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.

Taking over my brother's work

So, as I mentioned earlier, my brother is off to serve his country, and he has handed over to me all of his fiction, with instructions.

First thing, my brother must have been the most prolific writer of all time -- both of us were home schooled for  along time, and while being home schooled we read the classics, learned writing both for fiction and non-fiction, and many many other things. Anyway, he apparently loved to read and write and he spent the past two years writing every spare moment. The only thing that I am going to be posting here and on Legends of the Spiral.com are his fiction stories pertaining to Wizard101.

He told me that writing those stories was like eating candy -- immensely fun and easy. So, he was able to crank out 50 pages like it was nothing. It took him, he said, only a day or two to write 60 pages of story because it came so naturally.

Other fiction that he wrote, took much longer. But that does not pertain to this blog.

So, the instructions he left along with his lap top are to publish online as much as I can, as frequently as I can, bit by bit, the Wizard101 fan fiction stories for the enjoyment of others.

Keep your eyes peeled on this blog for updates as I have the time to publish the material.

Grrrr... friends not training

So, if you have read much of this blog, then you are wondering, whatever happened to your aspirations of having a strong Myth Sprite that can cast Spritely?

Well, the Myth Sprite that very likely has that ability is in the possession of a friend... who has not been training the pet.

Until that pet starts manifesting talents, I will not know if my calculations were correct (which would really, really, really help me with other hatchings and being able to figure out how they will come out before I cross them with another pet).

I guess I will just have to wait and see...

Mooshu Balance

I did this one more out of humor than as a serious card, but I think it is the kind of humor that is fitting with Wizard101. For those not too familiar with the symbol, it is a stun card.

Green Knight

This card is inspired by the new world of Avalon, and by the King Arthur mythos that inspired Avalon. In the tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the un-named Green Knight challenges King Arthur's court. Whoever strikes him, he will return the same a year and a day later. Sir Gawain, believing himself clever, decides to strike a great killing blow, beheading the Green Knight. However, the Green Knight is a magical being -- he picks up his head, which says that it shall return a year and a day later to return this attack.

So, we have this card that Life wizards can quest for in Avalon. It is a singular, mighty attack -- just like Sir Gawain's attack. But, there is a powerful, delayed return strike against the Life Wizard with a trap against the Life wizard (like the consequence for Feint).

Quick note on the fan-made cards...

Before anyone asks, all of these cards were made with a program of some sort on Legends of the Spiral.com -- I had a fun day and made a ton of them. The artwork is not mine, I do not claim in any fashion that it is mine, all of this was done for fun, no profit was made, they are not for sell, they are only for personal enjoyment and the enjoyment of those who read this blog. All rights of Wizard101 belong to KingsIsle.

Sand Jackal

This is just me, but I have always hated the 3-pip spell Balance wizards get at Level 10, called Locust Swarm. I don't like the animation, and I don't like how really, really weak it is. So, here is my replacement for it. The damage has been increased ever so slightly (plus 10 on the bottom end, and plus 5 on the high end) and the animation should be totally rocking! Plus, its an Egyptian-styled, kinda mythical, creature to keep with the desert/Krokotopia theme of Balance.

Ice Queen

She is stunningly beautiful.

Night Panther

The mighty Night Panther is a fickled and dangerous creature! You can summon him (and I am picturing an animation of a fiercesome black panther slashing its paw at each enemy, leaving behind a +25% trap, and then turning and doing the same thing to you before the animation ends). How cool is that?

Tiger Spirit

Balance has all kinds of card to boost or subtract to attacks: for example, Balance Blade, Bladestorm, Weakness, Black Mantle... So, why not have the same ability with healing? This spell gives Balance wizards the ability to boost all healing, but it is weak, like everything else with Balance utility spells and attacks. There is a small cost because potentially, with critical heals and Life wizards, this could be a powerful charm.

Ice Owl

What does a snowy owl do? It swoops down and nabs rodents. So, we have a neat ice spell where a Snowy Owl swoops down and steals all charms from enemies, gives them to you. It has to be kinda expensive because potentially that could be a powerful spell if timed just right in a fight. This would be a cool PVP spell as well.

Bad Moon Rising

A potentially very helpful, or potentially harmful Aura card.

Mighty Jackelope

Ok, I am having way too much fun with this card creation contest!!!! I replaced the Griffin submission in the contest with this, the Mighty Jackelope. It is a Life enchantment card that gives all friends a +25% Life Charm for the next Life attack spell, or (because the Jackelope is a mischevious creature) puts a +30% Life trap on all enemies. The effect is random, but imagine this happening before casting a Forest Lord!

Blue Sprite

You know what Storm does not have? Healing spells. But, they should be kinda random like so many utility Storm spells. However, Storm gets a small break in that the focus is 10% higher than standard Storm, and the small heal is augmented by a 'guiding light' healing charm.