|
Niami Denmother loved Frostfell holidays, even though they wore her out terribly. (She often needed a personal holiday after the holiday to recover.) The sounds of music and laughter filling the air. The delectable smells wafting out of homes as local cooks and bakers outdid themselves with aromatic creations. The general feelings of sharing and camaraderie. The gifts both given and received. The lovely variety of foods and drinks. New festive items to craft. Sumptuous feasts. (Of course, with a halfling, food had to be mentioned more than once!)
However, as she got older, there was one thing Mum truly disliked about the season.
The cold.
She just didn't tolerate the cold as well as she used to, and no matter how much she bundled up during the season, she always ended up freezing, with aching joints, when she finally made it home again after a day of festivities.
Of course, the cold made a good excuse to have a glass of mulled wine or spiced brandy, so it wasn't all bad.
Snagging a lovely new knitted woolen scarf, Mum added it to her layers of clothes before throwing a heavy cloak over the entire ensemble. This was the only time of year when she didn't mind if the extra layers made her ample form appear almost as wide as it was tall. She could barely move her arms in this get-up, but it was as warm as she could manage.
No scampering for her in this outfit, no sirree! This was definitely more of a trudge along in slow motion sort of thing, which was probably just as well. If she fell on the ice in the Wonderland Village, it wouldn't hurt as much, especially with all that padding!
Eventually, she made her waddling way through Qeynos and entered the magic cabinet into Nar-, erm, the Frostfell Wonderland Village. She narrowly avoided bumping into the legs of a tall barbarian who had stopped to simply stare around him in bemusement.
"Pssst, tallstuff, ye may want tae move a few steps afore ye gawk much. Ye're blocking th' way in an' out a bit." Her merry blue eyes twinkled up at him from the depths of her hood as he shuffled a couple steps out of the way, but continued staring about him as if he'd never seen Frostfell before.
She valiantly refrained from making a comment about country cousins, took one step further into the wonderland ... and stopped dead, becoming a halfling-sized obstacle just inside the entrance.
"Blessed Bristlebane on a polka-dotted frost drake, wha' happened here?!" Mum moved reluctantly as someone exiting from the magic cabinet bumped into her from behind, barely noticing the curses or the pushing as she stared about in amazement.
In the land that only appeared once a year, where things barely ever changed, things had changed greatly.
It was breathtaking.
In some cases, however, it had literally taken the breath away from some of the inhabitants, turning them into popsicle-style icicles. (Peoplecicles?)
After finding an unfrozen Frosftell elf named Jingle wringing her tiny hands in dismay, Mum learned that she'd been late arriving, and thus had no clue what had happened to her fellow Frostfell residents.
Figuring out what happened could wait. Thawing out some of these poor souls would have to take precedence, and it seemed that while Jingle knew of some magic that could pull it off, she needed a few ingredients. With a bit of help (ok, with a LOT of help), the bundled-up halfling clambered onto her griffon and flew off in search of living burning embers and living ice crystals.
It didn't take long before Mum returned, and Jingle was able to quickly whip up a lasting thaw potion. Like a fae-sized drill sargent, she soon had Mum and her griffon flying all over the area, thawing out specific targets.
 |  |
However, once she'd thawed out Snarf and taken a good look at him, Mum almost wished that she hadn't thawed him out! Then again, she'd not been too thrilled with having to thaw out stingy old McScroogle, either. Still, it was the season for good deeds and she wouldn't want to deprive anyone else of their {ahem} stellar personalities.
Each one of them had a wildly different theory on who caused the transformation, based on what they'd seen and Mum wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or bang her head against the nearest tree as the theories got more inventive.
"Pffft. Miragul indeed! Vox? Pshaw!"
A bit more sleuthing, a bit more fighting, and Mum finally found the inadvertent culprit ... but that's a story for another time! (Check out the new "A Deepice Mystery" quest for yourself for the full story of what happened to the Frostfell Wonderland Village! I won't spoil it for you!)
Frostfell 2013 will run from 12/12/13 at 8am PST through 01/09/14 at 7am PST on the live servers. Due to the very small testing window we had for this content, and the fact that I actually actively test such content instead of just grabbing my data and running, this preview is a lot more rushed than I'd like it, but it should cover the main points.
To get to the zone, look for a magic cabinet in any home city, and enter a magical, if chilly, land ...
 |
First and foremost, the Frostfell Wonderland Village instance has been totally revamped. Things have been moved around a bit, the ice is slipperier, the main rainbow bridge no longer exists (there's a ramp to your left), things just look stunningly better and those who have flight can fly in there now. (The image at the very top of the page is from the area at the back of the new Frostfell Wonderland Village. Shiny!)
Along with a shiny new facelift came a bit of a problem. It seems that a lot of the familiar Frostfell faces with whom you are used to questing have been frozen solid. Before you can do much questing other than the crafting instance (he's still unfrozen so crafters don't "have" to adventure if they don't want to), you will need to perform one relatively quick little intro quest. (A few at-level mob kills, and some running around.) After that it is Frostfell questing as usual.
As some added flavor, some of the citizens of Qeynos and Freeport who have been panicking about the dragons beseiging their cities, now have some additional phrases they will say regarding the dragons and Frostfell.
There are three new Frostfell recipe books - “Frostfell Outfits You Can Make VI”, “Frostfell Feasts and Decorative Crafts VI”, and “Scholarly Pursuits for a Festive Frostfell VI” for sale on the Frostfell vendors. (Of course, the first five volumes of each of those three series of books will also be available for sale if you did not purchase them already.)
Blue Woolen Scarf |
Chipper Gingerbread Plushie |
Cold Pine Wreath |
| Decorative Blue and White Striped Cane  |
Decorative Green and White Striped Cane  |
Decorative Red and White Striped Cane  |
Cold Spark Incense Burner |
Dotted Green Frostfell Stocking |
Festive Gingerbread Plushie |
Festively Banded Frostfell Stocking |
Full Frost Fabric Cloak |
Trimmed Frost Fabric Cloak |
Glacier Block |
Glacier Half Block |
Glacier Narrow Divider |
Glacier Railing |
Glacier Rounded Tile |
Glacier Short Column |
Glacier Stair |
Glacier Tall Column |
Glacier Tall Divider |
Glacier Tile |
Gleeful Gingerbread Plushie |
Merry Gingerbread Plushie |
Green and White Mounted Fairy Lights |
Green Woolen Scarf |
Purple Woolen Scarf |
| Red Corduroy Frostfell Stocking  |
Red & Green Striped Frostfell Stocking  |
Snowy Pine |
Tall Pine |
As with past years, three types of presents spawn in the Frostfell Wonderland Village. Due to harvesting changes, there will be no minimum gathering skill needed to harvest these nodes for ingredients used in the Frostfell crafting recipes. The upgraded pack pony can also be told to bring back holiday harvestables while the event is running.
The 55 harvestables used in Frostfell crafting this year are: black fabric dye, blue fabric dye, bolt of cotton, bourbon, brandywine, candy-striped staff pattern, cerulean gem of joy, chunk of wax, cotton twine, crusty bone, cup of cranberries, cured ham, everfrost icicle, fancy black wrap, fancy purple wrap, fancy red and white wrap, fancy red wrap, festive fabric, fresh celery, fresh eggs, frilly ribbon, frosted apple, frostfell candle mold, frostfell coloring, frostfell elf cap pattern, frostfell outfit pattern, frostfell snowdrift spell scroll, frostfell spice, frostfell stocking pattern, gigglegibber baking mix, gigglegibber sweet tooth, glittery powder, gold fabric dye, green fabric dye, handful of snips 'n snails, icy snowball, magical thread, malleable gold bar, malleable silver bar, molasses, onyx gem of joy, orange rind, parchment sheets, purple fabric dye, raw fowl, raw vanilla, red fabric dye, scarlet gem of joy, scented sandalwood, scrap of white fur, spark of goodwill, stretch of reindeer leather, sugar 'n spice mix, sweetened bread, unadorned silk.
Just like in past years, each player can request a present from Santa Glug once every 18 hours. Of the 15 tradeable gifts from him this year, seven of them are new. Items in bold on the below list are new.
Big'n Furry Plushie |
Daarspire Snowglobe |
Majestic Stag Sculpture |
Lime Green Gumdrop |
Void-Touched Gumdrop |
Sugarassassin Activator |
There are three main types of vendors in the Frostfell Wonderland Village 1) "normal" Frostfell vendors (decorations, recipe books, fuel, some appearance gear), 2) the Icy Token Vendor (level 20+ adventuring gear, and various furniture items, mounts etc that require frozen token of e'ci currency), 3) and fuel vendors (located on each crafting island with Frostfell fuels and all the Frostfell recipe books). Since we've already covered the new recipes that are found in the recipe books, let's take a fast look at some of the new items on the other two vendor types.
Arctic Badger Ice Sculpture |
Blizzard Grizzly Ice Sculpture |
Wooly Silkspinner |
Rainbow Bridge* |
Wings of Frostfell Wrapping |
 |
*Note: if you are standing below the rainbow bridge, you may find some odd placement surfaces. If you are standing on it (yes, it is solid), you can place things upon it with no problem
The Frozen Snarf Frostfoot house item was added to the Covering Your Snow Tracks quest at the end of the testing phase, since It's Time to Sleigh the Dragon is not repeatable. Kaitheel wanted to be sure that those who had already done the quest still got a chance at this new quest reward.
| Petamorph Wand: Frost Fae Drake Frost Fae Drake Plushie  |
Frozen Queen Bunny |
Frozen Gardy Ex-Giftgiver |
Frozen Candice Cheriweth |
Dark Frostbite Goblin |
Frost Elk Antlers |
Frozen Snarf Frostfoot |
 |
 |
 |
Festive Pine Garland |
Festive Pine Swag |
Vibrant Twinkling Frostfell Lights |
A new prestige home will be available from the marketplace during the Frostfell event. Feel free to take a mini-tour of the Snowy Dwelling with Mum!
Merry Frostfell everyone! ~Mum