Winter 2024: The Renewed Crown

Welcome, Thainites, to our latest update for the Thain Module, The Renewed Crown! This update primarily focuses on Steinkreis, updating a number of older areas and adding many new role play zones, as well as a wide variety of lore hunts, quests, and more. As has become the norm, I recommend you play the update with your music on – most updated areas now have their own music, and many new load screens have been added for the areas.

See below for a full list of this update’s major features!

Book HUD

Poems, Books, and Quests

Bugfixes and Changes

Settlement Rebuild: Steinkreis

With the return of a king to the long empty throne of Steinkreis, the city has been transformed. It flourishes in many ways under a younger, enthusiastic king’s influence. Crime is lessened as guards are spurred toward aspiration, and the bones of the once great city that Steinkreis rests atop of have been brought forward by the King’s newly appointed researchers in the Stone Temple Circle.

In the marketplace of Steinkreis central, merchants have poured into the safer and more cared for streets. The city’s black eye – the Flying Mug – was purchased for a hefty sum by the crown itself and the building excavated for its rich history, and discovered to have once housed the mechanisms of a large clock tower. In the Flying Mug’s place, a more upscale merchant friendly establishment has flourished: The Brass and Rust. Small shops like Trusty’s Pawn and the Silver Thread have grown under the expansive commerce flowing into Steinkreis – and for the city’s safety, the Kreis Guard have created a checkpoint outside the gate.

Steinkreis: Uptown

Perhaps nowhere in Steinkreis has more cause to celebrate the King’s return than Steinkreis’ uptown district. Uptown in Steinkreis, formerly overgrown statues have been uncovered. The city has planted new trees, unblocked waterways, and rebuilt long collapsed bridges. The Grand Keep has been polished and to many who have lived in the Kreis all their lives is barely recognizable – one of the echos of Vongottstein architecture brought back to life by the devoted hands of the King’s new retainers.

Uptown’s Library, Temple, and Gardens have been diligently restored as well. Under the King’s advisement, the books that had filled the Grand Library are still sold by many book lovers in the Steinkreis Marketplace, but the shelves of that place are now devoted to the city’s own history and records. The Temple of the Stone Circle has been reapportioned to House Endaris’ Flames of Andarus as they continue their zealous growth of and observance of the Andarian faith. The Steinkreis Gardens have been transformed into a beautiful work of art that noble and common man alike come to appreciate.

Steinkreis: Blackmere District

Blackmere District has seen its own renaissance of the arts as stonemasons endeavor to recapture the former majesty of what they believe Vongottsteinian architecture looked like, reshaping buildings and columns. Trees have been planted, rivers cleaned out, and every noble has had the last brass doorknob of their estate polished in an effort to not be left behind by the busy work across the rest of the city.

A new tavern has opened for the wealthy that many opera singers, musicians, poets and storytellers come to perform on the stage of – the Gilded Knight serves only the highest class of food, fish, and beverage. In the center of Blackmere District, a Vongottsteinian Wonder has been repaired by the Stone Temple Researchers in a small act of divine providence, and now a beautiful clockwork carousel is the object of every Kreisian child’s eye.

Steinkreis: Lowtown

Work on excavating Vongottstein’s rich history has come to no place as heavily as Lowtown – as the new King focuses on reducing crime in the place, so too has he sparked a veritable gold rush of would-be-archaeologists. The Stone Temple scholars have closed off many of the entrances to these Vongottsteinian ruins to re-open at a later time, but at least one such great discovery – a massive telescope – now sits upon Steinkreis’ Silver Scroll academy, the only building in Lowtown tall enough to warrant such a device.

The Face of Lowtown has changed somewhat in the resultant goldmine – what was once home to a strange tavern has been purchased and made into a recruitment building for the Kresian military. The Silver Scroll Academy has been manned by many of the Stone Temple’s Scholars and the Scholars of the Flames of Andarus alike – through the clergy, enterprising children are taught letters and numbers, provided their families have the provender to send them. In the lowest parts of Lowtown, the strange Ogre Belly Inn has resurfaced, ready to greet its thirsty patrons with the latest “Big Fish” story after a hard day’s work.

Steinkreis: Lakeside

Steinkreis’ Lakeside district has benefitted the most from the City’s recent attack on violent crime. With the backing of a number of homegrown lowtowners and the might of the Kreis’ own, the gangs of Steinkreis were pushed out of Lakeside and the historic district given back to the local fisherfolk. The lake has become overgrown and misty in their absence, and as they return to the waters to bring local fares back to the town market, rumors circulate of strange inhuman shapes beneath the waters that are neither crustacean nor fish.

The Lakeside now plays home to Warehouses, a Fishery, the recently relocated and updated Flying Mug (and the new home of the Black Merchant’s Guild), an updated Mortuary and an updated Sanatorium. Across a misty boat ride that takes the occupants onto Lake Haldmont, the mysterious Island of the Colossus and the recently relocated Stone Temple Scholars study the mysteries of the city bygone – hoping for a key among the myriad of Vongottsteinian texts and objects found within the strange vault that will unlock a truly prosperous and beautiful future for the Kreis.

Steinkreis: Sewers

The Sewers of the Kreis have suffered some overgrowth at the hands of the same plants plaguing Lakeside. Freed from many of the sinister presences that had prowled them before the timely arrival of a group of well armed travelers and led by a pair of knights, the underground caverns and sewers of the Kreis have flourished – the local Vegepygmies finally free to see through the growth that they began so many years before.

Now beneath the streets of the Kreis, only the exceptionally brave or those desperate enough to seek a place to hide would travel the tunnels and waterways. Those who do so often emerge telling stories of old Vongottsteinian ruins, but the sewers’ most frequent visitors are those wishing to enter and exit the city unseen – smugglers, thieves, and criminals of the Black Merchant’s Guild bringing contraband into the city in tunnels that even the Flames of Andarus would often hesitate to bring a torch into.

Book HUD

For some time, the book interface we’ve been using has arguably been on life support – a strange mixture of texture overrides and debug commands enabled us to briefly put an image or words in front of the player. The much more sophisticated realization of a system like this utilizing intentional NUI systems has resulted in a beautiful interactive book system.

To commemorate the book system, dozens of new books have been written, including many submitted by the community during the last community writing challenge.

Poems, Books, and Quests

This update marked a chance to do something new with some of our RP areas – it includes twenty standard “RPG” quests that move characters around the city and sometimes the greater module area seeking things that can help the people of Steinkreis in their daily lives. We’ve also renewed the music scavenger hunt system we added last year during thee Hamley update – doing things like interacting with certain objects, entering certain areas, talking to certain NPCs, and more will unlock poems that players can read using the new book HUD – collecting all twenty four of these will give the player an emblem.

Bugfixes and Changes

Pale Master: This patch should fix Pale Master’s Deathless Servants not working correctly, as well as the strange incidents where Pale Master characters who took one level of PM would gain a skeletal arm.
Fixed every rat being “the giant rat who makes all of the rules”.
Fixed a few empty entries in the Level 3 Bounty System.
Added a new bounty based out of the Mourning Knight Inn to avoid the issues of the night/day system.
Changed the title of Steinkreis Knight in the Faction Knight system to “Justicar”.
Changed the title of “Magister of Steinkreis” to “Steinkreis Magistrate”.
Changed the of Steinkreis’ military’s lowest rank from “Knave” to “Guard”.
Brought back the Kreis Guard joining Quest
Fixed the Bedbugs Quest in the Flying Mug
Fixed a number of <UNRECOGNIZED TOKEN>s
Fixed broken area transitions on the areas around Webster’s Landing
Fixed being unable to enter the Silver Thread
Added hitboxes to Hamley’s stockade walls, more updates to come hitboxing that area.