In addition the game has a number of basically useless items ingame right now:
- Gems (except for Alchemist of course)
- Unenchanted rings/amulets
- Gold (you don't really need it much after a certain point)
1. Expert Jeweler
In Angolwen there is already a nice jeweler. Add an option when entering the shop to enter the craftsystem instead of the shop (can be realised easily by an modified shopwindow). The jeweler offers you to craft a ring/amulet for you if you provide the raw materials and of course gold.
The necessary ingredients would be: a gem and a "clean" ring (without enchant)
The output, a "$gem ring" (e.g. a spinel ring) with the stats the gem would provide if imbued into an armor. But not every ring is powerful enough to hold every enchant...
- copper ring: max. gem level 1
cost: 25g - steel ring: max. gem lvl 2
cost: 30g - dwarven-steel ring: max. gem lvl 3
cost: 35g - galvorn ring: max. gem lvl 4
cost: 40g - mithril and gold ring: max. gem lvl 5
cost: 50g
Master Jeweler
In the eastern continent (Anorithil unless you plan to add another town), the Master Jeweler is located. Well... at the beginning he's still a mere Expert Jeweler...
Part 1: An Ancient Tome
The Quest begins when you find an "Ancient Tome". The final room of Mt.Doom (leftover from our blue friends quick retreat) or Vor boss would be my recommendation. You bring it to the jeweler and he gets really excited. It's an description of how to craft marvellous jewelery of great power! But there is a problem... while forging, a source of intense magic is needed... There are rumours about a site of power in the southern mountains. Old legends of the immortals tell about a place where a part of the moon melted when it got to close to ne sun(*) and fell from the sky. A lake formed in the crater of the crash. The water of this see, soaked in intense moonlight for eons, should be sufficient to forge powerful artifacts! Go to the lake and then summon me with this scroll (handover scroll). But beware! Great evil is attracted by this magical nexus!
Part 2: Towards the Valley of the Moon!
So you go off, enter the cave leading to the valley of the moon...
The cave should be relatively short (1 or 2 lvls) in the "cave layout" of the spidercave (though propably not so greenish
), but *nasty*. All sorts of demonic critters and major demons will lurk there and give you a bad time... at the end of the final cavelvl (as said, only 1 or 2 recommended) a "staircase" leads you into the valley (trollshaws style but surrounded by mountains), a rather small special-lvl with a lake and a glowing stone in the center. There should be some LoS breakers (stones, trees) spread in the area nearby the moonstone. You clear a couple of demons, go to the lake and call the jeweler."Oh, by the Vala! This place is corrupted! I know a rite of cleansing, but for that I will need time and full concentration..." (yes, the jeweler happens to be a paladin too... or maybe he summons 2 paladins to do this).
pt. 3: The Rite of Cleansing
Well the pala starts the rite and the demons notice that somethings going wrong in "their spring of magic". So they do the obvious and rush to kill you and everything. Your job is to prevent them from killing you or the pala (he should stand outside direct LoS (e.g. behind the moonstone) of the incoming waves to prevent annoying "collateral damage" deaths) for e.g. 500 turns.
The waves should be easily scriped by having side valleys with "deep chasms" at their end between the cave entance and the main valley with the lake where every X turns demons are summoned. Both minor and major demons should spawn and beating all of em should be nearly impossible if there were not the awakening of the cleansed moonstone.
In an radius of $round/50 around the moonstone all demons take $round/10 light dmg per round. $round is the number of rounds passed since the rite started, so the moonstone gets more and more powerful with time. However the demons do so aswell (especially in numbers and with more "major demons" spawning. Thus the minor demons simply burn up after a while but the major demons still impose a threat.
At round 400 (the moonstone make 40dmg/turn in a radius of 8 by then, so choosing a good tactic can avoid much trouble already from the demons but pushing you quite far back to fully exploit the moonstone-light) the big boss shows up. "$Demonname the Corrupter" - a Balrog that still exists in this world! Flames of nether engulf him and scorch whatever they touch... The darkness surrounding this ancient being absorbes all light.
As you may guess: It's immune to light and was the one who once broke through the moonlight and corrupted the moonstone. And he's not very happy if you mess with his stone!
Survive till round 500 and all demons in the valley disappear (of course except the Boss), kill the Boss if it's not done yet and the quest is completed.
Reward: The Master Jeweler
Okay, what now? The Jeweler decides to stay in the valley but offers you now to craft artifact rings/amulets. The system is basically the same but you can imbue one clean ring with 2(!) gems.
The final ring will have the properties of *both* gems plus one random enchant (what could make the ring very powerful if your lucky). But of course it's not for free. In addition to the two gems and an appropriate clean ring you'll have to pay a lot of money. I'm thinking aboub something as 250-300g per artifact ring.
(*) Can't find my Silmarillion right now, but I vaguely remember some story where the Maia of the Moon tried to catch the sun but then got burned - back in the early days of the 2. age when the sund&moon were still young.
Ugh, now that got longer than I expected...
Feedback, comments?
Cheers,
Patryn
