New areas… the fallen city and lich village...

[Delmuir]

The east can feel, for a lot of players, a bit dull. You show up and basically grind it out in the prides until the end of the game… it can be dull.

My suggestion is to shorten the prides a little bit… maybe remove one level of each, and add two new areas: fallen city and a city of lich mages.

Fallen city: Create an area that was formerly inhabited but fell to the orcs but is not currently in habited by them. There can be side-quests that are activated from survivors in the main city in the East to send you there…

Make it populated by undead… something missing in the east. Wrights in particular. Supposedly they rise when mass death happens (did I get the lore correct) so make it a city populated by wrights, ghosts, ghouls and fellow undead (but I'd steer clear of bone golems, etc as you've probably faced enough of them by that point anyway) of that variety. Even some undead "horrors" and my favorite idea: an undead (wright dragon??) dragon as the boss.

Lich village: create a small, hidden city that harbors a group of fanatical mages who, after the spell blaze, remained hidden (just like angolwen) but instead focused of becoming powerful… ultimately focusing on eternal life in order to do that. Have most of them have died out but have a few remain… powerful Liche mages.

Make it a small town filled with little more than libraries, magic shop, magic "labs"… and a handful of Lich mages (Necromancers perhaps… not sure) who've survived and who now spend their time studying. If you're a Necromancer, they'll talk to you and possibly reward you with something or have a quest/challenge akin to the arena or zigur anti-magic challenge. They're ambivalent if you're any other type of mage or melee character but if you're anti-magic, they're openly hostile.

Make it so that you CAN attack them if you want, based on the initial conversations, but also simply go to the shops for high-end equipment, etc.

Thoughts?

[Planetus]

I love the idea of the lich village. The fallen city may be interesting, especially if it's 1-2 very large maps of open buildings (like the first map of the ruined halfling complex, but larger and more spread out). I like the idea of lots of wights and ghosts, as well as some undead horrors of some kind. Maybe some dreads if the lore about them allows random arousal. Ghouls, skeletons, and vampires are more of a not-by-chance creation. The boss probably shouldn't be a dragon, though, unless something of the lore says a dragon ruled the city or led the attack. Make it a massive undead horror boss.

[0player]

Lore has some pretty strong indications that we already DO have a lich village... some mage even tried cleansing it via weather conditions.

[Delmuir]

Lore has some pretty strong indications that we already DO have a lich village... some mage even tried cleansing it via weather conditions.

I was not aware of this. Well then, it sounds dynamite.

As for the critique above about an undead dragon boss… well, I didn't really consider the lore so much as I thought it was kind of nifty. Of course, your point is well taken.

[Orangeflame]

There is that building without a door by Rez...
What could be inside?