ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Each time you go there using the mage route (except from the furthest level of a dungeon with killed boss) there's a small chance you'll be spotted - in which case ...

"Fool of a Took !" (or whatever, according to race )

The top elf explains that you were seen, and you must hurry with him to the market area where they are preparing to repel an attack - i.e. orcs and assorted nasties issuing from the stairs and clambering onto the two side paths.

If you die, you die. The four shopkeepers are among the elves and if they are killed, naturally their shops remain closed to you. If all four are lost you're no longer welcome in Angolwen, even just to lie low a while.

... should discourage elf-scumming or overuse as a hidey-hole, since there's no upside.

p.s. it would work for the normal route too, but with less probability of being seen - because it's less of a special resource.

Two scimitars up. Great idea.

Since DG was already considering killing Angolwen as a recall method (which I have no opinion on--I like the old system, but I understand if he thinks dungeons are shallow enough that no one should be able to pop in or out: sort of like the offsides rule in soccer, which keeps the game more one of linear territory conquest), this would be a good way to minimize the mage advantage. Especially if, say, the first five trips were quietly guaranteed safe, and then the next trips had a high enough percentage, possibly scaling upwards, that eventually the gateway would surely be lost. Even if one successfully defended it (and this could be a great battle!), the T:A spell would be closed down for safety.

If it is successfully defended, the mages could give you a ring of magic +1000 for helping, and then take it away for endangering them.

In terms of gameplay I like the facility, but it needs a bit of self-policing not to use "surround with walls, activate Escape Route 1" as a panacea for reckless optimism. Since we've a poor history of self-policing (keys became too small for golf balls, but a plastic pencil-sharpener blutacked to an espresso cup works nicely) the Dark One probably has a point.

...and then you walk round to where the portal should be, but you can't find it. And so you shout up at the mountains to the elves, "Will you not hear me in your hidden halls?" And the elves remain silent, but one of the Blue Wizards looking from afar hears the words. And the blue wizard travels to the withered heath, where the great wyrms still live, and summons dragons to his aid. And then with the dragons assails the walls of Angolwen, coming over the encircling mountains while the elves are at festival....

Oh no, now I've got Martin Shaw's version of Hurin in my head - the one who can't decide if he's Welsh or a Yorkshireman ... "Tooargon, by 'eck lad, where 'av you 'idden the blud-dy door isn't it"