gold. Supposedly gives Amber, but I have never seen it. Also gives some great Ice treasure cards like the Ice Hound.

Wysteria housing, or, time to expand the garden

The time has come where the simple house I bought to be my farm can no longer contain my garden. The Wooded Cottage is a great starter kit for houses in Wizard101, and allows for a small garden outside. But, you can only have 50 items outside.

So, I have some dandelions (pink and orange), burning and maelstrom snap dragons, venus fly traps, boom shroom, evil magma peas, and finally a ninja fig.

Then I have a garden gnome, potted cattail, ball of blue yarn, dragon skull, mooshu weapons rack, broken stump, sand pile (I used to have some prickly bear cactus previously), bamboo fountain, egg basket, jimbe drum, and I think that is it. Well, that seems to add up to 50 items very quickly.

So what does this have to do with Wysteria Housing?

Fingers crossed, I am hoping that the great big beautiful Wysteria housing has an outdoor garden patch area and that you can do 250 items outside, like other large houses in the game.

That would just be terrific, 'cause I got to see the place in the Test Realm, and it is more beautiful than my wildest imagination. But I did not get to see how many outside or inside spaces the place has...

Anyway, I am buying the house once it hits the live game, assuming you can buy it with gold. So far, every house can be bought with gold, which is great because I am limited on how many crowns I can buy each month, and those crowns go toward packs :(

I am not here for your pleasure

Oh noes, we have come to the inevitable rant on someone's blog.

Okay, here goes my rant, and then its back to having fun in life:

A huge part of the attraction to Wizard101 is socializing. I personally know of several people on the game who don't even bother with quests, spells, fighting, and all that stuff; instead, they got themselves a fancy costume, and they log on every night, and just spend ALL night long talking to people, and yes, getting involved in drama.

Some would say, "it takes all kinds to make the world go 'round."  Well, from what I have read of philosophers and from socio-economics, it does NOT take all kinds to make the world go 'round. And I am gonna say it, there are some psychos in the game. Fortunately, they live in the Commons and only ever leave to go to their homes for a deeper level of pschyo activity.

Anyway, my rant is more about two things: being accosted in the Commons when passing through or meeting up with friends, and the inconsiderate children out there in the world who have no concept of "other".

Here's my examples: I was on some quest that brought me into contact with lower level wizards, the noobs if you want to use that term. These guys don't pay much attention to the game and spend half of their energy socializing, and maybe half of their energy playing the game. Well, we sometimes cross paths, and they always always always ask for help. I am a nice gal, and don't mind helping out the kiddos, because you never know if they are secretly a pro player who has just started up a fresh character, or if they are an adult who decided to give this very fun game a try.

So, I help them, we click friends, we have good time, then we go our separate ways. Then I find out, later, just who they are exactly. Example: I am in my house, gardening, minding my own business, and POOF!, someone teleports on top of me and starts demanding that I immediately go help them right this second. I ask them, "with what?" And then it turns out to be that they have to go talk to someone or turn a quest in or some other extremely benign menial task. It's like I am their personal minion that they can summon whenever they feel like it. They have no consideration of "other", as in that they are talking to a real person, who thinks and feels and has their own agenda.

They are the ultimate personification of self-centered, like to a degree where you wonder if they have brain damage.

Ok, then there is getting molested in the Commons. A few nights ago, me and my friend were chatting about what quests we should do that evening. Some low level noob comes up and starts saying extremely offensive sexual things to us, and then doing obscene things with his character. So, we changed realms.

Believe it or not, the very next realm had another kid doing the exact, same, thing!!!! And he targeted us!  So, again, we changed realms. Absolutely unbelieveable, the third realm, another kid doing the exact same thing!

At this point me and my friend are not believing in coincidence and we think that it must be one guy with three characters on three realms, or maybe three friends who are communicating and doing this.

So, we change realms a fourth time. Guess what... Yep, another dang kid doing the same disgusting stuff. At this point we just fled the Commons because this was too weird.

But this sort of thing happens all the time. We have noticed that the Commons is not a safe place to hang out. There is all sorts of depravity taking place in the Commons. It's like the Soddom and Gomorrah of Wizard101.

But it sure is annoying when you have to quickly pass through for the pet pavilion or on your way to the Bazaar. Me and my friends know that we can change the chat option to filter that out, but then we can't communicate with one another or have our (very friendly and clean) chats in between quests. And, we need the open chat for strategy during our fights, 'cause let's face it, we are awesome.

So, our primary defense is to flee to realms that are labeled "Perfect", meaning that there are few people on that realm. The "Crowded" realms are where the socializers hang out.

Smashing Thulkir: Denied by a tower shield

Ok, me and my friend Jenny were farming in Wintertusk, and we thought we would do a 'smash' on one of the bosses. We just randomly picked Thulkir. I started building up fire blades on me and traps on Thulkir. Jenny killed the minion, and used her ice wand attack to take the tower shields off of Thulkir. Everything was going smoothly until we got to the end of the fire traps and blades, and we had to very quickly set up feints.

We knew that with the feints, we would have to act fast before Thulkir started putting up tower shields. Well, the stinker did just that right after we put a feint on him. Jenny had to knock the tower shield and feint down. So, I put up another feint and Jenny followed with a universal +30% trap. Jenny had many more traps to put up for me, but we could not risk Thulkir doing another tower shield, and Jenny was almost out of ice wand attacks, and we were both out of healing spells.

So, we attacked. And what did Thulkir do? He stunned us both, and while we were stunned he put up a tower shield. Then we were not stunned anymore, and he put up another tower shield right as we attacked. As you can see from the pic, Thulkir just went crazy with tossing up tower shields, like he knew what was coming.

So, for the record, take that damage amount you see in that picture, and double it. For the record, that's 781,648 damage with a dragon -- on his initial fire breathing blast.

P.I.P. update: Coco

Here is one of the pets that I am working on for the P.I.P -- Queen Coco. She is a hybrid between a Sea Dragon, and a Vigilant Dragon/Sea Dragon hybrid. So, in other words, I kept crossing a Vigilant with a Sea Dragon to get rid of the weaker talents and to up the pedigree. At Ancient things are looking great.

Inspiration for the Kane Dragonblood stories

So I got an e-mail from someone who has enjoyed my brother's stories on the adventures of Kane Dragonblood (they are posted over at Legends of the Spiral). And, that same person pointed out that several of the worlds in those stories do not exist in the game of Wizard101.

Yes, that is correct, thus why it is called Fan Fiction.

To help illuminate the fact, I have raided my brother's laptop for a file of pictures he collected that gave him inspiration for those worlds. First up is the fictional Wizard101 world of Carmen Montantum (which is Latin for "Mountain Song").

Now, me and my brother have lived in the Rockies on the family ranch all of our lives until recently, and there are two beautiful valleys on our family ranch, but they are pure wilderness with no lakes or rivers. My brother said that he actually was thinking of pictures of Switzerland when he was first imagining Carmen Montantum, more specifically images from the movie, Sound of Music, but more rustic with the buildings and architecture. The images above were very much so, combined with what he knew of our home, inspirational for how he imagined Carmen Montantum.

Then there is Mirage. Now that world is actually mentioned in the game, Wizard101. In Wysteria, there is a rabbit/humanoid NPC character who mentions that they are from Mirage. Well, considering that our family once took a vacation to Morocco and the Sahara Desert, he had a lot of first hand inspiration to draw upon, both for vast sand dune deserts, and Oasis, and how agriculture is done in those Oasis. He also drew upon his experience with homes and clothing from that vacation for his story, except he made one mistake. In his story, he has the central corridor of a home running as a straight shot from the front door to the walled inner courtyard... in reality, homes in Morocco don't have that kind of straight-shot corridor, but he tweaked it to kind of represent a rabbit's warren.

Then there is Kane's homeworld of Stone. Not too far from where we live, over in southern Utah, there is a vast and dangerous wilderness of desert where people can get lost forever. Me and my brother used to love getting away to this place and go hiking and running for miles and miles. We would just run all over the place like free spirits, exploring sandstone canyons and climbing the buttes -- it was like this vast and dangerous desert was our playground. We always had so much fun everytime we went, and my brother used our experiences to craft the world of Stone. Here are some pics that are similar to what we know, and what he envisioned for Stone:

Then, he imagined the village of Outcrop to be a cliff dwelling village, kind of a cross between Petra in Jordan, and the cliff dwellings of the American southwest, but with multiple vertical levels in a much, much taller cliff than you usually find cliff dwellings and Petra.

And then there is Antelope Canyon, which directly inspired the Spiral Door room for the world of Stone, and the canyon just outside the Spiral Door chamber:

Perhaps the most original world my brother created for his stories was Arboreal. He had no images, but he imagined grey granite mountains (actually like the rockies) surrounded a rich and lush jungle forest that covered a vast valley like a deep carpet. The city of Arboreal he imagined a vertical city carved into terraces in the face of a mountain, with numerous towering waterfalls to either side plunging from the upper reaches of the mountain. If you read the story, you can see that my brother got into some good details.

Then there is the world of Steppe. This one is easy: he had like one picture of Ireland, but he imagined taller grass like the plains of the U.S., and voila, the world of Steppe, which features kind of prominently in the first and third parts of the Kane adventures:

For the worlds of Dragon's Roost, my brother combined images of Dragonspyre, and the houses for that world, with landscape images he saw from an episode of Farscape, "Taking the Stone", which featured a barren and gray world that was still and lifeless and perpetually clouded over in grey clouds. For Maelstrom, in the game of Wizard101, you can buy a house for the school of storm. If you get that house, and stand near the lighthouse looking out to sea... that same image is what inspired my brother for Maelstrom, but with much more violent seas, and he surrounded them with the black lava cliffs of Jeju-do, only much much taller:

And yes, we were there at these cliffs, but during a typhoon. It was spectacular and powerful to see these 50-foot high waves come smashing into these cliffs and send sprays of seawater a hundred feet or more into the air, like an instant skyscraper of water every few seconds. Jeju-do is like the Korean version of Hawai'i, for those who don't know.

Dramatis Personae

I asked my friends on Wizard101 (in game) to go someplace cool and take a snapshot of themselves and then send me that snapshot via e-mail. They did, I cropped them, and now I can introduce the gang that I hang out with all the time on the game, whether with my Ice character, or my Fire Character, or my Balance character, or once in a great while with my brother's characters. Anyway, These guys are the coolest and really know how to rock Wizard101. The top three you see below, Valdus, Valkoor, and Talon, used to run with my brother a lot -- that is how I met them. So now that my brother is gone, they run with me, or I with them, however you want to put that.

Valdus is primarily Balance, second school is storm. I usually play my new-ish balance character with Valdus; my second school is death, so we have two balance characters with death and storm spells -- talk about really powerful. And, we have gotten really good at complimenting each other with blades, traps, and the added focus spell. So, if he is up first and he sees me using a death attack, he will place a trap on my target, or a blade on me; if I am up first, I will place an added focus on him when he is readying a storm attack. He is currently level 45, so we are just about the same level.

Sadly, I do not get much time with Valkoor. He is almost level 80, and kicks it better than anyone I know other than myself on my Fire. He is a legendary artisan and uses amazing crafted gear that really benefits him a lot. He is pure balance, no secondary school, but he has trained for Tower Shield and Feint; but, he does not use any other attack spells other than the Balance.

Talon is pure Death school, but has trained for Tower Shield and for the Life healing spells. Otherwise, he uses pure death attack spells. Check the previous post to see an awesome attack he and I did just the day before this post. He is level 41-42 right now, and we have completed the entirety of Mooshu and Marleybone together. We work well together because Balance and Death complement each other well in fights.

The Mooshu shrine behind him is available in the Emperor's Pack, but he got it as a drop in Crimson Fields when we were doing one of our giant hits on the bosses. I forgot which one it was, but I was there with him when he got that shrine.

Balance and Life complement each other really well too. This is Valerian (the third friend I have with a name that starts with V), who is Life as primary, and Death as secondary. With the secondary death attack spells, he is a really hard hitting Life character. I think he is level 22-23 right now. We have been doing a lot of farming together in random places around the Spiral, and we have won lots of gold from our battles.

Here is the newest addition to our gang, Taryn "Terra" Silversword. She is Myth, level 12, and she will most likely go with death as her second school, but she wants to do the Spirit Tri-fecta and do all three schools. Taryn is also pushing that we form a clan... I could either way with that, none of the boys are wanting to mess with that clan stuff, so we will see. Anyway, Taryn was introduced by Valdus to the others, and we have since been helping her to learn the ropes of Wizard101 and how to become a truly awesome player. We all just love her to bits and pieces.

 

These guys are awesome (for when they read my blog) and if you meet them out there in the Spiral, be sure to say hi and feel free to ask for their help. Who knows, you may even run into one of them and myself.

Whoop! There it is!

Check the damage on Grum Foultooth!

After we smashed Grum and Yakedo, me and Talon Shadowwalker decided to step out, and start Crimson Fields all over again. This time, we decided to add some treasure card blades and traps to our decks for added fun. We were thinking that maybe we could hit 20k or 25k damage on Grum. We never imagined that this would happen!

Remember, he is only level 40, so he has no critical rating; I am level 41, same story. This was done all with traps and blades, and a Monstrous fist added to the Vampire card.

Smashing Yakedo

In the same run through the Crimson Fields, for the quest 'Bottled Up', me and my death friend, Talon Shadowwalker, did a smash on Yakedo.

We both got some brilliant gear from that attack. Talon is a Firefly fan, so he got happy when he got a pair of boots called, Song of the Verse. With Yakedo, you have to be careful and strategize. I was the bait for Yakedo to attack and cast weakness on, while Talon worked quickly to build up traps and blades.

We love pounding on Grum Foultooth

My death friend had to run through Crimson Fields again for a quest (Bottled Up). So, we went together on the quest so that we could pound on Grum Foultooth. Here is proof of how much damage we can do now with the Vampire spell. Check an earlier post on this matter, and you will see that together we are doing more than double the damage. My friend is level 40 now, and I am level 41.

Khepri

Here is where I hit a wall: there is no such thing as ice or winter in Egypt. So, how do I create an ice spell with an Egyptian theme?

Then it occured to me that Ice is all about long lasting, strong defense, in a fight. So after much research, I read about the Egyptian deity of Khepri, who pushes the sun across the sky and then pushes the sun under the underwold during the night. So, I found this ice beetle ish graphic, and created for Ice wizards a unique to ice Aura spell that increases their attack and defense for 4 rounds.

Obviously, this spell quest pops up sometime after level 56.

Tefnut

Sooooo, apparently there is not much in the way of violent storms in Egypt, which is in the Sahara Desert. Soooo, the Egyptians did not have much in the way of storm deities.

I did find one, who looks just like Bast, Sekhmet, and a score of others, and her name is Tefnut, with a long u sound, like the "oo" in boot. However, she was not a warrior deity, more like a low ranking, benign, filling-in-the-gap-cause-we-forgot-to-have-a-deity-for-this kind of goddess.

So, I found this artwork of, I don't know, Sekhmet again? But since they are all lion headed goddesses and i needed something fearsome, I am using this artwork.

And, since Tefnut is not a warrior deity, as a Wizard101 card for the school of Storm, she offers her blessings on the attacks of Storm Wizards by slapping a trap on their enemies, which would be cumulative with windstorm. Yes, this means that Storm Wizars would be super-duper-powerful.

I imagine the animation for this would be Tefnut riding into the dueling circle on the back of her lion, and twirling her mighty staff to cast a trap on each enemy.

Sobek

Life has only one minion, the Sprite Guardian, which is slightly okay for healing when you are soloing as a Life wizard. So, what if we got a Life minion who was a hard hitter? In Egyptian mythology, Sobek was one of the top deities. He was a much feared deity of the Nile Rive, and the deity of the military.

So, as a card, you would summon this Sokkwi warrior, strength of life depends on how many pips you give up to this guy, who can summon all the hard hitting spells and give you blades, sets up traps, etc...

Sekhmet

Sekhmet is a goddess of war, plague and pestilence. So, she should do more than just attack... This fire card is a slightly more powerful, one enemy attack card for Fire (Sekhmet is associated with the sun), but she plagues all enemies, thus the lessened focus.

Ma'at

So who needs a self-healing spell (to self only, and only for Myth wizards),  yep, Myth wizards. So instead of sacrificing your minion, you can heal yourself while out there soloing those hard dungeons. And, this incorporates another Egyptian deity into the different schools.

So far we got: Ra in Balance, Anubis in Death, and now Ma'at in Myth.

Anubis

Balance has Ra, who summons the power of the sun to burn all enemies. Cool. So what Egyptian warrior-god would all the other schools get?  I figured that I would create cards, of different ranks and abilities, that would incorporate the Egyptian deities into the other schools -- all of these would be from quests taking place in ol' Krokotopia.

Here we have the very powerful god of death, Anubis. His pip cost is high, but then so too is his damage and ability. He is a single attack, so that leaves Death wizards open to attack after casting this guy 'cause they use up all their pips: thus, the tower shield he grants before leaving in order to protect his death wizard.

Re-starting the P.I.P.

Ok, I just got word from my friend that he is very sure he accidentally sold the higher level Myth Sprite.

That particular Myth Sprite was going to be the one that he and I trained up to have great talents, like cast spritely, and maybe some univerals shielding.

Well, he was clearing out pets for cash, and he forgot why he had a Myth Sprite, and so he sold it.

This puts me back to square one.

So, I am going to take what I have learned, or think that I have learned, and start over.

By now, I am getting some pretty good pet snacks. I unfortunately gave in and bought several Hydra Hoard packs... I got lots of pet snacks, one or two furniture items, a few treasure cards, and a bunch of bobble heads. The only thing I can use are the pet snacks which are good mega snacks. Everything I sold for cash.

My garden is going great! I grew some Evil Snow Peas, and one of them gave me an Evil Magma Peas seed, which has been dropping some wonderful mega snacks. Also, the rest of my plants have been giving good snacks, except for the prickly bear cactus which has decided not to give any snacks (I have three of those going, now having reached ancient and replanted about 3 or 4 times now, and still no snacks, whatsoever -- and I have four 'likes' for those guys: Krok Insect Tablet which was nearly impossible to get; pixie; garden gnome; and, pile of sand).

And, I have tons of gold! The plants have been paying out nicely, but the real payday has been in Dragonspyre. I have been farming for gear and badges with several friends in Dragonspyre. And in a short time, the gear you don't want and that you sell at the bazaar piles up quick. By the time my backpack fills up, I am earning some 30k in gold coin per trip to the bazaar. And, when you are farming with friends, the gear drops are better and more frequent.

So, which pet will I restart the P.I.P. with?  Ice Oni.  Yeppers, I have Helephant on my fire wizard, and Ice Colossus on my ice wizard. I crossed them, and got an Ice Oni. I am not impressed with its peidgree or its talents, so I think I will try to hybrid it up to something really nice.

Ice Unicorn

You know which school has no healing spells? If you guessed Ice, then we are thinking the same thing. So here is the Ice healing spell -- it can only be cast on yourself, and gives you a tower shield. That makes it one pip more expensive than the healing fairy you get in Unicorn Way.

Dragon Titan

As the ultimate Fire spell, the most powerful Fire wizards can briefly summon the Dragon Titan! The animation should be this huge dragon flying through space, and it comes to land - talons out - on a miniature Dragonspyre island, and then with its wings outspread, it begins breathing fire everywhere, then gives one final blast of dragon fire at the enemy. As a consequence of summoning such a huge, and powerful beast of evil and destruction, the Fire wizard should suffer as well -- so there is a universal trap placed on the wizard at the end of the spell.

Troll King

For Myth wizards like my brother's, this attack card would actually be over-powered. If it were real, I could easily see my brother scoring 5k to 10k hits on this (he uses the Troll spell all the time to get 1k to 1.5k hits, and the Cyclops for 3k hits). So it has to be pip expensive, and a single enemy attack card. But the awesome part is that, before leaving, the Troll King grants the casting Myth wizard a Myth Blade for his next attack. This would be a great spell for the Waterworks, and those lovely hard Avalon bosses.

Comic: When Oran Battlemage met Angelica

Oran Battlemage had been wandering for hours since his small flying ship had crashed on this seemingly desolate island of mountains and glaciers. Making his way through narrow crags in the glaciers, he trekked onward in hopes of finding help, or of finding a way off this island to continue his trip home.

As he searched, his mind was filled with a mixture of the images of home and family, interrupted with the nightmares of war... for young Oran Battlemage had been on his way from proudly serving in the ranks of a righteous crusade against evil forces, and terrific creatures.

Then ahead, Oran spied a tunnel through the ice, a tunnel that did not seem to be a natural formation. His hopes leapt that perhaps there were residents on this island.

Oran journeyed down the ice tunnel, which was very long. But, it never went too deep into the ice, so it was beautifully illuminated along its length from light that permeated the snow and ice. But eventually, the tunnel came to an end.

Oran now found himself some distance from the barren rock mountains and on a small, ice covered shelf, seemingly at the edge of the island.

A frigid blast of cold air carrying stinging ice particles hit him, and he had to brace himself for a moment or two until the wind ceased. Time was running out for him, he knew -- cold and hunger were taxing his energy; how much longer could he continue?

Oran stepped over to the edge of the ice shelf, and looked out into the void of sky, clouds and stars. It was beautiful, in its own way, he thought to himself, though it might very well be his end should he not find help, shelter or food.

As Oran gazed out into the empty sky, a girl appeared from a narrow defile in the glacier that he had not noticed before. He turned as he heard the crunch of her boots on the ice and snow. He felt immense relief at the sight of another person. "Hello!" he called out, "I have been stranded here on this island by my ship wrecking upon the rocks, can you help me?"

The girl smiled pleasantly, "yes," she replied, "you are in no danger here on this island, for this place is my home. Welcome, castaway, to Estgard, my family's private island. You are fortunate that I was out hunting just now. My name is Angelica, and this is my pet Ice Dragon, Artica. Follow me and I will take you to my home, the Tower of Estgard."  Angelica then led Oran to a smaller tunnel in the glacier that he had not seen before because it blended so well into the ice around it.

Angelica led him down this small, and short distance, ice tunnel to a cliff face. In the cliff face was a passageway carved into the mountain. "This passage leads to the main valley of Estgard, where my home is. On this side of the island, there are only cliffs and glaciers, and a maze of crags and narrow defiles that you could get lost in forever if you are not careful," Angelica said.