[Balanor]

-This update can be summed up in one word: ELTABBAR!!!
YES! Thanks to the combined efforts of the Thay PW staff, the capital city of Thay is now an available location to travel via caravan from certain locations. Discover the city at the heart of all the evil and corruption that is Thay.
1. Approximately 20 new areas to explore. Thanks go to Purulent Carcass and Sundraoi for their excellent and detailed work on the following areas in Eltabbar:
a. Temple of Cyric - Designed by Purulent Carcass
b. Temple of Loviatar - Designed by Purulent Carcass
c. Canalside - Designed by Purulent Carcass
d. Vurman’s Tavern - Designed by Sundraoi
e. Vurman’s Tavern Stables - Designed by Sundraoi
f. Thieves Guild - Designed by Sundraoi
g. Hidden Crypt- Designed by Sundraoi (This may, or may not be, located in Eltabbar...)
2. There are over two dozen new rumors about Eltabbar to be found out for XP rewards
3. Over 25 new research quest questions in regard to Eltabbar
4. Five new merchants
5. Four new joinable temple, guild, and legion factions. Thanks go to EdinSumar for creating the necessary faction contact conversation to make it so for the temples of Cyric and Loviatar
6. Three new special questgivers

-Very rare magic gems are now available which can be used to apply virtually any manner of enchantment to weapons, shields, helms, armor and clothing

-Several locations of adventure primarily intended for mid-upper levels PCs (such as the Nethwatch Keep Dungeons and the Alaor Abandoned Tower), have had the DC of encounters in them considerably reduced and should be scaling to the party’s level much better than before

-Several new riddles have been added to the Riddlemaster’s repertoire

- The following bugs have been fixed:
1. Faction Items modified via enchantment forges now have their dynamic AC bonus reduced, if necessary, so the item does not become more powerful than the ILR will allow for that PC
2. Assassins will once again spawn. It is *highly* recommended that PCs (especially upper-level PCs) begin hiring NPCs as informants as they can often provide advanced warning of an assassination attempt and sometimes even thwart it altogether
3. Stones of recall can no longer take mounted PCs to indoor locations
4. Armorers and weapon smiths properly interact with their forges and anvils
5. PCs with wings will no longer have them removed when swords are unequipped or ammunition is equipped. In addition, PCs with wings are now unable to use the ‘straps on backpack’ voice command to display a backpack on them
6. The Hunger, Thirst, and Fatigue (HTF) meter has been fixed (again) so it should not stop after a logout/login
7. Tridents are properly counted as melee weapons for spells such as Magic Weapon, Flame Weapon, Keen Edge, and so on

[Balanor]

-Four new areas available in Eltabbar:
1. Eltabbar Caverns (East and West) - These caverns below the Eltabbar Sewers are filled with all manner of extraplanar and magical creatures. These areas are recommended for adventurers of 7th level or greater
2. Orc’s Beard Tavern - Designed by Sundraoi
3. The Tam Estate

-Caravan travel has been updated so, after an encounter once everyone is back on the wagon, you may tell the Drover you are ready to continue - at which point the caravan journey proceeds

-Bards will no longer suffer the possibility of arcane spell failure while wearing light armor

-Scrying has been modified to more appropriately fit with D&D 3.5 rules. Review the revised in-game information about it for more details

-To closer match with D&D rules, True Seeing has been modified so it will no longer spot normally hidden creatures. It will still see through invisibility, sanctuary, and (now) darkness spells. The spell also allows those under its effect to see through illusions, which provides immunity to spells such as Color Spray, Phantasmal Killer, Mass Blindness/Deafness, and Weird

-Per D&D 3.5 rules, the ability enhancing spells such as Bull’s Strength, Cat’s Grace, and so on, all now give a flat +4 bonus when cast

-The ability to apply poison to weapons has been restricted to those with the Use Poison feat - Assassins and Blackguards

- The following bugs have been fixed:
1. When casting a non-harmful spell on a NPC they will no longer go hostile and call for help
2. Cobras will no longer drop treasure
3. Released mounts will not despawn unless their previous owner logs off or moves some distance away from them
4. The mounts in the caravan wagon encounter area can no longer be claimed
5. Legion Master Sergeants will no longer give legionnaires Slave Freedom quests
6. Paladins who have fallen from grace and no longer have a Lawful Good alignment may select non-paladin gods if changing their worship

[Balanor]

-Two new areas:
1. The Keep in the Keep of Sorrows is finally open to the general public and contains the typical deedmaster, merchant master, and vaultkeeper found in most official government locations. More importantly though, it contains barracks, an armory, and a Master Sergeant for the Lapendrar legion. Thanks go to Purulent Carcass for the design of the Keep.
2. The Palace of Crystals in Eltabbar is open for Red Wizards and their allies. For the right price though, Red Wizard Crollir may be convinced to let others who have gained some notoriety use the various crystal balls and mirrors in that location to scry ‘for the good of the realm’

-Siege equipment is on castle walls and other defensive positions. By order of the tharchions, legionnaires of all tharchs are to train on these machines to ensure basic competency should they be needed in defense of the realm
(I am looking for a little bit of help just making sure they are all positioned correctly. Please send me a PM if any cannot be completely rotated or PCs somehow get stuck behind/around any of them)

-There are hundreds of new treasure items throughout Thay - especially in areas of medium difficulty such as locations in Eltabbar, the Keep of Sorrows, and the Alaor Isles

-The quest system has been revised so tasks will not take you to extremely far away locations. For example, if you speak to someone in the Alaor Naval Base, they will no longer ask you to deliver a message, retrieve an object, or assassinate someone in places like Nethjet or Eltabbar

-The poison system has been completely overhauled! There are now 44 different poisons in Thay and, as per D&D rules, they will remain applied to a weapon until it strikes a target. In addition, these poisons are no longer restricted only to weapons - they can be permanently applied to food and drink as well...

-By order of the zulkirs, all Thayan slaves must now wear a slave collar, in addition to never being able to cut their hair. Therefore, whenever a PC is made a slave, their neck appearance will be changed to that of one which looks like a collar is around it. Please RP this accordingly

-By order of the tharchions, legion officers now have a rank above captain to be known as Tribune. These elite commanders will oversee their legion from a strategic military standpoint, but may often be drawn into more political states of affair by their tharchion, the Thayan nobility, and the Red Wizards themselves

-Individuals who strike out on their own and follow the Merchant/Mercenary path to power may store double the amount of coin in Thayan vaults before their balance attracts the attention of a zulkirs. Additionally, these individuals will receive a substantial discount when purchasing a building deed

-Lycan Hunters will begin hunting lycan PCs. See the Lycanthropy thread here, or type in !lycan in-game for more details

-Free beds are unclean beds. If your non-low-level PC is not paying, or making preparations, for a decent rest - no longer expect one

- The following bugs have been fixed:
1. Raise Dead and Resurrection scrolls and spells will properly work to bring a dead PC out of the Fugue Plain when either spell cast on a dead PC’s corpse on the ground, as well as PC corpse items now
2. NPCs who are not powerful enough to cure lycanthropy will no longer offer the option to Cure Disease from those who have recently been afflicted with it
3. Red Wizards robes will be properly created if/once a PC successfully completes the Red Wizard Trials
4. Ibrandul will accept True Neutral followers
5. Summoned Legion aid will properly spawn with their legion cloak equipped
6. When in cutscene mode (while scrying, researching a question, talking to others about your god, etc) assassins, slavers, vampire hunters, and lycan hunters will not attack

[Balanor]

- A new feature: Jousting
Your characters may now joust with Jousting Knight (NPC) instructors, or with each other. Look for a tournament at Tyraturos sometime in the future where prizes, gold, and prestige will be in store for those who prove successful at it
Thanks go to Vortar the Mad (our real-life jousting expert!) for his guidance implementing and testing it

- The armor and cloaks of Thayan Knights have become much more stylish. Thanks go to Vortar the Mad for redesigning both

- Overland travel on foot or horseback has become safer since the chance that hostile creatures spawn has been reduced. In addition, the amount of time you must wait before traveling another league has been reduced

- Merchants throughout Thay will replenish their inventory and gold supplies up to twice as fast as they did before. Keep in mind that to replenish their inventory, an area needs to be vacant for a certain amount of time. So places like the Bezantur Market will still not have its stores restocked as often as less traveled locations

- Certain siege equipment ammunition has been modified so the ranges have been reduced. Further testing to confirm these changes are useful is requested, and thanks go to BigbysBackhand for taking the initiative to provide initial IC testing

-Slavers, like assassins, will no longer attack PCs who are nearby other PCs

-A well has been sunk in Thasselen for those who need to refill their canteens

- Countless ‘unsexy’ and changes have been made in an attempt to reduce server-side lag. Some visible changes that will affect all players include:
1. Parties with more than 8 PCs will no longer receive combat XP. The party leader will receive notification if this is the case when combat XP should have been awarded. This limitation is directly related to the extra resources and strain that large parties place on the server
2. The HTF meter has been modified. As a result, PCs that have already been created will experience an extended amount of time (many real-time hours) in which they will not need to consume food or drink while their HTF meter ‘catches up’ to the new settings

- The following bugs have been fixed:
1. Due to a NWN engine ‘bug’, PCs who are polymorphed are no longer auto-saved to their server vaults
2. Whenever a PC would enter a player house, all furniture was (re) created which was causing severe server-wide lag if multiple people would enter the same player owned building. This situation will no longer occur
3. If someone leaving a slave to freedom finds the overland area they need to reach, but then exits it, the slave will remember the general area and the PC will need to return back to it
4. An excess number of creatures per spawn point should no longer be occurring

[Balanor]

-Faction leaders now have the ability to freeze or unfreeze faction advancement, promote, or even kick out members of lesser standing. See the Player Joinable Faction thread or the in-game player guide for full details

-The !follow command is available for you to type in a Tell to another PC and have your PC autofollow it

-All the NWN projectile traps have been added to the randomly spawning trap system. Among my favorites are the Dispel Magic traps...

-Changes have been made to the jousting system based on tester feedback

-Familiar and Animal Companions are not quite the pussies they have been and will help their masters take on opponents that are a little stronger than they - so long as they have a decent amount of health

-If a Cleric worships one of the four elemental gods, Summon Creature spells will only create elemental creatures appropriate to that god

-Several volumes of books are available from shady merchants providing a list of details about the poisons of Faerûn

-Doors which are locked and require keys, such as those in Eltabbar’s Canalside, will lock and autoclose themselves after a certain amount of time once opened

-The domains available for clerics of Kelemvor and Talos have changed

- The following bugs have been fixed:
1. When enchantment gems are used on equipped items, they will not incorrectly decrease the bonus they should have increased
2. Dominated creatures, such as shackled slaves, will no longer despawn when travelling to or from overland areas
3. Siege Ammunition will no longer do ungodly amounts of damage, nor will it do only a couple points either
4. When vampires die, or when a dead PC’s corpse (item) is taken out of their corpse (dead PC clone), containers in the inventory of either will no longer be destroyed
5. Vampires will have 100% immunity to negative energy since the immunity is now placed on the Vampire Properties skin in the toolset, rather than by scripting
6. A potential exploit where containers and their contents could be duplicated has been resolved. Thanks go to Valiant_Destiny for reporting this
7. When a PC is subdued to the point of going unconscious, PC attackers will have their attacks stopped - unless the attacker switches to lethal damage
8. FINALLY FIXED: When a PC falls to any subdued state (winded, black out, etc) NPC attackers will stop attacking. This fix includes stopping additional Thugs from continuously beating a PC after one Thug of the group has already beaten down the PC and stolen some of his/her money
9. Horus-re domains have been fixed so those with Good and Sun can select him as their patron
10. Pack slaves will once again respond to commands to stay, or follow or jump to a PC if stuck
11. Kelemvor is available to select as a deity since the in-game year is 1368

[Balanor]

-Slave Shackles can be used to Chain or Unchain PC Slaves to their master. In addition, they can be used to summon/jump the PC Slave to their master

-New Tanar’ri demons have been created - Berbalang, Hezrou, Hydroloth, Piscoloth, Nabassu, and Dretch. Additionally, the monster ability Summon Tanar’ri will result in a different variety, number, and chance of summoning failure based on the demon doing the summoning, as per its D&D description

-The number of items that special questgivers send PCs after has, in many cases, been increased and randomized

-Merchants in Bezantur now cater to new arrivals to Thay. After 5th level it is best to find different merchants to try and sell your wares to. See this thread for full details and the IC explanation

-If a PC renounces their worship of a god and they are a member of a faction devoted to that god, they will automatically be removed from the faction as well

- The following bugs have been fixed:
1. A PC Master can once again use their slave shackles on themselves to manage their PC Slave
2. Random NPC creation has been significantly revised to reduce (and hopefully nearly eliminate) the number of occurrences of unclothed, headless, and/or shirtless randomized hostile and commoner NPCs
3. The spell Time Stop freezing the server has been resolved. Because of this, the decision has been purposefully made to return to its default behavior so, when cast, it will affect the entire PW
4. NPCs created for delivery and object retrieval quests, along with the NPC questgivers themselves will now eventually despawn once the quest involving them is completed
5. If a PC-owned building is exited and then entered again within a short amount of time, furniture will be properly recreated in it
6. Sundial furniture items have been fixed to correctly create sundials in player-owned buildings
7. Books, letters, or any other items with custom descriptions will have their descriptions retained if created after this update and placed in a player merchant’s store or within persistent storage
8. The creation of PC merchant stores after a server reset has been improved and is much more reliable. And in the (now unlikely) event that a player merchant store is not recreated, a redundancy check has been built in to create it at the point a PC talks to the merchant
9. The Albatross Skiff Captain and Tempest Gale Deckhand in the Alaor Naval Base will now correctly list and be available for the appropriate locations to which they sail
10. While not confirmed, it is likely the issue with Red Wizard Apprentice’s masters getting switched has been resolved
11. Temples of dead gods (like Bane) are truly joinable now. One extra = was removed to fix this. Ugh

[Balanor]

-After many months and hundreds of hours of work bringing it to life, I am proud to announce that the Runes of Chaos Adventure is now a feature of the Thay PW. This special adventure is fully scripted and is almost identical to the official adventure AD&D adventure of the same name published in the 1995 Spellbound boxed set. Design details of this achievement include:
1. DM assistance is required for the PCs to begin the journey, and typically a DM will facilitate once it is started. But the players can complete the entire adventure on their own
2. Over 3500 new lines of code. Not kidding!
3. 18 new monsters (several unique to the adventure)
4. 10 new areas
5. Over a half dozen new NPCs with unique conversations
6. Scores of new tricks, traps, and situations that may require brains over brawn

-New monsters, primarily designed for the Runes of chaos adventure, will start being seen in encounters throughout Thay.
1. Undead - Baneguard, Direguard, Death Tyrant, Heucuva, Bonebat
2. Demons - Dretch, Berbalang, Hezrou, Hydroloth, Piscoloth, Nabassu, Babau
3. Miscellaneous - Flind, Aballin, Feyr, Great Feyr

-Additional copies of the player-owned buildings floor plans have been created so multiple people can be in buildings with the same floor plan at the same time

- Tomes of Understanding, Clear Thought, and Leadership of Influence, while unbelievably rare, can potentially be rewarded by DMs or via certain adventures. These tomes permanently increase intelligence, wisdom, or charisma scores (i.e. - they are modified on your character sheet)

-The time that torches last has been greatly extended

- The following bugs have been fixed:
1. When a PC starts bleeding with a regeneration item equipped (which gets unequipped as part of the bleeding system), the system will no longer think they have a regen item equipped - which will no longer change the regen property to a latent ability if it is re-equipped after stabilizing
2. An exploit where PCs could quickly replenish their health has been addressed
3. Vampires IDing blood in their inventory will no longer cause a server crash

[Balanor]

Most of these updates have been in game for awhile now, but this update is to make them official.

-Iyachtu Xvim has ascended to godhood and the House of Iyachtu Xvim is the newest temple in Bezantur. Thanks go to Candeth for his outstanding work on its creation

-When taking a ship or caravan, travel time between locations has been reduced by up to 25%

-Upon successful completion of the Red Wizard trials, Red Wizards no longer receive a tower deed. They instead receive a discount when purchasing building deeds - although not as significant as those pursuing the Merchant/Mercenary Path to Power.

- The following bugs have been fixed:
1. Areas with long names will have persistent storage containers within them work properly
2. Vampires utterly destroyed during a caravan or ship voyage and end up in Oblivion will no longer be jumped out of Oblivion to their ship/caravan’s destination
3. On a ship or caravan: if a PC logs out, the transport reaches its destination without the PC on board, someone else then takes the same transport to a different location, and the original PC logs back in, that first PC will no longer be stuck on the transport or forced to travel to the new location. They will be properly jumped to their intended location as if they had been logged in and arrived with the transport
4. An issue with player merchants getting removed due to inactivity, when they were not inactive, has been resolved
5. The design of a PC’s cloak will now properly copy to a Tailor Model when the option ‘Copy the appearance of my cloak’ is used
6. A timer issue with assassins has been resolved. They should now no longer spawn any more than once every in-game day (8 hours real-time). Remember though that assassin’s attacks can be further reduced or even foiled by developing a network of NPC informants
7. Malar Panthers will no longer drop treasure
8. Numerous bugs have been fixed for the Runes of Chaos adventure

[Balanor]

-The city of Tyraturos is now available!!!
Thanks once more to the combined efforts of the Thay PW staff, now the crossroads of Thay and the city where it is said that anything, or anyone, can be bought is an available location to travel via caravan from certain cities and castles.
1. Approximately 14 new areas to explore. Thanks go to Purulent Carcass and Sundraoi for their great work on the following areas in Tyraturos:
a. Tyraturos - South: Designed by Purulent Carcass
b. Burning House of Kossuth: Designed by Purulent Carcass
c. Tyraturos - North: Designed by Sundraoi
d. Crossroads Inn - Designed by Sundraoi
2. Dillomat’s Tower is a new adventure area in northwest Tyraturos that is a strange and confusing focal point of planar travel. It provides many portals and gateways to other planes of existence, as well as many locations within Thay. Braving this tower is recommended for adventures of 5th level and above
3. There are 18 new merchants in Tyraturos, with several selling goods available nowhere else in Thay. If you are looking to go on a shopping spree - Tyraturos is *the* place to do it!
4. Three new joinable temple and legion factions. Thanks go to EdinSumar for creating the necessary faction contact conversation to make it so for the temples of Waukeen and Kossuth
5. The Tyraturos Tournament Grounds are publicly available, and is the first location in the PW where jousting can be performed against other players or against a NPC instructor
6. Two new special questgivers

-Over a dozen new Planar locations have been made available thanks to the work of EdinSumar. The initial planar locations (with more already created and to be made accessible eventually) include: The Abyss, Arvandor, Cania, Demonweb Pits, the four Elemental Planes, Nishrek, and Warrior’s Rest

-When talking to your mount, it is possible to stable it for a small fee which will despawn it

-Palemaster summons have been improved to call forth Dread Warriors, Direguards, Spellstitched Mummies, Greater Ghouls, and Bone Nagas

-The magic electrifier has been better balanced for the Thay PW

- The following bugs have been fixed:
1. New PCs with a large number of new feats, such as elven rangers will no longer cause a script error which will cause the opening sequence not to start for them
2. An issue with mounts being lost when getting knocked off a horse while jousting has been resolved

[Balanor]

-The Thayan Knight faction is now joinable. All aspiring to become one of the elite bodyguards of the Red Wizards of Thay - rejoice!

-A new PC who receives bonus levels from a retired PC will also receive some additional gold with each bonus level

-You may now release dominated creatures under your control such as Thayan Knights, Red Wizard Apprentices, summoned faction aid, those controlled by Command Undead, Palemaster summons, etc by talking to them. However, enslaved creatures cannot be released - they must be sold or destroyed

-When faction items provide an AC bonus which increases with notoriety, it will no longer count toward the item’s Item Level Restriction. This means you can add enchantments to your faction items as you like and still get the maximum AC bonus amount that your notoriety provides

-Divine Champions (the Champion of Torm prestige class) may become temple clergy. Note that this prestige class is *not* restricted only to Torm, so it should really be referred to by the more generic name of ‘Divine Champion’

-Magical wards are being randomly placed on faction-only doors and entrances, which will destroy stolen faction items that are used to try and open them

- The following bugs have been fixed:
1. PCs who have their HTF meter run down to a point where they cannot rest, and then turn off HTF, will be able to rest without receiving HTF messages preventing them from doing so
2. Former Blackguards will no longer be able to summon a Nightmare
3. Playable-race shackled slaves will no longer get lost at area transitions
4. PC Masters who mark a previous slave as escaped or who have died will not have a future PC slave immediately marked as escaped upon it logging out and logging back in
5. When a PC becomes a vampire, their hit points will no longer fall below 0 causing them to be unable to move and their vampire immunities not to be properly applied
6. Paladins who remove their paladin mount from their party, or hitch it, will not have to rest before being able to recall the mount by using the !mount command