[Balanor]

-The Smoking Keep, the northern gateway to restricted High Thay, is now available. Plumes of smoke giving the keep its name billow from the ground in and around the castle, keeping it eternally foggy and horrid-smelling
1. This keep can be found 8 leagues north and 2 leagues west of Thralgard Keep at the far northern end of High Thay
2. It contains 6 new areas to explore including the Citadel of Stratagem (a temple to the Red Knight), the keep interior itself, and for the brave mid-level adventurer - the dungeons below and the nearby Murky Caverns
3. A special questgiver found here, and a new one found elsewhere in a capital city, gives a unique item based off suggestions given by the community
4. The Citadel of Stratagem is a new joinable faction here. Thanks go to EdinSumar for creating the necessary faction contact conversation to make it so

-There has been a significant change to the opening event for all new PCs. Of particular note, there is now a type of semi-OOC area that new PCs go to in which they can change their body appearance, portrait, select languages, select their patron deity, and purchase starting equipment. For full details, see this thread

-Over a half dozen new items based on suggestions by the community can now be found or purchased. Thanks for those and keep them coming!

-Characters who are following the merchant/mercenary Path to Power may buy and sell items to Merchant Masters for prices similar to merchants of other factions

-Think very carefully about what you are doing before trying to 'save' someone who has been petrified. If one of the most popular tactics used in the past to remove petrification is used now, the petrified individual will be heartbroken (pun intended). So maybe Stone to Flesh won't be such a worthless spell to have after all...

-The Colosseum of Thay has new and extremely loud Editor of the Games, whose voice can even be heard in the far corners of the arena when announcing matches

-There is an unbalancing effect when PCs possess 2, 3, 4, 5+ copies of special quest reward items like Sharken's Stone of Missiles, Torm's Stone Hand, etc. As a result there is now an ever increasing chance that the longer they carry multiple copies of those items, the magic of the extra copies will fade or become unstable - causing them to disintegrate

-Two new DM voice commands are available for DMs to quickly copy items, creatures, or placeables; and another to resize most creatures

-In the ongoing effort to fight lag, spawns points in over 75% of Thay's areas were updated to properly remove spawned creatures if the area is empty of players

-The following bugs have been fixed:
1. Overland travel to and from the Gold Mines of Thay exterior in High Thay works properly now
2. Martial characters with a BAB equal to their level will begin receiving the quests to fight in arenas
3. Members of the Red Wizard, Thayan Knight, and High Thay factions can open the locked gates that restrict entry to High Thay
4. Drow PCs should no longer have light blindness penalties applied to them each time they enter a new area, nor have those penalties stack
5. All Yuan-ti will be recognized as valid slaves when returning them to fulfill a slavery quest